AI Difficulty (not what you think)

[Ahmazzan]

Note: whilst I was writing this, I noticed a post discussing how the AI was broken (as in didn't work and failed to resist in any meaningful way). This makes me feel somewhat worse... as my experience has been anything but that. TL;DR can be found at the end.

Update: After putting in the same level of concentration I'd expect to have to use against a Harder Starcraft AI, (i.e. not having resources taken up in production queues, being very aggressive and generally focusing) I was able to defeat the easy convincingly. However... that isn't easy. I don't know if the game is bugged or things are broken but to call that “easy” and expect players new to RTSes to be able to do that is ludicrous...

I'm not exactly new to strategy games, I've completed games like Starcraft on brutal difficulty, and I'm steaming through this game's campaign on "classic" which I'm not finding particularly challenging. However I'm having significant trouble beating an easy in this game's skirmish mode.

My experience of skirmish against "easy"

In his initial video TotalBiscuit described the skirmish AI as being utterly brain dead and having to cheat to be even remotely challenging on hard, but... this "easy" AI is chucking waves of enemies at me thusly:

(I'm playing as Gaalsian, the enemy is the Coalition)

02:30: 4 Light attack
04:10: 6 Light attack (including survivors from first wave)

-so far so good, it's what I'd expect of an easy. But...

06:45: 7 Light attack + 4 Armoured assault
07:30: 3 Light attack + 3 Armoured assault
08:43: 2 Light attack + 2 Armoured assault
10:00: 5 Light attack + 4 Armoured assault + 3 Strike fighters

From this point forward all enemy attacks are accompanied by 3 or more strike fighters, and aircraft will -continually- harass any units I have on the ground. (I don't know how aircraft mechanics work in skirmish; landing and rearming etc. since I've never got to the point where I can build the damn things! but all I know is the AI's aircraft seem to ALLWAYS be in the air, they either don't land or it can pump out so many of them that they can have a constant stream of them between their and my carrier by 11 minutes...)

11:00: 6 Light attack + 5 Armoured assault
>my defences are overwhelmed and resistance effectively ends.<

Looking at the map when my defenceless carrier was killed at 16:40, the enemy had mined out their first resource base, possessed 11 resource collectors (6 were idle), 2 Assault cruisers, two missile batteries, 3 strike craft (in the air at least), a base runner, 7 light attack and 7 armoured assault.

This occurred 3 different times whilst playing on both 2 player maps (I wanted to make sure it wasn't a bug)

HTFU/GitGud/Noob!

After making this post that is certainly what I am trying to do! however, like I said, I'm not a complete beginner to strategy games: Starcraft, Dawn of War, Company of Heroes and the previous Homeworld titles are all games I've played, enjoyed, and often been able to go more or less toe to toe with the harder difficulties of AI, so it came as a bit of a surprise that I got trounced by easy in this game - that is with also knowing the enemy's likely build order and trying to counter that!:

After setting up some skimmer groups I rushed railguns to deal with the inevitable Armoured assault groups. It worked. for two waves. Then aircraft surgically removed my railguns. Now I had no air defence - more fool me but the problem is if I had gone for researching air defence I then wouldn't have rail guns, I'd have used all my RUs. "But", you say, "expand sooner so you have more RUs!" But then I'd have to go for carrier refinery (my plan in my first few games) but then I have neither railguns nor AA in sufficient numbers to make a difference.

Conclusion

It's entirely possible (and I think most likely) that I'm just not familiar with the game yet and I'm making fundamental mistakes. But I would be interested in hearing other people's feedback regarding skirmish. If it is indeed as challenging as I think it is then (whilst I'm not complaining per say, since a challenge is nice) then really easy needs to be... well... easier. I just wanted a nice relaxing game where I could explore the Gaalsian tech tree and units. instead I find myself unsuccessfully fighting for my life!

TL:DR

I'm an experienced RTSer, but finding "easy" AI very challenging. Is it my fault?

[C7I]

I think you're just not used to homeworld's pacing and economic, i have troubles too when im playing HW game first time, it's unexpectly so much different from other RTS in the market.

I don't have troubles with DoK tho.

[Dark]

I feel your pain dude. I too am a very skilled RTS gamer. I live for RTS games. I have been struggling with taking on one easy AI. And getting my ass kicked. The thing that’s really getting me is how quickly the AI is coming to my base and attacking.

I would prefer a 15 min cease fire time limit to at least give me more time to get acquainted with the game. And Yes I admit the game is still new to me so that part I get. But still having to leave population drones on the ground to expand your units build caps is a very odd choice the devs made. I’m not for that at all. I would have rather they made some type of add-on to the carrier that expanded your units pop cap. At least then I can drive around without worrying about losing that pop cap drone.

I also find it really frustrating the lack of maps and their small size. That really pissed me off to no end. I wanted to see some really large maps. Not sure what the devs were thinking when they made this choice. But the lack of MP maps was the real turn off.

I’m going to give the game a little more time, but so far the game is not what I was expecting and it’s defiantly not living up to the expectation I was hoping for.

[Dark]

Originally posted by C7I:

I think you're just not used to homeworld's pacing and economic, i have troubles too when im playing HW game first time, it's unexpectly so much different from other RTS in the market.

I don't have troubles with DoK tho.

That’s not the case for me; I own HW in space and have no issues with beating down the AI. But this game, it’s far off the mark. Not at all like the space game or its pacing.

