What races does the AI play best?
 

Actually, a double-question - which ones does the AI play best, and which ones worst? Note "best" doesn't mean "just as good as a real person". :-)

I've seen the AI do well with MA Vanheim repeatedly, but I haven't played enough games to make a judgement about the rest.

-Jeff

Re: What races does the AI play best?
 

Seems pretty good with LA Ermor to me. Also seems to do well with MA Jotunheim for some reason.

Re: What races does the AI play best?
 

AI still seems pretty hapless with any blood-hunting race, especially when it relies on blood sacrifice to spread dominion.

Re: What races does the AI play best?
 

I would say EA Mictaln is by far the worst, which is what Tichy said. It self destructs in 5 turns or less for lack of dominion at least 25% of the time. If it makes it past that point, then it does okay. The next worst is Caeleum, all ages, which has trouble expanding virtually all the time.

In my experience Atlantis, Ulm and Pangea, both EA and MA ages, are nations it plays pretty well on a consistent basis. It also does quite well with all nations having recruitable giants.

Other than that the other nations seem to be pretty uneven.

All AI nations also seem to be better when you play 300 gold and 300 resource settings. These help you, but it seems to help the AI expand much more than it helps you. Also if you set indies to a low number the AI expands better and thus is tougher.

I cannot comment on LA because of limited experience.

Re: What races does the AI play best?
 

In my experience, I can state a few:

1) Almost any nation with Glamour. Virtually all the Van nations, Tir na nog, and Eriu.

2) EA Ulm and Marverni.

3) Fomoria and the other Giant nations.

4) Presumably Sauromatia.

Having said that, there are a few other indications. Generally, the lower the indy strength the better the AI does. I think it has a problem with figuring out exactly how bad certain provinces are, and it does not seem to prioritize in terms of easiest win. Rather, it prioritizes in terms of highest gain. It thus has problems running into HC provinces.

Re: What races does the AI play best?
 

It's not that the AI is good with LA Ermor, it's that the AI is terrible at countering LA Ermor. You need simple but specific strategies to counter those undead hordes, and the AI never fields such strategies. So if you're playing a medium-to-large SP game against multiple AI opponents inclosing LA Ermor, Ermor is going to crush the other AIs handily, and expand unstoppably throughout the game, making it an extremely powerful foe unless you catch it very, very early.

I rarely play against LA Ermor in SP for this reason. It's just not much fun, there's no variety, since every other foe is dead, just you and vast wastelands full of skeletal hordes.

I do agree that the AI does best with nations that have solid recruitable troops, such as Heims, Giants, EA Ulm, and so forth.

Re: What races does the AI play best?
 

I've seen AI implode with Marverni more than a few times. They always seem to get overrun. Why do you think AI is good with them?

Re: What races does the AI play best?
 

Mainly because they can gain provinces quite fast. I think the 'implode' issue is that they sometimes recruit hornblowers in large numbers, which is not an effective strategy.

Re: What races does the AI play best?
 

Ah -- I'd just gotten used to seeing them "?-Whoozit the god of Marverni..." pretty early on...Now I'm interested to see what it's like to meet them in an SP game.

Re: What races does the AI play best?
 

A lot of it depends on the indie settings. I consistently play with indies 7, hard research, 100% gold and resources, magic sites 35 or less and Better Independents mod to disable the chaff.

With that setup, the EA nations that consistently come out on top with AI are the glamour nations (Van, Hel, Tuatha), Ulm, Ermor, Marverni and Sauromatia. Niefel varies a lot. Lanka is very often a strong one for the AI, but it doesn't use the blood aspect much. Tien Chi is also a fairly safe choice for the AI in that it will be at least semi-competent.

Haven't played much since 3.10 came out and never with Fomoria as an opponent, so I have no idea how that plays out. C'tis has variable success. The AI generally sucks with Abysia and isn't too competent with Arco.

MA and LA I haven't played appreciably, so no big trends, but anything that has decent armor and hits hard and straightforward is usually good for the AI.