SP Challenge

[Morkilus]

Your mileage may vary...

But I found that -in combination with NI maps - turning gold, resources, and supply to max and Indy Strength to 2 sure gets the AI geared up and rolling pretty quickly. It's not going to train you for MP gaming, but when you're having to deal with 300+ good troops early in the game, you don't have time to sit back and craft SC's to trash the AI. You'll most likely have to start building tons of castles, and the AI has no problem building castles, either.

[Sombre]

I play on a NI map, design the AIs pretenders for them (but don't play any turns, or use semirandom), set the supplies to be higher and then stale for the first 4 turns or so.

[Edratman]

Morkilus said:
Your mileage may vary...

But I found that -in combination with NI maps - turning gold, resources, and supply to max and Indy Strength to 2 sure gets the AI geared up and rolling pretty quickly. It's not going to train you for MP gaming, but when you're having to deal with 300+ good troops early in the game, you don't have time to sit back and craft SC's to trash the AI. You'll most likely have to start building tons of castles, and the AI has no problem building castles, either.

This is correct. It was suggested that low resources helps the AI, but I found that it was not true. High everything, low indy strength definitely toughens up the AI. I don't use the NI maps because I like indies, but a low indy strength allows the AI to expand quickly.

I tried crafting immobile gods for the AI using good scales, but I think the AI is tougher on impossible random gods than using my gods and switching to normal difficulty. It's an issue of the bonuses the AI gets on the difficulty levels vs better scales/god design. The major problem with designing an AI god youreself is that you design the god for how you play, not what is best for the AI, which is somewhat of a mystery.

One point that really changes the character of a game is to never play a game where your start position is in a corner or the edge of a map. If you are in the center 60% of a map, you will get 3 to 7 foes on your borders. Use map settings that allow 10 to 15 provinces per nation. If you don't find this a challange, combined with Morkilus' suggestions, than you are a much better player than I. (Do not assign this distinction significent value.)

[NTJedi]

WraithLord said:
I recall reading some suggestions in different threads on how to make SP game more challenging. I did some quick search and couldn't find them.

What I'm looking for are ideas on how to spice up SP game to make it more challenging. I'm less into self imposed rules like I'm not allowed research above lvl 4, or I'm not allowed bless etc. Rather I'm more interested in things like specifically designed maps that give advantage to AI players.

Any tips on the subject would be greatly appreciated.

I've created a challenging large SP map(688_land with 14_sea) which includes:
1) One AI starting with strong SCs, extra gold and gem income
2) Victory Point winning so the game doesn't last forever
3) Unforseen events on Turn2... be careful ending the first turn of the game.
4) You'll have a few years to expand your empire and prepare for war.
5) Unique Independent Provinces with rare items
6) AI opponents are allied
7) Large armies and large battles will exist


To create this map I had to setup the game where it must use the nations listed below:
A) Vanheim (early age) (human)
B) Tien Chi (early age) (AI opponent)
C) Argatha (early age) (AI opponent)
D) Yomi (early age) (AI opponent)
E) Helheim (early age) (AI opponent)
F) Ry'leh (early age) (AI opponent)
G) Niefielheim giants (early age) (AI opponent)


anyone interested can let me know

[SelfishGene]

So is there some way to build a "single player" map with pre-set AI gods? I'd like to do this for a contest i was thinking about...

[Gandalf Parker]

Sure. Pick a map or generate one. Then add this to the end of the .map file using notepad or wordpad.

#god 40 812 -- Lord of the Wild
#comname "Natural Disaster"
#allies 40 48 -- likes to ally with Oceania if they are both AI
#clearmagic
#mag_death 4 -- needed for Pangea spells and a bless
#mag_nature 4 -- needed for Pangea spells and a bless
#mag_blood 4 -- good combo with the above and a bless
#additem "Treelord's Staff" -- 2 more nature
#additem "Skullface" -- helmet with 1 more death and support
#additem "Armor of Souls" -- armor and 1 more blood
#additem "Boots of the Behemoth" -- goes well with his size 6
#additem "Brazen Vessel" -- misc slot and 1 more blood
#additem "Ring of Sorcery" -- 1 death and 1 nature and 1 blood
#dominionstr 40 6
#scale_chaos 40 2
#scale_lazy 40 2
#scale_cold 40 -1
#scale_death 40 0 -- this line might need removed
#scale_unluck 40 -3
#scale_unmagic 40 -1

-- 6 points left over

That gives middle age Pangaea a set version of Lord of the Wild named Natural Disaster with some added equipment, specific scales, and an ally preference. The number 40 stands for middle-age Pangaea if that helps to read the code above.
Gandalf Parker

[Gandalf Parker]

By the way, besides being able to give equipment and set the gods parameters, another fun thing is that you are not limited to the normal list of gods. You can give any god to anyone (Lord of Night comes to mind) or even units that arent usually gods (Horror? Tarrasque?). And if you want to exceed the normal range of allowed points then you can (just remember to turn off the cheat checking when you play it)

[Gandalf Parker]

Here is an early-age Pangaea Gorgon build I found in the Semi-Random thread. Semi-Random is a program that adds these things to a map for you.


#god 11 138 -- PANGAEA GORGON
@RANDOM comname COMMANDER
#clearmagic
#mag_earth 9
#mag_nature 4
#additem "Shield of Gleaming Gold" -- hand slot
#additem "Sword of Sharpness" -- hand slot
#additem "Black Steel Helmet" -- head slot
#additem "Robe of Invulnerability" -- body slot
#additem "Boots of the Messenger" -- feet slot
#additem "Amulet of Antimagic" -- misc slot
#additem "Amulet of Missile Protection" -- misc slot
#dominionstr 11 10
#scale_chaos 11 3
#scale_lazy 11 1
#scale_cold 11 -1
#scale_death 11 -3
#scale_unluck 11 -2
#scale_unmagic 11 2
-- 6 points left if we were dormant...

[NTJedi]

SelfishGene said:
So is there some way to build a "single player" map with pre-set AI gods? I'd like to do this for a contest i was thinking about...

Gandalf provides good examples, but the map edit commands do not limit the boundaries of points being spent. Thus if you wish to create a super powerful AI it won't suffer the cheating penalty because it's an AI opponent.
On the map I created I provided the AI opponent with a vampire queen fully equipped on items with level 9 fire, level 9 earth, level 9 air and level 7 nature plus a growth scale of 3.
Be careful not to provide the AI with too powerful of a starting dominion otherwise it might swallow allied neighbors... unless that's your intention.
Be careful on selecting large sized pretenders for the AI as it will send most of them to the death match arena.
AI opponents usually need a growth scale to help prevent starving armies, old age afflictions, and gold income issues.

[Gandalf Parker]

I forget that about the AI not needing cheat protection off, because sometimes I play with these gods. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. You can also use these commands to build a god you otherwise couldnt have (unit type, starting equipment, etc) and play it yourself if you want.

I guess I should have said that if you want to play this god, then be sure to turn off cheat checks.