Single player with #allies

[Maerlande]

Rdonj,

Yeah I finally signed up to MP on NvV. I'll have to slow down my play. I tend to play 100 turns a day or so in SP so I get kind of careless and play intuitively rather than organized.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Maerlande

I've had one case where I tried putting six AI's all allied against me hoping for a tougher game, but I saw that Ctis and Pan started fighting. I'm wondering if they can fight each other if there is a fight over a neutral starting a war.

It almost seems I get the most challenging game when I choose 2 tough races and some weak ones and hopefully one of the tough gets strong enough to be a challenge.

Any suggestions on making a tougher single player game?

Regards,
Maerlande

Even with the allies command it's still possible for the AI's to end up fighting. This is a result from the arena death match where pretenders will die to another AI opponent. As a result it becomes a one_way battle where the AI opponent who lost his pretender attacks the other AI who never fights to regain provinces. This is especially painful when the super AI you created is the one getting attacked and doesn't fight back.... at least until his pretender is killed by the allied AI opponent.


For AI opponents I strongly recommend giving them a growth scale of +3 and having the game setting supplies at 300. Any opponents with a death scale will gradually become weaker.

When you're really ready for a challenge provide a distant AI opponent with good scales (order, luck, magic), give him some SC's at the capital and a few extra provinces with immobile mages inside a fort with a lab.

[Maerlande]

That makes sense about the Arena. I hadn't thought of that. And given that the AI always joins arena fights, it's going to break the allies eventually.

I'm currently working to learn map commands. So far, I've been using just the automatic pretenders created by Semi Random which does put good scales and equipment on the pretenders. However, it doesn't give extra provinces or troops. I've read some of the older comments about avoiding death scales for AI's. I've used the supplies trick as well. It doesn't seem as critical using better independents. They don't make the giant armies of crap.

[Gandalf Parker]

SemiRand does a pretty good job but Im surprised there arent more immobile pretenders. I wont knock that some people FINALLY provided some but they seem to be personal god-builds instead of good AI god-builds. (yeah yeah yeah I know Im one who should be helping fill in the blanks). But if you do design some good gods for specific nations please feel free to send them to Ballbarian for inclusion so others can use them. It would be best to have a bunch of them to select from for each nation so it doesnt get old.

You can create personal files which will assign a province to a nation. I do it in my Chaos games (altho I use a different program to do it). But I dont think SR has recognition in the general files for era. But its kindof fun to come across a province owned by a nation not even in the game, or to rarely get a second province assigned to yourself somewhere on the map.

I suppose I could rewrite my chaos script to make more of an effort to do the random province-owned-by-nation using the AIs in that game. That would probably be a good idea.

[Maerlande]

I would be willing to make some GOD files. But frankly, I don't know what would make good AI gods. Got any ideas?

[pyg]

Originally Posted by NTJedi

Even with the allies command it's still possible for the AI's to end up fighting. This is a result from the arena death match where pretenders will die to another AI opponent. As a result it becomes a one_way battle where the AI opponent who lost his pretender attacks the other AI who never fights to regain provinces. This is especially painful when the super AI you created is the one getting attacked and doesn't fight back.... at least until his pretender is killed by the allied AI opponent.

This sounds like a bug to me, or at least unexpected behavior. I would prefer that #allies always remain so, even after accidental damage. Have you observed AIs to break #allies after co-attacking independents or is the arena the only trigger?

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Maerlande

I would be willing to make some GOD files. But frankly, I don't know what would make good AI gods. Got any ideas?

There are a number of threads on how to improve the AI. Just going thru them and creating the suggestions would help. The only thing I can remember off the top of my head was the suggestion to have more immobile ones so that the AI doesnt send their god into the arena or out conquesting too soon all by itself.

Some SC gods can be improved for the AI by choosing specific equipment to give it right at the beginning to fill in some gaps in its abilities (and to block the AI from giving it something stupid)

But mostly its the scales. Some nations really need certain scales. Or at least NOT the exact opposite of what it can benefit from.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Maerlande

I would be willing to make some GOD files. But frankly, I don't know what would make good AI gods. Got any ideas?

I can answer this question... I've listed variables which will make good AI pretenders:

1) DO NOT use Unluck or Death scales as these "usually" suffocate an AI opponent. It's almost always best to provide the AI with LUCK, GROWTH, and for more punch ORDER.

2) DO NOT use size_6 pretenders unless they're immobile otherwise they will stupidly walk into the arena death match... an issue which should have been reported and fixed during beta testing since it was a problem way back during Dom_2 and maybe earlier. Unfortunately to safely avoid the arena death match this means size_3 or smaller for most nations.

