Does the AI cheat or do I suck?

[Micah]

I'm new to the game and am doing a Hard difficulty skirmish against 3 AIs, no teams. When I encountered my first neighbor I had a few basic units. However, they came at me with a dozen units with a wide range of different types including heros, strong units, weak units, etc. One of their units even one-shot my tactical infantry.

Am I just *really* bad at the game and should have a comparable force, or does the AI cheat a ton? If it matters, I'm playing space marines and I think the AI is the orks.

[Jey]

The higher difficulty AI "cheats" in the sense that they benefit from higher leveled unit (they start at 2 instead of 1 at Hard, 3 at very Hard....) and they have a boost to loyalty (which increases the production of their cities. I think it's +10 Loyalty at Hard? Which would mean +10% production roughly).
But that's it.

If you have difficulties against Hard AI, then you suck, but that's to be expected when you start the game.

[Anichan]

I noticed that IAs tend to rush the technologic tree in order to get the most powerfull units the fastest possible.

[easytarget]

Yes.

[ReignbowTwerk]

even very easy is too hard for me, i can have 3 times the units as another faction but their 3 units and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 30 wild AI jump on me then oh look all other AI are at my front door and im dead. constantly changing strategies and even when im far more well suited and high in research their trash units are nearly one hitting my heroes/war machines/ mechs another failure of a game from the warhammer 40k to be trashed.

[Jey]

"30 wild AI" don't jump on you all of a sudden.
Other AI don't get at your front door all of a sudden either.

If you want help, you probably need to start with one issue at a time. (Otherwise, I'm sorry, but aside from "git gud", there isn't much constructive thing I can tell you)
If you just want to whine that you can't win by smashing your head on the keyboard, then I'll leave you to it.

I can give generic advice :
-Look at the stats of your units, especially their traits, and the enemie's.
-Scout as far as you can before meeting neutrals to claim outposts (it gives resources and information about incoming enemies).
-Gather your army in one place and smash everything you meet. If you play a FFA, keep a few units (two or three) in the city tiles of your most exposed city to ensure some defense while your main army steamrolls the map. Ensure that you have regular unit production.
-Git gud.

[Philosophy Pigeon]

Sorry HeeilSvarti, but if you find very easy AI to be hard, its most likely the case that you still have a lot to learn, and not the game being trash.

The AI doesn't get damage or stat buffs to their units even at harder difficulties so its impossible for their trash units to be 1 shotting your heroes.

You can add me if you're eager to learn more about how to play the game, I'll gladly pair up with you against the AI and teach you some things along the way

EDIT: If you find your units abnormally fragile, could it be that you're playing Tau or Eldar? Those two races in particular have fragile units that need coordination to shine. If you're starting out, I recommend you play more straightforward factions like space marines / necrons / IG / orks first.

[Stormfox]

In general, a few things are extremely important in the early game:

- Build a second city asap and ideally a third one soon after. Especially that second city will almost double your resource output at the time. Try to position city centers on spaces with really good terrain bonuses. If your city center has +40% food, everything in city that produces food will get +50% - farms, production buildings and your HQ.

- Chose either infantry or vehicles at first. Depending on your starting terrain that choice might kinda be made for you, sometimes it is your preference. Plop down that building and research one new unit type for it relatively soon and keep it producing almost around the clock. Other important buildings are one early research building, one ore mine and usually one other resource building depending on your race and starting position (often a farm, sometimes psi thingies or power plants). My typical start is to grab the outpost next to it and then build a research booster before even doing anything else.

- Keep your starting troops and first reinforcements together. Especially if you play someone squishy like Imperials. Be aware that enemy spawn groups tend to leave you mostly alone if you do not attack them but will all engage you at once if you do - plan accordingly. Let them move into your overwatch, then retaliate on your turn. This often allows you to eliminate a unit completely so it does not run away and come back 7 turns later. Be extra careful with the strong unit packs (Umbras, Psychoflies, Kastellans, Brains). Against all of these you tend to need more advanced unit types than your starter guys and/or concentrate fire even more than usual.

- When you first meet an enemy player AI, consider carefully wether to actually engage them. Very rarely they will keep marching towards your home and attack a city, but most of the time, if you immediately run back a full move, they will circle away from you, too. Since the AI are pretty bad at killing neutrals and claiming outposts and do not build cities and units quite as efficiently as you will, you can often catch up even if you started out slow by the time you meet again. If you play with multiple AIs, they also often start wars against one of their other neighbours, keeping them busy while you can clean out neutrals and then attack when you are ready.

