AI getting free honor guard?

[samus390]

To put it simply and short, the AI are getting massive amounts of honor guard squads withuot actually taking any territories for them. Necrons were sitting in the space port for 7 turns doing nothing and over the course of that time they went from 3 honor guard squads to 9. Is there something im missing or what? I thought maybe that was the garrison in the province being shown on honor guard screen but when they attack me all of those squads come and bang on my front door when I get into the battle. And why do i only get individuals for my honorguard while the AI gets squads(although the champions and veterans are far better)? Also when they dont have the forward base bonus why on earth do they start with a free fully furnished base (or sometimes two) and proxy structures with listening posts? I assume balancing is reason for a fair amount of this as I am still winning but its impossible if i dont already have a garrison and base set up. As of now my stronghold is getting assaulted by some Orcs (they snuck around) and they have 11 squads banging at my base that is just being started protected by a full garrison which is smaller thatn their honor guard.

[Faunts]

Well to be fair, the very first thing you do is push Necrons out of the game. Because if you give them enough time to grow their forces, they will start killing everything and everyone before you can.

[samus390]

Originally posted by Peter="MG47":

Well to be fair, the very first thing you do is push Necrons out of the game. Because if you give them enough time to grow their forces, they will start killing everything and everyone before you can.

Well thats not the point although true(I wouldn't know). All other factions get them free too as long as its not me. I assume that the yare not bound by the honor guard system and that they are only bound by the requisition they gain and so they are able to recrui at will but because they throw them away at the beginning they have to rebulld it as you do

[Latharion]

The reason why the AI behaves this way is... technically, it cheats. The AI does not need to conquer regions in order to acquire PR points to buy honor guard squads. It receives an amount of PR based on stuff like difficulty selected, relative total power, etc. It will then purchase one squad per turn if it can. If you wait 7 turns to hit their leader and it's squad, you may very well end up facing a full retinue of honor guard units. Note that if an AI assaults another AI, either side may lose honor guard units in the process, which works out well for the player as it keeps the AI power levels down to a dull roar.

Regarding the guard unit mix (single units vs squads)... You are probably playing as the Space Marines. If that is the case, then yes, most of the honor guard units are single units and not squads (scout marines are a squad, but I think that's it). I do not know why this is the case, but it is. When I play as the SM, I view the honor guard as a defense against quick assaults. The units come fully equipped or with the immediate potential to do so (like the SM units that can be upgraded to rockel launnchers, heavy bolters or flamers without having to wait to build the proper structure to support them). At least the SM has two extra Terminators, which is very cool.

[Wendek]

Chaos and SM are the two factions with single-units as honor guard I think. Don't really know why, at least in the case of Chaos it ends up inferior to other factions' Honor units. For instance Tau can get up to two Firewarrior bodyguard squads with awesome range and damage.
You still get some vehicles though, at least I had a Defiler, not sure if I got a Predator or not.

[The nameless Gamer]

SM and CSM get virtually useless honour guard. Compared to the Eldar, who get an additional Seer Council (which can also be reinforced to full 9 models), the mentioned Tau Elite Fire warriros (who shoot at ridiculous range and on the move) and the Imperial Guard's two Vindicare Assasins, the SM/CSM honour guards look laughable.

[TheRangerLOL]

Except for the fact that the SM Honor Guard (the veterans at least) can be upgraded to be good vs literally any target. I find them especially useful in the Necron HQ mission.

[Latharion]

The single unit honor guard squads are very good targets for units that can one-shot a target (like assassins, harlequins, SM scouts, rangers, etc...). That coupled with their high PR costs limits their usefulness in combat outside an initial push or for base protection. It's the same for some race's fragile honor guard vehicles.

[TheRangerLOL]

Except none of those units are very good at one shotting heroes, not even the Vindicare. Unless you're being extremely careless with your single unit Honor Guard then you should be fine.

[samus390]

I'm not having much trouble winning battles or playing the game in general I was moreso just curious as to how this fuctioned because I haven't played much of this game (only 17 hours don't judge me) so thanks everybody for the information especially Latharion as you helped me out the most. Now that I know how the system actually works rather than guessing I feel that I could probably play more efficiently and whatnot. Thanks everyone!

[AndreJN]

I'd like to point out again that the AI is cheating from the Players' point of view.

[Latharion]

And your point is...? Of course it's cheating. It's an AI, not a human. Computers have not advanced to the point that they can offer any kind of legitimate challenge to a human being all things being equal. The reason the AI cheats, especially at higher difficulty levels, is to offer the player a greater challenge. No game to date can replicate human behavior, so all computer generated players must cheat in one form or another. The problem isn't in how it cheats, it's to what extent. Could the AI use the same rules to build bases as the player? Sure, but the player would quite easily stomp the AI into the ground every single time. If the programmers had all the time they wanted to program an AI that is capable of fairly accurately simulating human behavior, they could, but it would be costly, and time-consuming, and the pay-off really cannot be justified when the player could, if desired, simply play against another human.

With regard to the campaign, the trick is to know how the AI works and prepare accordingly.