Should there be a harder mode than brutal?

[Moo]

So I have been playing AoW4 a lot lately, and I have been bumping up the difficulty and now I am on brutal, and the AI still feel pretty underwhelming. It seems the only challenging part of the game is in the first 30 turns or so, but it's mainly due to the aggressive infestations, not really the other AI players. The AI players just never seem very hard. I remember playing on the hardest level in Civ, you are constantly under pressure pretty much the entire game. Anyone else feel like the single player experience can use another level or two in difficulty?

[Blanch Warren]

While the AI has been improved, I think you'll just have to wait for a revolution in AI computing.

[Alexander]

AI opponents would have tier 4-5 units in the first 20 turns. Not really different from playing regenerating infestations. When you have tier 4-5 units, situation would be the same as now on Brutal, except you'd have to fight more battles. In general it would be just slower version of Brutal.

[Cindeerella]

Give AI major advantage and play against any Mystic ruler, I think that as much challenging as it can be, any non-Astral heavy AI is just a joke on Brutal indeed.

[Noin Trongaz]

Originally posted by jeem1972:

So I have been playing AoW4 a lot lately, and I have been bumping up the difficulty and now I am on brutal, and the AI still feel pretty underwhelming. It seems the only challenging part of the game is in the first 30 turns or so, but it's mainly due to the aggressive infestations, not really the other AI players. The AI players just never seem very hard. I remember playing on the hardest level in Civ, you are constantly under pressure pretty much the entire game. Anyone else feel like the single player experience can use another level or two in difficulty?

The game is indeed very easy.
One way to make it challenging is to install some mods like "only 2 tomes per tier" and give AI advantage while giving yourself a disadvantage in the settings. Don't make neutrals too strong or the AI will struggle with them by constantly losing units while clearing neutral places.

Another way to make it more challenging is by limiting yourself to only use autocombat while fighting neutral enemies (because autocombat means losing units in battles where you would normally not lose any, which normally gives the player a HUGE advantage over the AI. Losing 1 unit every couple of turns means you will have 10 less units in 20 turns as you otherwise would).

[Terminus]

Maybe set the game up with the AI in Team mode so they are all working together against you?

[aclyte]

Give Brutal AI major combat advantage
And to you major combat disadvantage
and try to win - i think it would be realy hard without some exploits.

[сын мясника]

Originally posted by aclyte:

Give Brutal AI major combat advantage
And to you major combat disadvantage
and try to win - i think it would be realy hard without some exploits.

Problem is that not harder, just slower. Devs just don't know how to work with their own engine. Problem with AI not only tactical. AI can't make good army. Simple move - make a scheme for AI army. AI must build stacks like 2 front units like shields or elems, 2 damage dealers, 1 support. And some mixes of that based on tomes.

But Triumph not a developers - they are traders.

[Janthis]

Originally posted by Bratty Doe:

Give AI major advantage and play against any Mystic ruler, I think that as much challenging as it can be, any non-Astral heavy AI is just a joke on Brutal indeed.

The AI is only a "joke" if you knowingly abuse the most OP builds and strategies, for most players it's fine.

[easytarget]

Have a hard time not reading threads like this as a bit mumble braggy. So I read between the lines and conclude some save scumming is a distinct possibility.

So here's a couple thoughts:

1. Play humans. I mean this should be so obvious it shouldn't need to be written.

2. or you can't revert to save in a multiplayer game. so host a private one for yourself with only AIs.

[Toddasaurus Rex]

I think the AI simply needs to organize stacks better. Rather than treating each individual pieces that can be moved around, as it does (which works for infestations) I feel like AI needs to have logic in its stack designs and move it together, rather than piecemeal moving units around to an endstate it desires. designing stacks or deploying them for certain threats, or means things like "this is a powerful stack, it is used with high tier units and assisted by other stacks of offensive generic units, to attack and clear wonder sites and hostiles", "This is a Garrison stack, it clears sites within my territory and destroys infestations near my borders" simply just synergy and better target selection for the AI would make them leaps more effective, they seem to buckle easily after the first initial clashes and their armies are wiped out and are very predictable with how they use their stacks.

