AI Difficulty unbalance from Moderate to Hard

[GR|M " 死神 " Reap3R]

The balancing is a joke...on Moderate they are so EZ that they wouldn't even bother to build much units...
On Hard, they rush you like mad as if they didn't need resources at all, even build military buildings on your doorstep to speed things up...as if they are Humans...

What kind of balancing is this ? I don't even want to imagine how Extreme be like..
I play AOE3 as well, even though on AOE3 it's difficult, but not this insanely overpowered...
In AOE2, I got completely trash even with army, I don't have a chance, they spam Elite units as if costs nothing.

All fully upgraded too, I Age up as fast as the AI, but my resources are completely gone.
But the AI still have ton left to continuing pumping out units....

[Kampfschwein Fjonda]

Have you god your silver / gold medals in the 9 Art of War tutorials? They teach you everything u need.

[GR|M " 死神 " Reap3R]

Originally posted by Fjonda:

Have you god your silver / gold medals in the 9 Art of War tutorials? They teach you everything u need.

I got some Silver, but not all Gold, some only Bronze.
I've tried multiple times playing against Hard, just absolutely no chance so far.
Maybe I just suck at it, I just wish there's a slightly harder than Moderate and lower than Hard.
Currently Hard is impossible for me. In the Campaign, Moderate is pretty difficult too some reason...but SOME Missions is still manageable but some I get completely steam rolled too...

[NOC | Mati]

1v3 extreme AI is possible on arabia so you are probably just bad sorry

[DesertRose92]

Haha, I feel ya, man.

I am trying to improve my macro by beating harder and harder AI in a straight up macro game.
At first I got steamrolled in about 3 out of 4 games in late Feudal Age or early Castle Age on Hard difficulty. In some games I managed to survive long enough, eventually had a stronger eco and won.
So I got a build order, and constantly produce military units from Feudal Age onward. Since then Hard AI is hardly a challenge anymore.
Currently trying to best Hardest AI. So far they pull ahead in late Castle Age / Early Imperial Age.

Go for a generic Archers or Scouts BO and focus on constant production of Villagers and military units throughout Feudal Age so you reach Castle Age in a timely manner. While defending their initial attack build 2-4 Town Centers and start to boom. Soon you should have so much that you simply overpower them even if your macro starts to fall apart in Castle Age.

Archers BO
https://buildorderguide.com/#/build/4/0
https://buildorderreference.com/22-pop-archers.html

Scouts BO
https://buildorderguide.com/#/build/3/0
https://buildorderreference.com/21-pop-scouts.html

[GR|M " 死神 " Reap3R]

I've always wonder if resources even matters to the AI.
Is it Infinite for them or they too need resources. Because what I'm seeing is like it's no matter to them.
I do compare the resources a I've gathered at the scoreboard, sometimes AI do beat me slightly but also there are times we are on par, yet they seem to have far more resource to spend for some reason.

[YiZ]

Originally posted by El_Matador:

1v3 extreme AI is possible on arabia so you are probably just bad sorry

I believe what he wants to ask is a difficulty needed between moderate and hard.

[Kampfschwein Fjonda]

A skirmisher is only 60 ressources, an archer 70. Not expensive but seems overwhelming when they visit your town after 10 minutes.

If you are desperately looking for excuses like AI cheating then you are on a wrong path and will never succeed. Learn from your failures. Watch your replays. Watch good players on Youtube (Viper, Hera).

[Vemonia]

Have you tried playing against the Moderate "AI (HD)" ?

[joaosantos92]

Well, the words "moderate" and "hard" have a meaning. Moderate AI should be an AI that any player with enough game knowledge can beat and hard AI should be an AI that a new player may require practice to beat.
I'd say each AI is two times stronger than the previous one. Moderate AI trains up to 38 Villagers, hard AI up to 75, and hardest AI up to 150, so that seems to support my theory. If you want something between moderate and hard AI, try playing against two moderate AIs. Though at least for me that's still easy because I can defeat each AI at once before they even think of attacking me.
Now against hard AI I see your main issue is their early rush. My advice against it is to build at least two towers from the direction the AI is most likely to attack (they always take the shortest path) and have ten Villagers working near the towers. Hard AI almost always rushes with Archers and Skirmishers. When they come, garrison the Villagers in the towers and the towers will take care of the enemy units. When in the Castle Age, the best strategy is to drop Castles close to the enemy base so that you can have cost effective fights.

