One thing I've noticed about a lot of AI armies is their unit composition is lacking... what I mean by this is some of the factions never build their tier 2 or 3 units, they just stick with their starter unit and minor faction units. For example, Wild Walkers will just build Dekari Rangers, Vaulters will just build Marines, Drakken will just build drakkenlings (or however you spell it), and so forth. The factions that I have seen build all three of their units include Necrophages, Cultists, and Broken Lords. Maybe the Allayi as well, but I'm unsure about them as I haven't really played any games with an AI Allayi faction.



So what I'd like to know is, why do some factions build all three of their units as opposed to factions who just build their starter unit and then round them out using minor faction units? I don't think I've ever seen a Wild Walker AI field a Tenei Walker, for example, which is a shame because I think that their army would greatly benefit from using the Walkers. Instead they just send waves of Rangers at me, occasionally supplemented by minor faction units. On the other hand, a faction like the Cultists will field all three: Preachers, Fanatics, and Nameless Guards, and their armies as a result are tougher to deal with.



I like that the AI uses minor faction units but I wish that ALL the factions would take advantage of all three of their unique units, instead of just a few factions that actually do that. I'd love to see the AI throw units like Mysts, Titans, Ancients, and so forth at me.

I have a similar experience. I think that at one point, the AI would never vary their composition at all and several attempts to fix this were made. Then they seemed to start using a LOT more minor faction units. That isn't necessarily a bad thing at all, because some minor faction units are really powerful if equipped well and leveled. The problem is the equipped part. The Ai is still a bit shaky on equipping units.



Also right now I think is that the AI doesn't seem to prioritize researching or building the tier 2 and 3 units with some exceptions. This may tie into the changes made to make the AI less militarily focused and may need further tweaking. Some factions can do just fine using tier 2 units, but then some factions positively NEED their third tiers. Allayi for instance really should get monks as standard. But the Ardent Mages can do just fine with Ateshi Zealots.



My biggest personal issue with the current system is that the AI doesn't understand mixed army tactics that make sense. Like having a couple cavalry units with high initiative, backed up by a couple support/ranged units and a larger, slower bruiser unit is a good mix. Secondly, the AI needs to build at least one Guardian if it is going to war. I personally have only ever seen the Necrophages with Guardian units. Now maybe this is because I played my last few games at Normal difficulty, but in most of my games several of the AI factions have the resources AND capacity to support a Guardian easily. The great thing about Guardians is that no matter who you are, fighting one is going to be a pain. There is NO downside to the AI building one...or two if it can afford to.



We can only hope that there are some minor tweaks to this system. I don't think it needs a very heavy hand or a lot of work.

One positive thing I've noticed about AI armies is that if I'm having a field day and slaughtering their units left and right, the new armies it creates will be comprised of counters to my armies, so if I bring a heavy infantry army to their lands, they will start building cavalry or ranged units that have an infantry bonus. The AI seems to know how to adjust its armies in order to counter your units, mind you this is on Hard difficulty and above.



For exameple, I was just playing a game as Forgotten and I was in a war with the Mezari. Initially I had the upper edge, since they were fielding nothing but marines, and I was capturing their cities one by one. Eventually, the AI realized that it would have to change its battle tactics if it wanted to survive (yes it's sentient), and it started bringing Burdeki cavalry into the fray. Those jerks hit hard. Chance of stunning for two turns increasing with each consumed movepoint made me a very unhappy person indeed. I was locked into a stalemate that continues to this day.



So the AI seems to know how to counter units, it just needs to take advantage of its faction specific unique units more.

If you think about the value of a tech, getting a Minor Faction unit is cheaper than an Era 2 Faction unit for many factions in many situations, since the Unit Model can contain just as many Attributes and Capacities and they´re always tied to an Empire improvement.



If I´m not mistaken the AI has no quests, but it makes sense for you to see Wild Walkers running around the entire early game with Dekari+Minor Faction, you would in a multiplayer game, because their quest (and lore) requires it.



I actually see AI Vaulters using more Titans than Dawn Officers way more frenquently than I would.

BPrado wrote:
If you think about the value of a tech, getting a Minor Faction unit is cheaper than an Era 2 Faction unit for many factions in many situations, since the Unit Model can contain just as many Attributes and Capacities and they´re always tied to an Empire improvement.



