A.I's should clear monster and goodie huts.

from Elemental Forums

I do not understand the logic of stopping the A.I's playing the same game as the player in a 4x game.Roaming enemy territory is ridiculous when you see monsters and huts all over the place mid to late game.

 

Change this.

7,816 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Leaving monster huts can actually be a tatical choice. For example, leaving a bandit hut could allow you to farm xp for your newly recruited soldiers. Similar with other monster huts. Leaving the goodie-huts and such I believe was a design choice because the effectiveness of the AI to grab these things.

I agree that the AI should play the game as any normal person would in this regard. Can't say much about the monster lairs, but I can say that the goodie-huts should at least be cleared in the boundary of the AI territory.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top


I do not understand the logic of stopping the A.I's playing the same game as the player in a 4x game.Roaming enemy territory is ridiculous when you see monsters and huts all over the place mid to late game.

 

Change this.

End of quote

Derek addressed this in one of his interviews.  It has to do with fun factors.  If they let the AI scarf up all the goodie huts, the AI would do just that... scarf up all the goodie huts.  Then the player wouldn't be able to find enough loot.  Good game designers know how to treat us players as rats so we keep coming back for more. 

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

And at challenging and on up, the AI scarfs them down.

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I did notice that while playing on Hard. I fought against a Demonhound (modded monster) and lost, and the hound followed my retreating army. When I went back to collect the loot after the beast was dead, the AI had picked up the goodiehut. Bastards.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Any time I play without master scout I notice the damn AI heroes looting lairs that I have cleared.  As there is no way to clear and loot a bear lair in one turn without master scouts, it gets really annoying.  In my last game, I jumped Ceresa as an Empire just because of this.

Keep it in the game, it's awesome.

What's less awesome is that when the AI is headed for a lootable tile, positioning an non-hero unit on top of the tile does not always prevent the AI from looting it.  The AI does not seem to always recalculate its path, and will happily stack with a neutral player unit to grab a item.