Campaign AI fixed?

[First Mate]

I remember making a thread a while back, did the last update fix the campaign AI? It seemed like it became insanely hard, I was playing the Serpent and got up to Otomo's betrayal and it was insanely hard, it was never this hard in the original.

[Deykenhow]

I m playing as the dragon. In the campainmission were i have to to save the monks its impossable. Constant flut of enemy ninjas and lotus warriors.

[First Mate]

Originally posted by Deykenhow:

I m playing as the dragon. In the campainmission were i have to to save the monks its impossable. Constant flut of enemy ninjas and lotus warriors.

They 100% made a change to the AI which affected the campaign difficulty drastically, its just so frustrating

[Sjokt]

I just re-downloaded after letting the game develop for a few years, seeing as it is launching out of EA soon. Started a Serpent campaign, and have got to Serpentholm, and I cannot get passed the mission. Noticed around mission 4, went to try and go via the Lotus land, that the AI seemed insanely difficult even for Normal difficulty. Now on mission 7, having to wipe out both Wolf and Lotus, has caused me to give up,

[First Mate]

Originally posted by Sjokt:

I just re-downloaded after letting the game develop for a few years, seeing as it is launching out of EA soon. Started a Serpent campaign, and have got to Serpentholm, and I cannot get passed the mission. Noticed around mission 4, went to try and go via the Lotus land, that the AI seemed insanely difficult even for Normal difficulty. Now on mission 7, having to wipe out both Wolf and Lotus, has caused me to give up,

Yeah normal difficulty use to be fine back in the day, now its ridiculous.

[Sjokt]

Originally posted by First Mate:

Originally posted by Sjokt:

I just re-downloaded after letting the game develop for a few years, seeing as it is launching out of EA soon. Started a Serpent campaign, and have got to Serpentholm, and I cannot get passed the mission. Noticed around mission 4, went to try and go via the Lotus land, that the AI seemed insanely difficult even for Normal difficulty. Now on mission 7, having to wipe out both Wolf and Lotus, has caused me to give up,

Yeah normal difficulty use to be fine back in the day, now its ridiculous.

Tried dropping it down to easy for the mission, I think it might be harder than normal should haha. Maybe they've inverted the difficulty or something?

I get the AI in RTS "cheat" for difficulty, but when you have no hope of winning it ruins the fun. Hopefully the Devs patch this before the full release later in the month.

[󠀡󠀡]

Hey, thanks for sharing your feedback.

I want to be transparent about what's happening with the AI since the changes we made have had some unexpected effects, particularly in the campaign.

Over the course of ZE development, we fundamentally changed how the AI works - removing all the old 'cheats' (like resource bonuses and faster training) and instead teaching it to play more intelligently: using proper unit counters, microing in combat, and working together with allied AI. The goal was to make the AI a proper sparring partner rather than a punching bag.

However, this created unforeseen issues with campaign missions, mostly those designed as 1-vs-many scenarios (old design of the game) due to the overly scripted nature of the above. The original campaign used scripts to 'lock' and 'unlock' AI opponents at specific triggers, but our new smarter AI interacts with these old scripts in ways we didn't anticipate. Missions like the Monk Monastery, Soul Flame, Serpentholm, and certain Wolf missions are particularly affected.

We'll be actively working on redesigning these problematic missions and the general campaign pace in the upcoming updates as we understand things can be frustrating. The challenge is finding the right balance - we want missions to be engaging and require strategy, but not tediously difficult on Normal difficulty.

For now, if you're struggling with a particular mission, try the Easy difficulty - it reduces AI intelligence to 30% and decreases enemy unit/building armor by 25%. We'll have more comprehensive fix in the near future.

---

If you're curious how to complete certain missions in the current balance, I recommend checking out some of the playthroughs on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/_-4L02RRtdA?si=bPCciysqC-kOnues

[Sjokt]

Originally posted by K.:

However, this created unforeseen issues with campaign missions, mostly those designed as 1-vs-many scenarios (old design of the game) due to the overly scripted nature of the above. The original campaign used scripts to 'lock' and 'unlock' AI opponents at specific triggers, but our new smarter AI interacts with these old scripts in ways we didn't anticipate. Missions like the Monk Monastery, Soul Flame, Serpentholm, and certain Wolf missions are particularly affected.

We'll be actively working on redesigning these problematic missions and the general campaign pace in the upcoming updates as we understand things can be frustrating. The challenge is finding the right balance - we want missions to be engaging and require strategy, but not tediously difficult on Normal difficulty.

This is great to hear, thank you for being transparent and clarifying for the player base.

[KM]

Last 2 missions on hard as dragon clan are legit impossible if you're not some Esport champs , what worked for me in save the monks mission was building watchtowers and massproducing t1 units constantly

[Xavi-Da-Imp]

Personally I didnt mind the challenege with these last missions on hard. Having to think out side the box, using actual formations, terrain etc. to beat the odds was really satisfying and fun.

So I kinda would like not for it to be nerfed. Maybe, if this was becouse of some glitch in the AI or something, make a new, seperate from hard, difficulty level for it :)

[kokliplim]

yeah it happen to me yet i need to save and retry 10X time to pass the mission

[tattuvamasi]

I just got clobbered on the second Serpent mission, normal difficulty...first thing I did was go to the rice field and build a peasant hut and tavern. Before my tavern is even done construction I got attacked by about a dozen archers and four swords, not sure how I am supposed to beat that with my starting force of three guys and two heros. Seems like the AI immediately sends everyone it has to attack me at the start, then just trickles in whatever it can afford. Challenging is one thing...this seems more like it's broken.

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by tattuvamasi:

I just got clobbered on the second Serpent mission, normal difficulty...first thing I did was go to the rice field and build a peasant hut and tavern. Before my tavern is even done construction I got attacked by about a dozen archers and four swords, not sure how I am supposed to beat that with my starting force of three guys and two heros. Seems like the AI immediately sends everyone it has to attack me at the start, then just trickles in whatever it can afford. Challenging is one thing...this seems more like it's broken.

That definitely is not supposed to happen and can indeed be considered broken. There must be some trigger that we're missing that has this happen to people on this particular mission (we've had this report a couple tines), but it's difficult to replicate.

You can replay this mission and see that it doesn't happen all the time. If possible, please, send us a save file when you get attacked by the AI, that could help look into the triggers that made it happen.

[Whatchout]

its surely not easy but if u focus on a good army with healers and piercing damage , u can win against every AI

[Agosaxv1.22474487139]

Didnt the devs add easy mode for Campaign Maybe Easy mode is the original normal mode?

[Soldier]

A mod can easily be made to fix your campaign frustrations. I can actually create it. Add me on discord: Artion7770