If I´m not mistaken the AI has no quests, but it makes sense for you to see Wild Walkers running around the entire early game with Dekari+Minor Faction, you would in a multiplayer game, because their quest (and lore) requires it.



I actually see AI Vaulters using more Titans than Dawn Officers way more frenquently than I would.

But my point is that even in the late game, I never see certain factions using tier two or three units, they ALWAYS stick to their starter unit and minor faction units. The Forgotten AI never fields Mysts, at least I've never seen them do so. That is a massive disadvantage for them imo, Mysts, when equipped with the right items, are super strong and can level whole heaps of enemy armies. It doesn't make sense that the AI just throws stack after stack of Assassins at me, it's too easy to counter. I guess the reason I see Cultists, Necros, and Broken Lords using all three tiers is because they're more military-oriented, and therefore focus more of their research on military technology.



You've seen AI Vaulters using Titans? Huh, I've never witnessed that in my 120 hours of playing the game, and that was mostly single player games. What difficulty setting was this?

I do have a few more hours, so it´s unfair to compare our experiences. ^^ Could have been anywhere from serious to endless.

Slashman wrote:
Also right now I think is that the AI doesn't seem to prioritize researching or building the tier 2 and 3 units with some exceptions. This may tie into the changes made to make the AI less militarily focused and may need further tweaking. Some factions can do just fine using tier 2 units, but then some factions positively NEED their third tiers. Allayi for instance really should get monks as standard. But the Ardent Mages can do just fine with Ateshi Zealots.

Before Forges Of Creation unit design were essentially research on a schedule - now that AI will only start unlocking them when it plans to go to war (or finds itself at war). The AI has been made to focus more on economy and less on military though (the argument being that an empire with a stronger economy is, overall, a stronger empire), so on the whole it tends to grab these units less readily. It will unlock and build them however, if it feels it needs them.



There has been calls to make the AI more aggressive, especially on higher difficulties levels. This is something I'm fiddling around with at the moment. The hard part is getting the AI to fight you with comprising its economic development and without sending its units into a meat-grinder. In such cases we'd be make the AI easier to deal with, not harder.

Selereth wrote:
One positive thing I've noticed about AI armies is that if I'm having a field day and slaughtering their units left and right, the new armies it creates will be comprised of counters to my armies, so if I bring a heavy infantry army to their lands, they will start building cavalry or ranged units that have an infantry bonus. The AI seems to know how to adjust its armies in order to counter your units, mind you this is on Hard difficulty and above.

There is a system for choosing units to build based on past encounters, yes!! Glad you noticed

Slashman wrote:
My biggest personal issue with the current system is that the AI doesn't understand mixed army tactics that make sense.

Hmm... How would you rate the work we did for Forges Of Creation? This is one of the issues we did look into.

wilbefast wrote:






Hmm... How would you rate the work we did for Forges Of Creation? This is one of the issues we did look into.

I'm not sure I saw a huge heap of difference apart from the AI definitely using minor factions more. Maybe it was luck of the draw with my game. But I do remember mentioning to you (or was it frogsquadron?) in that saved game I sent you with the Drakken and Cultists at war, it was the Cultists who had the mixed armies. The Drakken were mostly sticking to single unit types.



Just to be clear, I'm not complaining about battle tactics here. I haven't found much to complain about with targeting and battle behavior after Shifters.



I have a game I am playing right now where, as the Allayi, I went to war with the Wild Walkers and they stuck mostly to Dekari Rangers and Minotaurs. I was fielding Monks, Seekers and Geos against them. Now Rangers do have a counter to Monks because of their Flying Slayer attribute, but Monks are a higher tiered unit. They really could have used some of their heavy hitters. My Monks literally ate them alive. They had a better rated economy than I did at the start and I KNOW they had a heap of strategic resources which they could use to equip their units.



Also, they could have done better if they had used better quality equipment. I know that the AI is reluctant sometimes to use its strategic resources to equip units, but even Dust armor and weapons are decent at tier 2 and 3.



in my next game I will try a higher difficulty and see if this changes things. I don't want the AI to go back to blindly prioritizing military tech to its detriment, but at the same time all the other AI's fear my military might and seem to be doing nothing about it. Even the Necrophages seem content to just sit in fear instead of building up their forces. I go in and steal their pearls. I smashed the Vaulters down to one city. If I were them I would be sharpening my swords going: "These crazy-ass, bat-moth mofos gots to go!"



