The games AI is broken

[IndustryStandard]

Played on moderate difficulty and after 30 minutes the AI hadn't even gotten past age 2.

I was nearing ready to move onto age 4

Went to go explore their side of the map and they hand't even picked up any treasured, made an army or even really expanded much with the buildings. Never saw them the entire game until I went to go look for them. I really should not be able to win these games with 30 musketeers.


In the original game the AI sometimes narrowly beat me to the ages, prodded my defenses and built wide. What the hell happened?

[carlovisser10]

In the original game, the difficulty levels were Sandbox, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Expert. Now, they are Easy, Standard, Moderate, Hard, Hardest and Extreme. I suspect what is happening here is that DE's Moderate was made easier than the original's Normal because of the addition of the extra difficulty level between it and the highest difficulty level. Hardest is not on par with the original's Expert, but Extreme is generally harder than Expert was. If Moderate is too easy for you, just move up to Hard.

[James3157]

I had to quit early a few times actually on moderate difficulty for skirmishes and that was recent which was at least in part because the leader Napoleon (French) seems to be quite weak as an ally. Important to keep in mind as well that this is in reference towards the de version instead of the original. I am also not certain as to how difficulty is determined either such as if map settings and number of players make a difference such as for example 2v2v2 and 3v2 (human and two AI vs two AI) perhaps being easier for skirmishes than 2v2 and 1v1 on moderate difficulty.

[vitez_vaddiszno]

I found that Moderate is too weak but Hard just plays like a Ranked player and has armies of 40-50 soldiers by 6 minutes (somehow!). I'd really appreciate a difficulty between the two, Hard is way too much of a tryhard.

[carlovisser10]

Originally posted by vitez_vaddiszno:

I found that Moderate is too weak but Hard just plays like a Ranked player and has armies of 40-50 soldiers by 6 minutes (somehow!). I'd really appreciate a difficulty between the two, Hard is way too much of a tryhard.

You could perhaps add a short treaty period or give yourself a resource handicap to balance it out better for you.

[Catalytic]

Ultimately, you're going to have to just get better at the game. I know that sounds elitist, but that's not my intent. Hear me out.

Moderate difficulty has a ton of internal handicaps to help you out:

• It soft caps the population at 130 meaning it will always have a weak late game
  
• It uses the move command instead of attack-move, so you can ambush their army and it will not defend itself until it hits its waypoint.
  
• It doesn't effectively micro anything except artillery
  
• It will hit you in Age 2 occasionally, but it's typically weak
  
• It uses suboptimal decks

When you move up to hard, all of those handicaps go away, so suddenly, its using an effective card deck. It's advancing through the ages efficiently. It's defending its base with many units making it hard to raid. When it is attacked, it responds immediately and aggressively. It micros all of its units. It's not perfect micro, but it definitely issues unit-specific commands in combat and attempts to attack the things its units counter. It adjusts its army composition in real time to counter what you're using.

For the player trying to make the jump, it's often too big of a skill gap to suddenly have to manage all of that. I've been calling for them to adjust Easy and Moderate for a long time to smooth out the difficulty curve.

What can you do in the meantime?/How do I git gud?

• First thing I would do is go back to Moderate, enable handicaps, and play against the AI with a 5% resource bonus. Increase it steadily as you feel comfortable. By the time you're hitting a 50% bonus, you're getting a much more accurate feel for how the AI feels on Hard up to mid-Age 4-ish. Since most supremacy games are played within this range, it's a good way to simulate part of Hard difficulty without being overwhelmed.
  
• If you lose, go back and watch the replay. Try and see where you went wrong. Did you get behind, fail to advance in age and then get run over by superior forces? Did you get raided and spend too much time with your villagers in the TC? Are you scouting to see enemy armies coming? etc. If you can identify your mistakes, you can learn from them.
  
• Play with a friend. Even if that friend is AI, sometimes, having that other ally being able to help out if you get rushed hard or caught off guard will get you through to later in the game. They can sometimes cover errors you make. If you use an AI ally in a 2v2 or 3v3, etc, make sure you give them the same handicap you're giving your enemies. You want them to help you through tough spots not serve as an anchor to weigh you down trying to defend your town and theirs.
  
