The AI in Edain 4.0

[Kastorus]

Hello Edain followers and team,

first I would like to say that new AI is much improved and I like it until some point till I defeat them which is kinda boring because I like longer fights around 1 hour and more even 4 hours is great. The AI is doing everything,using everything as normal player but only sometimes its like around 50%, especialy brutal didnt try other AIs because they're too weak for me and some other players, so the problem is that sometimes on some maps they are strong as they should be building vast armies, upgrading them and so on but thats like only on 1/4 maps maybe 2/4 on other maps they're much worse, without money,upgrades and other stuff just normal soldiers without upgrade so we players can defeat them in few minutes because after a while we get upgraded units and they cant handle this, otherwise they get upgrades in 20 minutes and we cant handle it which is still much better then when we destroy them. Battles are sometimes boring because we get defeated in 30 minutes or they, sometimes it last longer around 2 hours or so but at this point game crashes atleast for me or it starts to lag if there is a castle map when one side is almost defeated. I think that it would be better if you can somehow improve brutal AI its better to lose every game because there is always a way how to make them weaker but there isnt a way how to make them stronger like to change they income which would be great if u can like double their income for brutal AI because well.. its BRUTAL AI so I guess it really should be brutal and also the AI is mostly concenrating only on gate ignoring walls and towers and thats large disadvantage for them because towers everywhere are very strong defense but they dont care, they focus only on gate and after gate is destroyed they focus on buildings, also mostly AI doesnt even build towers with castles, with camps saw that they build towers even if they dont need them right now and thats great but with castles? nope. Destroyed gondor an hour ago but they were just spamming cavalry instead building towers. Hope you can do somethings about this, I would be glad if u can make brutal better than it is now. 
Keep up the good job 

[Kraen]

I agree with this. Brutal AI has kind of 2 states in Edain according to my experience:

1st - Its so strong that they destroy me in several minutes, economically its impossible to hold them (especially map Nurn).

2nd - Its pathetic (majority of other maps).

Today, I me and my friend were playing 2 on 2 game. We always play against Brutal, because lower difficulties are too easy. I was Isengard, my friend was Gondor, and we had 1x Brutal Gondor and 1x Brutal Mordor against us. The starting positions were Castles.

At the start of the fight, they spammed a lot of unupgraded units. We easily defeated all their attacks just by having towers, especially my friend playing Gondor had no problem at all, because AI just flooded the gate and totally ignored towers / walls.

In several minutes, we were able to go offensive. I Took one camp with 3 building spots, I builded 2 towers and putted Crossbowmen into each tower. From that point, enemy was not a thread anymore. They could not bring those 2 towers down at all, they didnt even try to bombard them. They just kept sending units and kept dying to arrows.

My Gondor friend had similar experience, his Castle towers destroyed everything.

When we went offensive, AI didnt even bother to build defensive structures.


We played many other maps. On majority of them, its similar and Brutal AI is weak. In some, especially Nurn, Ai is very powerful and starts to flood your base with fully upgraded units after several minutes of play. its very hard / next to impossible to defend yourself against it.

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I think the main problem that Ai has are the unit upgrades - especially ranged unit upgrades like flaming arrows. It is a problem in both ways --

If the AI is too strong and start to flood your base with fully upgraded units early, you lose, because you cannot possibly have enough money to upg your units, and normal units dont stand any chance against upg units.

If the AI is weaker and dumber, you can destroy them with a few groups of upgraded archers. 4 groups of fully upgraded archers can hold the enemy armies forever.


My suggestion would be making upgrades cheaper and less powerful. That would solve both sides of the problem.

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Very often, the AI plays like dumbie - no unit upgrades, no siege weapons, no defenses. It looks like AI lacks resources to buy / build stuff. AIs are not building bases, not buying heroes, not recruiting the best units.

Brutal AI should be Brutal. There are 3 other difficulties for easier gameplay. Of course, I am not asking for unwinable battles, but current Brutal AI is just very easy to beat. We, humans, have advantage of clever usage of heroes, spells, of strategy. AI should have way more recources to make up for that.

There was a mod called Elven Alliance that I played for years. The hardest AI was tuned greatly there, Ai was building, making siege weapons, had fully upgraded armies and flooded you with units.

I hope this mod will eventually get same difficult AI.

[Elite KryPtik]

While I will agree that the AI needs a lot of work, and most of the time they are pathetically easy, I have yet to encounter a Brutal on any map I can't beat. I always play random vs random and I have yet to lose after playing 15 maps. Its all situational, you have to know what the Brutal will do, and the strengths and weaknesses of the faction. The 2 weakest AI right now are Gondor and Arnor, their AI is always the same: they just spam lots of units, then upgrade those units. Arnor NEVER makes siege, Gondor rarely does.

