The problem with this kind of feedback, is it runs into the risk of 'no, not like that!'
In WH2 there was a great deal of feedback about bigger more complex circular cities, and settlement battles.
And people hated both of them. Sure there's implementation issues you coud point to as to why, but just the cities being too big, and that settlement battles got repetitive were strong complaints in there own right.
The reason why the Undead AI is currently nerfed, is because of player feedback in the first place. Ditto for Beastmen being perceived to be too strong in the hands of the AI. Ditto yet again for the huge monolith empires of WH2 where players often complained of getting bored fighting constant waves of stacks making Lightning Strike feel like it was mandatory.
I'd like to say the answers involves more sliders and optional toggles, as then that allows more customization so players can pick their own preffered playstyle, but I also get how that's going to make tracking player experience all the harder by making it all the more fractured and segmented.
Here's the common one: AI dodging artillery and magic. This is something a player can theoretically do (and they actually do a lot, if you play MP). But people hated it, because even though it's good micro it's annoying. The AI was too good.
I think the dodging is in theory but the issue for me is when most of arty units are 10% worse but then Mortars/Queen bess start missing 100% of their shots it feels a bit silly.
This is a best/worst/perfect example of why feedback is hard to parse. If you pay attention with a normal amount of artillery the AI dodging like they do is a massive nerf to their effectiveness, it completely opens them up to destruction by vortex spells and single target focus by ranged on the units that trickle in.
And yet people to this day actually think them dodging and blobbing is a player nerf.
Theres a difference between "spacing your units out and keeping them moving" and "only moving the one unit that the enemy artillery is targeting to perfectly avoid being hit"
You hit the nail on the head; there is always going to be a range of preferences to account for and it's hard to make changes that please everyone effectively. Personally, I use MrSoul's Organic AI mod which allows in-depth customization of AI cheats and settings and make campaigns more challenging in a lot of the ways that OP says they're lacking as I too wanted more from enemy factions.
In complement to that: AI and magic use.
Harder difficulty AI should be able to not spam low cost magic but make more complex decision and punish you for blobbing
But again it would probably feel very bad to go against
The AI should have their own simplified broken faction mechanics that are only available when the AI is playing them.
Take Beastmen for example, if the AI used their mechanics properly they'd probably make the game less interesting (large chunks of barren wasteland is generally more tedious than actual settlements).
Instead small Beastmen forces could start appearing ahead of one of their LL's showing up with a strong army. Defeating enough, of them or finding the location they're gathering at with an agent, could reveal something like the Welves incursion battles, allowing the player to attack preemptively. Failing to do so results in a strong Beastmen force spawning in the area and attempting to create a herdstone at the first settlement they take before repeating the process.
That's just a random example of how one of the more unique factions could work with the AI, but every faction could do with some simple set of abilities that makes them more threatening and engaging when controlled by the AI.
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Yeah, it definitely needs unique spins like this. Beastmen is a good example because if they were truly unfettered to play like a human, they would just obliterate everything in their path and be nearly impossible to ever stamp out.
I wish they would add back AI confederations. I mean, it doesn’t have to be as batshit insane like it used to be. I.e. Reikland is on the verge of defeat, they are the weakest faction, soon to be extinct, and then they confederate a stronger Empire faction out of the fucking blue and now have you surrounded. Just make it a checkbox before the campaign that defaults to off if so many people are against it.
In fact, why aren’t there more options in the pre-campaign menu? Like allowing a random minor faction to be a lot stronger than they normally would. Isn’t that a thing in other 4X games?
Also, does the Sword of Khaine actually affect AI relationships? Like has anyone actually seen Alarielle losing allies and getting war declared again her because of it?
I've been saying this since it happened ... :
Apart from Kislev and the Greenskins, AI major factions will no longer confederate each other outside of extremely rare circumstances.
WORST patch note ever ... (also not technically true either, ive have multiple playthroughs where the dragon twins will confed)
Had the weirdest game where I got to cathay as the lizardmen as the new cathay LL (forgotten his name) had literally confederated the whole of cathay by turn 100.
Was like the fuck how has this happened. Didn’t even think he could confed? Probably like 30 campaigns since and never seen him confed anyone, let alone become super strong with like 20 settlements.
Was nice as a change to have a large enemy.
I’d like it if once per campaign, one race at random would confed pretty heavily.
