Tactical Battle AI
I appreciate the regular updates on the status of the AI, but I have not seen a discussion on the tactical AI. There are a few glaring issues I want to point out that can help fight player armies.
- Imagine two armies, each in a vertical line, facing each other. I would order 2 or 3 of my soldiers to focus on one of theirs not only to kill their unit faster, but so that my first soldier absorbs the retaliations and the other 2 soldiers attack safely. Unfortunately the AI does not take advantage of this.I cannot say always, but the AI regularly sends its units to fight different individuals (no focus fire).
- Sometimes, when I have 2 identical units side-by-side, only one is at full health while the other is quite low, the AI will inexplicably target the full health one. It is infuriating when the AI misses its chance for a one-hit kill.
- Also sometimes, when the AI has the choice to attack 2 similar units with one having a higher defense than the other, the AI attacks the one with higher defense.
Those were the most obvious faults with the tactical AI. Fixing these could greatly help AI win tactical battles.
Combat Rating
There is only one thing I'd change about the combat rating. To take into account the lethality of the sovereign and other magic users, you can do the following:
- Assign a combat rating (CR) to each tactical spell.
- For each magic user in the army, add the CR of the most powerful spell he/she could cast multiplied by the number of shards affecting that spell.
When Combat Rating gives a False Picture
Combat rating gives a decent general grade of an army's strength. However, there are often situations where CR gives a false comparison of two armies. It is all to do with the attack and defense of individual units. Consider one army whose unit with the highest attack does an average of 0 damage to the units of the opposing army. This is why I think the AI should consider the unit with strongest attack and defense of each army to better guide the AI when choosing its battles. If an army simply cannot harm one unit of the opposing army, then that battle is one-sided.