• Go back and look at your deck. Do you have enough cards early on that give you resources and units? It's very tempting to build a "treaty deck" where you pick all the cards that give bonuses. These bonuses pay off in the long run, but if you don't get to the late game, they don't pay out at all. For me, at a minimum I have one unit card in Age 2 in every deck. Maybe I don't need it if I don't take early pressure, but it's there if the AI rushes. Some civs require more support than others. I couldn't play Ottoman without extra wood in Age 2 because of their villager spawn mechanic, getting to Age 3 and getting extra TCs built is just so critical. Nor could I play Dutch without the free bank wagon and the pikes card.
  
• Learn to use hotkeys if you're not already. Trying to click things with a mouse just isn't fast enough. Real-time strategy means there's an advantage in being able to give more commands in the same period of time. You do that by using the keyboard to supplement the mouse. There are options to show the hotkey on the button and the option to customize your hotkeys to your liking.
  
• Learn to use control groups if you're not already. You want to be able to give commands to parts of your army at a time. There's a bunch of ways to do this. A simple, all-purpose example. Group 1 is infantry + my explorer. Group 2 is my cavalry which I want to have flank the enemy and specifically target skirms and artillery. Group 3 is my fill-in group. Maybe I'm splitting my infantry. Maybe it's my navy on a water map. Group 4 is my artillery. If I have mortars, they're specifically anti-building and they go to Group 5. This means my most common needs are all on keys I can easily hit with my left hand. Move the mouse, keyboard to select the group, click. It's incredibly fast. I must stress there are other ways to group things. Find a way that works for you. This is a simple framework that got me into Hard mode.
  
• Learn to play SimCity, and by that I mean learn where you should place your buildings. Again, there are a ton of ways to do this, but you want to put buildings where they make sense. Surround towers with houses so fewer units can attack them at the same time. Put your buildings close together so they act as a wall. Once you get to mills and estates, put them right next to your TCs, so if they try to raid, you have a very short distance to pull your villagers to safety. The more games you watch, the better you'll get at this.
  
• Learn the value of a forward base. There is a big advantage to being the defender. It's a very short distance from your military buildings to where the fighting is. You can rapidly rush reinforcements into combat. The AI is very efficient at spamming out units, but yours have to cross the whole map to join in. So, you build a forward base with a bunch of military units and a tower for a HC shipment send point so you can rapidly replace your troops while on offense. Even on Hard, the AI rarely does it. He might drop a fort once, and if you clean it up, he won't try again.
  
• Micro that eco. The economy is so important. Everything is measured in rates in this game which is a really nice upgrade from Age2/older style UIs. Not all food and gold production is created equal. Hunting animals is much faster than berries which is faster than farming. Mining gold is faster than planting it at an estate. Make sure to prioritize the high efficiency resources before going to mills/estates. They only really become efficient once you hit Age 3 with all the tech upgrades. When you're hunting, don't let the villagers attack on their own. You want to position your villagers on the opposite side of the animal from the TC so that when you attack and the herd runs away, they run toward the TC.

That's probably enough for now. If I can offer more tips, please feel free to ask. In fact, others who are considerably better at the game than I am will probably chime in with some good advice as well. I don't do much of the multiplayer scene, so you'll definitely want to hear their thoughts about learning to play effectively against human opponents.

Happy gaming!

[carlovisser10]

Originally posted by Catalytic:

Ultimately, you're going to have to just get better at the game. I know that sounds elitist, but that's not my intent. Hear me out.

All of this will help, and, yes, the best answer is ultimately just to get better at the game, which is not as hard as it sounds and can usually be achieved with just a few changes to how you play that you may just not have thought about before. There would be an infinite number of difficulty levels if the game had to cater to everybody's specific preference for how to play and nobody was willing to change their style.

[iSurvivedRKelly]

Originally posted by carlovisser10:

Originally posted by vitez_vaddiszno:

I found that Moderate is too weak but Hard just plays like a Ranked player and has armies of 40-50 soldiers by 6 minutes (somehow!). I'd really appreciate a difficulty between the two, Hard is way too much of a tryhard.

You could perhaps add a short treaty period or give yourself a resource handicap to balance it out better for you.

