When the AI booms it's damn unbeatable

[Naryar]

There's no way to beat it if you don't cheese it (like castles) or rush it.

It booms much better than a human player and spams units - again, pretty much instantly. No way to beat it as a human with human reflexes and human reactions.

I'm playing on hard btw. Went into a lategame trash war as Saracens vs Mayans on Oasis.

It manages to sneak vils and cut wood in my base, spams units everywhere, and it's lack of gold doesn't seem to phaze it at all.

Whenever I attempt to defend on one side it goes straight through another side, or brings siege onagers and beats my masses of trash, or gets some villagers through my defenses, or goes siege ram train and here goes another town center. And while I rebuild my eco, I cannot defend effectively.

And while I am able to beat the hard AI, it's pretty much only when I rush it or situations like spamming castles in chokepoints (e.g. Black Forest), because it really can't deal with castles this much. Any defensive play is a foregone conclusion.

It's really stupid. I asked for a challenge, not something completely impossible.

Hard AI difficulty is all over the place (depending of your actions), and is a very big step up from Moderate AI. Much like Standard and Moderate back then in HD.

[Duke D'Alençon]

For other guys 1v1 against Extreme AI is no challenge, so they play against multiple extreme AI.

I never played any AI on DE, but from what i have seen on Youtube i wont be able to beat Hard AI.

[Bill]

Ironically, it's not really stupid, it's really smart. Finally we have an AI that can stand on it's own two feet without needing construction multiplier bonuses, extra resources, free units, etc.

[Ducks on Fire]

I can beat the Hard AI without cheesing it. I find it to be just the right amount of challenge. Hardest is too much for me atm if I don't tower rush it though. It's difficult, but it isn't impossible. It does have the problem the HD had where it feels like there is a missing difficulty level.

[Syntax]

You simply just need to improve.

[Citizen_1245]

The AI stops booming pretty fast and doesn't get as many villagers as a human player. Also, use the market, that's how the AI gets gold

[WastedTrojan]

Hard AI only makes like 80 villagers. I outboom hard AI playing drunk.

[Thats How We do action in Uganda]

Agree difference between moderate and hard is big, but well i guess they cant make difficulty for every player, because it would end with like 15 different levels.

[barry1kc]

Perfect cheating micro. I have never seen an AI that plays every situation like it only has that one unit. ♥♥♥♥ the peice of ♥♥♥♥ who scripted the single unit micro on every unit. I am tired of having to select my armies and micro EVERY SINGLE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ UNIT ON THE MAP FOR 30 SECS TO CHASE THEM ALL DOWN EVERY SING ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ MINUTE OF THE GAME.

EVERY SINGLE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ UNIT EXPLOITS PATHING TO BUY TIME. that is not good progamming that lazy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[grraf]

I have to be blunt about this but the truth is u need to improve a lot... no i don't mean to just brag as i also suck hard at micro but make up for it with decent macro play and proper counter units usage...
These days i play with a group of friends 3vs3 against 3 extreme AIs (2 are extreme DE and one extreme HD since just two of use are playing at a higher level and we have to carry our third guy)... if this sound like an empty brag its not about a month ago we were barely managing to deal with 3 HD AIs... we still aren't that much faster on micro but we have however improved a lot on macro and tactics along with discovering what civs work best for each of our playing styles...
Point is the AI aren't much to write home about and easy enough to overcome with counter unit play and better macro...
PS:here is a recorded game from one of our crew's session i'm the green player and the red one is our lower skilled player, this should give u an idea of just how easy to handle the AIs are even on extreme difficulty... enjoy:
https://ufile.io/rqi3zun3

[Static]

I'll be the first to say I'm not very good at AOE 2, I can't consistently beat moderate AI but can beat standard solo. If I want to try hard I play with a friend vs 1 hard AI and it's challenge for us, but it's encouraged us to get much much better. Maybe try playing with a friend and see what you can do?