To sum up what I think the current problem is: If you go to war early with the AI, they can still do OK because neither of you have very advanced equipment and the base unit stats are still defining the effectiveness of the units. This was made clear when I hit the Vaulters early and my army got wiped on their last city (even though by that time I had done enough damage that they weren't coming back from that easily).



When you go to war later in the game, say after turn 125, it becomes apparent that the AI cannot/does not do enough to defend itself (this is at normal difficulty). It is still using the same approach that it used early game. Minimal upgrades on it's units. Limited mix of units even though it has likely assimilated 2 or more minor factions by now and should have researched its tier 2 and 3 units.



A side note I'd like to make also: Please drastically reduce the chance for the coop quest From Dust to Rust to appear. It has appeared in every game I've played since Shadows and I doubt the AI can compensate for that huge increase in equipping units. This may even be part of the problem. They certainly don't rush to complete it and it was only via my use of Skyfins that I managed to do it myself so easily in my current game. It really doesn't feel cooperative at all. Just sloggish...

Slashman wrote:
I have a game I am playing right now where, as the Allayi, I went to war with the Wild Walkers and they stuck mostly to Dekari Rangers and Minotaurs. I was fielding Monks, Seekers and Geos against them. Now Rangers do have a counter to Monks because of their Flying Slayer attribute, but Monks are a higher tiered unit. They really could have used some of their heavy hitters. My Monks literally ate them alive.

I'll ask François for the save - maybe the higher tier unit technologies need a boost.

Slashman wrote:
They had a better rated economy than I did at the start and I KNOW they had a heap of strategic resources which they could use to equip their units.



Also, they could have done better if they had used better quality equipment. I know that the AI is reluctant sometimes to use its strategic resources to equip units, but even Dust armor and weapons are decent at tier 2 and 3.

I'll take another look at the equipment too. Last I checked the designs were generally pretty decent - it's just that the AI isn't retrofitting its units as quickly as it needs to. We're pretty cautious of just upping the retrofit priority though: this tends to eat all the AI's dust and means that it is behind in the hero-hiring race. So we'll probably need to look into how they can be more intelligent about who they retrofit. We already did a pass on this and it's better than it was, but perhaps it still needs work.

Slashman wrote:
in my next game I will try a higher difficulty and see if this changes things. I don't want the AI to go back to blindly prioritizing military tech to its detriment, but at the same time all the other AI's fear my military might and seem to be doing nothing about it. Even the Necrophages seem content to just sit in fear instead of building up their forces. I go in and steal their pearls. I smashed the Vaulters down to one city. If I were them I would be sharpening my swords going: "These crazy-ass, bat-moth mofos gots to go!"

Hmm... maybe we could add an attitude modifier that reduces trust whenever you eliminate another empire? It could even be modulated based on who the empire you killed was (ie. Were they nearby? An ally?)

wilbefast wrote:
I'll ask François for the save - maybe the higher tier unit technologies need a boost.

I wiped my previous saves of that game on my PC, but it should still be attached here on the forums. I'll see if I can dig it up.

I'll take another look at the equipment too. Last I checked the designs were generally pretty decent - it's just that the AI isn't retrofitting its units as quickly as it needs to. We're pretty cautious of just upping the retrofit priority though: this tends to eat all the AI's dust and means that it is behind in the hero-hiring race. So we'll probably need to look into how they can be more intelligent about who they retrofit. We already did a pass on this and it's better than it was, but perhaps it still needs work.

I personally don't do much retrofitting early game. The problem is that late game, if you keep that attitude, you are a sitting duck. The AIs in my games are usually pretty well off from what I see when I propose trade deals. What are they doing with all that dust and those stacks of resources after turn 130 or so?



I don't know what the average player does wrt heroes, but do you really need more than 3 of them on an average sized map?

Hmm... maybe we could add an attitude modifier that reduces trust whenever you eliminate another empire? It could even be modulated based on who the empire you killed was (ie. Were they nearby? An ally?)

That is a VERY good idea. A player's willingness to war on a whim should be a warning bell to other empires. May I suggest that it also trigger when you declare war and are the aggressor? Not sure if that can be done. Sometimes I don't completely eliminate another empire, I just beat it down enough so that it loses the score race or is prevented from getting an economic or wonder victory.

wilbefast wrote:


Hmm... maybe we could add an attitude modifier that reduces trust whenever you eliminate another empire? It could even be modulated based on who the empire you killed was (ie. Were they nearby? An ally?)

