Some thoughts after beating the game on insane/insane

from Elemental Forums

Here's what I've got to say.


1. The AI should probably harvest crystal and metal faster on higher difficulties.  They unlock the tech to use it for things VERY fast, but aren't able to make strong armored units because they're still harvesting material very slowly.  Yithril gets a big advantage for a lot of the game simply by virtue of having access to juggernauts, which, of course, do not require metal.  Eventually Gilden will pull ahead, but it takes a long time.


2. Cities need more transparency about how they tick.  I'd really like to see not just the turn cost but also the resource cost of buildings; some buildings take more than 1 turn to make even when they say they will only take 1 turn (elemental shrines and temples).  I REALLY would like to see a more explicit accounting of the bonuses cities get on level up; I'd been playing this whole time not even realizing that when a conclave leveled, to three it got extra research!  I had to mouse over the city’s resource breakdown to find out, and then compare it with a lower-level conclave.  


3. Champions kind of suck.  Commanders can be BANNANAS, especially in the right army (or against Resoln); tactician and trainer can get kind of nuts.  Mages can be great if well-built.  Defenders are decidedly ehhh, but ok for the stun, SR and shieldwall.  (I'd really like to see flat defense bonuses as opposed to "extra defense when defending".  Why are you giving me neat abilities if you don't want me to use them?  At least cap that tree with the racial ability that lets me make a guarded strike.  Or SOMETHING.)  Warriors and Assasins are TERRIBLE.  They underperform trained units with alarming consistency.  I almost never get worried if I see an AI champion.  A lot has already been written about champs and leveling; I'd echo the recommendation that the leveling ought to be faster, and better.  But I'd also like to point out that Assasins and Warriors have a lot of overlap: fundamentally they both deal damage.  Maybe it would be a good idea to merge those two trees.  Alternatively, the commander does two things: administrate cities and lead armies, which are radically different.  Perhaps that tree should be split.


4. The AI is so bad at tactical combat.  One area that could really use improvement would be target selection.  If the AI melee units can move to a target this turn that already has an attacker on it, they should do so in order to swarm.  Instead the AI just keep hitting its already engaged target, even if it's ally is engaged with an enemy it could easily swarm just a square's move away.  Battle for Wesnoth is an open-source tactical game that has entirely solved this problem; may I suggest taking a look at their code?

 

5. Archers could use some love.

15,208 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I pretty much mirror these sentiments.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Did you play against maximum AI or just 1 or 2 vs you? I find those that say the ai sucks on higher difficulties usually setup games that don't favor the ai. Play against max ai on the smallest map on insane/insane and then get back to us. Then I might agree with you.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

^What does that have to do with tactical AI being bad? Simple truth, AI units will always, always, always attack the unit next to them, this is easily exploitable on any difficulty. He never said the strategic AI was too easy, he just pointed out an obvious flaw, the insane AI gets production and gold boosts but no metal or crystal boosts to keep up with it. Basic spearmen and guys with clubs in leather army are never going to be a challenge for late game units no matter how many come at you or how high their health is boosted.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I really like your idea to merge the Warrior and Assassin trees and split up the Administrator.

Maybe get rid of Assassin and merge it into the Warrior part. (Because Assassins aren't legendary heroes you know)

And Get a new Tree called General where all the Army stuff from administrator goes (also add some more to both)

 

I'd also like an Archer/Crossbow tree. With many actives, maybe a Stun Shot, a Power shot shooting through unit stacks, a poison, fire, etc shot, an ability like maul would also be cool. Area of effects arrow rain or something along those lines. There are really many possibilities. Not that stupid Assassin tree which works best for an archer hero... I dont want to be an assassin in a legendary hero game.

Anyways. That's just my two cents.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Really do not want to see any classes removed or merged, I'd rather see more classes added. I doubt commander is going to be split because people complained for ages about the administrator not being useful in battle, giving it army boosting skills and calling it the commander was an intentional change to make it useful while you run around leveling it. I also love the assassin class.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Lots of agreement here, can't really disagree with OP.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top


If you look at Brad's latest post, he says that this next patch will be the first time he will incorporate specific AI for the LH improvements.

I am hoping that taking advantage of the swarm mechanic is a critical change in this new AI...

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

I think the adminstrator/loremaster/merchant side of things should be added to the general tree instead of being part of commander.

 

Warrior and Defender should be combined, and the group bonus traits Defenders have should be added to Warrior

 

Assassin needs some love, I never pick it now.  Maybe stuff like flaming/freezing/electric/sharp strikes if you have the appropiate magic school (and would scale with how advanced you are in that school), and new sneaky/magical stuff?

 

Mage tree should be split into attack spells and summoning.

 

 

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Give assassin the option to dual wield one-handed weapons, problem solved.