Getting Humped over Since v1.03

And Im Loving it :D

from Sins Forums

Yep, its good   ;) 

I got to grips with the AI fairly quickly when i first got the game, played on hard from my second game and felt that it was missing somthing.  Playing with the new version with the unfair aggressor AI seems to make alot of differance.

Into my second game with the update, first game I played I went for TEC Vrs the other 2 races.  It went badly for me and I lost, faily quicky by all accounts.  Not a problem I though, I never play TEC so I'm probably not used to them.  Second game I used my race of choice (Advent) 4v4 ffa on a random map, and ive spent all of the game fighting to stay afloat.  Its Nails. No more mass attacks from seige frigs its the main point ive noticed (woo) and the AI seems more switched on with when and where it attacks.  It also wont run away quite so often, also good. (or bad, it depends on your point of view, lol)

But... Yes, there always a but.  Now, i know alot of people have been pushing for more use of the Z axis, its there and it works, not that ive used it much but im not sure its working as well as it should.  Example;  I was in a fight in a grav well, it was going wrong, so i pulled my ships out.  Slected all, clicked onto the planet i wanted to go to, watched the ships turn and run, apart from one cap ship, that decided instead of takng the quickest route from where it was to the planet i sent it to, it was going to turn around, then down, then fly down abit, then face where i sent it and fly towards it.  That took alot of time, alot longer than the quickest route out, and if to prove the point it went BOOM before it got out. Sigh...

Oh the whole, the AI is much better. A few more hours sat at the computer and I will be winning again. (I hope)

 

19,686 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
I've been getting smashed by the AI, terribly I might add. I can't even get anything going before I'm overwhelmed by every AI team in the game. They all come to my planet(s) and just kill everything while not hitting each other. Its freaking annoying. Its just simply overwhelming to get something going without getting owned.

If my fleet jumps to another planet, all of a suddenly invaders approach. When I return, they run away. And then the planet I just left suddenly gets invaded. Its ridiculous.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I've been getting smashed by the AI, terribly I might add. I can't even get anything going before I'm overwhelmed by every AI team in the game. They all come to my planet(s) and just kill everything while not hitting each other. Its freaking annoying. Its just simply overwhelming to get something going without getting owned.If my fleet jumps to another planet, all of a suddenly invaders approach. When I return, they run away. And then the planet I just left suddenly gets invaded. Its ridiculous.
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i was going to cut down your quote, then i realized that Everything you just said is 100% correct... i have had the Same experience... its like the AI has ONE enemy... YOU! and when i pull a fleet action against one race, (even though the other AIs are NOT on a team) every other AI seems to KNOW i've sent my fleet away from my planets and sends them in to attack... i could understand this if they had scouted and see this, but realistically, they pull this attack AS soon as my ships are one hyper jump away.!.
So in the benefit of actually Having fun, ive started maps with the AI on Just hard, established a fair amount of map territory, saved and reloaded with harder AI settings... thats the Only way i've been able to get a game going without punching my computer screen out of pure anger at the computer being on a 3vs1 and im the >1<.
The AI is better, but i don't see any reason why they should have tweaked their controls so that they Know to attack you right when your starting up an offensive, so you have to come back and go on the defensive.... kill that wave, try to go back on the offensive, they send another fleet...
Just a little ridiculous IMHO.... thanks... sorry for the gripe fest.. i still love the game! brings back memories of MoO2!

Andy
Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
The AI really hasn't been hugely improved with the unfair difficulty, though it may appear to be so. It would seem as though they are better because they have a resource buff which allows then to get more ships more quickly, but outside of this their ability is only very slightly improved. This is why the unfair difficulty will make a big difference early in games, since the AI can pump out more ships that you possibly can, but I assure you, once you've established yourself the AI becomes just as pathetic as it has always been (the reason it seems that they run less is because the computer will never run when it has a 2:1 advantage early in the game). Large scale engagements are still a huge let down, as the AI still runs just as much as before. They're also not smart enough to disregard the much more powerful PJI, which leads to the "shooting fish in a barrel" scenario as you watch their ships go pop while they sit defenseless at the end of a gravity well trying to retreat.

