[.915 AI] AI is getting better, but alas Lord Trojasmic of Gilden has defeated them on Hard

http://www.mediafire.com/?1o0v4nq1p72qnni

Summary: I only had two cities for a long time. Resoln and Kraxis declared war on me early so I took the 300g reward for killing rats and paid off Tarth to be my friends so I could deal the waves of gravewarden/spiders (Resoln) and mage/militia (Kraxis). I found a couple of choke points which helped prevent the AI sneaking around my back door and attacking my cities. Once Lord Trojasmic started leveling up, he became near invincible. Then I found Vetrar's Fist ... game over ... but first you have to get your sovereign to level 15. A few turns after this attached save, Kraxis concedes and becomes my vassal, then I roll down through Resoln. Thanks for making a great game!

[Good AI]

1. The worst AI city I found was a 3 / 3 city. That's an improvement!

2. They are doing a much better job of targeting a single unit in tactical battles ( usually the one I don't want them to target )

[Bad AI]

1. Neither one of the Kraxis or Resoln sovereigns ever attacked me. They all sent their champions to do it who were considerably weaker.

2. The Kraxis sovereign is carrying a bunch of worthless loot that he should probably be selling.

3. I still see unclaimed goodie huts in enemy territory; although, this was much better in .915 than it's been.

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Did you ever feel really pressured? How difficult was the world (resources, monsters)? At what point did you start to steamroll the AI? What could the AI have done differently or better to stop you? How much of an impact did tech and economy play? Did you use troops and magic or just a super sov?

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I played with the standard settings shown here.

I felt pressure when both Kraxis and Resoln declared war on me pretty early. At that point, it's just a matter of surviving the countless waves of low-level troops they've built up.

I chose Path of the Warrior for my sovereign. I used almost no magic because it's so expensive for Gilden. I did cast Nature's Call on him to help lessen the impact of the Kraxis fire mages and Resoln gravewardens. He was able to do consistent heavy damage each battle and survive because of lots of hit points.

As for tech, I used the Magic tree to get golems. Golems are mostly good for taking punishment and not very good offensive units. The AI should probably be targeting them last not first. I used the Warfare tree to get bows. I don't normally go for bows, but when I did a Tech trade with Tarth, most of the points went toward Archery so I thought what the heck. I designed archers with the Charge trait. This seemed to do 12-15 points of damage on their first attack, then they would do 2-3 damage on the rest of their attacks. I did quite of bit a tech in the Civ tree because I felt like it was the only way to keep up with the AI's economy/research.

Speaking of economy, I had a pretty good economy because 1) my first two cities were a 6/3 and 8/2 respectively (with farm upgrades), 2) I built merchants in both cities, 3) I choose 300g for killing the rats quest, 4) I sold a lot of loot early on, and 5) 3 of my 4 champions were governor types.

As for AI, I cut off choke points with pretty weak troops. I think the AI should have done a better job of taking them out. Secondly, once I can get close enough to an enemy city, I just park right outside of it and wait for troops to pop out one at a time and then pop 'em. In addition, once I find an enemy rally point, I have my troops stalk that area and pick off the armies trying to come that rally point. I think Brad should "hide" the rally points a little better.

My favorite play style is to use more magic, but I wanted to try the super sovereign approach with Gilden because I think that works best for them and it did!

P.S. I did use Tremor a couple of times to hold enemy troops stationary until I could get there with you know who.

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I like alot of the ideas that Stardock are coming up with for the factions - I think Tarth, Altar, and Pariden need more fleshing out but you can see indicators for where they're going - I definitely like the empire races more just because they seem more interesting (although I like what they have done with Gilden).

I've started my first game on this current Beta with Resoln as they're probably my favourite and I was interested in the binding ability creatures. I haven't finished the game yet but it still feels easy to me at the moment (playing on hard setting) - Kraxis has a power rating of about 200 in relation me at around 120 but I'm not convinced he's that far ahead of me and in any case Ceresa gets insanely powerful as she levels and as you pick up death shards so I'm pretty sure she'll mow through everything he's got.

I saw some good equipment on Relias - he had a nice suit of armour that ramped up his defece - I just used touch of entropy on him though - again, with loads of death shards this spell becomes great.

I think it's fair enough that Resoln doesn't get metal armour becuase they get lots of advantages via magic - as a human, I'm able to identify and take advantage of these things but the AI doesnt seem to - it seems to train lots of mages and take Ceresa down the path of the assassin (!?) - to me she clearly should go down the path of the mage, get level 4 death magic and convert 3/4 shards into death shards. I have trained a few spiders as maintenance free garrisons and I will train some mages plus some spiders and mobs of cyndrum demons as part of a spearhead force to accompany Ceresa so I'll have a cheap but effective force. The spiders clearly work well with mages and Ceresa because they slow down enemy moves.

I think maybe they need specific programme strategies for each of the 8 factions once the differentiation has been completed - they should identify what the best spells are for each faction, what the best army compositions and garrisons are, how to level up sovs and then programme each race specifically. For example Gilden should focus on enchantment buffs and city boosts whereas Resoln should focus on tactical death magic.

I like how this game is shaping up but the AI needs to be harder to maintain replayability.

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DGB, I think that is the plan for the AI eventually. There needs to be more work on the faction development and balance before the AI can be built to really take advantage of faction strengths.

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