I also see you mentioned campaigns. Most scenarios are indeed easy on standard, but on higher difficulties it depends more on the scenario than on the difficulty you're playing. Some scenarios can be quite easy on hard (such as the 1st Joan of Arc scenario) while others are very difficult on moderate (Gajah Mada and Le Loi). My main recommendations for campaigns is to build Castles for defense ASAP (in lots of scenarios you get rushed very early) and attack with an army as big as possible later because if your attack doesn't defeat the enemy, it's very likely that they'll rebuild everything.

[AncientGamer]

Yep, there is something strange about that. I had a really good scout rush in feudal age and i was able to kill a lot of villagers, but still hard AI managed to beat my eco and go to castle age faster with less villagers. I kept my pressure with scouts and hunted AI's villagers like crazy, but it was able to spam them everywhere. In the end i won by dropping castles in it's face, but it was unrealistic game. Moderate should be harder and hard is just fine, when you learn to play better.

[dianteforlife]

this seems to be a common complaint among people who still are able to find difficulty when playing against the AI. for any even moderitaly experienced player any 1v1 against even an extreme AI is stupidly easy. there reaches a point where a players desition making skills mean that any AI no matter how fast willl get crushed. i cant speak from experience because every level of AI seems equaly easy however since this is such a common complaint there must be something that low level players can't do that is not needed when facing a moderate but is when facing a hard. however it is hard for me to sympathize with these complaints because they always use SO much hyperbole saying how impossibly hard the ai is that it is realy hard to take them seriously

[GR|M " 死神 " Reap3R]

Originally posted by Vemonia:

Have you tried playing against the Moderate "AI (HD)" ?

No, usually I play against the normal one I guess.
I thought the normal or in this case I guess we call it DE AI, is hardest ?
While HD being 2nd and last being the CA.

Originally posted by Fjonda:

A skirmisher is only 60 ressources, an archer 70. Not expensive but seems overwhelming when they visit your town after 10 minutes.

If you are desperately looking for excuses like AI cheating then you are on a wrong path and will never succeed. Learn from your failures. Watch your replays. Watch good players on Youtube (Viper, Hera).

I'm not looking for excuse I just wanna confirm, because some RTS does this.
I mean if they aren't cheating resources then, sure I admit it's my fault being worst.
It just feels really off.

[Vemonia]

Originally posted by GR|M " 死神 " Reap3R:

Originally posted by Vemonia:

Have you tried playing against the Moderate "AI (HD)" ?

No, usually I play against the normal one I guess.
I thought the normal or in this case I guess we call it DE AI, is hardest ?
While HD being 2nd and last being the CA.

I feel the Moderate "AI (HD)" is better than the Moderate "AI", and (much) worse than the Hard "AI". So it could be a good compromise. The Moderate "AI (HD)" probably does not have the limitation to ~40 villagers, which makes it more competitive.

The Hard "AI" feels weaker than the the Hard "AI (HD)" in early game (at least it felt so last time I played them), these AIs are maybe similar in late game.

Originally posted by GR|M " 死神 " Reap3R:

I'm not looking for excuse I just wanna confirm, because some RTS does this.
I mean if they aren't cheating resources then, sure I admit it's my fault being worst.
It just feels really off.

The "AI" does not cheat resources in any difficulty, it only "cheats" with minor stuff such as knowing your military population or so. The "AI (HD)" cheat in Hardest and Extreme difficulties.
In aoe3 I recently noticed that the hardest AI cheat at least by having higher gather rates though.

From Moderate to Hard, I feel that there is quite a jump as you need to know a lot of best practices that the AI use: no TC idle time, proper build lumber/mine/mill placement, no unused resources (=> do not mine stone/gold if you do not plan using it in the next few minutes, assign the villagers on resources depending on what you will need, ...).
This kind of things can be trained for instance with the "Cicero build order mod" and with the "art of war" ("Chinese campaign"). Or you can figure them out by yourself by checking in your games (in-game or in replay) what kind of resource you have too much of in your stockpile.