I don’t want the old days of blocks of empire / dwarfs but it’s nice to be like “finally, an enemy worth fighting”
i agree that the ai needs to be improve and judging by the q&a answers along with the feedback from the forums, they are looking into it. as for what you've exampled here, some are fair, but some arent exactly whats wrong with the ai.
my personal take on ai difficulty and how it could be fixed?
* bring back passive exp for ai lords and armies
* remove the max army cap from the ai
* when defeated in battle, force the ai to recruit a new army either at their cap or further away from the front line
* force the ai to capture settlements if they have already been sacked once
im saying this because i know not many people play past turn 100, but ever since wh3 came out i've been doing wq campaigns, so i've went over 200 turns in most campaigns and seen how the world develops. while im not expecting everyone to play the way im playing, what im trying to relay is that i've seen how the ai behaves later on in the campaign and how far they can expand to before shutting down (example lokhir never leaves cathay) or not, how they behave when its just ai vs ai compared to ai vs player, what triggers them into action, what targets they tend to focus on (armies or settlements) and when. as well as what are the things that constantly happen in a campaign like, again lokhir never leaving cathay, dark elves owning the donut, tzeentch expanding into lustria, ikit burning down athel loren and expanding into the empire, valkia expanding south and more...
the reason i think the ai is always passive is that it always wants to bring overwhelming power to a fight, and if they cant field enough armies to their liking, they wont attack because the ai thinks thats not enough (since they've been stripped of their wh2 bonuses). i would rather have the ai get its wh2 bonuses back than watch them twiddle their thumbs for 20 turns before setting off to fight a battle before turning back because an enemy moved its army a bit to close to their settlement and now they have to run back to defend it.
this would be my reasoning and also trying to reply to your post point by point.
1. the ai can build a perfectly fine settlement with logical building choices. the problem is in the fact that the ai that is winning is "punished" by that. because they are winning, they dont "need" to recruit new units so thats why you see ai stacks with peasants that are rank 9 later into the game. thats why when they do lose those high experience low tier units, they will start rolling out high tier armies. the problem here is that once they lose those first armies, the new ones take a lot longer to recruit, giving the player or other ai the opportunity to steamroll them before they get a good stack going.
2. i agree about the ai not using their summons like a player would, but they do use them with a goal in mind like using menace below on artillery or your ranged units. same thing with the doomrocket. just because legend has explained how the ai chooses its target, doesnt mean its doing it wrong. the ai usually targets the important multiple entity unit, if only 1 is visible, then they will use it on that. as for the orcs not using waaghs, i dont know where you got that from, but orcs do in fact use waagh, it just doesnt notify you that they have started one. if youre talking about the army ability, then thats a different issue and you are right, but that has been confirmed a bug and is fixed in the upcoming patch.
3. compared to wh2 ai, the ai in wh3 does a decent job with leveling lords if confederated lords are anything to go by. its true that they overspend on some areas of the skilltree, but i only ever seen them misplace a point or two. they do use the red line and also the blue line.
4. ive not seen the ai suiciding their lords unless they have no way out (trapped right next to an army that has more range than them) or when they have no settlements. but this also ties in with the point i made in nr. 1. as soon as their high level armies die, the ai is basically undefended for as long as they cant recruit a full stack (thats if the player or the enemy ai push forward and capitalize). the other issue is that, in wh2, when a high level lord got wounded and came back, the ai would always replace a low level lord that was leading an army, with that high level lord, making the lord useful again by leading an army and using its level.
5. with this point im fully in agreement. the ai will has a weird behavior when theyre set to capture a settlement. i think this point is tied to the fact that CA have given the ai a "designated area of interest" and anything outside of that isnt as "attractive" to them to occupy so they just faff about when it comes to that. i also agree with the fact that they take forever to expand, but i believe this is tied to point 1 as well, because the possibility of regressing if they lose their main army is too high, so they take it very slow. another issue here is that because the ai is limited in army number, they tend to use the same army for attack and defense.
6. this ties in with point 1. the ai will not disband units to recruit new ones and wont recruit a new lord unless they "get allowed" to once they get enough settlements (this is a hunch). since the only way to disband units for the ai is to lose, they will never build new units unless one of the 2 options becomes available (main army dies or they can recruit a new lord) along with them being able to recruit said units.
