Classic Builds

[HoneyBadger]

With various discussions of AI in mind, one solution in particular has presented itself, that of starting a new game and setting one's opponents "by hand" so that the single player game AI is not at a randomly imposed disadvantage-example, creating a Helheim nation with W9/F9 bless. Because of this, and because it also may serve as a source of education/inspiration particularly to newer players, I propose a thread which will feature (hopefully) insightful, well-crafted, and time-tested Nation/Pretender designs, preferrably by experienced and talented players, but I'll also be posting to it, so anyone who thinks they have a good strategy is welcome, and the rest of us are welcome to critique, or even compliment, the proposed "Classic Builds".

Note: Designs should feature a Pretender (or "type" of Pretender, such as Human Rainbow, but specifics are preferred), specific Nation, Nation Scales, and the Pretender's Magic.
Thanks ahead and happy holidays to everyone who contributes! (Sorry, those who don't contribute will be recieving coal this year from Santa or whichever other super hero/higher power/flying spaghetti monster you happen to worship when things get rough.)

[HoneyBadger]

First Post (or second, for those who were paying attention and have too much time on their hands).

Thuggin It.
Agartha Early Age:
This is going for extremely tough, high-damage sacred troop Thugs who can contribute to End Game, to compliment all the tough, damage-absorbing units you get with early Agartha. The trade-off is miserable scales. Pretender: Forge Lord, Dom 5, Imprisoned.
Turmoil3, Sloth3, Heat3, Death3, Misfortune3, Drain3.
Magic: Fire10, Water9, Earth9, Nature4.
The idea here is that you aren't going to buy a lot of troops, but the ones you do buy are really going to count. Gold and resources are low and are just going to get lower, but with the Forge Lord and all of Agartha's gems, you can easily make this up by the middle of the game. Be careful about spending money-buy lots of province defence, atleast 30, and guard provinces with sacred troops. Don't be afraid to lose provinces as long as you can hurt the enemy worse. Use fever fetishes on your Pale One scouts, you should be able to really milk those fire gems, and spend them on Magma Children initially, and alchemize them to boost your cash flow. Make rings of regeneration and hand them out to your Ancient Lords. With 15% regeneration, you'll get 6-7 HP back. Yes, you could go lower on Fire magic, but 2 36point 15 attack skill magic attacks per round is nothing to scoff at, and almost nothing can resist some damage. With 44 hp, 18 prot, 12 def, and 3 points regeneration, you won't be taking a lot of damage in return. With the Forge Lord, you've got the ability to upgrade your sacred Ancient Lords, and they're a very nice chassis for upgrading. The battleaxe is ok to begin with since you've got Fire-bless, but how about an armor-piercing spear and a shield? or a couple of armor-piercing axes? When you can, think about upgrading to a Gate-Cleaver. You'll kill virtually anything you hit, and you'll go through castles like tissue-paper. You won't have the cash to build forts quickly until you research Wizard's Tower, so why let anyone else build them? Your weakness is going to be Astral Magic-get an Astral mage as quickly as you can, better yet, empower your Forge Lord. The Faithful(luck) sword can be an Ancient Lord's best friend, so can an amulet of magic resistance, and they're both pretty cheap. Create 3-4 small groups of 1 Oracle leading 4 Seal Guards and clean out all the weak indeps in the surrounding area. Either keep the strong indep provinces to help defend your lands or combine groups to take them out. Guard provinces with Seal Guards, your province defense isn't bad but needs help. Your Dom is good, and your scales are bad, so spread the bad around-grab provinces close to the enemy, guard them well, and put temples and prophets on them whenever you can. Especially devastating to cold-loving nations like Caelum, the Vans, and Niefel-all of which are your natural enemies, anyway. Large armies should always include atleast 2-4 Seal Guards (with an Oracle of your choice), Ancient Stone Hurlers (the armored ones), Cavern Guards, Ancient Ones, and Trogs. Don't waste your money on other national troops, concentrate on summons instead. Use your Forge Lord for forging-by endgame you should have atleast 20 fully decked-out Ancient Lord thugs to smash provinces on both land and sea. Other things you'll want are: Bladewind-as quickly as possible, Magma Children-lots, and soon. Riches from Beneath-to solve that pesky lack of resources. Gift of Health-cure your Seal Guards of all the 'itis they picked up by mid-game. Army of Lead-by End Game you should have a handful of Oracles who can cast this spell, and it's tailor-made for Agartha. Oracles of Subterranean Waters (sometimes) can cast Quickening while Oracles of Subterranean Fire can (sometimes) cast Conflageration. Oracles of Death can also cast Blight right out of the box and (sometimes) Disintegrate.
Alteration is your best long-term magic school, but don't neglect Construction-Weapons of Sharpness (castable by oracles) makes even your unequipped Seal Guards really nasty to all for end-game and you'll have the gems and the casters to produce more Iron Dragons than anybody else. Enchantments gives you mass-regeneration by level 8-another fine spell for Agartha, but only your Pretender can cast it, so it's big pivotal battle material only. Try to summon up a few Treelords when you can though, they'll help cover Nature magic, which you aren't as strong in as you could be, and a few Treelords casting Regeneration on your smaller groups of tough units is a good substitute for Mass Regeneration, and they can support in other ways as well. Enchantment also allows your Oracles of Death to create some undead troops, which won't hurt anything. Evocation is your friend up to level 6 with Magma Eruption and can still be useful up to level 9 for Oracles.

