Serious question for those who play Single Player

[Kristo]

It does cheat in GalCiv II, at the highest settings (it gets an economy bonus).

But on the highest "fair" setting, you don't even have to do something incredibly stupid to lose, as Kristo argued. The AI has every intention of winning and can beat a new\average without cheating simply because it is well made.

Yeah I've read about that AI. BTW, my comments were aimed toward the "normal" difficulty level. From what I read in the Galciv2 dev diaries, their AI is very impressive. They painstakingly playtested it over and over again until they got it just right. At the highest fair difficulty, you're basically playing a "multiplayer" game against computer simulations of the game's designers. Awesome.

[cornellian]

That's exactly what I meant, yes I know that Gal CivII AI does cheat in the highest setting, but to be honest if you can make it to the highest setting on the game without exploiting any possible weakness in the AI (if there is one that is); than the computer needs cheating to counter your very fine strategy gaming skills.

I applaud Gal Civ's developers for they have worked on the most important aspect of a turn based strategy, of any strategy: a respectable AI, one that at least gives the impression that you are in clear danger if you mess things up, that you are not playing against 0s and 1s but against a human opponent. It is a rare accomplishment nowadays as computer game business slowly turns to be an exercise of just "great graphics, short games and dumb AI" coding...

Oh, and don't tell me that Civilization's AI is not cheating in the middle levels, it has been proven to be cheating by third party softwares.. I still remember the scandal in Civ III, Sid Meier's shame, and the famous, pitiful explanation of 'a technical misunderstanding'..

[OliverFA]

What heros game has had a good AI?

Both HII and HIII had excelent AIs for the times they were created in.

I am not trying to justify Nival, but just remember that H3's AI was H1's AI improved over time. I wonder if they could reuse H3's AI (as they bought the franchise, did they also got the source code?) or if they had to code it again from scratch. In any case, I remember vanilla H3's AI being quite easy to be defeated, but SOD's AI (in the same map) was quite much more difficult to beat. Let's hope that Nival can improve AI over patches.

Civ is easier to make AI for?With the diplomacy,religion,tons of units,enourmous maps and a huge timespan?

And it has exp for units, unlike Heroes 5!

And there is a strategy game in which AI doesnt have to cheat:Chess

Yes, but it is just because Chess is a very simple game, so for a computer is very easy to just create a movements tree and throw in lots of computer power. That's nowadays impossible for a moderately complicated game such as Heroes 1, whose rules where much more simpler than Heroes 5

[HodgePodge]

For whatever reason Nival hated Heroes 4 so much, they seem to have made the same mistake(s) in Heroes 5 as were present in Heroes 4 … a stupid AI! But at least Heroes 4 had a Map Editor so fans could create maps (with marvelous stories) to give the game a long life. Well, Nival has promised us a map editor soon, so maybe the same will be true for Heroes 5.

When Heroes 5 was first announced (and after StarForce was dumped) I played Heroes 4, waiting for Heroes 5 to be released. Now I play Heroes 5, waiting for the latest release of Equilibris.

[sylvanllewelyn]

Two suggestions for Nival:

1.) collect replays from top players, and follow their build orders and tactics, rather than trying to come up with their own. Blizzard patches the starcraft and warcraft AI's all the time.

2.) Give it omniscience, ie see the whole map. For example, if two-thirds of the buildings you constructed suggests a slow strategy, rush you, before scouting. Or, if they see your main hero is far away from your castle, attack. It's less blatant, but no less challanging.

[Asjo]

My games preferable never end. I really like different strategic moves, which could be compared to chess. I think the reason many people like short, challenging games is because they are achievement-based players. I don't actually need to acheive anything. I get plenty of pleasure in just watching the developments around the map and seeing how different heroes face off against each others. I like it mostly when I'm playing hot seat with a friend of mine, because then I can provide him with a lot of challenge and be entertained by it. I actually like an infinite backup army with thousands of every unit in the maps I make myself, however, I only use that backup army for some fun battles or to control some of the events in the game, otherwise I like the AI to have the advantage so there's something to fight through.

I actually like to preseve AI players and try to keep them alive. I want the map to be as big as possible and to contain as many players as possible. That's always how I have played. If I play a normal single player map it's for the "adventure" of it (or to test the game) but that was mostly back in Heroes 1 (and Heroes 2 demo) where the game was still an "exciting unknown".

While the amount of players allowed in Heroes 5 lives up to my requirements for such a game (even if 12 players would be great), the AI and the map size certainly do not. However, I must say that even if the glitch that the author mentions did occur, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it if the current AI problems mentioned in my thread "List of AI flaws" were fixed. As long as I get the sense that there is some kind of mind behind the AI and it actually learn to use the different elements of the game adequately, I would be crazy about creating my own little universe, especially if the expansions introduced loads of new neutral creatures and factions, since I feel a lot is missing there.

[DaemianLucifer]

2.) Give it omniscience, ie see the whole map. For example, if two-thirds of the buildings you constructed suggests a slow strategy, rush you, before scouting. Or, if they see your main hero is far away from your castle, attack. It's less blatant, but no less challanging.

Well this type if cheating is way better then huge resource boost.

[Capt_Tripps]

I remember playing Homm3. I think it was the 1st or 2nd map of Conquest of the underearth. I got to a spot on the top right corner of the map where there was a necro castle, and the AI army was huge compared to mine. He came out of the castle, killed my secondary resource gathering stack, and left the castle open. I think he left one imp in the castle. I took the castle, and was able to defeat him with the help of the towers and castle.

