Longest Single Player Game ??

[NTJedi]

I do both Multiplayer and SinglePlayer games... but was wondering what your longest singleplayer game has been??
Also what was the computer AI opponents doing at the end of these long games??

I'm wondering since I have one game which is going to Last awhile... I'm on day 90 now and only control 33% of the map. What was really surprising was one of the computer opponents actually has people doing research. Will be interesting to read what others have seen from long games.

[ May 17, 2004, 16:34: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

[JJ_Colorado]

I've personally only played against the AI until about turn 120 at which point I knew I would win so I quit.

However, a friend of mine played over 200 turns as Ulm and eventually got conquered by Pangaea AI.

I'm in a game around turn 100 now and the computer is definitely doing research. Marignon, before I conquered them, had done more research than I had during the game. I just lost a castle to a 300 strong CTis army after a bloody assault during which CTis mages were casting some high level spells.

In my Last game I tried Ermor for the first time and 3 computer players (Man, Vanheim, and Rlyeh were the only 3 I was in contact with) conquered me sometime around turn 50.

John

[Schmoe]

I've played until around turn 80 or so in one game. I got dragged into a fight with C'tis Miasma, and before I knew it Vanheim had about 70 provinces to my ~50. Of course, my research and gem income dwarfs that of Vanheim, so we are probably on roughly equal footing. It's an interesting game, but with turns taking so long at that point, I'm not sure how much longer I'll play it out.

In all my other SP games, winning has seemed pretty much inevitable before that point, so I didn't play it out. Of course, I haven't played against Impossible AI yet, so when I do that may make games Last longer.

Come to think of it, that game on turn 80 may be against Impossible AI. I don't remember. Does anyone know of a way to check the AI level you are playing against?

[PvK]

Originally posted by Schmoe:
... Does anyone know of a way to check the AI level you are playing against?

In theory, the hard way might be:
Figure out what their scales, base dominion, and castle type are, and take a look at their pretender before it gets killed (and be sure you're right about the dominion and scales, which can be tricky - it's hard to know if they are say, Desert Sun or not, unless they have an obvious theme going). Then find somewhere that someone has posted how many extra points an Impossible gets (if there is such).

PvK

[Wauthan]

Since I only rarely play MP games (since I favor faster paced games when playing against friends) I too managed to create 200 turn sessions. Problem is that when the game has progressed to this point without a decided outcome the AI gets one heck of an edge against me. I simply don't have the stamina to field more than twelve armies at the same time against five frontlines AND deal with suprise attacks behind the border AND create manage item construction AND search for sites AND keep the infrastructure working. The AI can do all these things and never make a single mistake. Partly because it's not bogged down by overelaborate strategies. It just fields the best it has and throws it at me at various angles.

If someone creates a Castle Building script for the AI I'm not sure I'll be using it. With 60% sites there's actually enough hidden castles around to make things interesting. And while it doesn't search much all the small things it does find add up over time. In the Last game I fought to a "stalemate" I decided to quit after I got hit by a R'Lyeh army of epical proportions. The units were about 600, with several high end summons (Ether Warriors!), and there was about 35 commanders, all using good equipment (if a bit haphasardly distributed).

I sent everything at my disposal at this beast and won, but lost just about all my heroes and best commanders doing so (got mindbLasted to powder). Guess what appeared in the same province three turns later? An almost identical R'Lyeh army!

The current game set my personal record for wiping out the R'Lyeh pretender. No way I'm going trough that session again.

[ May 18, 2004, 13:20: Message edited by: Wauthan ]

[Gandalf Parker]

My brother-in-law had some games with AI that had battles where both of them were using thousands of troops. I sure wish I had saved some of them. Id love to do a "fly-over" camera recording of one of those battles.

You know that Johan and Kristoffer gave up two of their debug switches. I dont think they are in the command_line file yet but...

--allbutermor can be used to quick start a game with all but Ermor

--superhost is a switch to force hosting even if turns havent been done and to continue doing it even if no humans are left in the game.

So you could setup a game to loop hosting. Along with --scoredump you will be able to keep an eye on how the game progresses. You can also use map commands to try and setup your human-player to survive to the end of the game so you can peek in.

[NTJedi]

I always finish every game whether I am winning or losing... and no matter what the odds. The reason is so I can experience situations like Helms Deep(yet no Gandalf coming). Also to strike the final blow on an enemy which I may have been wrestling with for 80 turns or so. The hardest games to keep playing is when you are losing. Very often I've wanted to escape and start over but never would be happy with myself by tossing in the towel. If I know I'm going to lose then I play onward just to see how long I can stay alive.
In the game I'm playing right now Marginon almost crushed me during day 35 thru 40. His armies were slowing killing me and he was sitting on the doorsteps of my capital with bigger armies then me. Then just when Marginon was about to take my Last dozen territories away from me ULM shows up... crushing his armies. Luckily Ulm left me alone and focused on swallowing Marginon because it allowed me to rebuild. Now the game has only three players left Ulm, Vanheim and me(Machaka). I'm still not winning... but I'm holding my ground... and it looks like a long game.

Surprisingly Vanheim is doing almost as good as me on research... which I have never seen before with computer opponents. Ulm has almost no research which is what I typically see with all computer opponents. I believe the games would be even more interesting and challenging with the AI opponents if they placed more units into researching.

[Pocus]

and in these long games, have you seen new castles being built by the AIs? Be warry of castles given by sites if you are willing to check the issue.