Classic Builds

[HoneyBadger]

Maybe the designers should look into the possibility of creating maybe 3-5 set-ups for each AI, with or without overlap for difficulty levels, and then have the computer randomly choose a build from set-ups that will compliment the AI. In the meantime, we can address set ups that work for players, and continue to speculate about what setups would compliment which AI nation.

[Ironhawk]

Immortal pretenders might be good picks for the AI, also. You know they will still get them killed somehow anyway, but the immortality just might save them once or twice?

To that end I would say that a good AI pretender might be:

F9 Phoenix

He is immortal for a little more survivability. And he has only one path of magic so the AI wont be ridiculous trying to cast random buffs from like 5 different paths. Hopefully he would make a good artillery platform for the AI.

[quantum_mechani]

For the AI, I don't think you can do a lot better than a simple dom9 no-magic wyrm.

[Gandalf Parker]

The original "Predesigned Pretenders" was from Dominions (one, the original) and are at the bottom of this page which only exists in the WayBackMachine which stores long lost websites.
http://web.archive.org/web/200306031...com/stuff.html

My Dom2 version was a combo of premades for newbies (meant to be funny and beatable) and a tutorial:
"Eventually I should have a downloadable set of gods, a starter game with all the nations, and the same game at various stages (turn 10, turn 100). Plus of course an online explanation. The project so far is in Starter Files"
http://www.dom2minions.com/starter/

That dropped from lack of public interest, then there was the "Random Opponents" project.
http://www.dom2minions.com/Opponents.shtml
and then the "Semi-Random Maps" project
http://www.dom2minions.com/SemiRandom.shtml
among others at the www.Dom2Minions.com site

An example of using map-commands to give the AIs gods can be found here.
http://www.dom2minions.com/WEvsTHEM.shtml
The Deadly Atlantis Rlyeh Ermor alliance (D.A.R.E.) had all 3 setup with extra castles, good chokepoints on the map, allied to each other, and with sibling pretenders (dragons). Also extra units and equipment.

Feel free to use any of them as partial ideas on how this might progress.
Gandalf Parker

[HoneyBadger]

Thanks Gandalf.

[Gandalf Parker]

To give some motivation to some people..
if you havent "played against yourself" I would highly recommend it. The AI might do some dumb things, and some strategy-builds are really beyond the AI's ability to use, but it can be very informative.

Putting your favorite build as an AI then playing against it can show you some things about your strategy that you didnt realize. And if it happens to be one where the AI STILL can totally kick-avatar then by all means please upload it so we can all have a worthy AI to play against.

Dont hold back because we will be practicing against your favorite build. After all, YOU still play it better than the AI dont you?

[Oversway]

To that end I would say that a good AI pretender might be:

F9 Phoenix

For the AI, I don't think you can do a lot better than a simple dom9 no-magic wyrm.

I play a lot of SP in dom2 and now dom3, and I probably would not pick those options. Any blessing effect tends to be worthless, because the AI doesn't always recruit blessing units and (even worse), doesn't bless its troops reliably. The points are better spent on scales. One thing that is nice about the pheonix is immortality lets it get rid of afflictions when the AI kills it off. That is why I don't like the wyrm as much -- no recuperation. Its too anti-climatic to view a battle against a pretender and see that its heavily afflicted.

I tend to go with immobile pretenders with great scales and high dominion. The sphinx is good because the AI cant teleport it stupidly. Another favorite is the FoB since blood doesn't have any teleport spells. I also hope that immobile pretenders will research (vs patrolling, etc.), which the AI tends to lag behind at anyways.

Just for variety sometimes I'll pick a immortal or recuperating pretender (white and black bulls, for example), but I give them little or no extra magic.

Of course you still get stupid empowerments, etc. Picking a pretender for the AI is mostly about getting the best scales.

Does making your own AI make for a more challenging SP experience than increasing the difficulty? I think yes, because you can tailor the scales better to the nation (even a big bonus won't help much if the random pretender for EA Yomi has scales order -3 prod 3 death 3 magic 3).

[HoneyBadger]

I hope we soon get an AI facelift that atleast makes the AI somewhat more competitive when using a bless-strategy, because the lack thereof really significantly reduces the potential enjoyment of SP games.