Going from Normal AI to Impossible AI...

Atreidi · #1 June 13th, 2008, 11:42 PM

Im just curious what difficulty level most of you guys play and feel confortable with.

I usually play against a combination of difficulties but mostly Difficult.

1. What is the difference between difficulties?
2. What does the AI do differently as the difficulty increases?
3. Does the AI cheat in higher difficulties or is it simply more efficient?

Atreidi · #2 June 14th, 2008, 01:08 AM

I've been looking all over the manual for an explanation on the difficulty levels and cant find anything. I dont know if im not looking in the right place or if its just not there

Loren · #3 June 14th, 2008, 01:15 AM

The AI gets more points as the difficulty goes up.

At impossible I've seen pretenders with 4 paths at level 9.

MaxWilson · #4 June 14th, 2008, 01:29 AM

Quote:

Loren said:
The AI gets more points as the difficulty goes up.

At impossible I've seen pretenders with 4 paths at level 9.

You can actually do this if you take the right Imprisoned pretender and poor enough scales. EA Mictlan can get a F9W9D9B9 Smoking Mirror with Dominion 4.

Not that the AI was doing that, it just had more points. The frustrating thing for me is that it still frequently takes Death scales and I'm too lazy to mapedit smart pretender designs in for it--so I just use a lot of opponents and let the good ones eat the bad ones.

-Max

NTJedi · #5 June 14th, 2008, 02:45 AM

Quote:

Loren said:
The AI gets more points as the difficulty goes up.

At impossible I've seen pretenders with 4 paths at level 9.

With some programming effort the AI could be designed to take smarter scales on higher difficulty. Smarter scales... such as never taking Death_2 or Death_3 or never taking Unluck_2 or Unluck_3. Human players know how to manage these scales where as AI opponents really suffer. Other useful scales for the AI would be taking Order and Production.

quantum_mechani · #6 June 14th, 2008, 02:58 AM

Quote:

NTJedi said:
Smarter scales... such as never taking Death_2 or Death_3 or never taking Unluck_2 or Unluck_3.

Misfortune is a staple of MP players, and there are plenty of times when a build has need of points from death scale as well.

kasnavada · #7 June 14th, 2008, 03:34 AM

I think you missed the second part of NTJedi's reply...

What I would actually like is to be able to set the AI before starting a game...

NTJedi · #8 June 14th, 2008, 05:50 PM

Quote:

quantum_mechani said:

Quote:

NTJedi said:
Smarter scales... such as never taking Death_2 or Death_3 or never taking Unluck_2 or Unluck_3.

Misfortune is a staple of MP players, and there are plenty of times when a build has need of points from death scale as well.

Yes... as mentioned you completely missed my second sentence.

MaxWilson · #9 June 14th, 2008, 01:23 AM

If by "cheat" you mean extra resources, yes, it cheats. I believe the AI at higher difficulty levels gets 200% of the gold, resources, and (I think) gems it actually "earns." I don't think it "cheats" in the sense of having extra information about your status of forces, except that it knows who owns every province whether it has a scout nearby or not. That's really the only difference between difficulty levels except for the AI getting more points to design Pretenders. I think Difficult = 130%, Mighty = 170%, and Impossible = 200%. I'm not sure, though. KO or JK posted about it once in the forums here but my memory of the details is fuzzy.

I usually play against Impossible AIs using Edi's Better Independents mod. I have found that the AI is actually more challenging with a mix of difficulty ratings (probably because the Impossibles eat the Mighties and Difficults) but I usually don't set games up that way for some reason. I also lose fairly regularly. If I really want to do some role-playing instead of feeling constrained to play "efficiently" I will play against Normal or Difficult AIs.

-Max

Atreidi · #10 September 6th, 2008, 05:38 PM

waa, people playing in Easy Dificulty? Why? :S