[Ahmazzan]

It's just something that caught me a bit off guard:

- I've played (and loved the homeworld series) and so am familiar, broadly, with its pacing.

- The forums are filled with people saying the AI is braindead (I'm not arguing with them! they may well have found it braindead, but what I experienced against easy was FAR from what I would call braindead, constantly attacking with more and more powerful waves.)

- I had to put the same level of concentration in to kill the easy in this game as I would have for a hard or harder in Starcraft II which I don't think should be the case.

- This ISN'T a complaint. I don't wan't the AI "nerfed" since, if all the other feedback is to be believed, the AI is terrible... I just, don't think easy should be called easy... because it would likely crush someone new to the genre. (I'll probably be proven wrong on that one).

[dranozir]

i win my first game vs easy IA. I just repair my unit after all ennemy attak.

[Mr. Fibble]

The AI cheats by design.

The number of units the ai can throw at you doesnt relate to the speed resources can be gathered at. This was a pretty common way of making ai's hard for older rts titles like C&C. However if you can turtle up and surf the waves the AI will run out of resources and be open to anything you send it's way.

[Magpie842]

I think the AI is a lot better than people are saying.

I'm a seasoned RTS veteran and I found my first few games against Easy AI were a baptism of fire. Now I can handle myself quite well but damn, that AI knows how to mount the pressure. Just what we like!

[Tenath]

The AI seems to work well enough for the first very first phase of the game, basically LAV's, tanks and interceptors, rushing you efficiently, but if it doesn't succeed in wiping you out in this time, it sort of dies out past that point. Coalition AI does much better than Gaalsien somehow.

Did a quick run 1v1 on normal with me as Gaalsien and AI as Coalition. That was my second run as Gaalsien, albeit I'd quickly abandoned the previous one.
The basic rundown of actions/events:
1). Quickly put Sandskimmer to research, started building two salvagers.
2). Sent Production cruiser to a nearby wreck site, started building sandskimmers.
3). Repelled the first "attack" (2-3 LAVs) with the skimmers + attack-boosted carrier.
4). Built 9 skimmers and 1 baserunner (for heals and as decoy), sent them to harass the enemy base. Took out a few salvagers before the AI could rally his defenses.
5). In the meantime researched Assault ships, resource drop-off on Prod. cruiser, started harvesting the wreck.
6). By that point, he wiped out my skimmers, and I pulled the baserunner back. He started building tanks and interceptors. I started building tanks, and put missile ship to research.
7). After building 5-6 tanks and a missile ship to repel the attacks, then started researching siege cruiser. At this point (~10 minutes) he started battering me with interceptors, bringing down the carrier to 65% or so.
8). Built a siege cruiser, sent it and the tanks to assault the enemy base. Managed to do 2 barrages straight at the carrier. Then, since I'd carelessly left my siege cruiser unguarded and rushed forward with the tanks, he took out my cruiser. Enemy carrier was now at 70%.
9). Retreated, started building another cruiser, and a mixture of tanks and missiles to replenish the losses.
10). In a couple of minutes, got the fleet running, and sent it off in a formation to attack the enemy, now keeping my distance from the base to minimize losses. In the meantime, started building another cruiser.
11). Gradually barraged his carrier out of existance, while also harassing his second wreck site with the tanks.

The game ended at 18:10, CU's harvested 13350 vs 18988 for AI, RU's harvested 3240 vs 3640, and that's just by keeping the two sites mostly alive. Can't say I'm a very good RTS player in general, and this was my first serious run as Gaalsien, so my tactics were fairly sloppy.

I do have to say that DoK is a lot more hectic than previous HW's, mainly due to much higher movement speed and lower health for units.

[Magpie842]

Originally posted by Mr. Fibble:

The AI cheats by design.

The number of units the ai can throw at you doesnt relate to the speed resources can be gathered at. This was a pretty common way of making ai's hard for older rts titles like C&C. However if you can turtle up and surf the waves the AI will run out of resources and be open to anything you send it's way.

Only the hard ai has bonus money, x1.2

[Scorch]

>Coalition AI does much better than Gaalsien somehow.

I confirm. Experinced this on normal difficulty, Coalition AI used most of his assets and even moved his carrier around, which I can't say about Gaalsien AI.

[Liren]

Played a 2v2 with all Coalition and was going well, seemed fairly even. Game crashed due to an unexpected error. <-- My only complaint there, really. Didn't try Galsien, but by all reports (and most videos I've seen) the AI sucks with them.

[TheokolesTW]

Its tough to deal with at first, but once you are established the AI can do nothing to hurt you.

Once you realise that the AI works to a pattern you can build your force around that. After 10-15 mins you should be golden.

[Liren]

Addendum: it's a harassment AI. Once you can stop their harass tactics they're done. Even with Coalition.

Easy win: 4-6 LAVs to hold off early attack, 2 more resource for max. Mix armor and rails, make sure you have AA by 7-8 minutes - retire LAVs, start second resource area, good to go. They can't touch you and your murderball will take anything they can throw at you. Just be sure to keep your carrier alive/cover with some AA.

They don't seem to understand capital ship production. It's either that or the harassment AI used up resources too quickly to make one before the murderball gets rolling.

[Champin Playr]

L2P thread

[Tenath]

Generally seeing an odd assault cruiser here and there if the game drags on (2v2,3v3), but that's it. Resources are somewhat slow to accumulate in this game, so once they waste a ton on basic units, not much is left for advanced research, cruisers and bombers.