- Have something against vehicles/monsters/buildings (i.e. high damage high AP guns like Lascannons and Meltas) and something that can damage light infantry ("light" in this case means anything up to typical Space Marines, i.e. squads of 5+ models but with low individual HP). Some units are decently average against both, relatively mobile and decently tough themselves - those are very useful early game staples. Sentinels and Hydras, Crisis, War Buggies and Deffkoptas, Annihilator Barges, Land Speeders, for some examples.

- Try to play with few losses of units that are actually worthwhile. Obviously Cultists, Boyz or god beware Termagaunts are fodder units you are meant to sacrifice, but anything significantly more expensive should rarely get destroyed. Do not overexpose a single unit so it can get attacked by half an army. Once a unit has significant damage, send it back to recover on some outpost (and/or heal or repair it). The AIs excel in exactly this behaviour and will punish you for exposing valuable units and retreat their 3 HP heavy tanks to fight again later. If you lose to many and actually remove to few units, this will automatically lead to a cascade effect where they will reinforce in a similar speed to you but 10 turns down the road their fled guys also come back and they start to overwhelm you. Try to have it the other way round.

[Falaris]

When you click on start new game, notice the 'title' under your faction card. If you click on that, you can determine your own and others' handicap. (That's all the AI's 'cheat' - it's also available to you).

For space marines it goes from neophyte to Emperor.

It is its value relative to the opponents that determine actual difficulty.
As already mentioned it affects starting loyalty and the starting level of all units you make.
Loyalty goes down the more population and cities you have.
Loyalty can increase with certain buildings.
Loyalty above 0 gives a bonus to production, below zero gives a penalty in % equal to the value.

Play around with it a bit, just to get a feel for how it works.

And good luck. :)

[Grotzel]

I agree ( well ... not with ABSOLUTELY every point - but with most of the tips written above). You are certainly missing /neglecting a few key mechanics ... which is easy to do when you start learning the game. :) To miss or misunderstand stuff like how cover works, or damage types (simply checking in advance how much damage your different units do to different targets can help a lot), fully grasping the economy (e.g. loyalty, how to build your cities & the difference between capturing a special resource tile and integrating it in your city / using fortresses to do that ...), checking abilities ...

I'm certainly not an expert - but apart from reading threads on this forum, I think that hovering over stuff like all the little icons really benefitted my understanding of the game.


Apart from that, you should likely search for starter guides /videos.

[GentlemanTech]

had the same when I started. Now I turn up at their base with tanks when they're still messing about with basic infantry.
Economy and research is key

[[*~MAJA~*] Mandragoron]

Originally posted by Stormfox:

Try to position city centers on spaces with really good terrain bonuses. If your city center has +40% food, everything in city that produces food will get +50% - farms, production buildings and your HQ.

Is this correct? I thought only buildings in this tile get the bonus? I normaly get tiles 1 side away from 40%/50% tiles, so i can place 3 product buildings on this big tile. But if this bonus is for the hole city this would change things. I thought only the outpost second boni which are integreted in the city are for the complete city?

[Jey]

Originally posted by *~MAJA~* Mandragoron:

Yes you're right.
Tile bonus only affect buildings on that tile.
Only outpost bonus affects the whole city.

Still note though that when you put down a city, you get the Headquarters (6 food/ore/energy/influence/research and I suppose 6 loyalty, but they're not affected by tile bonus) as well as the crane (6 resources split differently depending on factions).
Putting your first city down on a big bonus might be more interesting short-term wise than waiting to have 3 buildings on that spot.

[Stardustfire]

what Stormfox has written is somehow very wrong. its outposts integrated into the city perimeters that give citywide bonuses and only them. your citycenter can stand on a -40%x tile and only the buildings on the citycenter tile suffer from that -% on x, same for positive boni.
most important part at city placement is that you have minimal tile loose from chasm or water tiles, and outpost tiles with good neighbour tile boni in range.

[AlienSoul (GS)]

The rules say this: Most tiles contain one or more bonuses to resource
production – deserts provide a 20% bonus to energy production, while
grasslands provide 40% more food. Once these tiles are acquired by a
city, that bonus is added to the amount that each building in the city
produces of that resource.

[AlienSoul (GS)]

The outposts give a flat bonus + the percentage bonuses apply once incorporated into the city.