This is the best advice. I'm getting old and have health issues. Moderate is boring as hell. But with a short treaty period you can get an army and some defences up and i generally win every single hard match.

Otherwise if you don't want treaty mode enabled to get you started i guess revert back to the "get good" advice.

You can also choose which enemies you prefer to face in skirmish. I hate the artillery spam a lot of the cpu players spam out so sometimes i play against the Lakota which have none.

The game can be made easier by all of the above and a good card setup.

[IndustryStandard]

Originally posted by Catalytic:

Ultimately, you're going to have to just get better at the game. I know that sounds elitist, but that's not my intent. Hear me out.

Moderate difficulty has a ton of internal handicaps to help you out:

• It soft caps the population at 130 meaning it will always have a weak late game
  
• It uses the move command instead of attack-move, so you can ambush their army and it will not defend itself until it hits its waypoint.
  
• It doesn't effectively micro anything except artillery
  
• It will hit you in Age 2 occasionally, but it's typically weak
  
• It uses suboptimal decks

When you move up to hard, all of those handicaps go away, so suddenly, its using an effective card deck. It's advancing through the ages efficiently. It's defending its base with many units making it hard to raid. When it is attacked, it responds immediately and aggressively. It micros all of its units. It's not perfect micro, but it definitely issues unit-specific commands in combat and attempts to attack the things its units counter. It adjusts its army composition in real time to counter what you're using.

For the player trying to make the jump, it's often too big of a skill gap to suddenly have to manage all of that. I've been calling for them to adjust Easy and Moderate for a long time to smooth out the difficulty curve.

What can you do in the meantime?/How do I git gud?

• First thing I would do is go back to Moderate, enable handicaps, and play against the AI with a 5% resource bonus. Increase it steadily as you feel comfortable. By the time you're hitting a 50% bonus, you're getting a much more accurate feel for how the AI feels on Hard up to mid-Age 4-ish. Since most supremacy games are played within this range, it's a good way to simulate part of Hard difficulty without being overwhelmed.
  
• If you lose, go back and watch the replay. Try and see where you went wrong. Did you get behind, fail to advance in age and then get run over by superior forces? Did you get raided and spend too much time with your villagers in the TC? Are you scouting to see enemy armies coming? etc. If you can identify your mistakes, you can learn from them.
  
• Play with a friend. Even if that friend is AI, sometimes, having that other ally being able to help out if you get rushed hard or caught off guard will get you through to later in the game. They can sometimes cover errors you make. If you use an AI ally in a 2v2 or 3v3, etc, make sure you give them the same handicap you're giving your enemies. You want them to help you through tough spots not serve as an anchor to weigh you down trying to defend your town and theirs.
  
• Go back and look at your deck. Do you have enough cards early on that give you resources and units? It's very tempting to build a "treaty deck" where you pick all the cards that give bonuses. These bonuses pay off in the long run, but if you don't get to the late game, they don't pay out at all. For me, at a minimum I have one unit card in Age 2 in every deck. Maybe I don't need it if I don't take early pressure, but it's there if the AI rushes. Some civs require more support than others. I couldn't play Ottoman without extra wood in Age 2 because of their villager spawn mechanic, getting to Age 3 and getting extra TCs built is just so critical. Nor could I play Dutch without the free bank wagon and the pikes card.
  
• Learn to use hotkeys if you're not already. Trying to click things with a mouse just isn't fast enough. Real-time strategy means there's an advantage in being able to give more commands in the same period of time. You do that by using the keyboard to supplement the mouse. There are options to show the hotkey on the button and the option to customize your hotkeys to your liking.
  
• Learn to use control groups if you're not already. You want to be able to give commands to parts of your army at a time. There's a bunch of ways to do this. A simple, all-purpose example. Group 1 is infantry + my explorer. Group 2 is my cavalry which I want to have flank the enemy and specifically target skirms and artillery. Group 3 is my fill-in group. Maybe I'm splitting my infantry. Maybe it's my navy on a water map. Group 4 is my artillery. If I have mortars, they're specifically anti-building and they go to Group 5. This means my most common needs are all on keys I can easily hit with my left hand. Move the mouse, keyboard to select the group, click. It's incredibly fast. I must stress there are other ways to group things. Find a way that works for you. This is a simple framework that got me into Hard mode.
  
