It seems this behavior is not much better with the latest patch. Most AI armies - at least until the late game - only consist of tier 1 unit type and minor faction unit type. This is especially true with Wild Walkers and Vaulters. Cultist "armies" are full of preachers only.

Also, the strange bug where weaker AI armies retreat when attacked but instantly make an suicide attack back towards you army remains.

I'm playing with serious difficulty.

Here is my second game with all addons and DLCs

The save contains the game where I was playing with the Allayi on a two-continent map and 7 enemies on hard difficulty

The good:

1. Vaulters have built up quite a nice kingdom on my continent, and while I was bugged down with low approval, they occupied over half of it.

2. Vaulters then continued to produce dawn officers next to standard marines and put up well balanced armies containing these two faction units + a few minor units

3. Morgawr enemy AI started off on the next continent,  has managed to build up a sort of sea-superiority and soon was boosting fleets with both of its sea-born faction units

4. Morgawr then continued to conquer fortresses

5. Morgawr was using the rebel function on my minor village and the black spot against me and the Necros (this faction seems to be utilizing its assets correctly)

5. Necro managed to build up the biggest kingdom on the other continent and was using all 3 faction specific units

The bad:

1. Vaulters had all the advantage (science, land, army), still they couldn't capitalize on these, and were beaten back by my single army of 6 units and a hero (I did not have market to buy new heroes or  mercenaries)

2. Vaulters kingdom fell into ruins as soon as I managed to roll out a guardian and take the fight to them. Even though they produced a few guardians themselves, they were not utilized (they were standing behind their cities)

3. Morgawr stopped to expand at around round 100 and did not seem to take any more fortresses for some reason

4. Necro Couldn't get rid of Morgawr and didn't try to expand overseas. It was building a few guardians but kept them to sit around the cities 

The bugs:

1. Outline of some units can't seem to be able to decide if they are transparent or not (The save should contain one such army lead by the first Hero)

2. Another sea-region pupped up on this map which does not have any fortresses (Its in the middle of the big ocean)

3. The Allayi hero led army seemed to be often located on another hex then shown on the map. Seems ot be tied to the bonues of ignoring terrain movement costs - the bonus only seems to be applied on the map visually, but not in the actual calculation, so in the next turn the army "remembers" that it should be somewhere else and goes back to that location before moving again

How it ended

1. Vaulters got beaten between turns 100-200 by the guardian and my newly created units - didn't use its 3rd tier faction unit to counter my cavalry or guardian and couldn't use its guardians effectively (still was a fun fight simply because I should have lost in the first 20 turns)

2.  Morgawr lost to my spammed ships - didn't utilize artillery ships or heroes

3. Necro fell as last between turns 200 and 270 as they did not manage to build fleet, counter attack or use its guardians effectively . When only considering their assets, they should have won. They had way more research, military, cities and everything when the war started but didn't try once to take land from the other continent so I was free to harass its coast while my lands were unthreatened

Summary: Vaulters need to utilize their tank unit, and other factions also need to build proper fleets not just the Morgawr. Guardians could be utilized for offense by the AI, and invading to another continent needs to be a priority at least when in war. I will not post any more updates to this thread as at least second tier units are clearly being utilized at this point but hope this update will be helpful for further optimization

Allayi - First.zip

I am currently playing a 6 unique faction map on Serious with Mezari.  Here is what I see at late mid-game:

Vaulters:

- 5 marines

- 3 caecators

Necrophages:

- 3 foragers

- 2 necrodrones

- 1 burdeki

Drakken:

- 5 rumblers

- 2 drakkenlings

- 1 drider

I have Roving Clans (not met but seen due to shared vision) and Allayi (almost dead, again).

There is also a Gios (Vaulters) and a Skoros (Necrophage) on the map.

Note: In my ongoing war with the Necrophages, I have killed 3 proliferators so far, 2 of them spawning battleborns from my unlucky ice wargs.

Hi there, 

Went through my first game with Tempest and Shifters added to the bunch + newly released free update: please find the save attached

The game is on a default 2 continent map with normal difficulty, around 8 players and lots of water to try out the new features (sea battle specifically).