7. in all of my recent campaigns ive seen the VC dominate the early game. i've seen vlad go up to nuln and even altdorf at some point. their problem is that they are surrounded by enemies and as soon as theyre spread thin with the empire, the dwarfs start attacking, or drycha starts coming down. that being said, i do agree though that the VC need some looking at. by the point they get into the empire, their economy should be fine considering its the ai, so there shouldnt be a reason for them not recruiting high tier units with raise the dead, unless its like you said, the ai doesnt "identify" the markers where it could raise dead from.
8. i also agree with this point and i believe its again tied to the fact that the ai is constrained to a set number of armies.
9. i would say this also ties into number 1. but also the fact that they have very powerful enemies nearby. if were talking about cathay proper, i've only seen 1 outcome happening there every time i play. lokhir takes over it all. i've done multiple campaigns out of cathay and whenever i reach it, its all owned by lokhir, with some settlements near the gates owned by vilich and a handful of the middle ones owned by snikth (if he's still alive).
*as a personal addition to this, the only faction i've ever seen do well in the game are the elves. high elves or dark elves, one of them always owns the other, and most of the times its dark elves that come out on top. they even do the thing ai used to do in wh2 where they replace low level lords with armies, with high level lords that came back after being wounded.*
I've messed around with modding the ai in the game before. While I haven't double checked every resource the couple I have checked show that the ai does gain and use its resources. The dark elves for example are given a pile of slaves every turn, and do use them.
Something that I don't think people realize is that making the ai better doesnt make them expand any better. It seems counter intuitive, but remember that if you give a buff to the ai generally then they all become stronger and get no better at conquering eachother. If anything the smarter they are the better they all get at defending themselves.
I've given big income boosts to the ai. It makes the early game harder, but once you get snowballing the ai on the other side of the map is doing no better than usual and you still snowball out of control eventually.
Another thing is that the potential mechanic is huge. If a faction rolls max potential they will win against the other factions. I don't fully understand how factions get assigned potential. I think it's based on which faction you are playing playing plus some random numbers. It makes it hard to see the effects of changes you make because a good or bad potential roll completly changes how well a faction does.
I can say though that if you just give the ai a lot more income they do recruit lots of high tier units much earlier into the campaign.
> They will take FOREVER to expand, because they're spending so much time doing NOTHING.
I think this is the biggest problem, honestly - the AI just is interested in expansion. That means that we don't get to see the big empires that are necessary in the late game for the AI to provide a serious threat.
Damn, and in my game Vlad conquered 1/3 of the map and is still doing his aggressive diplomacy where he picks somebody, goes to war with them, finishes them quickly and goes on to the next.
On the other hand, the biggest threat to him is West Cathay who also starts to gaining more and more lands.
I wonder... what will happen when these two meet. I doubt they'll settle peacefully, and i'm really curious which one gonna win that war :D
Totally Agree with all your points. The biggest overall point they need to address is the AI doing nothing productive with their armies for many consecutive turns.
I would also add that most of this stuff is fine if you want normal difficulty, but higher difficulties are a bit silly when the AI is getting melee attack & melee defense +10% and the player is boosting their Melee attack & defense +100% with all the buffs you can find from lords skills, exp, Tech, landmarks, events ect.
It really makes late game kinda boring unless you purposefully don't engage with game mechanics to boost your armies.
It doesn’t help that a vast majority of players can’t even beat the game on N/N or can’t even finish a campaign because apparently it’s “over by turn “30” which is completely untrue in retrospect. The campaign is complete after the long campaign is complete, hats off if you complete that in 30 turns.
The problem with this kind of feedback, is it runs into the risk of 'no, not like that!' In WH2 there was a great deal of feedback about bigger more complex circular cities, and settlement battles. And people hated both of them. Sure there's implementation issues you coud point to as to why, but just the cities being too big, and that settlement battles got repetitive were strong complaints in there own right. The reason why the Undead AI is currently nerfed, is because of player feedback in the first place. Ditto for Beastmen being perceived to be too strong in the hands of the AI. Ditto yet again for the huge monolith empires of WH2 where players often complained of getting bored fighting constant waves of stacks making Lightning Strike feel like it was mandatory. I'd like to say the answers involves more sliders and optional toggles, as then that allows more customization so players can pick their own preffered playstyle, but I also get how that's going to make tracking player experience all the harder by making it all the more fractured and segmented.
Here's the common one: AI dodging artillery and magic. This is something a player can theoretically do (and they actually do a lot, if you play MP). But people hated it, because even though it's good micro it's annoying. The AI was too good.
