2x Beginning Gold AI Help

theothercolin · Post by **theothercolin** » January 29th, 2007, 1:14 am

Recently while playing online I asked a couple of people what to do to improve my game and one of the suggestions was play against the AI with them having twice the starting gold. Ive played it a couple times, though my average is pretty abysmal(sp?). I understand the AI isnt that bright, and you should try to lure them onto your better territory, but they will just send twice the units at you, and most of the time its enough to cut me down...even when I send in my leader. Any suggestions to improve my game? Should I play one at post a replay for you to view? I would supply faction information, but Im learning to use random, and the AI is always set at random too.

JW · Post by JW » January 29th, 2007, 1:21 am

The best way to get better is to play online with more experienced players. You could also observe games of better players, including replays in the archive.

In fact....dammit....now I have a new project......

theothercolin · Post by **theothercolin** » January 29th, 2007, 1:31 am

I agree with you there, but sometimes I dont have the time to constantly invest, I wanna be able to walk away for a couple minutes if need be...with that in mind, is there anything that could help me win these types of matches? Generally I play smaller maps such as blitz and the smaller 1v1 maps.

Lone_Isle · Post by **Lone_Isle** » January 29th, 2007, 2:56 am

put yourself on 100 and the ai on 175. This is alot more doable.

On small maps beating even the AI on half the gold is a difficult and somewhat meaningless proposition, since the AI only knows how to charge charge charge what you are left doing is playing defensive and even if you win that way the only thing you've learnt is how to play excessively defensively.

IB · Post by IB » January 29th, 2007, 3:49 am

Think it's around 250 the AI cuts me to pieces on Blitz, just too many units. What you learn is creating a solid zoc so the enemy can't attack you from good terrain, which is valuable against humans. Oh and if you right click when observing a multiplayer game, the game pauses, so you can leave, eat, and come back to where you were.

tsr · Post by **tsr** » January 29th, 2007, 8:14 am

You could also try to modify the scenario files of the standard maps with some wml so that the AI presumably plays extremely defensive.

Although I'm not really sure that actually works, it should according to the AiWML.

But I agree with IB really learning how to defend youreself using terrain and zoc is a valuable lesson.

/tsr

Multiplayer Scenarios / Campaigns · Post by **Rhuvaen** » January 29th, 2007, 10:05 am

Note that under normal circumstances (standard AI settings), the AI will always move a unit that is within move range of one (or more) of your units to attack.

This can be so easily exploited, it's ridiculous.

Simply position your units so that the AI has to move into bad terrain, attack in an unfavourable matchup (such as horseman charging a spearman in forest from shallow water...), etc to fulfill this "rule".

This is what makes survival games so predictable.

Post by **Wintermute** » January 29th, 2007, 6:41 pm

Rhuvaen wrote:Simply position your units so that the AI has to move into bad terrain, attack in an unfavourable matchup (such as horseman charging a spearman in forest from shallow water...), etc to fulfill this "rule".

Just to add to that: it is good to keep in mind when playing against an AI with a lot more gold than you, you should NOT try to attack AI units much (if at all) at the begining. Even a weak AI is not a good target, UNLESS you are also positioning the unit as Rhuvaen noted and the damge is more or less "free" (ranged attacking a non-ranged unit, etc.). The key here is that the AI will likely just kill it's weak units by charging your snug, defensable position anyway, so the is no reason to leave good terrian to "take advantage" of poor AI position. Especially beacuse there is another 100 gold worth of units ready to charge any of your units that becomes exposed to multiple units.

Of course, there are exceptions to everything: in some cases the AI will fall back if you have a strong ToD advantage over them, etc. But pretty much defend and use healing (perhaps choose your best race until you can beat it, then try again with random race).

Good luck!

Post by **Doc Paterson** » January 29th, 2007, 10:41 pm

I've never tried this sort of thing before, and I felt inspired to give it a go, so here's a replay of me versus a 300 gold AI (random, Loy v. Drake). I could have probably ended things around turn 28, but I opted to keep the fun going.

http://star.walagata.com/w/paterson/1v1 ... 300G_Drake

Anyways, it was my only try (and of course there was no save-loading - I think the replay will make that obvious anyway.), and I think I could be more effective if I gave it another go, but nevertheless-

It's a cool replay and I think it illustrates a lot of Wintermute's points.

theothercolin · Post by **theothercolin** » January 30th, 2007, 12:05 am

How do I view that replay? I clicked the link but it didnt go through anywhere. And when I tried to save as, it said it was a .txt document.

theothercolin · Post by **theothercolin** » January 30th, 2007, 4:32 am

Ive upped my success but one matchup Ive found extremely difficult is me as Undead against Northerners. It seems they have an extreme number of units, and the archers seem to obliterate nearly all of my units. I checked the 'How to play' archive and it helped a little, but not enough to overcome twice as many units. And Doc, if you could either update that link, or someone could provide some information, Id like to see the replay of the 3x starting gold game, sounds really difficult.

IB · Post by IB » January 30th, 2007, 4:37 am

You save the file to disk, move it to your userdata/saves, then load it from the main menu.

theothercolin · Post by **theothercolin** » January 30th, 2007, 5:27 am

@IB
I didnt realize that .txts was the format that the replays were viewable through. But I got to see the replay, thanks.
(And kudos to you for giving me this idea(Im pretty sure it was you after the game you dominated me in:D(at least I learned stuff though?)))

@Doc
Did you play with Fog of War on? It didnt seem like it with your first recruit, and when I play this I play with Fog of War on, and that makes my initial recruits that much less useful. I think Ill try it with Fog of War off a couple rounds, that seems to be much easier. Not that what you did wasnt pretty strong, it was for sure, after just a couple of turns it became clear that you were probably gonna win that one.

Thanks to all for the tips, Im trying to improve my game so Im slightly less embarrassing to watch:P.

IB · Post by IB » January 30th, 2007, 12:14 pm

Doc is a pretty good player, I'm pretty sure he would have used fog, although he does seem to have done a very antidrake recruit...

I'm sure you will be beating me sooner or later.

Post by **Doc Paterson** » January 30th, 2007, 12:17 pm

theothercolin wrote:@Doc
Did you play with Fog of War on? It didnt seem like it with your first recruit, and when I play this I play with Fog of War on, and that makes my initial recruits that much less useful. I think Ill try it with Fog of War off a couple rounds, that seems to be much easier. Not that what you did wasnt pretty strong, it was for sure, after just a couple of turns it became clear that you were probably gonna win that one.

Thanks to all for the tips, Im trying to improve my game so Im slightly less embarrassing to watch:P.

Of course I played it with Fog on- Fogless is a disgrace.

What you saw was my standard Loyalist recruit with a slight modification- I knew that I'd be defending, so I recruited no mage and went heavy on the spearmen, knowing that I'd get a few solid resilient ones for the far villages.