From Hard to Hardest and from Hardest to Extreme, there are also some noticeable jumps, but not necessarily with the same nature.

From Hard to Hardest,

[SpoOkyMagician]

It really depends on the players skill/interest in style/type of game. There is a reason for having multiple difficulties for this very reason. For example;

I am complete garbage at random map with standard resource style games. (I stick with standard/moderate.) However, if you make it a deathmatch/infinite resources, standard is a joke to me. Moderate, (depending on map size/player count/map type.) I can struggle sometimes but, I generally should win. (I could probably handle hard but, I am a casual gamer so, I don't really care too much. I have tried extreme. I cannot beat it normally. I require a 200% handicap.)

Balancing/Game Difficulty is a tough thing to get right. Some people like soul-like game difficulty and others are just casuals. (Like me.) I honestly think they got it pretty good. (scale wise.) I am sure there may be exceptions but, as I said, they are difficult to get right.

[GR|M " 死神 " Reap3R]

Originally posted by SpoOkyMagician:

It really depends on the players skill/interest in style/type of game. There is a reason for having multiple difficulties for this very reason. For example;

I am complete garbage at random map with standard resource style games. (I stick with standard/moderate.) However, if you make it a deathmatch/infinite resources, standard is a joke to me. Moderate, (depending on map size/player count/map type.) I can struggle sometimes but, I generally should win. (I could probably handle hard but, I am a casual gamer so, I don't really care too much. I have tried extreme. I cannot beat it normally. I require a 200% handicap.)

Balancing/Game Difficulty is a tough thing to get right. Some people like soul-like game difficulty and others are just casuals. (Like me.) I honestly think they got it pretty good. (scale wise.) I am sure there may be exceptions but, as I said, they are difficult to get right.

Interesting, because I can win Moderate, no problem all the time in AOE 2, I always play Random Map and Civ too lol since I'm a casual myself.

I have similar on AOE 3 like you but on Hard difficulty, when Moderate I will walk over them.
But on Hard, it depends. If I got rush too hard, it's GG for me. If I can hold on or sometimes even do better I'm the one who overpower and rush the AI.

But if it's a Free For All, no chance...I usually can't beat the last AI.

Originally posted by Vemonia:

Originally posted by GR|M " 死神 " Reap3R:

No, usually I play against the normal one I guess.
I thought the normal or in this case I guess we call it DE AI, is hardest ?
While HD being 2nd and last being the CA.

I feel the Moderate "AI (HD)" is better than the Moderate "AI", and (much) worse than the Hard "AI". So it could be a good compromise. The Moderate "AI (HD)" probably does not have the limitation to ~40 villagers, which makes it more competitive.

The Hard "AI" feels weaker than the the Hard "AI (HD)" in early game (at least it felt so last time I played them), these AIs are maybe similar in late game.

Originally posted by GR|M " 死神 " Reap3R:

I'm not looking for excuse I just wanna confirm, because some RTS does this.
I mean if they aren't cheating resources then, sure I admit it's my fault being worst.
It just feels really off.

The "AI" does not cheat resources in any difficulty, it only "cheats" with minor stuff such as knowing your military population or so. The "AI (HD)" cheat in Hardest and Extreme difficulties.
In aoe3 I recently noticed that the hardest AI cheat at least by having higher gather rates though.

From Moderate to Hard, I feel that there is quite a jump as you need to know a lot of best practices that the AI use: no TC idle time, proper build lumber/mine/mill placement, no unused resources (=> do not mine stone/gold if you do not plan using it in the next few minutes, assign the villagers on resources depending on what you will need, ...).
This kind of things can be trained for instance with the "Cicero build order mod" and with the "art of war" ("Chinese campaign"). Or you can figure them out by yourself by checking in your games (in-game or in replay) what kind of resource you have too much of in your stockpile.

From Hard to Hardest and from Hardest to Extreme, there are also some noticeable jumps, but not necessarily with the same nature.

From Hard to Hardest,

Maybe I'm doing something not right in between Feudal and Castle Age. I usually get rush hard and loses on Castle Age.
But I've always play random Civ and on Random maps too lol.
Don't really have a solid strategy.