Make AI tougher

I tried a skirmish map : me vs 3 allied AI, gr emperor difficulty.

They were a bit of a nuisance, but I managed to crush them. My hero was around lvl 40 with decent gear but nothing phenomenal. Now if this was normal wbc3, vs 3 emperor AI, it would have been more difficult. Because I remember the vanilla game, the AI was relentless even if it sucked. But eventually you'd get swarmed.

Now the AI even on the greatest difficulty is not aggressive enough. They should be packing a huge army and swarm the player and wipe him out, and I don't care if they cheat and have bonus income.

Anyway if my char can beat 3 allied AI at highest, it's like I've beaten the game and there's no more challenge left.

I agree the AI could be more of a challenge, but keep in mind that level 40 heroes in tpc are like 80 in vanilla.

I suspect that the AI aren't spending nearly as much resources as they're receiving.

I give my thumbs up for this! It is always good to have one difficulty that is realy hardcore. Maybe just do as OP said? Make a new AI to choose from and just let it cheat. Would need some testing of course. But it should be nearly impossible to beat it. If that goal is reached, do a second new AI with a bit less cheat bonus so not that hardcore players that are better than the average players still have something to do except MP.

My 2 cents

With 0.8.8 the AI is really kicking butt. We actually had to spend over a month trying to NERF its strategies and force it to make mistakes.

Patrick_the_Winekiller wrote:

With 0.8.8 the AI is really kicking butt. We actually had to spend over a month trying to NERF its strategies and force it to make mistakes.

I already looked through the changelog and it realy sounds great! Looking forward to it!

Patrick_the_Winekiller wrote:

We actually had to spend over a month trying to NERF its strategies and force it to make mistakes.

Hello, I'm interested here into emulating a non-godlike AI enemy in another game.
Adding some fuzziness in its decisions to lead it into making mistakes or non-optimal decisions, like right strats with inadequate troops, right troops with inadequate strats, altered building order and/or placement, individual units resisting a morale check whereas maths would predict an automatic loss (or units fleeing while they are winning).
Something like:

Double each logical test (and 100% chance occurrences) by a percentile role that results in sub-optimal decision:
A% = (40% + (AI_level*10%)) chance to choose optimal strategy/tactics or use a given information about the map/human player.
B% chance to choose sub-optimal ways.
C% = 15% - (AI_level*2.5%)) chance to choose harmful/opposite ways.

or

Any data given to AI (before unchanged, and as best as possible, tests) has a given chance of being incorrect:
A% = (40% + (AI_level*10%)) chance to be correct (as with the usual cheating AI).
B% chances to be mildly over-/underestimated.
C% = (15% - (AI_level*2.5%)) chance to be grossly over-/underestimated.

As this adds another layer in the decision process, this grants the opportunity to give additional variations to specific races, with some races that are quite immune to fuzziness, and some other that are more prone to fuzziness. For instance, this could help implementing the chaotic nature of some races, at the same AI level.

You may answer by "Yes, something like that." or "No, not really this." if you want. Or give directions.

Would be good if AI wouldn't be useless after defeating their heros. Most of the time when their hero died, they are extremely passive. Also you may add an option to stop enemies from surrendering

Well heroes are the last to die most of the time now. And there is the option AI Resignation - disable it to stop AI surrenders.

Hello devs,

Just picked up the game again recently... and I must say I'm really impressed with what you did with the AI, it's tough and even smart, I have troubles even in 1 vs 1. You did a great job! Congrats...

We are happy you have liked AI changes.