The #1 Difference New Players Must Know For MP

Sombre · #1 October 30th, 2007, 12:51 PM

I think the biggest difference is diplomacy. From what I've seen of MP games, you /need/ to work out a peace treaty with some neighbours, before attacking the weaker one. In most cases it seems successful players sign a NAP (non aggression pact) with the first person they meet pretty much without hesitation. Being the third nation in a little group all in one area when the first two already have a NAP is basically asking to be killed and chopped up between the two of them. People like to win fights and most of the time that means double teaming you.

Hadrian_II · #2 October 30th, 2007, 01:05 PM

The biggest difference between the AI and Human players is that humans actually use magic (i have never seen the AI to use more than 1 or 2 random mages per battle).

As an example, in one of my early MP games, i created an undefeatable army of 200 principes with Pythium and sent them to attack Marignon (or Abysia i forgot which one) and i lost all of them in a battle where the enemy fielded just 10 F2 mages with some bodyguards. (A fireball kills 3 principes per cast, so with 10 mages spamming fireball i lost 30 principes per turn).

The other important thing is that players at least the good ones will adapt themselves to your tactic if you are at war with them, so its not like against the AI where you can field always the same armies and always win.

Zeldor · #3 October 30th, 2007, 03:14 PM

I played some SP games and never heard about PD stopping AI. How does it work?

PashaDawg · #4 October 30th, 2007, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Zeldor said:
I played some SP games and never heard about PD stopping AI. How does it work?

The AI will generally be disinclined to attack you if you invest heavily in PD. I don't know the specifics, but PD 15 in the neighboring provinces seems to work well.

quantum_mechani · #5 October 30th, 2007, 04:00 PM

The AI only takes note of every 10 levels, so 1, 11, 21, 31, etc. are the critical levels.

PashaDawg · #6 October 30th, 2007, 04:09 PM

Oh! Thanks, QM. That's good to know.

Zeldor · #7 October 30th, 2007, 04:16 PM

quantum_mechani:

I always kept it at 10 or 20, so it seems I need to move it by one point. And what AI does when all provinces have the same PD? And I am sure it won't attack 1000 army with PD 0 instead of empty probince with PD 21...

chrispedersen · #8 February 9th, 2009, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by quantum_mechani

The AI only takes note of every 10 levels, so 1, 11, 21, 31, etc. are the critical levels.

Thats true, only so far as it goes.

In SP, I routinely steer attacking AI's where I want them to go by making even a 1 pt difference in pd.

While I usually use the 21 breakpoint, it works pretty much anywhere.