Monsters not attacking AI?

Haven't really noticed that either way in my games but it's possible that player's faction has the Stealth trait? Not sure if that would affect cities though.

There are a number of monsters with a series of behaviors that are randomized.  The AI is fearless in placing cities and outposts next to them, but I've come upon a few of these monsters while they were destroying opponent armies and outpost buildings.

I have read dozens if not hundreds of posts by developers saying that the dragons treat players and AIs the same way.

I have played since April. My experience absolutely contradicts the above:

I know that my pioneers get attacked 100% of the times they end the turn next to a monster. I JUST saw Resoln pioneers walk between three groups of shrills, a troll shaman army and a banished ogre, spending 5 turns next to some monster army.

I have seen a slag use roads in AI territory to travel 4 tiles in one round, which tells me that the monster does NOT consider Magnar an enemy.

I have had, today, in 1.00, a dragons, a slag, and a drake woken by AIs come to my cities...  I have never seen a monster woken by me head away from my cities. 

I fight monsters tremor'd next to a city of mine about 10 times per game. The last time I have seen evidence of an monster destroying an AI city was in .952.

Whenever I hear someone say how the monsters behavior is randomized and they treat the AI same as they treat the player, I have exactly the same reaction that I have when I hear that autosaves work perfectly fine, that AIs roll against difficulty when they complete quests, etc...  What the reaction is, I leave to your imagination.

Tuidjy, I can understand your skepticism.  But just in my last game, I watched the AI stupidly plant a city and an outpost near two groups of monsters, and I watched later on while two of the AI's armies were destroyed.  In any earlier game (admittedly about three or four betas ago), the AI planted a city between two of mine, right near a dragon. As one of my units ran on by, the city became an ex-city.

In that last game, I also had a dragon show up suddenly on one of my cities' doorsteps.  (Got a message about legends and horrible things happening.  This was the only one I could see.)  It took me a few turns to get enough mana to cloud walk over, but the dragon patiently waited around.  I suspect that's the random behavior.  I don't want to test it, but like the warden building that protects against "some" monster attacks, I'd really like to see how the code operates.

^This.  I too have witnessed.  Expressed my outrage.  I'm not buying it anymore.  This ruins my fun of the game. 

Tudjy plays on the hardest levels only as far as I see in his posts (that are usually very good)

The monsters are more aggressive on higher levels (especially against cities). They also prefer player cities sligthly to AI cities on higher levels so says the frog. 

I must say that I rarely have these problems myself (on Hard).

What world difficulty are you playiing at?

If you're playing on easy world difficulty, the monsters won't attack cities. At all.

Easy, but I swear this same situation happened my first game which was on normal. (Where I got killed pretty good, so I decided to get used to the game on easy first)

Hehe. it will of course always feel like the monsters more often attack you then the AI. You don't see everything that happens in AI land, and the AI is also better then the human player often to protect it's cities, which I guess makes it less likely for a monster to attack it. I've seen the AI lose both cities and outposts.

I always play rediculous world setting and dense monsters.

If you want to see if the AI is attacked, you can open the game with -cheat. "C:\Program Files\Stardock Games\FallenEnchantress\FallenEnchantress.exe" -cheat, and then Press Ctrl-U to see entire map, and ctrl-Z to have the AI play turns automatically.

In this way you can see that sometimes AI pioneers are attacked, and sometimes they aren't.

My current game is Challenging/Challenging and I've seen a Resoln Pioneer group just run through my lands, into an area with a bunch of monster groups I was trying to clean up and failed, go right past them (while stopping next to a medium darkling army and a strong earth elemental army) and plant an outpost next to some bees.

Well, I do play on ridiculous/ridiculous... that would explain why I get attacked all the time.  But does it explain why the slag uses the AI's roads (in AI dominion) as if it's a friendly?  Or are you saying that on ridiculous, the monsters and AIs are allied.

Frankly, I'm OK with it if it happens only at higher difficulties, because I do not start a game without a way to deal with BBs. (Big beasties - the stuff troops can't handle on their own)

But I keep seeing posts by people who do not touch ridiculous who complain about dragons.

