is the AI cheating

[Epaminondas]

Originally Posted by Fate

The first strategy I was able to pull off successfully was a bless strat. In that vein I would suggest taking a god bless nation (such MA Arcoscephale) and taking a heavy bless.

I like a pretender (Mother of Rivers) with Water 9/Fire 9, imprisoned, magic -3, turmoil -2, productivity +1 (because the heart companions are resource expensive), and dom 6. Then make your starting commander a prophet and recruit ONLY heart companions. Script your commander to divine bless and tear up indies. (Indies should be at 6 or so).

This strategy works in two ways. First, you should be conquering 1+ provinces per turn (you can spend surplus money on mercenaries to keep expanding, just overbid by a small amount to block the AI). Second, anytime the AI looks like it is going to attack you move your entire holy army up and attack the AI. Your blessed units can take almost any mundane attacks (they have a little trouble with tramplers) so an army of 50 heart companions can easily take 200 AI chaff.

How is Arco a good Bless nation?

[Illuminated One]

@Edratman

Yeah, I did that on my first game, created a random map via generator and started it again and again until I got the corner.
But it made the game boring somehow only fighting one enemy and I guess in MP I can't hope for the nice spot, too.
I'll just stick to trying to learn from being defeated.


By the way one other strange thing I noticed.
In the demo the AI was actually using combat spells but in the full game it seems not to do so. Has this to do with the ages (LA vs EA) or with the difficulty or am I the only one experiencing this?

[rdonj]

Personally, I would never try to fight more than one AI at a time unless I was one of the top two or three nations. If you're having trouble beating them because you're fighting 2 or 3 AIs simultaneously by the start of the second or third year, you probably should be losing. Unless you're using a strong bless on a good chassis, you won't be able to maintain enough armies of size to hold them back really early in the game.

[Gandalf Parker]

If you really want your strategies dissected and discussed, joining the IRC channel for Dominion on GameSurge will do it. Plenty of experts hang out there who are more than willing to lay out the pros and cons of any strategy or tactic.

On the other hand its kindof like asking for cheat codes or reading the end of a book first. I much preferred stumbling thru things on my own.

[Gregstrom]

Originally Posted by theenemy

In one SP game, I set up all the players(except myself) with ALL NEGATIVE SCALES, sucky dominion and sucky pretender. Then I switched to AI players in-game. Well guess what, the AI recruited HORDES of cheap troops each turn while I struggled to keep my small armies from starving.

The AI probably let its armies starve. It does that. It probably wasn't buying many expensive leaders (mages, for instance), which let it waste more money on troops.

It would be interesting to know your race design and game settings.

Originally Posted by theenemy

Another thing that makes the AI harder is that all the "ultra-mega-uber-kill-everything-in-site-spells" aren't available until the higher mag. lvl's. And if you turn the magic research to easy in options, the AI only get's tougher for some reason unknown to me. So, if I turn down the mag. research... the AI b****slaps me to hell, if I don't turn down the mag research... well, the AI b****slaps me to hell too.

Easy research is a boost to the AI. AI players don't spend as many resources on research as humans generally do, and making research easier lets them get the critical mid-level spells quicker.

Originally Posted by theenemy

But perhaps it is only my poor troop placement skill. I have trouble deciding what kind of troop is better placed where.

Quick rules of thumb:
Archers in the midfield, or slingers a little ahead of that.

Either way, some infantry just in front of them on hold and attack orders is a good idea.

Your main attacking units shoud be not quite at the front. Occupying the very front of the field should be a few small units of throwaway chaff (indy archers are good), who will take the brunt of the enemy charge.

If you have good cavalry (or very fast units of some sort), put them at the side of the field with orders of hold and attack rearmost/archers.

Sure, it's not perfect, but it'll often suffice against an AI.

Originally Posted by theenemy

Oh, and isn't unrest 100 or over = not able to recruit troops?

Yes for humans, probably yes for AI.

Originally Posted by theenemy

They really should include SP diplomacy in this game. Would make things SOOOO much easier.

Maybe.

For a training game:
Map: Silent Seas
1 normal or easy AI - don't bother to set up their pretender as the AI can make really bad design decisions all by itself. Feel free to choose their race.
Money/Resource/Supply: all 100. Changing any of these is unlikely to help you more than the AI.
Research: Normal or maybe difficult.
Strength of independents: 9 - don't try to take any indy provinces until you have a large army. The AI won't be as sensible, and you'll have an advantage in the early game because they'll be losing troops hand over fist.
1 starting province - it's best to start the AI off as small as possible.


Generally, the more AIs in a game the more challenging it is. Keeping games simple until you can handle armies well is a good idea.

PM me if you think of anything you'd like to ask.

[JimMorrison]

Independents = 9 is the most sensible learning advice available. It is the only game that will reliably hamper the AI more than you.

I found the game easier to learn with Production-3 in my scales. The reason being, until you have the knowledge of what units are best, and what to build when - you need the capacity to meet a horde with a horde, if nothing else.


Also, I struggled to really get a good grip on the game, until I made a nice random map with 61 provinces, and no water. I generated a few until I got one I liked, and I marked ALL territories as "no start", except one near each corner.

A map like this, with 3 opponents, reduces the chances of you getting swamped, and makes turns resolve REALLY fast, so you aren't staring at the screen praying you're still in the game.

Then I beat my head against those maps for a couple of weeks until I started reliably winning with just about every nation that I tried.

Then I bumped up the difficulty 1 notch, and cried again.

I <3 Dominions.

[Taqwus]

Originally Posted by Illuminated One

@Edratman
By the way one other strange thing I noticed.
In the demo the AI was actually using combat spells but in the full game it seems not to do so. Has this to do with the ages (LA vs EA) or with the difficulty or am I the only one experiencing this?

EA tends to feature stronger national mages and also defaults to a somewhat higher magical site frequency (and thus, higher gem income).

[Gandalf Parker]

the AI has been much changed since the demo was created

[Taqwus]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

Independents = 9 is the most sensible learning advice available. It is the only game that will reliably hamper the AI more than you.

Agreed. One should also eyeball the independent types. Feudal provinces (heavy infantry, knights and archers) are pretty nasty if you lack shields or lance-absorbers (e.g. Dispossessed Spirits). Lizardmen provinces should be avoided if you're relying on an SC pretender. Barbarians are slightly ugly in melee, but fare poorly under concentrated arrow fire.

I found the game easier to learn with Production-3 in my scales. The reason being, until you have the knowledge of what units are best, and what to build when - you need the capacity to meet a horde with a horde, if nothing else.

Prod-3 might depend on the nation, of course. Sometimes it's gold that's the bottleneck.

The AI tends not to overbid for mercenaries, at least on low difficulty levels, so bidding 1+base rate works. Some of the mercenary companies are good for capabilities you might not have (like heavy cavalry, amphibious infantry, or other magical paths) and others may be more useful as cannon fodder. Good for early expansion.

Along with this, don't overspend on temples early. Unless you started near a very happy blood-sacrificer, you shouldn't be in danger of dominion death early on, and the gold would be better spent on mages or troops.

[Irishmafia2020]

Originally Posted by Illuminated One

@Edratman

By the way one other strange thing I noticed.
In the demo the AI was actually using combat spells but in the full game it seems not to do so. Has this to do with the ages (LA vs EA) or with the difficulty or am I the only one experiencing this?

I never played the demo, but my armies are definitely being defeated by combat sorcery in my game. I am MA Ashdod, and it is primarily LA Atlantis that has deployed a ton of mages. That seems to be the personality of the faction though, since I haven't faced any other neighbors who are equally aggressive in their use of magic...