A question about modding

from Elemental Forums

Hy,

 

After so many trial and error I finally found myself in the perfect map. On my game (expert AI difficult), i got pretty upset to see them making forge towers on less than 200 turns, so I started to mess with the difficult files again. So, here comes the questions.

 

1-I have a save at this game start (1st turn), so if I change a difficult file for this game AI difficult is it going to affect this reloaded game? Or the difficult is hard coded inside the save game?

2-I dont mind the AI having great economic bonuses and fielding large armies. What bothers me is their research pace, which means that on higher difficult settings I find myself fighting enemies with a huge, gigantic technological advantage. How can I mod that?

This the current data for the expert AI level on my game folder (already modded a bit)

 

<AIDifficultyLevel InternalName="AIDiffLvl_Expert">
<DisplayName>Expert</DisplayName>
<AIEconomicRatio>1.5</AIEconomicRatio>
<AIFOWCheat>0</AIFOWCheat>
<AIHPRatio>1.0</AIHPRatio>
<AIStartingFundsRatio>10.0</AIStartingFundsRatio>
<AISovereignHPRatio>2.0</AISovereignHPRatio>
<AIUsesCombatMagic>1</AIUsesCombatMagic>
<AIIntelligenceFactor>10.0</AIIntelligenceFactor>

 

I have the impression that it is the intelligence factor that gives the AI the technological advantage, therefore i believe that if i reduce that number and increase the economic advantage I am going to experience more technological balanced games, but still challenging. Am I wrong?

5,373 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

All XML-related game data is saved in the savegame, so yes, you do need to start a new game to see any gameplay changes from edited XMLs (doesn't matter if it's the core or the mod folder).

Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I didn't answer that question of yours because I was not sure of the answer.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top


I think that is due to setting AIIntelligenceFactor to 10. It improves AI calculations, but above a certain value, they start to give bonuses instead. I'm not really too sure about that though.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

So, the best way to know is to play a test game, I am going to set the intelligence factor to 3 (from 10) and move the eco bonuses to 2 (from 1.5)

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

I messed with the idea of a giving the AI ONLY pure economic bonuses (ie no extra research). One frustrating thing on ridiculous, for me, is fighting enemy units with plate mail and mauls on turn 100 (Yithril).

This was my idea: a quest random event that immeditely gives two abilities:

-a 50% production and gold bonus ability to all players

-A -50% production and gold penalty to the player to negate this advantage

This would trigger around turn 25. Effectively, the AI gets their economic boost, but no research boost. Player gets no net change.

This would allow you to play on normal difficulty for the AI, but boost their ability to produce. Thus they would have more troops, infrastructure and equipment than you (a significant advantage), but not necessarily a huge tech advantage.