[Sifer2]

You hit on the issue when you said the hard part is the first 30 turns. I think there is a limit how much they can buff the AI in a game design that favors snowballing. The solution is what Stellaris did with scaling difficulty where the AI's buffs increase as time goes on. This actually mimics how a good player will get stronger than the AI over time through better economic management, and strategy. It's amazing to me that so few 4X strategy designers have grasped this simple concept though. Not even CA offers scaling difficulty in Total War Warhammer, and that's a game that really needs it.

[TirAsleen]

Originally posted by easytarget:

Have a hard time not reading threads like this as a bit mumble braggy. So I read between the lines and conclude some save scumming is a distinct possibility.

So here's a couple thoughts:

1. Play humans. I mean this should be so obvious it shouldn't need to be written.

2. or you can't revert to save in a multiplayer game. so host a private one for yourself with only AIs.

Best answer, honestly.

This and that brutal A.I.s must be in teams. Still nothing compared to a real player, who can adapt to all kind of situations, though.

In my opinion, the only way to make SP challenging and exciting to play is to make a really tough campaign that uses handcraftet maps and special event scripts, like losing your capitol with tower in X amount of turns, Boss units, turn limits, which some might hate, and so on.

All of this is standard in several tactical games, since basicly the early 90ies.

Think TS did not use resources on that, because they could rely on PvP Sandboxes.

[Astronimo]

AI needs a heavy discount for enchantments and transformations. It is already good on strategic and tactical level, but if you go with some kind of a meta build, you will always win. Don't.
And for whiners. AoW4 has one of the best AIs out there in 4x games. If you want "better" - try OpenAI SC2 bot, that has millions of moves already calculated.

[Noin Trongaz]

Originally posted by easytarget:

Have a hard time not reading threads like this as a bit mumble braggy. So I read between the lines and conclude some save scumming is a distinct possibility.

So here's a couple thoughts:

1. Play humans. I mean this should be so obvious it shouldn't need to be written.

2. or you can't revert to save in a multiplayer game. so host a private one for yourself with only AIs.

I used to play only against humans in AoW2 SW. We had a great small community with tournaments, FFA games, leaderboard etc.
The problem is, one game takes 6 to 8 hours even on fastest settings and with no tactical combat against AI, with 2 minutes timer limit, sometimes we had a single multistack battle last a couple of hours. A lot of games were never finished because of it as the next day people don't want to continue a game where they were losing.

In AoW4, playing against humans is hard because first of all almost nobody plays PvP, there are often desync problems and the whole modular system is less balanced than in the previous games. Less people play AoW4 online than AoW2 or AoW3. Even in Planetfall I played mostly against humans, AoW4 is the first game where I don't feel like even trying PvP. I simply don't have 6+ hours free on the same day.

[Noin Trongaz]

Originally posted by Astronimo:

AI needs a heavy discount for enchantments and transformations. It is already good on strategic and tactical level, but if you go with some kind of a meta build, you will always win. Don't.
And for whiners. AoW4 has one of the best AIs out there in 4x games. If you want "better" - try OpenAI SC2 bot, that has millions of moves already calculated.

Why do you call people "whiners"? Having no challenge is a genuine problem for a lot of games, especially strategy games. If I know that there is no way I can lose I don't see the point in playing, you can simply skip the whole thing then. Strategy games are about adapting, problem solving and calculation of moves.

The tactical AI in AoW4 is VERY good, but the strategic AI is not, it is simply too passive. Even with a bunch of advantages, they don't push you for a veeery long time.
And I don't use meta builds, play with mods which heavily limit choices like only being able to have 2 tomes of the same tier, my latest games I was playing with challenges for myself like only using tier 1 and tier 2 units, only autocombat vs neutral armies etc. The problem is that the AI is not aggressive enough, if it would start attacking at least on turn 15+ it would be a lot more fun.