[Gandalf Parker]

You can create those as god files and upload the .2h
It might be best to name the god something like HB_Agartha so that when they go to use a saved god it will show up that way. Then you would start game including Agartha as a human player, load HB's god to it, and on the first turn make it a computer player.

These classic builds could also be scripted into map code which could be appended to a map. So if you wanted to play with HoneyBadger's Agartha and Gandalf Parker's Pangaea you could append HB_Agartha.txt and GP_Pangaea.txt to PerfectGame.map and start the game.

[HoneyBadger]

Great idea Gandalf, and thanks for contributing. I hope that you'll write up your Classic Pangaea build (and maybe some thoughts on overall strategy).

[Evil Dave]

To extend Gandalf's idea, if the files have names like XX_Age_Nation.txt, it shouldn't be too hard to write a script to randomly choose one from a set of all builds for that era and nation and append it to a map.

[alexti]

HoneyBadger said:
With various discussions of AI in mind, one solution in particular has presented itself, that of starting a new game and setting one's opponents "by hand" so that the single player game AI is not at a randomly imposed disadvantage-example, creating a Helheim nation with W9/F9 bless. Because of this, and because it also may serve as a source of education/inspiration particularly to newer players, I propose a thread which will feature (hopefully) insightful, well-crafted, and time-tested Nation/Pretender designs, preferrably by experienced and talented players, but I'll also be posting to it, so anyone who thinks they have a good strategy is welcome, and the rest of us are welcome to critique, or even compliment, the proposed "Classic Builds".

I think that you need not a "Classic Builds", but rather "Build for dummies". A lot of classic builds won't work when handed to AI, because AI won't have a clue how to use them. Probably the only reliable build for AI is uber-bless build (it's still not a guarantee that AI will be buying sacred troops though). Other than that you just pick good scales and generally decent pretender and hope that Ai can make some use of it. Anything more complex is bound to end up in AI playing it totally wrong.

Another issue I can see is that these builds will cause AI to lose their bonuses. If started as AI, AI player gets a lot of bonuses (design points and I think more gold/resources during the game). But if you use prebuilt pretender AI won't get extra design points. Not sure about other bonuses. Or is there some way around it?

[HoneyBadger]

I don't have a problem with "dummy builds" in addition to "classic builds". Ofcourse this thread is meant to help AIs but it's also meant to help new players, AND to create a database of decent designs that even experienced players can make use of (for instance when using a nation they've never played before in Multiplayer), talk about, critique, and reference.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

I echo Alexti. Brute power is going to be the best course for Dom III AI unless/until we get the ability to improve the AI itself.

Developers: As part of the current nation Mods you could have a "production weight" that AIs use. E.g. a nation mod that has a good basic lt inf, hvy inf, and missileer, then a number of variations of the above that produce subtle effects (e.g. a unit that is specialized for pillaging but isn't very good at actual combat) could heavily weight the basic troops so the subtle troops are never produced. The AI could then have a better chance of success. This would allow a modder to produce some real surprises for NIs as well (natural intelligences).

HoneyBadger: it seems to me that the best immediate way for us as players to do this is to create a mod for each nation that gives the AI the best of that nation, and gets rid of the subtle and flotsam. E.g. Arcoscephale EA would no longer have the pansy suicidal winged infantry. They are useful to the superior player, but the AI misuses them 9 out of 10 times. Maybe make the Myrmidons 10% cheaper. Create a couple of brute force gods to go with it: maybe two different SCs.

Another way would be to have the AI use more powerful moded nations. The mod I did a few weeks ago has horrible graphics, but it is awesome for the ai to play--The Hive. I am tempted to go back and actually put some real graphics in the mod and edit it specifically for the AI. In fact, I have two mods that the AI kicks butt with, and I will take a look at redoing them to make them even better for the AI to use, without cheating too much.

[HoneyBadger]

I'll have to look at the Hive-intriguing name by the way. I think your modding idea is a good one, but it'll take some time to get off the ground. Still, it's a good idea, and any more specifics for nations, as far as how to mod them to get the best result for the AI would be appreciated by whomever makes those mods and the rest of us.

[Valandil]

Gandalf did a pretender database for Dom (2? 1?)a while back. I don't know if it still exists, but that could be a helpful thing to add to for Dom3.

As for AI (instead of new players), giving them a human-built pretender negates all the AI bonuses (as mentioned), and AI usually fails to employ the strategy intended anyway, hence, I wouldn't bother with AI pretenders (generally).