AI is waaaaaay too hard

[baby on ipad]

I was playing a random setting with me and 1 other country and I made 50 pikemen and 40 musketmen. Poland comes over and attacks me with less people, and guess who loses... And they're on normal. I am new to the game though, has it always been this way with the other games?

[PikaTheChu]

oh come on, even on impossible it's braindead, it follows the same schema over and over again, no matter what you do. Walls are your friend and you can easily lure their armies away from your town for an eternity.

[Cherebuschka]

You just lack experience for the moment but it will come the more you play. Once you gain more experience you will be able to fight more difficult AI like the impossible and several at a time.
From what you describe I think you had too much musketeers, they are not so great at the beginning of the game and take more time to train than pike, and maybe you lack upgrade for you men especially for pikemen (more of an economical problem). Also did you put your pikemen or your musketeer in formation with an officer and a drummer ?
Formation give a huge bonus at the beginning of the game +2 attack, +3 defense for melee and +2 attack, +2 defence for shooter. You can make formation of infantry of 36, 72, 120, 196 and 400 in Cossacks (40, 90 and 160 for cavalry no officer or drummer needed)

[baby on ipad]

Originally posted by Zulgaines:

It's not hard, it just removes the braindead "easy" AI that most of these games have that no one ends up using after a couple practice games.

I went from losing on Normal to fighting on fairly equal terms with Very Hard within a day.

Start the game by building 2 town halls, don't stop making workers for the majority of the game, get a couple barracks pumping out early pikemen quickly, and don't forget to work in upgrades of your units when possible, especially the cheap >500 food ones you get early on.

Remember that this game can get up to thousands of units so 50 is really nothing and musketmen aren't suppose to be an early game unit.

Pikemen are your core army, then you get calvery in there and finally you slowly transition into more and more musket heavy armies as the game progresses and you get more upgrades under your belt.

Also keep in mind this isn't Starcraft and units move slowly, I go as far as turning my game speed down to normal so that I can focus on making proper lines of defense and positioning my men to do as much damage as possible.

Having line formations of pikemen on hold ground can even work as early game walls, since they get many defensive buffs from that.

Thank you, I'll try that :)

[Shouravik]

I just beat an impossible AI, its not hard to beat them if you have proper macro and micro.

[gaph3r]

I love that the game has formations... and it is cool that the AI seems to use them, but the lines of battle pretty much fall apart the moment two enemy formations come into range of each other. It just falls apart into another micro-slog. Whether it is Starcraft with 200 units or Cossacks with 2000, it is the same nonsense. I was hoping for something closer to AOE meets Empire: Total War... maybe I am doing something wrong? I really hope that I am, because if this game is just about micro and clicks per minute, at least make the formations into viable individual units that doesn't fall apart the moment it sees a single enemy unit.

[gaph3r]

Originally posted by Zulgaines:

Originally posted by gaph3r:

I love that the game has formations... and it is cool that the AI seems to use them, but the lines of battle pretty much fall apart the moment two enemy formations come into range of each other. It just falls apart into another micro-slog. Whether it is Starcraft with 200 units or Cossacks with 2000, it is the same nonsense. I was hoping for something closer to AOE meets Empire: Total War... maybe I am doing something wrong? I really hope that I am, because if this game is just about micro and clicks per minute, at least make the formations into viable individual units that doesn't fall apart the moment it sees a single enemy unit.

Are you commanding formations correctly, or still doing it like the older style games?

First off just being in a formation gives you bonuses to stats.

Next formations have two settings, stand easy, which lets them run off and attack whoever they see, or stand ground, which will cause them to stay in their formation and only attack enemies who come into range. Stand ground also give an extra bonus to defense. This is how you make formations of melee defenders that act as shields for ranged warriors or walls.

You also have the setting "move and attack" which is actually a toggle that determines if the formation will move to a point before attacking or attack anything that gets in their way while moving to a point.

Thank you for the response. I think by your definition I am using them correctly. I have used all three of the different formation dispositions. I'll give you an example of my frustration.

In the last game I played I easily out eco'd the AI and my score was above the AIs the entire match. I pushed out of starting area, secured resources, built some defenses and always kept pumping out men until I pushed into the 18th century tech/barracks. Meanwhile, the AI kept building a larger and larger force of pikemen. I thought, great, I'll build some canons and that will be that. So here I stand, with my combined-arms force of pikemen formations (yes with both officer and drummer) set to stand ground, my 18th century musketeers, canons and a few formations of special units, as well as a fast reaction force of calvary kept in reserve for opportunities to take out artillary.

The AI attacks after what seemed like an eternity of building up its army, then pulling it back, then returning to the edge of my lines. But it also has a couple of canons. The AI charges in, my men start dropping. It just turns into a giant slog. There is zero unit collision. The formations are... frankly, useless. I can't keep the AI pikemen from marching right into my musketeers or my own canons. I can't target the AI's reserve forces with my canons because they are all standing on top of each other on top of my own units. So it is just a giant zergfest.

Besides the initate bonuses, what other point is there to using the formations, because without collision detection (ala Total War), it is just an extra step for me to organize them all with drummers and officers, the moment the battle starts they all bunch up and then it is anyone's guess until one force is wiped out. How do you guys deal with this? Because when you ask if I am "still doing it like the older style games" this is the epitome of what I hate about older style games. Why bother with the effort of formations if they don't do what formations are intended to do in the first place?

[Zhardoz]

If Balloons are toggled off do the AI see the fog of far as well? ( i like making suprise attacks)

[Powellinho.72]

on normal mode. the ai got itself an army and killed me in 14 mins. i wasnt expecting it that fast. not on normal mode anyway.

[Prisoner 76561197992841073]

got the game, first thing i did was played a random map against normal AI. easy win, what the hell is wrong with you OP

[Prisoner 76561197992841073]

Originally posted by Zulgaines:

Originally posted by high-tech modern technology:

got the game, first thing i did was played a random map against normal AI. easy win, what the hell is wrong with you OP

Surprisingly not all people are equal in all aspects or skills.

They often include various difficulty levels for this reason.

yeah you're right not all humans are equal