That would be a great idea. It would make diplomacy closer to a "living system", based on several factors to which the AI reacts, as opposed to the limited system we have now.



Which is why the next expansion should be naval AND diplomacy focused (without a new faction). A lot can be done in the latter area.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
That would be a great idea. It would make diplomacy closer to a "living system", based on several factors to which the AI reacts, as opposed to the limited system we have now.



Which is why the next expansion should be naval AND diplomacy focused (without a new faction). A lot can be done in the latter area.

I think this is the file. Please take a look and notice that the AI is doing things like putting 5 Driders in one army. My faction is the only one with truly mixed stacks on the board that I can see.



Also notice the stats on the AI armies compared to mine. What are they equipping them with?
Broken Lords - Turn 240.zip

Slashman wrote:
That is a VERY good idea. A player's willingness to war on a whim should be a warning bell to other empires. May I suggest that it also trigger when you declare war and are the aggressor? Not sure if that can be done. Sometimes I don't completely eliminate another empire, I just beat it down enough so that it loses the score race or is prevented from getting an economic or wonder victory.

Ah yes, interesting point



We have attitude modifiers for mutual friends (empires at peace), enemies and allies, but there are a few more we could add to fill things out - currently a friend of my friend is a friend and an enemy of my enemy is a friend, but an enemy of my friend is not an enemy.

• Eliminated an ally
• Eliminated a friend
• Eliminated an enemy
• Declared war on an ally
• Declared war on a friend
• Declared war on an enemy
• ... ?
  
  

Adding the modifiers can be tricky, so we'll probably want to choose carefully which ones we implement. The big cost though is the feedback messages in three variation for each faction and translated into all the supported languages We may not need pop-up messages for each of these modifiers though.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
That would be a great idea. It would make diplomacy closer to a "living system", based on several factors to which the AI reacts, as opposed to the limited system we have now.

Which is why the next expansion should be naval AND diplomacy focused (without a new faction). A lot can be done in the latter area.

There have been requests for improvements with regard to how the AI handles late-game play and the pursuit of victory conditions. We might be able to handle this with attitude modifiers too as it happens (ie. adding an "envy" modifier if an empire approaches victory). The risk is that all your friends turn on you, but we could handle this using yet another "long time ally" type trust modifier.



What we need to come up with is a short-list of modifiers that will really be impactful.

wilbefast wrote:
Ah yes, interesting point



We have attitude modifiers for mutual friends (empires at peace), enemies and allies, but there are a few more we could add to fill things out - currently a friend of my friend is a friend and an enemy of my enemy is a friend, but an enemy of my friend is not an enemy.

• Eliminated an ally
• Eliminated a friend
• Eliminated an enemy
• Declared war on an ally
• Declared war on a friend
• Declared war on an enemy
• ... ?
  
  

Adding the modifiers can be tricky, so we'll probably want to choose carefully which ones we implement. The big cost though is the feedback messages in three variation for each faction and translated into all the supported languages We may not need pop-up messages for each of these modifiers though.





There have been requests for improvements with regard to how the AI handles late-game play and the pursuit of victory conditions. We might be able to handle this with attitude modifiers too as it happens (ie. adding an "envy" modifier if an empire approaches victory). The risk is that all your friends turn on you, but we could handle this using yet another "long time ally" type trust modifier.



What we need to come up with is a short-list of modifiers that will really be impactful.

edit:

Slashman wrote:
Also notice the stats on the AI armies compared to mine. What are they equipping them with?

They've actually done a decent job keeping their units on the field up to date. Looking at the line-up though I'd say the big issue is that they don't have any Uncommon equipment researched and aren't using dust equipment. I'll try to figure out why...

wilbefast wrote:




They've actually done a decent job keeping their units on the field up to date. Looking at the line-up though I'd say the big issue is that they don't have any Uncommon equipment researched and aren't using dust equipment. I'll try to figure out why...

Thanks! Dust equipment can really round out a loadout instead of using iron.



Please also look into the AI researching its second and third tier units. I noted before that some are fine with just the second (Ardent Mages) and some have their best performance with the third (like Allayi).



Thanks also for looking into adding those modifiers to react to player aggression. I think that could make a potentially big difference to the late game inactivity issue.