Is beating a Hard AI any good?

[Azu-Kun]

I have about 90 hours put into the game and I finally was able to beat a hard AI but I feel as though I won through brute force by choosing the Persians (VS. Berbers).
I feel like I'm still not good because I played online before I went against the AI and I picked the Sicilians to fight the Portuguese and I got completely overpowered by the Organ units.

[James3157]

Hard AI seems to be more difficult on skirmishes overall than campaigns, but 1v1 is probably the easiest instead of team games bigger than 1v1 against the AI and playing some other map besides arabia (especially on water maps and arena being the biggest weaknesses for AI) where AI seems to be the weakest. It also depends on the specific victory conditions you are willing to allow such as relic, wonder, conquest, and etc... There is definitely more of a noticeable difference between AI on AoE II: DE and AoE III: DE on hard difficulty with the latter of which is actually harder than this game on hard difficulty skirmishes. Also, normal AI seems to be overall harder than HD and CD AI if you want less of a challenge.

The best way to figure out the easiest civs to win against is by looking at the lowest elo on AoEstats website and who they have they highest win rates against. In theory the AI depending on which civ you are playing against is comparable to the lowest elo human players (which is less than 850 elo on 1v1 matches) on this game. For example with lowest elo players Britons have the lowest win rate against Sicilians (which are locked behind dlc, but if you own it then you can use them to easily win against Britons) meaning that if you play as Sicilians against the Briton AI on hard difficulty they should have a weakness against you. While AI probably sucks overall at playing as Sicilians in comparison to other civs lowest elo humans players have a very good win rate while playing as them.

[TheDiaper]

I believe roughly 70% of the people on the 1v1 ladder can beat it

[James3157]

Originally posted by TheDiaper:

I believe roughly 70% of the people on the 1v1 ladder can beat it

Probably and especially on arena and water maps. It takes the AI too long for example if I cut the gates off with stone/fortified walls on arena maps. The AI are obviously weak on water maps as well.

[Kampfschwein Fjonda]

Congrats on beating hard AI!
It is like passing 4th grade - not everybody can do it, but it's only the very first step on your way to become a legend :)
The good news: Very hard AI is not thaaat much more difficult. My guess is in ~100 more hours you can beat extreme AI with your current strats and then you can have a good time on the 1v1 ranked ladder (1000-1100 Elo range) where games get much more interesting.

Beating the ingame Art of War tutorials (silver/gold) is super helpful as are Hera coaching videos on youtube.

[James3157]

Originally posted by Kampfschwein Fjonda:

Congrats on beating hard AI!
It is like passing 4th grade - not everybody can do it, but it's only the very first step on your way to become a legend :)
The good news: Very hard AI is not thaaat much more difficult. My guess is in ~100 more hours you can beat extreme AI with your current strats and then you can have a good time on the 1v1 ranked ladder (1000-1100 Elo range) where games get much more interesting.

Beating the ingame Art of War tutorials (silver/gold) is super helpful as are Hera coaching videos on youtube.

Many people probably can defeat extreme AI on arena and possibly even water maps. The biggest noticeable difference with arabia is probably for hard, hardest, and extreme difficulty settings. Even on extreme difficulty I won this achievement on 1v1 without cheating just by simply being gates early to block them. However, contrary to easier difficulty settings I had to kill a few villagers who went outside the gates early.

[Marco]

Originally posted by Gen:

I have about 90 hours put into the game and I finally was able to beat a hard AI but I feel as though I won through brute force by choosing the Persians (VS. Berbers).
I feel like I'm still not good because I played online before I went against the AI and I picked the Sicilians to fight the Portuguese and I got completely overpowered by the Organ units.

Beating Hard AI is a good start for sure, but beating Hardest and Extreme is better because those are highly unsatisfying skill levels so beating them 1 out of 100 times feels like you achieved something great after grinding very hard. This is because Hard AI will make no more than 80 villagers, while Hardest and Extreme can train up to 141 if playing at 200 pop. If you see their armies, you wouldn't say that, but if you take a look at the stats at the end of the game then you'll notice only 50 soldiers and 140+ villagers. But those 50 soldiers will look endless and unstoppable if you don't attack AI during earlier ages.

[flat tire]

It's easy to defeat the AI using a proper feudal rush with decent build order. No need for weird strats. If you can do that you can play online at median elo.

[Boshiken]

Hard AI is the easiest to defeat
because the Hard AI is most predictable and does whatever you want

You can lure, funnel, ...
so the Hard AI just kills itself

[Plokmijnuh]

Basically hard is a good litmus test in this game because the AI is competitive. Obviously the AI cannot perfectly simulate a human player. But you can gauge your overall skill level relative to the AI.

For example are your age up times to Feudal, Castle, Imperial Age comparable to the AI? In other words are you aging up faster than or slower than the AI? Keep an eye on the overall times. For instance if it takes you 15 minutes to get to the Feudal Age, you may struggle in multiplier as this is a slow age up time.

How is your economy relative to the AI? Do you have similar resources collected in the same time period?

Are you good at managing your economy and making sure you are gathering efficiently and keeping up constant villager production? Are you taking too long to locate the large hunt? Are you safely luring the large hunt back to the TC?

These are just some basic questions you can ask to evaluate your performance. And improve. You can even change the victory conditions and do a score limit and work on perfecting the first 30 minutes. Basically the way you get better is setting and either meeting or exceeding production goals. For example, if you want to do fast Castle Age Strategy, are you actually executing the preliminary steps or do you slow down by idling your economy from being pop capped or failing to keep up villager production?

[Boshiken]

Originally posted by Plokmijnuh:

Basically hard is a good litmus test in this game because the AI is competitive. Obviously the AI cannot perfectly simulate a human player. But you can gauge your overall skill level relative to the AI.

For example are your age up times to Feudal, Castle, Imperial Age comparable to the AI? In other words are you aging up faster than or slower than the AI? Keep an eye on the overall times. For instance if it takes you 15 minutes to get to the Feudal Age, you may struggle in multiplier as this is a slow age up time.

How is your economy relative to the AI? Do you have similar resources collected in the same time period?

Are you good at managing your economy and making sure you are gathering efficiently and keeping up constant villager production? Are you taking too long to locate the large hunt? Are you safely luring the large hunt back to the TC?

These are just some basic questions you can ask to evaluate your performance. And improve. You can even change the victory conditions and do a score limit and work on perfecting the first 30 minutes. Basically the way you get better is setting and either meeting or exceeding production goals. For example, if you want to do fast Castle Age Strategy, are you actually executing the preliminary steps or do you slow down by idling your economy from being pop capped or failing to keep up villager production?

really - in a strategy game
you tell - the only thing important is play like an ego shooter

where the hardest AI - has no strategy
and the only thing important - is to boom and have no strategy like the AI