• Learn to play SimCity, and by that I mean learn where you should place your buildings. Again, there are a ton of ways to do this, but you want to put buildings where they make sense. Surround towers with houses so fewer units can attack them at the same time. Put your buildings close together so they act as a wall. Once you get to mills and estates, put them right next to your TCs, so if they try to raid, you have a very short distance to pull your villagers to safety. The more games you watch, the better you'll get at this.
  
• Learn the value of a forward base. There is a big advantage to being the defender. It's a very short distance from your military buildings to where the fighting is. You can rapidly rush reinforcements into combat. The AI is very efficient at spamming out units, but yours have to cross the whole map to join in. So, you build a forward base with a bunch of military units and a tower for a HC shipment send point so you can rapidly replace your troops while on offense. Even on Hard, the AI rarely does it. He might drop a fort once, and if you clean it up, he won't try again.
  
• Micro that eco. The economy is so important. Everything is measured in rates in this game which is a really nice upgrade from Age2/older style UIs. Not all food and gold production is created equal. Hunting animals is much faster than berries which is faster than farming. Mining gold is faster than planting it at an estate. Make sure to prioritize the high efficiency resources before going to mills/estates. They only really become efficient once you hit Age 3 with all the tech upgrades. When you're hunting, don't let the villagers attack on their own. You want to position your villagers on the opposite side of the animal from the TC so that when you attack and the herd runs away, they run toward the TC.

That's probably enough for now. If I can offer more tips, please feel free to ask. In fact, others who are considerably better at the game than I am will probably chime in with some good advice as well. I don't do much of the multiplayer scene, so you'll definitely want to hear their thoughts about learning to play effectively against human opponents.

Happy gaming!

Not throwing your advice back at you but highlighting why the AI seemed broken to me was because the equivalent difficulty setting in the original is wildly better while moderate on this one seems to only passively exist. Regardless of handicaps it shouldn't be doing nothing. on the friggin medium difficulty setting.

I did try hard after this and found it extremely obnoxious, Like I can do better at this game I played multiplayer way back in the day but it's not the experience I'm wanting from skirmish mode.

Even more infuriating is that whatever perfect balance from the original game that I had is seemingly gone now. The game no longer has a middle ground between extremely easy useless AI and very competent perfect efficiency. I'll just go play the original for my fix.

[James3157]

If the AI seems like it is too hard on "hard difficulty" then I would recommend 4v3 (although in theory this might be more difficult than 3v2 or 2v1), 3v2, or 2v1 on hard difficulty before trying out 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, or 4v4 on hard difficulty skirmishes. Also, if you are struggling with skirmishes make sure you pick AI leaders that seem to work best for you, but you need to give them commands as well if you do not want them to do random stuff on skirmishes. If your ally(s) for example act dumb on skirmishes it might be because you are not giving them orders and/or not trading with them by sending them needed resources (such as wood, stone, food, and/or gold). You can also ask your ally(s) for resources and they might send back in response.

[Catalytic]

Originally posted by IndustryStandard:

Even more infuriating is that whatever perfect balance from the original game that I had is seemingly gone now. The game no longer has a middle ground between extremely easy useless AI and very competent perfect efficiency. I'll just go play the original for my fix.

I very much understand the frustration. You're not alone on this. I've written several times about the issues with the difficult modes and the need to smooth out the difficulty gain. The single biggest thing they could do is simply use attack-move when moving their army around. That one thing alone would restore a big part of the missing difficulty to Moderate setting. I recommended what I did because it works for me. That's how I jumped from Moderate to Hard.

AoE3 DE is such a huge improvement over the original IMO that I would not want to go back to the original experience with its own bugs and balance issues. Anyway, I hope you find an experience you enjoy! It's a great game and well worth playing!

[Tugalazix]

the AI in Age 3 De is absolute garbage, games like COH put whoever made this AI to shame.
the AI doesnt work in most water maps it just stays stuck in some islands, it doesnt work in historical maps. they dont do anything impressive, than just spam units even in harder dificulties. they just spam buildings that they do even use. its like someone programmed babys first AI.