Chaosti

Join Date 08/2009

Winning on Expert - a battle of OP combos vs massively cheating AI

I have to say I'm disappointed with the amount of unbalanced traits and combos in this game, and how much the AI cheats.

What exactly was the 2 years from Elemental: War of Magic spent on???

I've played a few games at the lower difficulty levels, and got into a dominating position fairly fast. so I decided to go up to expert. Let me describe this second game (after I got slaughtered in the first).

It is currently turn 95. The AI is so extremely beyond me in the tech tree that they're fielding units like the following:

4-man mace units wearing chainmail (16*4 = 64 attack).

3-man longbow units (11*3 = 33 attack).

The armies (of 6 units) they're fielding have attack values ranging from 200-350, and defense values of 50-150.

By comparison, I'm at the very basic weapons with leathr armour.

I get around 15 research/turn. To catch up to them in tech, I would need around 70 turns of research, at minimum.

Even more mind boggling, each Ai in this game has 3-5 of these 6-unit armies marching around.

So, the amount the AI cheats is so extreme that they basically get double your research rate, and probably 6-8x your production.

Being this completely dominated in tech and production, the only way to fight back is to to use unbalanced trait, such as:

a. Beastlord hero and taming any high level spiders and Umberdroths (35 attack, 14 defense, and ~88hp) you come across. Silt Skaths are pretty decent as well since they have that bite skill for 3x damage for your first hit.

b. Adventurer hero, focus on researching hero techs, and then grabbing all the heroes you can for no gold cost (since level 5 heroes normally cost around 300-600, and level 7 ones seem to be consistently over 1500). Having betrayal for your faction would also help, since you can then recruit heroes from both empire and kingdom factions.

But ultimately, at higher difficulty levels, this no longer feels like a 4X strategy game in any shape or form. In fact, it's more like a turn based RPG.

- production of anything takes incredibly long (anywhere from 6-12 turns to make a unit), and since the AI has you completely out-teched, training these units is kind of pointless.

- you form a party of units you get from the map, use gold (and enemy AI stores) to get heroes upgraded, and move around attacking their towns.

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On expert the AI cheats. If you want the best AI that doesn't cheat, you need to play on Challenging.

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I don't think he's complaining that the AI cheats, but rather about the EXTENT to which he feels it cheats.

The question I have is whether the game is actually cheating to that extreme he feels it is, or whether they are only moderate cheats combined with the AI understanding the game mechanics better.

It is unclear whether this player has compared the "challenging" level versus the "expert" level, because he was unspecific about which "lower difficulty" levels he was previously playing.

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NorsemanViking

Join Date 03/2006

+19

Well, he should play on challenging then. Expert is supposed to have cheating AI.

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Yeah what's he whinning about? Everybody knows the AI CHEATS at higher difficulties than Challenging. That's just standard AI above average in just about all games now. CIVILIZATION has always been NOTORIOUS for cheating even around the normal difficulties and this guy is complaining because this one is cheating when IT'S SUPPOSE TO? lmao

I think what most players need that whine is a Lesson in how AI programming works in todays, yesterdays and most likely for a very long time and tomorrows AI's. They DON'T GET SMARTER they play almost the same way on EASY as they do on IMPOSSIBLE. With only a handful of variance of play for the most part. What the DIFFERENCE in DIFFICULTY is is in the AMOUNT of RESOURCES they get beyond what YOU get. The higher the difficulty the MORE they get to start with. So they can churn out these monster stacks well befor you can. The Civilization games are pretty good proof of how this system works. It looks like Elemental has copied it very well.

You as the player have to figure out ways to survive the AI's many more resources. Afterall it's still going to play pretty stupidly. Thus you have to be able to do MORE with LESS until you can catchup to it and then of course CRUSH it with your supreme brain against it's supreme numbers.