If that Darn AI is cheating again, then there is going to be trouble.

I hope you do realize that this stuff needs to be documented in game. When you select a difficulty, for example easy, it has to tell the player what changes from normal. Why are we left to guess what the difference is with each difficulty setting?

Likewise if on ridiculous the monsters are allied with AI, that has to be displayed as well. And clearly, as a list when you choose a difficulty level.

What is an immersion-breaking thing to me is the fact that monsters and NPC heroes coexist beside each other without problem. Bam, cave bear, next to some huge demon, and a kingdom hero right next to him, no problem. It makes the world feel sterile, the NPC monsters and factions should fight each other. If you talk about a world torn apart by conflict and cataclysm, it would not surely look like a chessboard full of monsters and heroes camping peacefully beside each other.

I cannot believe my eyes about this "crying" because a monster attacked your cities. We get enough games where the AI is passive. We get enough games where the AI eliminates "itself". It's about time we got a game where the AI is randomized and we don't know what it's going to do to us or the other AI. Bravo for well coding a decent AI. Quit the dang complaining about the AI when it's challenging and hard. Go find something else to cry about but not the hard AI.

I've seen the monsters attack the AI.  The one thing I'm unsure of is whether the monsters prefer to attack the player instead of the AI, if it has a chance to attack both.  How does it figure who to attack when it has two options?

Did you even read the OP ? Or any post in this thread ? Seriously ?

Agree with Tuidjy, had seen countless examples of AI being ignored by monsters.

Recently an AI came to attack my city. There was a dragon trailing him and following him for 20+ tiles, always one square behind AI (have no clue why AI moved one tile per turn, probably thought it was tactical battle ...). When AI finally made it to a city, my rescue army entered in to support it. AI turn around pass by dragon, which had three chances to attack. Instead dragon attacked my city ....

Just to be sure: AI was not going in straight line for my city. It wandered around somewhat.

No no no no no no no no n.........o

The AI at least in this respect is a fing ahole!

LOL I can accept sucking at a new game etc. 

Anyways let me explain.. 

I started off by playing on challenging.. Got my ass handed to me. Happens..

But amongst getting my ass handed I saw that the AI's armies were walking through hordes of wild armies without a scratch 

(I play with the highest settings for wild armies as in the more the better. Why? because I was hoping it would curb the city spam..) 

So Now I'm playing on normal.. 

Still getting my ass handed to me! Awesome! (I guinuwanly enjoy that because it means the game is challanging for me at least )

But the AI is NEVER attacked by the monsters.. NEVERRRRRR.

Example? I started a ggame around me was like 1 tile I could build a city. What ever built it.

Played played played bam I notice 6 tiles away from my main first city is a dragon! Game over I think to myself.

But maybe not maybe the dragon can be a buffer between me and the AI... NO.

The fing AI (as if to tunt me) build a god damin outpost on the tile rght next to it! (there was a metal ore? mine there)

later on I tried to attack the outpost dragon eat my men up.. Just great

Please fix the AI bs.. PLZZZZ

Otherwise great game! real fun! 

I remember a post about the AI that on challenging the AI and player (supposed to) have an equal chance of being attacked by monsters.

Above challenging on Hard / Expert / Ridiculuous / Insane the AI gets less and less of a chance of being attacked and player the higher chance.

Normal and Easy player gets less chance of being attacked and the AI the higher chance.

Of course Tarth does get a free pass against the monsters (that stealth ability), but their cities do not get that same free pass.

I play on challenging and do not see monsters favoring AI or players, but I'm also not watching every turn and seeing what the AI is doing.

I am in a game right now where Gilden has a drake in their ZOC and it has not moved.  With the choke points, it is almost guarding his city.  I still think their is something with the FOG of war.  It is almost like the AI is still in the FOG for monsters.

That being said, my first game, on turn two an AI faction was killed.  I assume it was by a monster before they even settled a city.  However in my current game my capital city has been attacked by wolves three or four times (played for about two hours last) and they have destroyed different resources several times.  Mean while I haven't even seen that stupid drake move.

I've been playing on challenging- I suspect it's equal chance, though you never know for certain.