The Frogboy challenge: Beat a ridiculous AI 1v1 on a small world

Ok, so you beat the AI 1v1 on ridiculios by rushing them. Basicly means AI is vulnerable to rushing, but I'm guessing you would have been too. Are you able to sit out 100 seasons peacefully and then start the war and still win? I think the latter is what Brad meant in his statement (that you took up as a challenge).

Props for indentifying two issues though, equipement and rushing vulerability.

Maybe the game could spawn all villiagers as peons/peasants if attacked before turn x sorta as outrage by the locals for being attacked in their efforts of trying to esthablish a settlement? After the attack they despawn as villagers minus the deaths to avoid explotation of that mechanic?

edit: maybe that should be a settlement defense response on all level 1 settlements untill they reach level 2.

To help mitigate rushing, use Murteas' Grimoire.  It gives each player the ability to summon a defensive unit that can't move from its home base.  The AI makes use of it, effectively making you at least level up heroes before trying to take on the capital city.  It'll also give sovereign's with the combat magic a level 0 combat spell that I've seen them pop off often,

Having a guy with 14 attack and 6 defense at the beginning is a pretty nice find.

I don't like the idea of a settlement defense response on all level 1 settlements.  That means outposts become fortified without the expense of doing so.

Ok, Im not intentionally rushing, in fact I had researched evenly, with 1 level in civ, mil, magic and adventure.  The game ended at season 48.  I encountered the enemy around turn 45, which is pretty reasonable for a small map.

But, if the AI is leaving its units and cities vulnerable it is silly not to attack them.  I also recall Frogboy saying that when he plays,  once he sees an AI he attacks them.

My point is more towards equiping the heroes so that is not an option.  All I had was one level of military which gave access to spears and padded armor.  My first spell is arcane weapon, so that gives me a boost.  But, since I had only 1 hero in the area, and he had 3, all he had to do was buy them equipment.  The spouse and other units had at least a 2x hp advantage on me (due to ridiculous), so if the AI had bothered to buy a spear, it would have been an even fight.  Since there was a stockpile of gold, I don't see why this wasn't done.  Also, the fact that I am on enemy territory also gives them an advantage.

Is it reasonable to assume that 48 turns is enough to get 1 level of military?  If so, he should have been able to buy spears. 

Regarding the nice find bit, it is just a spear + arcane weapon.  Even Janus had a 15 attack at that point (spear + arcane + bonus from delivering the noble)

Regarding vulnerabilities I don't think I am vulnerable at turn 45 to a lone hero wiping me out.  It is possible that my build is too explosive at the beginning and the game doesn't have a counter for it. I am using a custom sov and custom faction, so I guess that could explain it.

What is a reasonable turn number for someone to have researched equipment?   Also, this points out a glaring mechanic flaw to the game.  If one level of research makes everything below obsolete, then the gain is just too much to be fair, especially considering the discrepancies in sovereign and factions.  I believe some factions even start with equipment, and sovs can start with tech research.  This make the number of turns to achieve military parity very variable.

This might be a stupid question, but is the AI set to ridiculous or was the world set to ridiculous.   I find the AI is pretty good about leveling up its armies with 1.11.

Generally speaking I like the keep the world difficulty lower than the AI difficulty.

The only post I remember frog making like that is damn near at least 6 months old...your definition of recent is a bit skewed unless you can cite a source.

Frogboy recently said that he wanted the AI to be in such a state that it would not be beatable on ridiculous on a small map. I think it is clear that it is not.

Considering the AI is just now beginning to get some of the high level attention that Brad wanted to give it, it doesn't surpirse me that the AI is still falling a bit short of that milestone mark, despite significant recent progress.  I trust it will get there.  Rest easy by looking at where it was and where it is now, and know that where it is now is still not where it is intended to be.  "Patience young Grasshopper".

I'm patient. I wish I could enjoy the game, but as long as the AI remains in such a sub-par state it is not possible.

I wish Frogboy would dedicate like a month to developing the AI at this point. Then I think it would be up to the task of playing against a human player and pose a challenge. A month being the timespan vs progress he made in about a week over the holidays when he dedicated his time to that (aka 1.1 vs 1.11).

HF I wasn't replying to you, but rather that which some people might think they see when reading between the lines of the OP+replies... well that which I think, some might think they think they see ;~p  

I too look forward to Brad focusing on the AI (beyond after hours and holiday spurts).  Lets hope SD finds some quality talent to fill the lead designer roll soon.  That'll take one of the hats off the Frogs head. :~) ...which gives him more AI time.

