AI WARS!

Stupid question here. Are AI changes added each patch like crashfixes or are they only added when specifically mentioned in changelog?

I'm so glad Stardock has such great post-release support. I wish I could go a few months in the future and play an Elemental I won't even recognize, while a lot of developer/publishers out there simply drop all support post-release as if they never were involved in the game in the first place

Not enough war. 1/5

yeah I don't see any war there.

The AI needs improvement in the areas of

1) selecting gear and

2) training veteran or higher units with larger size than 1 per unit

Right now, no matter the difficulty, the AI is toothless in the end-game. I guess most of this is because the Ai isn't good at finding metal. It is very possible for AI to sit on 130k gildar, 50k materials and 0 metal (because it used it all). Meanwhile, I can save up my metal and build strong units the enemy has no chance against. And this is just 200 turns in.

That's why you see the awesome diplomacy units - that's all they can really build, other than warstaff+leather.

Honestly, I don't know how to solve this. Metal is so important in the game, and yet, the AI never ever has enough to use it well. Don't get me wrong, the AI uses what metal it has in a very smart way - put it all in weapons - but they'll still get rolled because of how they manage it - building solo units that get oneshot by a squad or a raid.

I guess the AI badly needs to save up on metal, then use it to build units with more than 1 guy in them. Instead of pushing out 100x1 guys with a battle axe or possibly a lordhammer. What use are battle axes when EVERY unit in my army has 20 defense and 300 health? And then the enemy - this is on ridiculous, by the way - sends 100 guys with 40 health (no veteran training!) and 26 attack power.

Well "a lot of developer/publishers" also tend to release finished games with concrete systems and a semblance of balance. As far as I am concerned all of these post-release patches we are getting are simply an extension of development. I'm getting a little bit annoyed by posts saying how great post-release support is...yeah it's great because it's easy to support a game that was never finished in the first place. I'd wager one of the expansions (perhaps one that introduces naval warfare) would be an accurate reflection of post-release support.

At the same time, there have been developers who have released smoking piles of buggy crap and then left it to dry in the sun and be stepped on. Initial launch failure notwithstanding, and with subsequent ownership of failure and due apologies, I believe the sentiment regarding post-release support still stands.

I do lots of tweaking to the AI with each build but we don't publicize the specifics since AI strategies are highly confidential. For instance, in last night's build, the AI unit work should have been noticeably better.

In tonight's build, players should notice the AI isn't quite as quick to go to war with you and are much more willing to target each other.

What are you hoping to accomplish with that statement?  

Elemental was finished on release. That's why we released it. We thought it was finished. We weren't "rushed' to get it out there.  

You get annoyed by posts saying how great post release support is? I get a little bit annoyed by users who say Elemental wasn't "finished" on release.  How do you even define that? You can make the argument that the game was horrendously buggy due to poor QA or that you didn't like the game when it first came out but to say it wasn't finished is not an accurate statement. We felt the game was finished and released it. Most non-developers have no concept of how insane it's gotten in 2010 to make a stable game with a new game engine. Heh, I've been making software for twenty years and I had no clue on how ridiculous it had gotten until Elemental got out there into the wild.

Our customers weren't happy with the game and so we endeavored to do what was required to make sure our customers were happy. That's what we do.

I like you Marlowwe, you're a good guy and all. I just want people to make the distinction between releasing something badly and releasing something unfinished.  I think I've been very open about us messing up on the launch of the game. But it wasn't an issue of not having integrity.

You know, I think what it comes down to is that Stardock was the victim of extremely high expectations, coupled with the fact that this game fills a void in a genre that has been largely neglected. I think the post-release backlash is could actually be viewed as a backhanded compliment.

The initial release wasn't horrible, but it didn't really blow you away, either. Seeing that, Stardock has dedicated a division to game improvements and thrown in the expansion packs for free. I think the fan bases' support of Stardock is very well founded.

Now, on topic, nice post.

Yeah I could list off recent purchases that have pretty much destroyed my desire to buy games new again to prove Istari's point but I won't.

Only bad example I can think of for Stardock is Demigod but maybe they were just the publisher for that one, I'm no expert here.

How is that a justification for anything?

When you want to see how well you did something you don’t measure yourself against people that perform worse than you…

Ratatosk7 took an unfair potshot at the quality of post-release support by other developers when the release situation with Elemental wasn’t remotely comparable to theirs. I felt that his praise was misplaced that's all.

Thanks Brad, one question...do the AI changes take effect if I start a previous save game?  Or only if I start a new game after the patch?

Thanks again.

I'd just like to say that, yes, indeed, the improvement was very noticeable.  Still a ton of room for further improvement, since the AI still is a bit pioneer-happy and doesn't abuse mechanics even close to as well as a human can, but a very noticeable improvement nonetheless. 

whats the purpose of this thread? I too see no wars..

Not only do I see no war, I hear no sound. Does anyone else hear sound?

Well, marlowwe did try to start a flame war in this thread. 

Yeah Stardock released a finish product with a new engine while others released games with engines they had used in 3 previous games that still had same critical gamebreaking bugs and extremely frequent CtD

And now Stardock is dramatically changing entire systems within the game in order to make the game better as well as working on fixing issues as soon as they can find the source. Unlike the previously mentioned unmentioned games where a community of players would have to work years in order to create a mod that allows you to actually play the games.

As far as this thread proves, it proves there is someone working on the AI to make it better, don't scare em away

Brad, I still think the AI needs some work in the city building areas. It spams libraries like there's no tomorrow, but it should be a bit more careful about maintenance costs and building an economy; actually, it should specialize way, way more: no more libraries in cities that don't get full level-up research bonuses. Also, I'm wondering if it's sending all the caravans it can.

I rarely see a town-hall or equivalent, and it's not building all the market-equivalents either. Those buildings are critical to economy-building.

I think the war is implied.

@Frogboy

you told us we get some big news last week about the expansion or something cant remebar 100% any news ?

Um, yeah you could say that. I think it was either the fact that people were calling it Master of Magic 2, that Stardock even tried to get the MoM license to make a new one, that there hadn't been a good fantasy strategy game in forever, etc. I can safely say those reasons caused my expectations to go sky high. They did come crashing down eventually, but with post-release support like this, I'm starting to get my expectations up for the complete, final, post-expansions product again...

i tought we get something bigger

Really where was that announced.  I missed it somehow.

A mod-API specialist dude is pretty big news.  One of the things many of us are looking for with Elemental are people making awesome mods.

Depends who the mod specialist is. Most of you have probably heard of him.