[1.01] AI losing too many cities to monsters

from Elemental Forums

Playthrough on challenging/challenging, as Magnar.
AI was severely gimped by losing multiple cities to wandering monsters.

Background:

In the early game, I was able to snag a prime fortress spot from Verga without a fight after a couple of ophidians stomped all over the city he settled there. Verga also accidentally unleashed a nearby forest drake, but luckily for me it headed in the opposite direction, likely destroying more Yithril cities in its path. I ended up with a nice fortress right on the front line, and signed a non-aggression pact with Verga to buy time.

I then proceeded to wipe out the kingdoms. Tarth posed no threat due to a crappy starting location and some rock spiders controlling any attempts at expansion. Pariden was quite a powerhouse, and still Procipinee settled two cities right on the edge of wildlands, and lost both to some bored elementals. She also released a shrill lord, who was wandering between her cities looking for something to destroy; I eventually took him out before conquering the remaining territory.

With the kingdom threat eliminated, I turned my attention back to Verga, only to discover that his previously thriving border town -- a sister city to my "stolen" fortress -- was now a smoldering pile of rubble. Although Yithril is now aggressively settling and re-settling, the loss of some well developed cities in strategically important locations set them back significantly.

Conclusion:

Add this to the same pile as immortal champions. 

Losing cities to monsters is much more damaging to the AI than it is to the player; the player seems better equipped to defend against smaller threats (bandits, bears, spiders), and also makes better choices when settling near the more deadly ones.

Suggestion:

Don't let monsters auto-raze cities.

Instead, have them ravage the population by eliminating one citizen for every point of army attack remaining after the city siege battle. Raze the city only if population drops to zero. Of course, monsters remain in the area, so if you don't dispatch an army soon you may still end up losing the city to repeated attacks.

Some sample numbers:

  • A bear (10-20 attack) might not be able to wipe out an entire village, but it can kill enough people to set back growth by a decade.
  • A giant spider army (40-80 attack) might reduce a level 2 city to half its former glory.
  • A drake army (100-200 attack) might turn a level 2 city to rubble, but a larger city will still stand.
  • Once a city reaches level 4-5, it should take nothing short of a pack of ashwake dragons, or an elemental lord, to completely destroy it.
These numbers need testing and tweaking; perhaps a citizen for every two points of attack is more appropriate.

Of course in addition to this, AI should be smart enough not to settle near drake lairs in the first place, at least not until it is ready to take them on.

91,770 views 19 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I support this suggestion.

Also, perhaps have the city go independent (or have a chance of going independent) and spawn a reasonable army with a random sovereign (chosen from champions not found in the current world) if this happens too much, or to a city which had a high level of unrest.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

This is a very good suggestion.  Yes, it would balancing, but anything that prevents losing a city to something which is no different from a random event is a good thing in my book.

Of course, this is far from the first time this suggestion has been made.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tuidjy, reply 2
Of course, this is far from the first time this suggestion has been made.

Indeed, I don't claim originality. I am pretty sure I read something similar on these very forums a while back. However, I decided to resurrect it in light of my most recent game experience, now that monster discrimination against the player has been addressed, and their aggressiveness balanced.

Specifically, I'd like to see this evaluated as a mechanism to level the playing field for AI, rather than making the game easier for the human player.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Support for the userfront ;)
+1
[we do this for you A.I.]

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I like the idea. It would both help the AI and reduce the frustrations of players, whose cities got attacked by AI-awakened monsters.  k1  from me.

While we're talking about "razing", I always thought, that it should be an active ability, not something that just happens automatically. I mean, it seems a little weird, that you can raze improvements by just walking through them or destroying whole cities without anyone actively doing something. What I propose is, that you need to have a unit stationed in the city/outpost/resource-improvement doing the razing. The action would then use up all of the units moves, taking the whole turn. The enemy would still have a chance to prevent the destruction, as long as it kills the units before the action is finished.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top


I completely agree with this approach. The current method is really hurting the AI.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

i don;t see why monsters are allowed to attack cities at all . i guess defending a city against a dragon can be an epic battle, but for the most part it just feels cruel and unfair.