[RK]

To the guy who suggested recorded battle replays.
Exactly what I'm thinking.
It'd be memorable to record the final castle siege and then share it with the forum to discuss tactics. I'm sure this will be easier than telling people 'Oh, just use earthquake' or 'Fly over the wall and open the gate'.

Maybe the future expansion pack should carry that feature.

[Tarm]

I made a new topic, but I found this thread later and thought it would be more appropriate to post it here.

Ok, Im totally stunned by the mere stupidity of the AI sometimes. I bought this game mainly to play on my laptop at work (which means killing 10 hours while doing nothing) and the AI is kinda ruining the game.

Once I had a big showdown against an inferno army. Im being slightly worried about the succubi, as they took quite a chunk off of my army with their first shot. Then, to my big surprise, his 300ish bomber demons decides to help me out and blows everything around them to smithereens, meaning lots of dead succubi and some other stack. During the first round of combat.

The opponent once pulled off a sweet move, casting circle of winter around a stack, damaging all those surrounding it. Sadly, it was my stack in the center and his around it.

I decided to play a game of rivalries (at least I think that was the map) and I kill my closest opponent. I flag the rest of the mines on our island, and I move on to the next. This is into the second month and I have quite a few shadow dragons now. I notice that practically no mines are flagged at this island, but I ignore them and go directly for the town. He has a wooping 40 cerperi, 140 demons and 200ish imps. Fair enough. He probably got wiped once by an opponent. But when I capture the town, I see that he has built no more advanced unit than the cerberus. He is even lacking mage guild! And I see why. He has failed to flag his ore pit, thus lacking the resources to build up his town.

There are many other examples, but these are what comes to mind at the moment.

[Salisa]

[quote= Now I play Heroes 5, waiting for the latest release of Equilibris. [/quote]

Just as I said prior to release and i'm doing the same thing...Hooray for the Big E, I just wish they( Ubisoft-nival) could include a random map generator... Personally I like going out of my way to make terrible heroes yet still win..


Oh, and to the one who has never had the AI take half the force out of a town they were about to attack, the other nite the AI in my game abandoned to whole town when I was just one turn from it.. and it didn't even bother to come back for a suicide attempt...

[HodgePodge]

Oh, and to the one who has never had the AI take half the force out of a town they were about to attack, the other nite the AI in my game abandoned to whole town when I was just one turn from it.. and it didn't even bother to come back for a suicide attempt...

One of the big differences I've noticed between Heroes III & Heroes V is that a color can lose all its towns and still not be eliminated from the game. That's probably the only element Nival kept from Heroes IV. Maybe good, maybe not. Anyhow, that's the way it is in Heroes V. The AI no longer needs to hold on to their towns and probably won't risk losing any troops if your color is about to capture one of theirs.

[Gaidal Cain]

Actually, standard behavior is exactly as in H3- lose your towns, and you have 7 days to capture another or you perish. I believe it applies to AI as well.

[Asjo]

Yup, it's a special rule you can add that you have to eliminate every hero as well . . .

[DaemianLucifer]

Once I had a big showdown against an inferno army. Im being slightly worried about the succubi, as they took quite a chunk off of my army with their first shot. Then, to my big surprise, his 300ish bomber demons decides to help me out and blows everything around them to smithereens, meaning lots of dead succubi and some other stack. During the first round of combat.

The opponent once pulled off a sweet move, casting circle of winter around a stack, damaging all those surrounding it. Sadly, it was my stack in the center and his around it.

Oh how I love this bugs.At least they are very funny to watch.Imagine the enemy outnumbering you and then he says:"Wait,this battle isnt fair!Here,let me hel out",and then he wipes half his troops with a spell

I decided to play a game of rivalries (at least I think that was the map) and I kill my closest opponent. I flag the rest of the mines on our island, and I move on to the next. This is into the second month and I have quite a few shadow dragons now. I notice that practically no mines are flagged at this island, but I ignore them and go directly for the town. He has a wooping 40 cerperi, 140 demons and 200ish imps. Fair enough. He probably got wiped once by an opponent. But when I capture the town, I see that he has built no more advanced unit than the cerberus. He is even lacking mage guild! And I see why. He has failed to flag his ore pit, thus lacking the resources to build up his town.

Well the computer does get a huge resource boost most of the time,so I guess this is why it doesnt flag its mines.But it seems that those boost dont come always.

[Gaidal Cain]

Oh how I love this bugs.At least they are very funny to watch.Imagine the enemy outnumbering you and then he says:"Wait,this battle isnt fair!Here,let me hel out",and then he wipes half his troops with a spell

It's a parameter that makes the Ai on easy and normal center all area effect spells on "target". Someone forgot to tell it that it's even more stupid than normal with Circle of Winter.

[Ethric]

Are you saying it doesn't blast it's on troops on harder than normal? If so, it'd be a sign that there's more to hard and heroic than more cheating.

[Gaidal Cain]

Don't know if it won't blast it's own troops, but it should show at least some more intelligence when casting area-effect spells.

[DaemianLucifer]

Ok,blasting some of its troops with are effect spells is dumb,but whats way dumber is cating single target harmful spells on your own troops.

[cornellian]

In my games the AI uses its spells fairly effective, at least uses ice bolt on single hard enemies, and fireball on my groups... Never seen an AI cast an implosion or meteor shower though...