I too wished the AI was actually SMARTER on higher difficulties and yes there's some games it APPEARS to be smarter but all they did was RESTRICT it's total smartness by difficulty from Easy to Impossible. The code was already in there and they just unleashed a little bit more of it as the game got harder. I'm speaking fo SPARTAN atm by Slitherine but basically the AI wasn't smarter just resricted. But, once again as the difficulty rose it got MORE RESOURCES than it did smartness.

One AI that finally did what I always said an AI should do is "record how the player plays and builds his/her units" was the AI in SPORE. I was shocked and happily excited at the same time to find out that this particular AI would COPY things you made and use them against you in later games. This is what an AI needs to do to compete with excellent strategists. I believe I read that the AI in this game will do this also...if this is so then the AI in this game is going to be as good if not better than any other out there. Now if Brad et al would only make a broader data base that records how the player(s) play and use that against the players as well.

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I agree. For seasoned 4x players, the game does an awful lot of cheating to keep up. Doubling up on Paths, getting extra tile yields, etc. I really dislike that sort of cheating. I am willing to give the AI revealed FoW, +30% to their general economy, a slight boost to Sov Hp, some extra processing time to make decisions. There is also alot of cheese the player can do to obliterate even the cheatiest of AI opponents. So we end up in a system of player and AI cheese until everything feels out of balance. I expect the balance will get better now that they are adding fewer basic game mechanics and more balance.

If you really don't like the vanilla, my mod does a pretty good job of balancing alot of the things that seem to bother you. It relies on a dangerous world and AI friendly faction designs to give more challenge to advanced players. The difficulty levels are even rebalanced to have less outright cheating.

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BlackRainZ: Ah sorry. I had no issue winning on Challenging, where the AI didn't cheat.

However, I found it odd that from Challenging to Expert, the AI suddenly goes from (fairly) incompetent, to absolutely massive amounts of cheating.

Willie:

There's cheating, and then there's cheating to the extent that the game no longer plays like a 4X strategy game.

That is ultimately what I feel has happened with FE.

As you stated about Civ, the AI does cheat on difficulty levels like deity. However, it's still winnable even with the AI cheating like crazy.

Here in FE, even on Expert (not even in the top 2 yet, like ridiculous!), the AI is already cheating to the point that the whole city construction/building aspect should be ignored. Instead, the game is determined by whether you picked OP combos for your race/hero.

Oh, just as a side note, I am winning.

Here's a screenshot of the current turn.

http://imageshack.us/a/img834/2325/elementalt95.jpg

Basically, it no longer feels like 4X, but 3X (explore, exploit - in a totally different sense, exterminate).

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Hmmm... I am not sure if i agree totally...

On expert it is still winnable with the default sovereigns, though it is not easy. On ridiculous, however, it is a different story. You need a strategy, custom race, sov, and luck. It gets hard. I am not sure also i will call it exploit. If I choose traits of race and hero in a way that it maximizes certain strategy that is not necessarily exploit. Certain traits become crucial, other useless. The opposite idea is that game should be winnable with all sovs and races. I think that once you allow for custom races and sovs it is for a reason, that soon or later to beat extra difficult game you will need to optimize your strategy. And it is fine for me. Challenge is some games is not only to play at your best, but also to find optimal strategy.

Although i agree that on late levels AI cheats too much, and too cheesy.

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I find expert to be OK, it's still very winnable but I share your sentiments for ridiculous+ - the cheating on that level is quite staggering. The last ridiculous game I played, I had to face down 4 juggernauts (with 1000+ hps combined) with basic spearmen and leather armour - unsurprisingly I lost that game.

If you go to the foreign relations page you will see that the AI starts with astronomical resources to give it a leg up.

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I haven't bought the game yet (but I've been considering it). But remembering the slight... imbalances in Elemental, how it the balance in Fallen Enchantress?

Edit: Actually, I realise I might hijack the thread here somewhat so I'll create a new one.
(https://forums.elementalgame.com/435241)

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