[Sir_Stig]

Have you tried playing brutals on 8v8 maps like greylin? I may not be the best player, but 1v1 a brutal Isengard on greylin playing as mordor is an exercise in slow death. once Isengard gets upgrades it's damn near impossible to make a comeback.

[Elite KryPtik]

Mordor vs Isengard on Greylin, I'll do it tonight.

[Elite KryPtik]

Just finished the matchup, beat it first try. I don't want to sound like a smartass or a show off, but there is nothing difficult about this matchup. So here's my BO, I was playing with starting resources of 1k and no custom heroes, I started on the top of the map, left camp, he was bottom of the map, right camp. I did an eco start, claiming all of the nearby settlements and putting slaughterhouses on them, except for the 1 in front which is guarded by goblins. Then I made a single Tribute Camp, and upgraded all of my Slaughterhouses and my Tribute Camp with production 1. Then I made 4 sentry towers, 2 more Tribute Camps, an Orc Pit, 2 more towers and 2 more Orc Pits, and started my spam. I hadn't seen Isengard at this point, so I maxed my CP with orcs and built Gorbag, and took out the Goblins in front, claiming the settlement as a Slaughterhouse. Now I upgraded the 2 Slaughterhouses nearest my base with production 2, and gave the rest arrow towers, and upgraded all the Tribute Camps in my base with command points 2. I gave the slaughterhouse which was by the Goblin Cave in front double defence measures. I kept Shagrat back and started guarding all my buildings with Uruks. About this time I made it to the center, where all the Wargs are, and this is the point when Isengard showed up. His army had all of his heroes, and was fully upgraded. At this point I had thankfully already claimed the other camp on my side of the map, and had 5 orc pits pumping out free orcs, as well as a Troll Cage making Trolls that cost only 600, otherwise he would have killed me here. His first push swept my army away like dust, and went straight into my first camp. But the towers killed him along with the Orc Spam, and after this he never came back. Once I had the 2 outposts claimed and had all my heroes, plus the Spellbook power Darkness, game was basically over. It also fully convinced me that Mordor is MASSIVELY OP, nothing can stand up to their early game free orc spam and late game OP heroes, not even Isengard's mighty armies. The only thing that stands a chance against them are the cavalry of the Rohirrim, also my favorite faction. Try out this BO, don't let the Brutal claim a victory over you!

[Kraen]

I am playing Isengard, and I cannot win on map Nurn against 2 Brutal AIs. Too many units.

Anyway, the problem of AI is that it cannot deal with certain situations. For example, afaik, Ai just wont send one big army, they are sending unit by unit, and its much easier to deal with that.
Another problems are towers and walls in general. AI just cannot handle it, because they are not building enough siege weapons. And if they are, they are not using them properly.
AI soldiers are very often trying to "run through" your soldiers without fighting to attack buildings, and its very easy to kill them without any casualities.
When you have a castle and close the gate, AI is helpless and just standing in front of a gate, waiting to be slaughtered by archers and towers.

Once you build 3 - 4 groups of fully upgraded archers, you won the game. AI is just throwing units on them and archers with flaming arrows are very OP - they kill everything including giants on one second.

As I said, mod Elven Alliance Community Edition has great AI. Not wise, but it has so many recources and is so aggresive that it is actually hard to beat, especially when you are fighting 2+.

Maybe it may serve as inspiration.

[Sir_Stig]

Try a 4k start, Isengard with 4k upgrades real quick. to be honest I rarely play with 1k, although maybe my build order needs work.

[Elite KryPtik]

I don't play with 4k on this because the style is BFME1, which was always a 1k start. But I have already played 4k epic battles against brutals and beaten them, so I don't think it would change much, I would just have more orc pits faster  But each to their own, all I can say is that with a 1k start, the AI is certainly not overpowered, and is often too stupid to have a chance at winning. Also on 8 player maps I would normally play with 7 AI in a FFA or 2v2v2v2, the money advantage Brutal AI gets is a serious setback when you play on a map with extra castles.

[Sir_Stig]

I'll have to try a 1k start, or maybe 2k

[Elite KryPtik]

Just found what I believe to be an impossible matchup. Play as Gondor vs a Brutal Isengard on Fords of Isen I, with a 1k start. I could not beat him on this after about 8 tries, switched to 4k and beat him then.

[Sir_Stig]

Gondor can buy a bunch of building upgrades, they definitely benefit from money early game

[Elite KryPtik]

Did you actually play the matchup? Buy all the upgrades you want your gates will still get broken down in 10 minutes. Isengard comes at you with every single hero they can recruit, a huge army and multiple battering rams and ballistas at around 10 minutes into the game. 