Here is what I found:

1. The behaviour seems to be present, though I did now have two factions that are using second tier units as well. Necros still seem to avoid Profi it seems though it could have helped them buff their armies up and get some more corpses going for city development which is a major mechanic for them. - Update: They did start producing a few of these units from around turn: 160 - from there on the Wild Walkers didn't stand a chance (they were still fighting with the basic archer unit + some minors)
2. It is definitively present on the naval army side, as the few fleets the AI has raised were only composed of either Fire Ships or Boarding vessels - they still actually are in the save as well
3. Have to note that the AI was particularly not interested in conquering fortresses at all, which I found strange. I had an easy way conquering all the fortresses in around 70 turns without loosing ships (with the item boosting attack against the minor race) There was no real hindernis, as the minor did not have a lot or strong ships and the AI fleets didn't try to take any of the fortresses even if they got to them before I did. To test this out, I left the bottom two outposts independent for the Drakken to take, but they don't seem to want them at all (been waiting for over 50 turns now). This is a problem, as there is no downside to owning a fortress (it does not produce unhappiness like cities do as far as I can tell) and they are very lightly defended - Update: The Drakken did finally conquer the Sea region right below their territory at around Tunr 170 - after they have established a city on an island in the opposite side. Could this new city have been the trigger for them to finally expand on the sea?
4. Notice the Rowing Clans, not expanding north, nor into sea although they did not have any enemies . They are a trading faction which should be the first to build out regions next to other empires, and sea trade routes + occupying the sea regions in between to maximizes profits. Agai has just now been settled by the Broken Lords and was natural territory for over 150 turns even though it would have connected them to my empire as well as to the Broken Lords
5. There are also some sea regions that do not have any outposts: one in the middle between Xighor and Caitan, and a few just below the Rowing Clans territory. This is not AI related but might be problematic trading wise and I guess was not intended
6. Upon inspection of enemy cities via spying it looks like, that most of the empires do not have second nor 3rd tier unit available to them to produce so either they haven't researched the tech, or they didn't generate any template for themselves to produce.
7. It is also visible via spying that the enemy AI has the Guardian Sokoros available to them, still, none of them produce this unit even when they are in war. Shouldn't they put effort in creating such units especially if the researh effort has already been invested?
8. It seems like the AI only researches second and third tier units, if it has over 3 regions (though this might be only a coincidence in this particular game) and doesn't produce the Guardians even beyond that
9. The big sea monster in the end comes back even after it has been killed and the quest completed

Now I did harass the Broken Lords, Necros in the beginning but they actually be the ones that seem to be doing their best so that is odd - might be that the AI is not triggered enough in the other cases? Shifters fell before I even figured out where they are...

On the overall I have to say, I enjoyed the new new art assets as well as the mechanic of the sea battles a great deal. I hope that the AI can be improved upon a bit to make the conquest on land as well as on the sea a bit more difficult with more balanced armies/fleets

Please let me know if you need further details on the game for the analysis

Morgawr - FIRST.zip

Slashman wrote:

Really looking forward to Tempest. Already bought it in fact, so I'll have a long weekend of play ahead of me. Although, now I also have Shadow Warrior 2 coming out today so how do I split my time?

My objective recommendation would be that you spend all your time playing Tempest

Zolobolo wrote:

Hi All,

Found a couple of saves (even one on Harder difficulty)

The AI is only using a single faction specific unit in all of them

Incidentally, the AI also doesn't seem to utilize privateer armies even though it does buy market units (but this could be due to something totally different)

Where can I post these for the DEVs to analyze?

I wouldn't worry about old saves too much, with Tempest they made a bunch of changes to the AI (I don't know how much of that trickled down to people who don't have tempest) that makes the AI better at mixing unit types in it's armies.

I will say that most of the time most factions have one unit that's really good to use and the other units are so-so.  For me as the vaulters I make mostly Marines and usually a couple of tank units.  Sometimes I will research titans, but I usually go for a minor faction unit to fill the tank/meat shield role so I don't have to research my other units.

But to post a save you can just drag it into the text window, you can do the same for screenshots.

If you run into situations where the AI uses armies entirely composed of single units, please consider posting the save game. Their AI team has been working on the AI army compositions for quite a while (the fruits of which are due to be released in the patch accompanying Tempest, I believe), but due to the way their AI system works, it is very hard for them to pinpoint the specific circumstances that let to an AI's obsession with one unit over all others without being able to look at it directly.