 

i'm rather fond of the Civ IV method, where barbarians would come in different types, the wild animal sort being unable to enter your borders, let alone attack your cities. Also in ffh, dragons were leashed to their lair, i'm not sure if that's the case here :/

 

as to things like bandits and darklings, them attacking cities isn't a problem, but the AI should defend them better, instead of sending a billion troops off to the frontline and keeping nothing for defense

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

My opinion is that if a city has walls or whatever (and shamefully, I haven't played yet), then most monsters, IE bears, wolves and whatever should not be able to attack a town at all. Spiders should be able to I suppose. Maybe higher level walls or cities should dissuade certain classes of monsters from going too close to them at all.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Just turn the city into an ghost town removed from your faction. Moving a hero on top of it to 'reclaim' it with a small number of population. OR wait to see if Frogboy makes the AI smart enough to avoid sitting on dragons in the upcoming patch.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't blame the AI for getting owned. I'm a total newb to this. Have not finished by first game yet on Normal but I have to say I was shocked to see how crazy powerful the world mobs are. They feel like far more of a threat than my AI opponents actually. I almost wonder why we fight each other when we should be allying up against those giant rock spiders that are laying waste to our cities, and camping our roads in hopes of devouring our armies. And yes I think instant city destruction is too severe a penalty from a monster attack. In Civ i'm pretty sure they changed it so that Barbarians just captured the city or something an you had to go get it back. And the barbs in that game are small potatoes compared to the super roaming mobs in this game which will eat your Militia for breakfast.

Speaking of which whichever dev programmed the Wildland mobs to get bored of guarding their treasures, and instead run up an down my roads looking for any of my units to kill I hate you. That's insanely annoying in peace time. And potentially game breaking during a time of war when my reinforcements need to get to the front oh but there is a giant spider in the road that will chase me 3 or 4 tiles away. Like i'm being punished for not clearing an area I couldn't possibly handle anyway. If this happens to the AI as well then that probably explains why when they attack its some puny force of 3 champions with like 10 debuff wounds.

 
Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top


Heck, I've never seen the AI get owned even once. It's at the ludicrous point where Pariden plopped down an Outpost directly next to a Drake...which just left. It walked off. Didn't give a damn, went and attacked my cities instead.

Monsters that are tied to locations should have a 'kill the problem' script. If their lair is suddenly disturbed by the borders of an empire, then an intelligent or powerful monster should then go right towards the problem, be it city or outpost, and kill it. Success should turn the lair from a goody hut back into a lair, which they go back to.

It is frankly utterly stupid that you can just wander up to a horrifically powerful monster, stick an outpost down next to it, and then watch it do something completely random because that killed its home. It makes no sense. It was disturbed by a very particular thing. Kill that thing and go back home. Oh no, instead the AI just rocks up next to various dragons that are 'protecting' awesome city sites, sets up there, and watches the f***ing thing wander off peacefully....usually at me.

Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top

Both Sratner and Korak suggestions could make a huge difference imo.

 

Cities being able to withstand a certain amount of damage before getting destroyed by a pack of monsters would give more depths and strategy to the game.

 

And giving a script for monsters, driven away from their lair, to attack the outpost/cities that caused it to leave its territory would be a life changing choice in game.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

I have monsters on dense because I love the exp for killing them, but I hate building defensive troops, so in my most recent game I lost two cities, one that was at level 3 to wandering mobs.

I have never lost my capital yet, but that's mostly because I have killed everything around it within the first little while. Maybe the AI doesn't prioritize taking out the camps.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

I disagree.  The AI does not experience enough pain for the BS it sets off. 

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Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

I would like to add siege, not allowing anyone to conquer a city unless they stay for an extra round or three. If a large army is placed nearby it really should be given some time to rush in to the defense of the city. If some damage is done every turn, monsters would still be able to decimate the population, but would only wipe it out if the monster stays.

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

yes. siege would be wondrous.

damagig in stead of razing too...

we could have siege with partial city skirmishs?

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

I recently played a string of starter games trying to figure out how to start playing again after a hiatus. There was always at least 1-2 AI kingdom deaths before the 30th turn. The AI is waking up deadly mobs and then being eaten. In my current game I have 'defeated' two sovereigns and both of them was so riddled with wounds that they were useless. I feel bad for them.

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top


Pretty much, the problem is twofold:

1) The AI is too stupid to properly deal with the monsters infesting Elemental.

2) Said monsters are also too inexplicably random and stupid.

Both need fixing. Monsters should have some degree of predictability insofar as blatantly obvious and intuitive stuff like settling next to them will cause them to kill your face. When you set up a city next to a belligerent dragon, your face should be killed. That just makes sense. And the AI should know this stuff. A big part of the problem is their mindless expansionism, they have absolutely no decision making (that is apparent, anyway) and instead just fling pioneers at city sites and resources. Then it'll obviously end up in a situation where powerful monsters that no longer have a lair are now wandering around and killing the face of anything they see.

TL;DR - The AI plays like a dick and doesn't get as punished for it as it should. It needs to not play like a dick, so everyone can be fairly punished for their own strategic faults.

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top


Well, way I play game last time, A.I didn't lost city to those monster, they had way too many city and setttle city faster than I'm....so I don't see any problem of this (yes I'm playing 1.01)