I confess to my sins!

from Elemental Forums

My sins in Expert mode of FE:LH basically consists of me rerolling starts so very much until I get an isolated start then I start playing on that map unless there's an AI that starts like five turns away from me then I will reroll again.

 

Because with isolated start i will have enough time to research stuff and catch up in equipment which the AI already have like by turn 50? Thats what it feels like to me x.x

 

Because I can't really handle troops coming at me with endgame equipment like plate or that aegis robe for lightly armored classes when I'm still sporting Basic Spears. If I can manage to get boar spears before the armies start attacking it might be playable, otherwise not.

 

Is it possible for you guys to make a harder difficulty without research cheat bonuses? So that the Enemies will be coming at me like tough but progressing as fast as I am in research pace? That would be awesome. So that there will never be any games ruined by instant endgame troops in like turn 50.

 

Ridiculous difficulty is just plain insulting I watch tarth come at me with refining training done on their troops 3-6 times and each level of refined training requires about 1300-1500 research points for 10% boost. Ok its why its ridiculous. But...

 

I seriously hope one day TBS Games will wake up and depend on military might instead of sweeping away human players with research cheats.

 

Anyways back to expert mode, it feels like the AI have their study building generate 100 research for each building instead of just 1 like human's study building.

 

And thus when I move up in difficulty its because the previous difficulty's level's armies is quite lacking. AKA not numerous or strong enough to threaten me. It's always the research cheat that does me in in all the TBS games.

 

In fact, i stay on KING for civ 5 instead of moving up to emperor because of research speed, entire eras was getting finished in space of 10 turns or so. -.0 Like, I march to attack this city which took me five turns oh sorry, my troops is now obsolete xD Time to march them back. I guess its time to start looking into xml to turn off the research cheat or move it to king level as I face emperor level of troops.

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

You can mod in new difficulties but the variables are limited.

Code: xml
  1.     <AIDifficultyLevel InternalName="AIDiffLvl_Challenging">
  2.         <DisplayName>Challenging</DisplayName>
  3.         <AIEconomicRatio>1.0</AIEconomicRatio>
  4.         <AIFOWCheat>0</AIFOWCheat>
  5.         <AIHPRatio>1.0</AIHPRatio>
  6.         <AIStartingFundsRatio>1.0</AIStartingFundsRatio>
  7.         <AISovereignHPRatio>1.0</AISovereignHPRatio>
  8.         <AIUsesCombatMagic>1</AIUsesCombatMagic>
  9.         <AIIntelligenceFactor>1.30</AIIntelligenceFactor>
  10.     </AIDifficultyLevel>

Above is Challenging for instance. After 1.3 AIIntelligenceFactor seems to add a bunch of random bonuses such as traits to the AI. Before that it seems to be its actual intelligence. All the resource bonuses are one variable so you can't isolate research.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I would say keep at it. If you know what your doing wrong make minor changes to your starting build to improve your early game. It's just like playing an RTS but you can take as long as you want to play your turn. Refine, refine, refine. 

Some tips I have: 

Don't over expand too early. At low difficulties you can get away with it but later on you need to strike a balance between expansion and unit production.  What I learned from a Master level SC2 friend of my is that I spent more time making pretty bases then making armies.  Make what you need for your units and then pump them out. When you are at a safe level then work on your cities some more. 

Also, watch Youtube videos. Das and Maddjinn are good strategy players and in their videos they explain why they are doing what they are doing. 

I believe at tough, I think, the AI gets all of it's algorithms. So, at this level you are playing against the AI at it's best without cheats. It's actually pretty good compared to many other strategy games. 

The highest difficulties are to challenge the highest level players.  The AI will NEVER be able to overcome a human player with sufficient skill. Not trying to be a Naysayer but the day this is proven wrong as far as modern strategy games as a whole is the day SkyNet is born. The only game that this has ever been done is Chess where a computer beat a extremely high level player in a tournament. Chess has a very basic set of rules compared to most modern strategy games and most of the rules are abstract. So, the AI is given bonus resources and full vision of the map.

TLDR Don't be insulted by playing at a lower difficulty until you are comfortable because the AI will cheat. BTW, I don't know if Brad does this anymore but for GalCiv2 people used to submit their strategies on taking out the AI. Brad would then update the AI code to be able to recognize and counter it.  Although, it is easier to do with GalCiv then FE, magic tends to make AI programming a living nightmare. 

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I seriously hope one day TBS Games will wake up and depend on military might instead of sweeping away human players with research cheats.

 

You'll be waiting a long time, given that AIs can't typically cope with the adaptive ability of humans. In the meantime, play something much simpler in its basic units and moves like chess if you want to lose endlessly and honestly.