The teaming up of the AI against you has nothing to do with 1.03 or the unfair AI, it can simply happen that way if your on either end of the power spectrum (if your empire is really weak or really strong, in comparison to the AI's), at least that's what the devs have told us. I recall having that happen to me the first ever game I played, but only a couple times since (and I've been playing unlocked teams/hardest AI setting since my 4th game). So it happens sometimes, and other times it doesn't depending on how the game plays out.

The unfair difficulty was a cheap, half-assed way to get around fixing the problem with the AI. Ironclad can't figure out (at least not yet) how to make it efficiently better, so they allowed it to cheat. This is not a solution, and I don't think gamers should be satisfied just yet, because this game promised to deliver epic battles, something which can't be done right now with the coward AI.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
The unfair difficulty was a cheap, half-assed way to get around fixing the problem with the AI. Ironclad can't figure out (at least not yet) how to make it efficiently better, so they allowed it to cheat. This is not a solution, and I don't think gamers should be satisfied just yet, because this game promised to deliver epic battles, something which can't be done right now with the coward AI.
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+1 i agree with that :)

you folks that have spent so much time griping about the AI (probably should play humans exclusively) in this game should stop to consider your box at your feet will never be as good as you are with you mouse and keyboard smoking from how much work your putting into punching the daylights out of the computer controlled enemy! You need a supercomputer to put up enough computing power to match even a casual gamer in tactics and such... the thing that i always hate about playing the computer is how i know in my mind that they can make way more clicks than i can... manage the entire empire at once, while I'm constricted to work on one thing at a time... albeit very quickly!
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
sorry i didnt know it posted!
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
i was going to cut down your quote, then i realized that Everything you just said is 100% correct... i have had the Same experience... its like the AI has ONE enemy... YOU! and when i pull a fleet action against one race, (even though the other AIs are NOT on a team) every other AI seems to KNOW i've sent my fleet away from my planets and sends them in to attack... i could understand this if they had scouted and see this, but realistically, they pull this attack AS soon as my ships are one hyper jump away.!. So in the benefit of actually Having fun, ive started maps with the AI on Just hard, established a fair amount of map territory, saved and reloaded with harder AI settings... thats the Only way i've been able to get a game going without punching my computer screen out of pure anger at the computer being on a 3vs1 and im the >1<. The AI is better, but i don't see any reason why they should have tweaked their controls so that they Know to attack you right when your starting up an offensive, so you have to come back and go on the defensive.... kill that wave, try to go back on the offensive, they send another fleet... Just a little ridiculous IMHO.... thanks... sorry for the gripe fest.. i still love the game! brings back memories of MoO2! Andy
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The AI is ridiculously cheap, it reminds me of the ol NES days were games were super cheap and you had to become God like to beat them lol. Ok so thats going a bit to far, its not all like that. My main problem is that if you are in the presence of AI then they all target you instead of getting a free for all going. Just a few mins ago I had a game going and all was well.

All of a sudden a bunch of orange came raiding my planet, fair enough. Then all of a sudden red came raiding my planet(they completely ignored the orange team). Then as I send my fleet from a neighboring planet to assist in the battle. A huge fleet of blue comes to raid the planet I just left. The kicker is that while I was trying to fight off orange and red I get a mission text from orange asking me to kill red ships lol.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
You should be able to take on instances of 3v1, either through attrition or otherwise. There's no way an AI will beat a competent player 1v1 in a complicated game.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
The AI doesn't cheat on the diplomacy front.
I have no problem allying with 2 out of 3 AI in a 4 FFA. Even if those two allies are actively at war with each other.
If on the other end two AIs made a non-aggression pact with each other, yes, they are most likely both going to attack you because they simply can't attack eachother anymore and have to pick another target: YOU.

FFAs are all about diplomacy, if you start a game with unlocked teams and don't aggressively work on AI missions while at the same time avoiding harming the AIs you are trying to working with, you WILL end up alone against teams of 2-3 AIs.