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So I was trying to figure out why AI players dropped like flies in the game.
The reason is a bit funny. So, a sovereign goes and gets killed by a monster. The monster has targeted that unit. The unit isn’t dead (it’s a sovereign) but merely transported home to its capital. Monster follows and double kills sovereign – and city he’s in. Game over.
Lol. I was gonna just lurk on the forums - but this made me laugh.
I had 3 AI's drop out within 10 turns of each other in my first game, but I hadn't met any of them yet. Thought another AI was on the warpath.
This makes more sense. 
I notice that the monsters are dicks, nice to see they are doing it to the AI too, but they are getting genocided in the early game.
quite hilarious. always knew monsters were douchebags on the inside...
actually, it would seem that sovereign AI needs tweaking.
Wow. That's a good (and funny) find.
In most cases, are the monsters attacking the sovereign because he's in their territory or is the sovereign being foolish trying to attack a monster he/she can't defeat?
That sucks, it seems the opposite for me. The monsters NEVER attack the enemy and will chase me around the map all day.
Personally I would prefer that the monster lose his targeting of the sovereign (or champion) if either is defeated. Seems like a simple solution, but I don't know if it would pose a programming challenge.
I understand Brad didn't want the monster AI to be bastardly, but I think they'd be more than justified in attacking a town in these circumstances.
Don't quickly dismiss a mistake - there are some opportunities here.
My idea - turn this into a random value/world event. For instance, randomly, if a monster kills your sovereign, sometimes have the monster declare a vendetta or something to that effect where it will do anything to kill your hero immediately. Have a pop up message appear whenever this happens. I think this adds a layer of depth as, even though you got your arse whooped, now it could be MUCH worse. Also, this covers making your sovereigns death even more painful. I mean, c'mon, if your king dies or barely escapes dying - that should be a pretty big deal. This is a great way to capitalize on that.
Even if you are only talking about monsters vs AI, making this a world event gives great intel to everyone (eg the leader died and a monster is planning on destroying them... hmm... what should i do immediately?).
Strange... does this happen with heroes/champions too? I sent - Bacco, I think was his name - around and apparently he was no match for spiders or demons (the poor guy had a scratch, a fever, wounded hand, and was blind in one eye by the end), but no monsters (fortunately) ever followed him home.
And on a related note, I won the game because all the AI's were somehow defeated. This definitely explains things. And thanks for sharing!
I think pacov makes a good point. When a monster targets a Sovereign to the point that he will pursue Double Kills, it should be treated as an Announced Event. It should not happen often; but it would be a shame if it never happened. I know the Environment is supposed to be hostile to the human players; but that shouldn't mean that monsters will never attack computer players.
Again, this could be set as a type of wound, "Blood Trai"l, the monsters follow you until it heals/is cured.
I have a proposed solution that should fix this and the general issue of "un-fun randomness" when it comes to your start (I sometimes find no recruitable champions anywhere near my start, and instead a lot of "Strong" and "Deadly" mobs of monsters -- umm, and my n00b leader should found a city next to them!?
When creating a new game, there should be a starting bias that only weak monsters are near any of the starting areas for players (human or AI). Maybe if the game is set to a higher difficulty, the human player has an increased chance of starting near higher-level monsters, but ... when you are starting a game, generally you want to play a game, not suddenly win after 10 or 50 turns in because monsters have killed all the AI, or -- just as bad -- a high-level monster kills you off doing the same thing to you.
That explains alot. I play large maps with all 10 spots filled and yeah usually lose 3-5 ai's in the first 100 turns.
I have seen AI killed off within 100 turns and ive also seen monsters totally ignore AI towns and units and come after me. I know there is a grace period for the monsters attacking and wandering, but I find it strange they will ignore the AI more than me. Course Im uber and all, but still!!
"Lord Relias, you are wounded! What happened?"
"A Cave Bear trashed me, I dragged myself home..."
"A Cave Bear? Does it look like that one?"
*ROOOOOOAAAAR*
What can I say?
Haha this is awesome glad you fixed it - can't wait for the next patch 
lol
While we're on the topic of AI player behavior: would it be possible to get the AI to stop violating my territorial boundaries without a declaration of war? It's bad enough having a faction plant a flag in the middle of 5 of my cities. But when pioneers stroll through the outpost I purposely built at a geographic chokepoint, then I start getting miffed. Who's manning these outposts anyway? Gomer Pyle?
That's a great point. I believe the AI opponents can't, but monsters being able to seems like cheating or a bug.
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