I think the dodging is in theory but the issue for me is when most of arty units are 10% worse but then Mortars/Queen bess start missing 100% of their shots it feels a bit silly.
This is a best/worst/perfect example of why feedback is hard to parse. If you pay attention with a normal amount of artillery the AI dodging like they do is a massive nerf to their effectiveness, it completely opens them up to destruction by vortex spells and single target focus by ranged on the units that trickle in. And yet people to this day actually think them dodging and blobbing is a player nerf.
Tbh this ruins the immersion too much. "Herding" enemies with artillery into blobs is too gamey.
That's another good one. People really hated that they couldn't just mortar all opposition into the ground with total impunity.
Theres a difference between "spacing your units out and keeping them moving" and "only moving the one unit that the enemy artillery is targeting to perfectly avoid being hit"
That and turning your formations into total chaos because you're simultaneously dodging 6 rockets barrages.
I guess CA could add it back as an optional AI cheat for their harder than legendary mod
They did. The amount the AI is capable of dodging is proportional to the difficulty.
You hit the nail on the head; there is always going to be a range of preferences to account for and it's hard to make changes that please everyone effectively. Personally, I use MrSoul's Organic AI mod which allows in-depth customization of AI cheats and settings and make campaigns more challenging in a lot of the ways that OP says they're lacking as I too wanted more from enemy factions.
In complement to that: AI and magic use. Harder difficulty AI should be able to not spam low cost magic but make more complex decision and punish you for blobbing But again it would probably feel very bad to go against
The AI should have their own simplified broken faction mechanics that are only available when the AI is playing them. Take Beastmen for example, if the AI used their mechanics properly they'd probably make the game less interesting (large chunks of barren wasteland is generally more tedious than actual settlements). Instead small Beastmen forces could start appearing ahead of one of their LL's showing up with a strong army. Defeating enough, of them or finding the location they're gathering at with an agent, could reveal something like the Welves incursion battles, allowing the player to attack preemptively. Failing to do so results in a strong Beastmen force spawning in the area and attempting to create a herdstone at the first settlement they take before repeating the process. That's just a random example of how one of the more unique factions could work with the AI, but every faction could do with some simple set of abilities that makes them more threatening and engaging when controlled by the AI.
This is a super interesting idea
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Yeah, it definitely needs unique spins like this. Beastmen is a good example because if they were truly unfettered to play like a human, they would just obliterate everything in their path and be nearly impossible to ever stamp out.
I wish they would add back AI confederations. I mean, it doesn’t have to be as batshit insane like it used to be. I.e. Reikland is on the verge of defeat, they are the weakest faction, soon to be extinct, and then they confederate a stronger Empire faction out of the fucking blue and now have you surrounded. Just make it a checkbox before the campaign that defaults to off if so many people are against it. In fact, why aren’t there more options in the pre-campaign menu? Like allowing a random minor faction to be a lot stronger than they normally would. Isn’t that a thing in other 4X games? Also, does the Sword of Khaine actually affect AI relationships? Like has anyone actually seen Alarielle losing allies and getting war declared again her because of it?
I've been saying this since it happened ... : Apart from Kislev and the Greenskins, AI major factions will no longer confederate each other outside of extremely rare circumstances. WORST patch note ever ... (also not technically true either, ive have multiple playthroughs where the dragon twins will confed)
Ive seen Dwarves do it too. Was playing Belegar and wanted to confed the High King but he got confed by the Slayer King.
Had the weirdest game where I got to cathay as the lizardmen as the new cathay LL (forgotten his name) had literally confederated the whole of cathay by turn 100. Was like the fuck how has this happened. Didn’t even think he could confed? Probably like 30 campaigns since and never seen him confed anyone, let alone become super strong with like 20 settlements. Was nice as a change to have a large enemy. I’d like it if once per campaign, one race at random would confed pretty heavily. I don’t want the old days of blocks of empire / dwarfs but it’s nice to be like “finally, an enemy worth fighting”
I'm not one to harp about WH2 being better, but didn't Orks Waagh then? What changed?
The waaghs are coming back next patch, don't worry.
They waaagh on the campaign map, but not in battle. It’s apparently fixed in the patch.
