Dominions 2. AI. Suggestions, that how to fix it.

licker · #1 November 25th, 2003, 06:14 PM

Another AI tactical glitch...

It was the penultimate battle between Marignon (me) and Pythum (him). I caught his main army to smash it so that I could freely seige his home province.

Pythum had 2 Hydras and 5-6 (I forget exactly) baby Hydrai. He also had about 100 assorted infantry and 5 or 6 commanders (not real important). He set the Hydrai in the front center of the battle with attack closest (I assume, cuz that's what they did), and the rest of his hoard of infantry about 2 turns movement behind the hydrai (also with attack closest apparently). So what happened?

Yep the Hydrai charged forward to be met by my summer lions and a few pikeneers, they proceeded to poison gas a large area though which... his infantry proceeded to rush though... by the time his infantry met up with my knights and support infantry they were completly poisoned and died veeeeery quickly. I took some poison casualties as well, but heck, he could have beaten me if he could have kept his infantry from getting shredded by 'friendly gas'.

I also saw Arco but chariots *behind* infantry, only to have the chariots rush maddly through the infantry taking down ~25% of them before they even met my forces (yeah I like to sit back and let my xbows and falling fires take their toll

)

Gandalf Parker · #2 November 25th, 2003, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by licker:
Another AI tactical glitch...

So if hydras, elephants, chariots, mammoths, behemoths, and summons larger than size 2... were all considered Big_Units...

Where would you place them?
What orders would you give them?
How would you change your other formats?
Would you do this all the time or have it be an occassional option?

HJ · #3 November 25th, 2003, 08:24 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:

quote:
Originally posted by licker:
Another AI tactical glitch...

So if hydras, elephants, chariots, mammoths, behemoths, and summons larger than size 2... were all considered Big_Units...

Where would you place them?
What orders would you give them?
How would you change your other formats?
Would you do this all the time or have it be an occassional option?

On the flanks, with attack rearmost. Or in the center on attack closest while everybody else (including commanders) is placed on the flanks. Not ideal solutions, but slightly better than the described ones.

#4 November 25th, 2003, 08:41 PM

Chariots, Elephants, Mammoths you would put in the largest Squad with the best Morale and have them shore up the center if they have lower morale.

Hydra's you are just screwed, have them attack archers or rear while putting them quite far on your flank so they have a chance of not running into the main host and actually not killing half your army.

Behemoths with no morale issue on a flank. Others have other orders

LordArioch · #5 November 25th, 2003, 10:39 PM

I think the AI's quite difficult...in fact I think I'm going to have to start playing normal AI now. The problem is I like to play games with multiple players, but I'm no match for 3 ai at one time, and inevitably in every game every ai adjacent to me declares war within a few turns, and then cooperate to take over every province I don't have a large army in. There really isn't much I can do at this point...anything I take I lose the turn I move out and trying to take their capitals is complicated by their ultra high level mage pretenders that can defeat whole armies.

Either that or one ai gains in strength and refuses to get weaker even when turn after turn I kill hundreds of his troops at no cost to myself. Ulm did that in one game...I attack a province or two of his, killing hundreds of defenders, and more just flood in and take the province I moved from.

#6 November 25th, 2003, 10:52 PM

Even on Impossible the AI's follow a standard of "He gave me stuff I won't attack for a few rounds especially if he has nearby provinces at 21 or 11 Provincial defense.

For whatever reason, that works on the AI.

Gandalf Parker · #7 November 25th, 2003, 10:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zen:
Chariots, Elephants, Mammoths you would put in the largest Squad with the best Morale and have them shore up the center if they have lower morale.
Hydra's you are just screwed, have them attack archers or rear while putting them quite far on your flank so they have a chance of not running into the main host and actually not killing half your army.
Behemoths with no morale issue on a flank. Others have other orders

Ummm you kindof missed it. Your answers are good ones but I was asking IF they were all treated as the same unit. If we start recommending AI changes based on each dofferent unit for each nation and each situation then we will be looking at turn processing of 30 minutes