[Kastorus]

Yea player is benefiting more than AI from more resources at start because AI is slow at start so with 4k its always easy but sad thing is that AI is good only on some maps and mostly as I was playing the only and only thing why are they low is due to lack of money. Try nurn map as isengard on left side against HARD gondor or rohan not brutal and then tell me what happend.   I kinda like the way how AI is playing on this map you wont be even able to defeat medium on this map 1vs1

[Elite KryPtik]

Play on Nurn as Isengard against Rohan or Gondor, ok. But if I play against hard it will be way too easy, I'm going to play against brutal, with a 1k start.

[Kastorus]

As you wish but remember I told you to try hard first   

[Elite KryPtik]

Holy sweet fuck did that ever suck. Well I played against a Brutal Gondor as Isengard with a 1k start. I wouldn't call it difficult so much as REALLY tedious. I did win 1st try, after about 4 hours of back and forth with that bastard. All you have to do is survive the first 20 minutes and the massive first rush that comes, which includes all of Gondor's heroes in it. Also realize that you won't hold any outside farms, all you can do is keep him at a choke until you have all of your heroes and summon powers, then you can push for his base. I'm never doing that again. When you play on maps meant to hold 6 players, play with 6 players, because otherwise the Brutal's inhuman harassment and unit spam will drive you to drink.
Now that I did your challenge, I feel its only fair that you do my challenge. I already posted it, but here it is again. Play as Gondor against brutal Isengard on Fords of Isen I, with a 1k start. I guarantee you that you will not survive.

[Kastorus]

Very well gonna try against insegard as gondor and good job that u won that match  but still I like those type of games that are long its fun atleast for me.

[Elite KryPtik]

The problem is that I had him in situations at least 3 times where against a human opponent I would have won. But Brutals don't give a fuck about economy, so even destroying their bases barely affects them. I like long games too, if its truly a game where I'm barely holding my own. In a situation where I should have won 3 times however, it becomes extremely repetitive and frustrating. Don't forget that the map for Gondor vs Isengard is Fords of Isen I, with starting money of 1k. I tried at least 8 times and not matter what BO I did, I always lost. I only finally beat him when I had a 4k start, and even then it was just barely.

[Gnomi]

The AI gives a fuck about their economy. They still have to pay for everything, they just get everything much cheaper.

As said:
Brutal means brutal and you can't expect to win against this AI. This is not only in this game like that - it's in many games similar. Our goal was something like that:
Easy - good enemy against beginners, they can win, but also can loose
Medium - stronger than easy, if you play from time to time and don't spam games you should be able to handle this AI most of the times
Hard - really hard for players who aren't playing often and a normal enemy for players who play a lot (means: you win most of the games, but can also loose)
Brutal: well... you die if you don't play much better and you have to expect hundreds over hundreds of units. Don't expect a fair game.

In nearly every game the AI cheats, have you played f.e. AoE? You never played against hard enemies as normal player, as it can spam much more than you.
Just don't play against brutal, but therefore against hard, when you think that brutal cheats too much for you.^^ Many people like to fight the brutal AI and win - and as long as there are weaker AIs for people who don't want such unfair battles, I think that there are no problems.

[Kastorus]

Alright so I tried Fords of Isen I with 1k start and well..managed to win at start but only for about 10 minutes wanted to push isengard to get more farms outside of my castle but that was a big mistake they killed my whole army and then their ballistas came which was end for me gonna try more later.
Gnomi well Im glad that Brutal is really hard but the problem is that they arent cheating enough on some maps and so they are easy to defeat and on some maps its really hard and thats sometimes sad because I've to play on maps where they are good and cant play on maps where I want to like Old Brown Lands, Mirkwood, Lebennin, Anorien they are weak on most maps and also problem is that brutal is using siege machines only on castle maps not on maps with camps I understand that its not so important like on castle maps but still they dont even care about your defence when they are attacking your castle atleast they dont care about towers also siege machines are powerful even on camp maps and also Isengard isnt using ladders and mines and mordor isnt using siege towers which is also a disadvantage for them but the thing I wanted to say is that I like unfair games just they arent so unfair everywhere. 

[Elite KryPtik]

The AI gives a fuck about their economy. They still have to pay for everything, they just get everything much cheaper.

As said:
Brutal means brutal and you can't expect to win against this AI. This is not only in this game like that - it's in many games similar. Our goal was something like that:
Easy - good enemy against beginners, they can win, but also can loose
Medium - stronger than easy, if you play from time to time and don't spam games you should be able to handle this AI most of the times
Hard - really hard for players who aren't playing often and a normal enemy for players who play a lot (means: you win most of the games, but can also loose)
Brutal: well... you die if you don't play much better and you have to expect hundreds over hundreds of units. Don't expect a fair game.

In nearly every game the AI cheats, have you played f.e. AoE? You never played against hard enemies as normal player, as it can spam much more than you.
Just don't play against brutal, but therefore against hard, when you think that brutal cheats too much for you.^^ Many people like to fight the brutal AI and win - and as long as there are weaker AIs for people who don't want such unfair battles, I think that there are no problems.

