Difficulty Settings

[KimjonIl]

I really hate it when games don't explain how difficulty affect gameplay. What exactly do the settings do? I want the fairest setting where the AI gets no bonuses and is on a level playing field to the player (but still unshackled in terms of thinking).

[ayrtep]

It would be good to know.

For example, does the AI get more stuff, or is the combat biased in favour of the AI in some way? Do buildings cost more? Are AI units stronger or luckier?

[Kestral]

I think it probably effects the starting strength and growth rate of neutral stacks, possibly the strength of armies encountered in ancient wonders, etc.

I bet there's a half-dozen factors that are effected by difficulty level. I don't see a description on the wiki yet though.

[⎝Wyrd Deofol⎠]

Originally posted by KimjonIl:

I really hate it when games don't explain how difficulty affect gameplay. What exactly do the settings do? I want the fairest setting where the AI gets no bonuses and is on a level playing field to the player (but still unshackled in terms of thinking).

A dev said ai gets discounts on stuff with all resources

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by ⎝Apostate⎠:

Originally posted by KimjonIl:

I really hate it when games don't explain how difficulty affect gameplay. What exactly do the settings do? I want the fairest setting where the AI gets no bonuses and is on a level playing field to the player (but still unshackled in terms of thinking).

A dev said ai gets discounts on stuff with all resources

Source?

[Syn]

Man, how are AI going to overthrow humanity if they still need to cheat in a 4x game.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Syn:

Man, how are AI going to overthrow humanity if they still need to cheat in a 4x game.

That... is actually an interesting approach, having Deep Blue playing a 4x game. No. Magic The Gathering. That I would like to see.

[⎝Wyrd Deofol⎠]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Originally posted by ⎝Apostate⎠:

A dev said ai gets discounts on stuff with all resources

Source?

A dev. With more than 2000 threads i am not going to find it.

[ayrtep]

Using something like alpha zero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZero it should not be to hard to have a 4x AI that crushes humans.

The problem is that it won't help sell games. There will be constant complaints about the AI cheating and people will stop buying. So why spend money on it.

[KimjonIl]

That's because devs actually let the AI cheat to make up for bad behavioral coding i.e can see all the map etc. as it needs this to make decent decisions.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by Syn:

Man, how are AI going to overthrow humanity if they still need to cheat in a 4x game.

Beyond all reason ai learns from its mistakes.
It stop sending planes and start sending boats when i got anti air.
A lot of people praised it.
There was a video about an ai becoming a pro starcraft 2 player after learning to play the game.
We have ai learning.
But smart ai dont make for fun video games.
I dont know about you but i fight ai when i want a relaxing game.
I fight humans if i want to hear them crying about how unfair it is they lost.

[KimjonIl]

enjoy easy mode. thats why they have difficulty settings.

[Evalis]

The AI also cheats in items and levels for it's heroes, has a greater range of diplomatic options and is capable of just spawning in units. They certainly play by different rules even on the easiest of settings.

[KimjonIl]

Originally posted by Evalis:

The AI also cheats in items and levels for it's heroes, has a greater range of diplomatic options and is capable of just spawning in units. They certainly play by different rules even on the easiest of settings.

That is the kind of lazy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that I hate. Wish I could get a refund or hopefully someone makes a community patch later.

[Sifer2]

Originally posted by Evalis:

The AI also cheats in items and levels for it's heroes, has a greater range of diplomatic options and is capable of just spawning in units. They certainly play by different rules even on the easiest of settings.

Yeah that's kind of annoyance I have with the game at the moment. It seems really hard to get loot for your heroes. Most of it comes with higher level heroes for free OR you capture, and sell enemy AI heroes for their gear since "somehow" they actually get loot lol.

[Inconmon]

I played a game on hard difficulty and that may answer your question. Found the opposing mage. I had been nonstop producing troops across my cities. I had gotten to tier 3 and so my army was 2/3 tier 1 and 1/3 tier 2 with the first 2 tier 3 units rolling in.

The AI mage had twice as many units with most of them being tier 3 and few tier 2 units. The battle ended up a total rout with me losing 18 units and killing 2 (auto battle). Didn't bother using the next set of units for a second round.

It felt absurdly skewed and cheaty on any level. There's no way he could have produced 15+ tier 3 units or gotten his hero to level 10 at that point by any normal means. There was also no way for me to win unless I managed to catch out parts of the army by themselves.

I did use two enemy army spells to soften them up but made no difference. Had 3 unit enchantments and 1 race transformation up as well by that point.

Maybe with a better build order and rushing tier 3 you can pull together 18 units to compete and by not taking any losses you can take the second set of his army. Or maybe my race was weak and having a stronger one you can fare slightly better?

Clearly my AoW1+2 skills decayed to the point I can't play AoW4 on hard yet. On the other hand, normal was no challenge at all.