Has anyone done an analysis [with a show all cheat or cartograhper] on the AI behaviour [on map] to see where it doesn't seem to do well???
For example does the AI's main weakness seem to be poor decision making in what stacks to attack & what stacks not to attack [needless losses]? Is there a problem with prioritizing goals / jobs for their hero to do?
The way I see it "economics" can't really be the AI's weakness because that's it main sledgehammer at this point. I'm just curious as to why the AI's performance seems lack-luster.
AI performance questions
Where to start? We still have the problem of the AI ignoring free resources, though it does seem better at flagging mines. Weak heroes walk right up to you. Mage guilds are not built up.
Before you criticize someone, first walk a mile in their shoes. If they get mad, you'll be a mile away. And you'll have their shoes.
I think AI is much better than in H3. I can no longer to the old trick with slowing the enemy with placing weak heroes near him but a little of the road. This was my main taktick when the strong AI hero is threatening my town and I cannot get into it before him.
I think sometimes it attackes too powerful stacks, but this is hard to judge, because when u defeat a strong stack u get lost of exp which gives you abilities and skills which strenghtens what is left from your army. Not to mention the artefacts if there are such.
AI misses free resourses some time BUT that is because it will slow him down in capturing a town or mine. Pretty clever i would say. I almost never loose movement points for a bunch of wood if i don't think i will needed in the near future.
Plus the AI is much better at ambushing you. He waits until you get further from your castle so you want be able to return in time and he runs like hell to get you undefended castle. I had to load a couple of time because of this.
I think sometimes it attackes too powerful stacks, but this is hard to judge, because when u defeat a strong stack u get lost of exp which gives you abilities and skills which strenghtens what is left from your army. Not to mention the artefacts if there are such.
AI misses free resourses some time BUT that is because it will slow him down in capturing a town or mine. Pretty clever i would say. I almost never loose movement points for a bunch of wood if i don't think i will needed in the near future.
Plus the AI is much better at ambushing you. He waits until you get further from your castle so you want be able to return in time and he runs like hell to get you undefended castle. I had to load a couple of time because of this.
i've played 7 ffa maps on hard now and i've seen the following mistakes by the AI:
- the ai usually walks around creature stack from 'week of the....' and thus wastes movement points. (even the heroes that can surely beat them without any losses)
- in the map crossing, i played as blue, and the orange ai that was near me never leaved his castle for some weird reason
- the ai always targets my ghosts when i'm playin necropolis. i think this has to do with the fact that the ghosts have a pretty high damage/hitpoints ratio, and the ai forgets that the ratio should be halved because of the incorporeal (?) ability.
- in Rise to Power, the green ai defeated ALL other four colors before week 5/6 i think. (dont remember it exactly), while this doesn't make him weaker at all, (in fact it was one of the toughest games, despite the fact that i was playin sylvan), it is a bit odd. also the ai gave almost all his units to one hero, allowing my logistics heroes to conquer other towns, while the ai superhero was having little luck catching them.
- the ai dismisses creatures when they need the space for a more powerfull stack.
english isn't my native language so i might mean something different than i wrote ^_^
- the ai usually walks around creature stack from 'week of the....' and thus wastes movement points. (even the heroes that can surely beat them without any losses)
- in the map crossing, i played as blue, and the orange ai that was near me never leaved his castle for some weird reason
- the ai always targets my ghosts when i'm playin necropolis. i think this has to do with the fact that the ghosts have a pretty high damage/hitpoints ratio, and the ai forgets that the ratio should be halved because of the incorporeal (?) ability.
- in Rise to Power, the green ai defeated ALL other four colors before week 5/6 i think. (dont remember it exactly), while this doesn't make him weaker at all, (in fact it was one of the toughest games, despite the fact that i was playin sylvan), it is a bit odd. also the ai gave almost all his units to one hero, allowing my logistics heroes to conquer other towns, while the ai superhero was having little luck catching them.
- the ai dismisses creatures when they need the space for a more powerfull stack.
english isn't my native language so i might mean something different than i wrote ^_^
IMO the ai in H5 is a mix of H3 and H4.I haven't done a formal analysis but I'll throw in some things that I've seen [and has been mentioned before by others]:
First the AI doesn't seem to invest in magic well or often at all.
Example: Yesterday I finished another game on the Rise to Power map. The AI's two main heroes didn't even have a single magic school at all! The heroes all pretty much had expert levels in their 6 [random?] skills none of which was a magic skill.
The only "hard" spells cast by AI heroes came from those that STARTED with a magic skill [thus the AI couldn't avoid learning magic].
Second, in a likely related issue, the AI seems to dramatically undervalue perks / abilities that are opened up by getting the right skills. In the 2 L20+ [and one L14] hero that I got to hire from the map and look over they not only didn't have a SINGLE magic school but they also had almost NO perks at all. The L20+ heroes may have only started taking perks AFTER they had maxed out all their skills.
With the army sizes & types they were controlling not taking things like Archery, Pathfinding, etc. doesn't make sense.
If this is fixed [either in AI or by hand by mapmakers if the editor is powerful enough] then we should get significantly better fights as long as the AI knows how to use their spells & perks.
NOTE: On hard / heroic mode I wouldn't MIND that AI being able to cheat and instead of being offered random skills & abilities for the game to offer them abilities from a template/list by level to insure a reasonably good & balanced hero. [unless the map maker has overridden this option]
First the AI doesn't seem to invest in magic well or often at all.
Example: Yesterday I finished another game on the Rise to Power map. The AI's two main heroes didn't even have a single magic school at all! The heroes all pretty much had expert levels in their 6 [random?] skills none of which was a magic skill.
The only "hard" spells cast by AI heroes came from those that STARTED with a magic skill [thus the AI couldn't avoid learning magic].
Second, in a likely related issue, the AI seems to dramatically undervalue perks / abilities that are opened up by getting the right skills. In the 2 L20+ [and one L14] hero that I got to hire from the map and look over they not only didn't have a SINGLE magic school but they also had almost NO perks at all. The L20+ heroes may have only started taking perks AFTER they had maxed out all their skills.
With the army sizes & types they were controlling not taking things like Archery, Pathfinding, etc. doesn't make sense.
If this is fixed [either in AI or by hand by mapmakers if the editor is powerful enough] then we should get significantly better fights as long as the AI knows how to use their spells & perks.
NOTE: On hard / heroic mode I wouldn't MIND that AI being able to cheat and instead of being offered random skills & abilities for the game to offer them abilities from a template/list by level to insure a reasonably good & balanced hero. [unless the map maker has overridden this option]
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