Brad needs to clone himself or find his AI mini-me.

Do you have a saved game of this?

I've seen people claim this before only to find out they set the world difficulty to ridiculous but left the AI opponent at normal.

Ok, here is the save game:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11813907/Elemental/eASY%20wIN.EleSav

I haven't used dropbox much, so let me know if there is a problem.

While I have made the mistake of setting world AI to rid and AI to normal before, I don't think I did in this case.  Hopefully the extra HP and gold rate of the AI is indicative of the AI settings.  Is there an easy way to tell in game what the settings are?

Let me know what you find, and hopefully I won't be eating crow. 

If you go into the load game menu, it will give you details of your save game.

Hey Frogboy,

I just took another look at the savegame.  According to the savegame notes during load, the AI is on ridiculous.

After looking at the game a little more closely, I wanted to mention some things that are not showing up now.

Tthere were quite a few cases of the wrong image showing up for the units.  For example, the picture for my sovereign would come up as a guardian.

Also, I think something weird happened the first time around when I played.  After I clicked end turn, a combat report came up saying Cuervara (sp?) was attacking Rilis, and she had a combat strength of 0,0.  After I autoresolved, it said Karavoxs had fallen and then went to the end game screen.  I had assumed Karavox was either in that stack, but not the leader, or he had managed to get himself killed somewhere else. 

When looking at the savegame again, Karavox was parked outside of the town, and Cuervara was nowhere near the area.  I can't seem to reproduce that series of events, I've tried a few times, but it all seems on the up and up.  So, maybe this isn't all that helpful, but it was odd enough I thought I would mention it.

First of all thanks for the improvements to the AI, Frogboy

I thought I'd give this a try as well without rushing or making a super strong sovereign. I made a sovereign with only charisma and skills to match.

To avoid rushing I choose not to attack at all:

Only killing creatures and such during this time to beef up my sovereign I was at level 10 for both encounters below all points into charisma however

On Turn 282 their sovereign came into my territory with only a weak hero and an Ice elemental, teleported over to her and had the local army join me and killed her won the game. She had 172,798 gildar and a power score of 361 to my 39.I didn't like this as I know she could have killed me if she tried so I reloaded and left her  alone.

On turn 349 she comes back for a rematch (during this time they did take one of my towns as well), this time she had a decent little army and there was no way I could have killed her without heavy blink micro and a bow on my sovereign (I think this is a little cheap but it works) i did not have spell immunity so she could have killed me but did not use magic well enough. she had 393,752 gildar, and a 662 to 45 power score.

I think if the AI really wanted to it could have crushed me at any time. I can't wait for more improvements.

*On a side note I think Blink and a few other spells should have a limit/cool down.

There is a mod that adds cooldowns to many spells, including Alchemy, Teleport, Blink and Arcane Weapon.  Sometimes mana costs have been revised too.

Best regards,
Steven.

That mod sounds cool, but...

To keep things fair to Frogboy, I propose the following rules to the challenge:

1.  No MODS

2.  No savegame reload cheese when losing a fight.

3.  Custom Sovs are OK

4.  Custom Factions are OK

5.  World setting is normal.

I also want to clarify that this contest was created by me based on my hazy memory of something Frogboy said in a forum about AI.  It is in no way official.  That being said, I was wondering if the devs are finding this useful, and if rule numbers 3 + 4 are ok?

Also, Frogboy, if you are still listening, I was curious to know where you prioritized equipping heroes relative to other objectives.  Also, I was wondering if it is possible that the Spouse hero was accidently dropped from the AI's list of managed heroes?  I was thinking this might be the case since it is a bonus unit that the AI gets for free. 

Another clue in this direction is that it doesn't seem to do anything but sit there.  For example, you can take my save game and abandon the city I just took from Kraxis.  Even though it is undefended, the AI doesn't move the Spouse unit to take it back.

Finally, does the savegame even work considering I have a custom sov and custom faction?  Is that information embedded in the savegame, or does that mean the savegame is totally useless to anyone else?

I'm going to try this, I bet if I turtle long enough to get magic gear, I can load some champs and reign f'ing havoc even on the high difficulties. 

I would guess the best thing long term the AI can do with its spouse is keep it alive to pump out kids. Maybe kick it into action once all the babies are out though.

At least give the spouse some damn weapons and armor would be nice.