AI can't handle Summoner rushing?

I've played two games on normal now where all I did with my caster hero was summon up one of each summon, and go on a rampage, killing every AI with that single stack of units.

You'd think after I wiped out a few civs, the remaining AIs might be more hostile towards me, but nope, no declarations of war, no hostility, just 'hi, nice to meet you!', then I walk in and kill their cities with the summoner stack.

I'll bump up the difficulty, but so far I have yet to even have an AI declare war on me, even when my military was otherwise weaker than theirs early in the game.

3,854 views 7 replies
Reply #1 Top

Yeah there should be negative faction impact if you destoy a member of that faction.

Reply #2 Top

the problem is not the summoned rush tactic

 

the problem is summoned creatures are often OP

 

summons cost is waaaaaay too low (call it NOTHING), research is not so expensive etc like pointed many times in the beta

 

so a thing you can get in less than 100 turns shoudl be comparable with troops or sovereign you can get in that time

 

 

ie 10 15 hp tops, 10 attack 5 def tops and maybe a weak casting abilitiy

 

Reply #3 Top

The problem is that there are no early game decent defensive units that are tough city defenders.  In Civ there are archers, which are a hard-counter to an early game rush.

Reply #4 Top

Quoting _Scooter_, reply 3
The problem is that there are no early game decent defensive units that are tough city defenders.  In Civ there are archers, which are a hard-counter to an early game rush.

Hrm, I don't think that is really the case.  My air elemental was hitting for 53 damage which is far more damage than any early units.  My group of three elementals was pretty unstoppable.  On the flip side, I did run into an AI that had an earth elemental so I might have simply researched summonings WAY before the AI.

I am not sure if summoning elementals has a cast other than mana (upkeep).  I think MoM had an upkeep which helped balance things out. 

Reply #5 Top

I can confirm this tactic on 'small' map and 'normal' difficulty.

agreed that current summons need to be weakened or at least bumped down the tree and new lower ones added.

Reply #6 Top

Not sure if it is related or not... but I almost wonder if it is a passive AI in general.

 

I've played 465 turns of an Epic, Large Map, Normal difficulty campaign and I'm not seeing ANY AI factions that have expanded beyond one city.  I tend to play games as a turtler and research victory sort too, so I've yet to attack one of them.  But in hundreds of turns none have expanded at all. 

 

 

EDIT:  Yeah, I'm a moron, I realized it's the thing in the middle I WANT opponents in, not the things on the top and bottom. 

Reply #7 Top

Wait - I don't understand - your AI opponents haven't expanded at all????

I hope this isn't true!?!?  I am playing on a large map and hadn't met any AI after about 100 turns and was assuming it was b/c they were elsewhere on other continents... (just 2 opponents)

????