[RÊYTH]

Hmm... Are we just talking SinglePlayer game? (Because I never play multiplayer...)
If so, for me it's all about the PAUSE button and micro-managing every bloody thing, including correcting the pathing of villagers (oi vey.) Worse, I'm a "Clicker" -- no hotkeys for me. I usually have to defend early, but then I overtake the AI in late game, the higher the population limit the better for me.

Now don't assume I always win against any difficulty level, because I employ eccentric strategies. But I can be successful (ei. win) a decent percentage, it just takes me 3 hours to play 30 minutes of the timer.... ©.©

So, do you not use pause (F3 is default) ??

[theworld]

Played this "scenario" just now: Oasis (Tiny 2 players), Hard AI, Standard resources, Saracens vs Maya.

Did not do any kind of tower rushes/castle drops, etc. won without breaking a sweat, more on that later.

Watching replay from Dark after the game: AI is terrible at managing sheep, at least 3 sheep decay, Boar is not gathered under TC, forced drops often - has to do too much walking instead of gathering.

The most astonishing is that when it's short of 500 Food for click it resorts to long distance gathering from berries without even making a Mill (!)

Eventually makes a Mill, but forages with 10+ villagers, doing bumping and long distance walking behind the bushes. Looking at 07:40 I have 183 total resource advantage, and that's against a civ with a good eco bonus. I've already finished both boars, AI has 1 boar left, but still did insane long distance foraging. Next, it lures the boar poorly gathers far from TC.

I fast Castle with no hesitation, AI has almost no resorces, but makes 2 Archery ranges. Same pop though. AI has 5 farms, but is gathering on 1, has 6 on Sheep.

I have 6 on Sheep, with 3 Farms and have 6 extra Sheep as neutrals that I took over. AI pumps Archers with some Skirms non-stop.

I do forward barracks and TC (Castle Age at around 15:30). AI takes 4 Archers and 1 Skirmisher, starts attacking the barracks, pumping more Archers.

I make 1 Monastery, start collecting Relics.

I make 2 ranges myself, start making Skirmishers myself.

AI is 20 Farms, but still Feudal, makes Archers non-stop.

Once Elite Skirmisher upgrade finishes for me, AI stops attacking suddenly retreats with his 25 Military.

At 23:00 I move out with 10 Elite Skirmishers +2/+0. AI has 20 Archers and 5 Skirmishers +1/+1, but I'm positioned on a hill, so it's much worse for him. Once it loses about 1/3 of his army (without killing anything) it suddenly charges into close distance, which accomplishes nothing. Loses his entire army, trading for 3 Elite Skirmishers. I make 2 Mangonels and once his TC dies, it resigns within 15 seconds.

Final thoughts: Hard AI has no idea what elevation bonus does or what army composition is and will happily engage in fights it will horribly lose.

It's eco management skills are likewise, simply terrible.

My advice: Original poster needs to watch a few videos on Youtube that teach the basics and play Art of War, then gain experience in Multiplayer.

[theworld]

Played again, this time vs Extreme and decided to deliberately make things harder - no siege until Imperial, no direct Castling to deny TCs, no rushes, etc.

Bad matchup - Byzantines (not the worst civ, but certainly a bad one) vs Persians (one of the best civs and certainly a contender for the title of best booming civ)

So the game started similar to previous one, except AI was MUCH better at managing Sheep, close to optimized human level, but still harvested Boar outside TC.

8 Archer + 2 Skirmisher rush came, started attacking the first building it came across (Market), which accomplished nothing. I fast castled, got 4 Skirms and Elite Skirm upgrade, as soon as it was done, AI immediately ran away. At this point, AI has about 10 villager lead.

Once I got 3 TCs up this vil lead evaporated. Just like the last game AI lost everything vs Elite Skirmishers uphill, this time it started to retreat earlier but there's a "line" once it gets near one of its TCs where it will re-engage no matter if it will lead to terrible losses. Doesn't matter that the player has no composition that can threaten TCs (let alone Persian TCs, which have insane amount of HP).

