What is wrong with the AI?

[llamabeast]

I'd just like to butt in to the discussion, because I got the impression that quite a few players have the impression that most of the MP going on is super-competitive. That isn't my experience at all - I've found there's a lot of role-playing going on, interesting tactics and friendly gaming. Maybe its just a feature of playing the generally larger-and-longer games organised in the forum rather than the blitzes organised in the IRC channel, I don't know.

In any case, I've never felt under pressure to go for a completely optimal game or anything. The variation in player skill, plus diplomacy and role-playing add enough complication to the mix that it's not necessary to go down the min-maxing route.

I would really encourage people who haven't played much MP to join some of the new games organised in the MP forum here, they really are excellent fun and very friendly.

Also the 1-turn-a-day system I find works well, and doesn't take up a lot of time (unless you sign up to multiple games!), although of course it could be difficult for people who have varied schedules, travel a lot etc..

Just to be clear, my point isn't in any way to put down SP or say that everyone should play MP. Just that I wouldn't like everyone to think that all MP games are super-competitive, because that isn't what I've found at all.

[Sombre]

I'm one of the people who has complained about the behaviour of the AI. I feel there are issues with it that should be fixed - I don't think it would take a silly amount of time and it would improve SP for me no ends.

I can mod and have made several mods. I made an AI Mictlan in some random thread but no-one seemed to have any interest in it - it just gave them unlimited bloodslaves basically, since the AI is miserable at blood nations.

The fact of the matter is I can't change the behaviour of the AI by modding. It will still do things seemingly at random, such as throwing 30 assorted troops at a 30 PD province with a missile based army camped there. Result; AI loses 30 or so troops every turn for no gain. That's a matter of behaviour not of the AI needing super troops or extra resources.

Sure if you give all the AI nations insane stats, unlimited resources etc then the game will be harder to play. But for me it wouldn't be any more fun, because the AI would continue to do the same stupid things, it would still send 30 troops against 200, but this time it would win, because the 30 troops would all be seraphs or something insane like that. Or losing 30 troops wouldn't matter at all, since they have 1000 times the gold you do. That to me is not fun.

And no, I don't hate the game. Why would I play and make mods for a game that I hate. I'm just not a fanboy who pretends everything is perfect and constantly moves the discussion away from clear flaws in the game.

On the subject of impossible ai vs normal (with setup by human), I'm now leaning towards the normal human switch ones. Simply because you can give them a thematic setup which is more interesting - they aren't actually stronger, because the AI gets big boosts on impossible, but their behaviour seems better and it's more fun to play against an AI that at least /appears/ to have a coherent plan.