3) Keeping the pretender alive is important so magic paths such as earth and water are more valuable. If choosing astral provide at least 6 astral so humans can't easily kill with mind duel. Don't worry about a blessing strategy because the AI poorly provides blessings for units.

4) Immortality with good dominion scales will thwart most assassination attempts... not necessary, but helpful.

5) I know this limits the choices even more... but pretenders with more than 10hitpoints so a simple seeking arrow won't kill.


*** If items are allowed then rainbow armor, shield of awe, boots of flying(unless it already flys) or boots of the messenger, pendant of luck, girdle of might and helm mainly depends on the pretender selected.


Good default models: Vampire Queen, Ghost King and Master Lich

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by Maerlande

Any suggestions on making a tougher single player game?

Regards,
Maerlande

Well, from having played countless hours of SP games for 18 months before I ventured into MP games, I can tentatively proclaim myself to be the king of SP scenarios

Probably the toughest one I came up with that still made some sense (as other ones I used to play like staling the first 50 turns made less sense) was the following....

(note this was before the MA Ulm booster patch)

Start as MA Ulm, and for the entire game, you are only allowed to field Ulm's non-magic commander units. So that means you can not use regular units (which you are also not allowed to recruit) priests/prophets, or mages at any time in your army, apart from those that show up as part of your PD. You must also set any such units to retreat should they find themselves unavoidably in a battle (such as an enemy storming your fort with mages inside). In fact mages/priests should all be set to retreat as standard in case of any assassinations. Although your Pretender can be scripted to survive assassinations (although it sill can not be used in any battle, such as defending fort storms)

So the entire game will revolve around using MA Ulm's commander units as mini-thugs, and for example, instead of fielding 20 X-Bow units, you have to instead give 20 commanders X-bows to achieve the same effect. Although of course any commander with equipment will be an uber version of a regular unit.

This scenario may not have much to do with how a proper MP game will ever be played, but I did find it very useful for focusing in on specific parts. (which is what a lot of my SP scenarios ended up as). Such as just how tough a single unit can be in melee if it has good stats (which MA Ulm's commanders do when compared to regular units), how much of a killer fatigue is in melee combat (and we're not talking regular Thug/SC fatigue issues), and how to field mini-thugs with just a few items, that could each kill about 50 units on average.


Surviving the early stages will be key, and you will have to rely on your PD a lot for this, and there are no rules regarding how much PD you can use (although I did add some later when I won this scenario a few times). Getting up as many castles as possible is also obviously essential to increase your recruitment ability. One good thing you'll find though, is that when you are fielding 40+ commanders per battle, you very rarely lose any items from defeated units if you win the fight. As you'll have enough commanders around to mostly pick everything up. And fear stacking is also your friend when it comes to defeating large AI armies inside of 50 turns.

A few other points as well is that your starting army must be killed off on the first turn. Attacking with you troops placed front centre on "Hold" and the commander far back set to "Hold, Retreat" should do the job, as your units move too slowly to be able to escape while routing. You are not allowed to hire mercs obviously, and any units you get via events or freespawn etc. must be immediately sacrificed. As having any actual army might make the AI delay in declaring war against you, which again would make things too easy. No summons are allowed either.

You are also only allowed to have a human 10HP Pretender, so no easy life with a SC Pretender (although maybe skip this rule if you find it too tough). I'd recommend a strong researcher who can blast you up the Construction tree, allowing you to recruit non-mage commanders for battle.

The Better Independents mod will probably make this scenario tougher again, so you may as well throw that into the mix. (not sure if I was using this mod with this scenario. Not even sure if it was available to use). Other settings,

- Impossible AI
- 15 provinces per nation
- Indies on 5.
- Research Standard
- Supplies and Resources High
- Magic sites standard.

So there you go, not sure if that is exactly what you were after, but it is certainly a way to make SP games tougher and I hope, still have some relevance as a teaching aid for some aspects of the game when it comes to proper MP games.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Calahan

Well, from having played countless hours of SP games for 18 months before I ventured into MP games, I can tentatively proclaim myself to be the king of SP scenarios

Hey! Ive been 99% solo player since Dom 1.

Have you tried some of my maps?
http://www.dom3minions.com/maps.htm
The Tower maps can make a very different solo game. By the time you reach the top of the map the AI has had a long time to prepare for you.

The Poke-in-the-Eye map gives a feel for the chaos-additions I do (or you can play one of the chaos games which do allow solo)
http://www.dom3minions.com/HostedGames.htm