Hey Gnomi, please don't get the wrong idea! I'm agreeing with you and Kastorus, in 99% of maps the Brutals are too easy. However, with rare matchups, the only one that I have found so far is 1v1 playing as Gondor against brutal Isengard on Fords of Isen I with a 1K start, it is literally impossible to win. Try it if you don't believe me, it doesn't matter what you do, you cannot win unless the AI does something miraculously stupid. Gondors early game is too weak to match brutal Isengard in this case.

I normally have very little trouble beating brutal AI, in fact I played against brutal AI on every single 2 player map up until Fords of Isen I without losing. So if it is impossible for me to do then I think there is a problem, I'm not saying that it should be easy. I absolutely agree that the Brutal should be able to cheat and get many more units, but when its literally impossible to win, then there is a problem. That was my point about this matchup 

The only thing that I legitimately hate about the Brutal AI is their love of siege weapons, and their STUPID handling of them. No real player makes 10+ ballistas and battering rams to take down a base, and they especially don't send those siege weapons alone and unguarded, as the AI often does. I wish they would make real attacks more often, which are mostly army with a few siege weapons in back to bust down walls.

[Elite KryPtik]

Alright so I tried Fords of Isen I with 1k start and well..managed to win at start but only for about 10 minutes wanted to push isengard to get more farms outside of my castle but that was a big mistake they killed my whole army and then their ballistas came which was end for me gonna try more later.

Yup, that's what kept happening to me. I kept my outside farms alive for like 10 minutes, then the Brutal comes with all of their damn heroes and a huge army, kills your army, breaks your gate and GG. Keep trying if you want, but  I'm convinced there is no way to survive this.

[Kastorus]

I've some good news for you kryptik, just won against brutal on Fords of Isen I with 1k start as gondor against Isengard on 2nd try wasnt that hard as I thought it'll be but I won only because Fiefdom armies they're kinda op with upgrades and AI doesnt care about your farms at left corner so I build 2 beacons there and after that it was easy. Fiefdom armies with forged blades and 2 lvl oh and ofc I had that power from spellbook I focused on getting that asap and after I got that I tried to lvl them up to 5 then I got gandalf,aragorn and boromir and more fiefdom armies and because I was killing everything they sent they didnt had money for upgrades atleast not for forged blades I think I saw some heavy armor but that isnt enough for my fully upgraded fiefdom army I had 2 citadel guards I think and thats all everything else was from beacon, try it yourself just send some cheap units to destroy ballistas and keep your good units defending till you have a lot of them and then push him get more beacons who cares about farms beacons rulez for gondor. 

[Elite KryPtik]

What was your starter build? I usually get Pippin a farm and a beacon. I didn't know he would ignore settlements in what I presume you meant was the bottom left corner, as he makes an outpost there pretty fast. If he ignores the bottom left entirely then that's the massive flaw in the AI that I said was needed to win in my response to Gnomi  Anyways I already beat him with 4k, I don't want to relive the experience, as it was not at all pleasant for me. I'm glad you found a way to beat the bastard with 1k though, it gives me indirect revenge 

[Kastorus]

Yea I meant bottom left corner and about starter build well who needs pipin?  Maybe it was just luck because he was focusing all his troops to destroy me and he tried to destroy my beacons few times and succeded once or twice but I build them again one battalion guarding it there was enough and also Isengard has bugged outpost so its still easier then it should be because he just builds it and thats all no buildings otherwise it would be much more difficult on this map but right now its easy with two beacons at the bottom but you have to keep him busy around your castle dont let him make more money spam gondor soldiers and pikeman as much as u can and after u get upgrades for your fiefdom army just push him make some heroes level them up build an outpost, battering rams and destroy him. 

[Sir_Stig]

Good god I can only imagine how difficult a brutal Isengard would be in their current state if they actually utilized outposts. I have a hard enough time without an additional 3 barracks!

[Elite KryPtik]

Forget that, think about the Steelworks and its upgrade buffs. Not a fun time 

[Kastorus]

How strong are units with those steelworks upgrades? Never survived that long with isengard to try and AI doesnt build steelworks. So are those upgrade useful or not?

[Elite KryPtik]

All I know is when I get a fully upgraded army with Isengard against a Brutal AI with the Steelwork's upgrades, I can't die. I don't even use siege at that point, just army rush with troops combined with Shieldbearers and full upgrades. This will destroy any other army in a standing fight.

[Sir_Stig]

Yeah with steel works and shields your units just shrug off enemies, although on 1v1 maps this usually means you already had him beat.

[Elite KryPtik]

Well it depends on how you play. I don't like to play short games with AI, so I usually drag it out a bit for the spectacle of my badass fully upgraded army. 

[Sir_Stig]

Haha oh definitely, I try and make sure I have all the upgrades before I finish him off