Cos3
12-26-2006, 22:37
We've all seen the A.I and thier army compositions. Most of the time it's no challenge at all when the A.I fields a full stack (or more) where half the army is made up of archers, crossbowmen and artillery. It wouldn't be so bad if the A.I knew how to use them, or positioned them so they would be protected, but it doesn't.
I've been doing a lot of testing by changing purchase values in my attempts to force the A.I to build, if not balanced, but more challenging army compositions.
Currently I have increased all artillery to over 2000 purchase value, rising up to over 3000 for the later gunpowder artillery. I now rarely see these in field battles, but the downside is the A.I also rarely uses them for castle assaults. Only a minor problem since the A.I can still build the regular siege units. I rarely use artillery myself, so it's an even playing field in this regard.
What annoyed me just as much was the A.I's over-use of missile units, so I have increased all foot missile units by 400 purchase value and javelinmen by 200. Now I mostly see a maximum of 2-3 of these in a full stack, the rest being what the A.I can use relatively well; cavalry and combat infantry.
With my changes to decrease kill rates I have been experiencing some truly epic battles where I have to think and react better. I'm using darth mod too, which slows movement rate to a more realistic pace, so with the larger number of enemy infantry/cav your troop maneuvers actually matter.
This doesn't work on VH campaign since the A.I has a huge cash injection (yes, it does) and was still pumping out armies with 4-5 artillery and too many missile units. So I've been playing on medium campaign and very hard battles. It's working well and presents far more of a challenge, especially with my changes to decrease kill rates and increase battle lengths.
Has anyone else tried something similar? What were your results?
I've been doing a lot of testing by changing purchase values in my attempts to force the A.I to build, if not balanced, but more challenging army compositions.
Currently I have increased all artillery to over 2000 purchase value, rising up to over 3000 for the later gunpowder artillery. I now rarely see these in field battles, but the downside is the A.I also rarely uses them for castle assaults. Only a minor problem since the A.I can still build the regular siege units. I rarely use artillery myself, so it's an even playing field in this regard.
What annoyed me just as much was the A.I's over-use of missile units, so I have increased all foot missile units by 400 purchase value and javelinmen by 200. Now I mostly see a maximum of 2-3 of these in a full stack, the rest being what the A.I can use relatively well; cavalry and combat infantry.
With my changes to decrease kill rates I have been experiencing some truly epic battles where I have to think and react better. I'm using darth mod too, which slows movement rate to a more realistic pace, so with the larger number of enemy infantry/cav your troop maneuvers actually matter.
This doesn't work on VH campaign since the A.I has a huge cash injection (yes, it does) and was still pumping out armies with 4-5 artillery and too many missile units. So I've been playing on medium campaign and very hard battles. It's working well and presents far more of a challenge, especially with my changes to decrease kill rates and increase battle lengths.
Has anyone else tried something similar? What were your results?