0.91 Feedback - AI losing a lot of cities to monsters

from Elemental Forums

I'm playing the Wildlands map, Expert/Expert with dense monsters. The AI seems to have a lot of trouble coping. In my current game my two neighbours were Yithril and Magnar. Both of them lost their capital cities and 2nd cities to roaming monsters. They did both have some pretty powerful strong difficulty camps near their cities. I'm not sure what you can do about this, but my suggestion would be to make sure the AI knows to prioritize taking out monsters within its influence area and/or to garrison its cities strongly if the monsters are too strong to take on directly.

6,625 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

IIRC, the game biases high-level monster lairs away from the player's starting point.  It doesn't do that for the AIs.  Which means that the AIs start with clambercoil dragons and all the other nasties right on their doorstep.  And no number of club-bearing militia is going to take down a dragon.

I think that factor alone could account for the inability of the AI to be competitive at the mid/late game stage.  It's really hard to get your civilization off the ground if the monsters are constantly stumbling into your fledgling towns.

Meanwhile, expert players are happily clearing fields of darklings and wolves and spiders and wondering, "What's wrong with the AI?".

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Parenthetically, it's nice to see somebody who discovers the AI getting trounced by roaming monsters it's released, given the zombie thought that monsters only attack human players.

 

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting sweatyboatman, reply 1
IIRC, the game biases high-level monster lairs away from the player's starting point.  It doesn't do that for the AIs.  Which means that the AIs start with clambercoil dragons and all the other nasties right on their doorstep.  And no number of club-bearing militia is going to take down a dragon.

I think that factor alone could account for the inability of the AI to be competitive at the mid/late game stage.  It's really hard to get your civilization off the ground if the monsters are constantly stumbling into your fledgling towns.

Meanwhile, expert players are happily clearing fields of darklings and wolves and spiders and wondering, "What's wrong with the AI?".
End of sweatyboatman's quote

wow. This is a definate concern if it's indeed the case. AI starting locations should be treated equally to player starting locations.

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Then there would basically be no higher level monsters on the map because where will they be pushed too, if you consider that space is very tight between whatever factions you have in your game, plus whatever wildlands you have in your game, plus water, etc. there wont be enough room for monster lairs. If you have only a couple of AI then there shouldn't be a problem either way but with lots of AI I can see it being a problem.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Shouldn't it be as easy as setting the biasing on placement such that if there are 2 AI it tries to put it equally away from both as if it was creating a triangle and then if there are three AIs then it tries to put a high level lair equidistant from each starting location.  This would make for less high level creatures except in Wildlands but then AI's won't get overrun, only in challenging and less since the monsters ignore the AI on hard and above per Frogboy.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting halmal242, reply 5

...This would make for less high level creatures except in Wildlands but then AI's won't get overrun, only in challenging and less since the monsters ignore the AI on hard and above per Frogboy.
End of halmal242's quote

If they are supposed to be ignoring the AI factions on hard and above, something is not working right. I play on expert/expert or ridiculous/ridiculous and the AI is losing a lot of cities to the monster hordes.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

There is a difference between ignoring the AI players cities and targeting the cities. For example, Tarths stealth trait relies on the monsters ignoring them, but sometimes it does lead to a battle. In your case, it should be less likely for the creatures to ignore the AI, and more likely to target your locations. So if this is an issue it will probably be a difficult one to track down.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

I'd agree that the AI does seem to be put in a pretty bad spot against monsters. 

I don't think their settlement/outpost strategy does them any favors either. I've definitely come across rampaging dragons because the AI has placed a city or an outpost that causes its lair to be disturbed. I'm sure that gives them all sorts of problems.