AI switched to knights from 2 Stables and got some quick Skirm kills, but once I ran away far enough, it started to retreat and again follow the same pattern of re-engaging/retreating while taking free shots from Skirmishers.

Since I was more curious in AI's direct military behavior and microing the army while continuing to observe how it approaches fighting, my own vil lead evaporated in turn as my TCs had a lot of idle time and I was not booming well enough to constantly make more farms.

I started adding more pikes (but only from 1 initial barracks) and started doing some farm raiding with my army inside AI's base.

It was about 35 min into the game, I clicked Imperial. AI stops adding vils in large numbers at around 115 and only slowly keeps adding 1 or 2 at a time, also adds mangonels, but does not protect them at all, preferring to engage skirmishers instead.

AI also does not prioritize Archer or Skirmisher upgrades at all, still trading very badly in fights up to this point.

AI impressively goes up to 138 vils on 3 TCs, but has nobody on the stone. I'm at 125 vils on 5 TCs and pondering whether I should add more.

AI starts sending Rams and finally makes Elite Skirmisher at around 40:00

I decide not to make Trebs and instead try to probe it further by teching up to Champions (Yes, the terrible Byzantine Champions with no Blast Furnace upgrade) to see how it adapts.

Add Barracks and Range on the other side of his base, start attacking from both sides.

AI manages to amass a decently sized army of ESkirmishers, Capped Rams, Hand Cannoneers and Cavaliers, but once I add more pressure on the other side, getting deep into AI's economy, it is unable to withstand and resignation follows within 2 minutes at 51:43.

Final thoughts: While certainly an improvement over Hard AI, Extreme AI will still not provide any challenge whatsoever to anyone even REMOTELY proficient in this game.

I'm not the Viper and I don't even play 1v1s, I was playing a bad civ and deliberately restricted strategy and composition to some of the weakest options, yet the AI could still not do anything at all, was completely passive and on the defensive 99% of the game. It does not even consider doing counter raids or harassment.

This game could have ended much, much earlier just by adding Mangonels in Castle age, or more Castles and Trebuchets in Imperial age and the AI would have had no adequate response to either.

The ultimate conclusion is that playing vs AI (beyond simply practicing build orders) is a massive waste of time if you want to get better at this game, since it is very weak compared to even mediocre players you may come across online.

It also adapts very poorly, does not make defensive Castles and does nothing to protect very expensive siege units.

[Duke D'Alençon]

I hope they'll put Barbarian AI as standard AI on DE at some moment in time. For AoE II it is the best AI ever created.

Is it possible to have a match up between current AI on DE and Barbarian AI from Barbarian on Voobly?

[Cryptic]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Naryar:

There's no way to beat it if you don't cheese it (like castles) or rush it.

It booms much better than a human player and spams units - again, pretty much instantly. No way to beat it as a human with human reflexes and human reactions.

I'm playing on hard btw. Went into a lategame trash war as Saracens vs Mayans on Oasis.

It manages to sneak vils and cut wood in my base, spams units everywhere, and it's lack of gold doesn't seem to phaze it at all.

Whenever I attempt to defend on one side it goes straight through another side, or brings siege onagers and beats my masses of trash, or gets some villagers through my defenses, or goes siege ram train and here goes another town center. And while I rebuild my eco, I cannot defend effectively.

And while I am able to beat the hard AI, it's pretty much only when I rush it or situations like spamming castles in chokepoints (e.g. Black Forest), because it really can't deal with castles this much. Any defensive play is a foregone conclusion.

It's really stupid. I asked for a challenge, not something completely impossible.

Hard AI difficulty is all over the place (depending of your actions), and is a very big step up from Moderate AI. Much like Standard and Moderate back then in HD.

you're playing on hard and complaining that it's hard? is that what I just read?