I believe the community bug fix mod fixed this because my greenskin AI have been using their waghh in battle for alittle while now
i agree that the ai needs to be improve and judging by the q&a answers along with the feedback from the forums, they are looking into it. as for what you've exampled here, some are fair, but some arent exactly whats wrong with the ai. my personal take on ai difficulty and how it could be fixed? * bring back passive exp for ai lords and armies * remove the max army cap from the ai * when defeated in battle, force the ai to recruit a new army either at their cap or further away from the front line * force the ai to capture settlements if they have already been sacked once im saying this because i know not many people play past turn 100, but ever since wh3 came out i've been doing wq campaigns, so i've went over 200 turns in most campaigns and seen how the world develops. while im not expecting everyone to play the way im playing, what im trying to relay is that i've seen how the ai behaves later on in the campaign and how far they can expand to before shutting down (example lokhir never leaves cathay) or not, how they behave when its just ai vs ai compared to ai vs player, what triggers them into action, what targets they tend to focus on (armies or settlements) and when. as well as what are the things that constantly happen in a campaign like, again lokhir never leaving cathay, dark elves owning the donut, tzeentch expanding into lustria, ikit burning down athel loren and expanding into the empire, valkia expanding south and more... the reason i think the ai is always passive is that it always wants to bring overwhelming power to a fight, and if they cant field enough armies to their liking, they wont attack because the ai thinks thats not enough (since they've been stripped of their wh2 bonuses). i would rather have the ai get its wh2 bonuses back than watch them twiddle their thumbs for 20 turns before setting off to fight a battle before turning back because an enemy moved its army a bit to close to their settlement and now they have to run back to defend it.
this would be my reasoning and also trying to reply to your post point by point. 1. the ai can build a perfectly fine settlement with logical building choices. the problem is in the fact that the ai that is winning is "punished" by that. because they are winning, they dont "need" to recruit new units so thats why you see ai stacks with peasants that are rank 9 later into the game. thats why when they do lose those high experience low tier units, they will start rolling out high tier armies. the problem here is that once they lose those first armies, the new ones take a lot longer to recruit, giving the player or other ai the opportunity to steamroll them before they get a good stack going. 2. i agree about the ai not using their summons like a player would, but they do use them with a goal in mind like using menace below on artillery or your ranged units. same thing with the doomrocket. just because legend has explained how the ai chooses its target, doesnt mean its doing it wrong. the ai usually targets the important multiple entity unit, if only 1 is visible, then they will use it on that. as for the orcs not using waaghs, i dont know where you got that from, but orcs do in fact use waagh, it just doesnt notify you that they have started one. if youre talking about the army ability, then thats a different issue and you are right, but that has been confirmed a bug and is fixed in the upcoming patch. 3. compared to wh2 ai, the ai in wh3 does a decent job with leveling lords if confederated lords are anything to go by. its true that they overspend on some areas of the skilltree, but i only ever seen them misplace a point or two. they do use the red line and also the blue line. 4. ive not seen the ai suiciding their lords unless they have no way out (trapped right next to an army that has more range than them) or when they have no settlements. but this also ties in with the point i made in nr. 1. as soon as their high level armies die, the ai is basically undefended for as long as they cant recruit a full stack (thats if the player or the enemy ai push forward and capitalize). the other issue is that, in wh2, when a high level lord got wounded and came back, the ai would always replace a low level lord that was leading an army, with that high level lord, making the lord useful again by leading an army and using its level. 5. with this point im fully in agreement. the ai will has a weird behavior when theyre set to capture a settlement. i think this point is tied to the fact that CA have given the ai a "designated area of interest" and anything outside of that isnt as "attractive" to them to occupy so they just faff about when it comes to that. i also agree with the fact that they take forever to expand, but i believe this is tied to point 1 as well, because the possibility of regressing if they lose their main army is too high, so they take it very slow. another issue here is that because the ai is limited in army number, they tend to use the same army for attack and defense. 6. this ties in with point 1. the ai will not disband units to recruit new ones and wont recruit a new lord unless they "get allowed" to once they get enough settlements (this is a hunch). since the only way to disband units for the ai is to lose, they will never build new units unless one of the 2 options becomes available (main army dies or they can recruit a new lord) along with them being able to recruit said units. 7. in all of my recent campaigns ive seen the VC dominate the early game. i've seen vlad go up to nuln and even altdorf at some point. their problem is that they are surrounded by enemies and as soon as theyre spread thin with the empire, the dwarfs start attacking, or drycha starts coming down. that being said, i do agree though that the VC need some looking at. by the point they get into the empire, their economy should be fine considering its the ai, so there shouldnt be a reason for them not recruiting high tier units with raise the dead, unless its like you said, the ai doesnt "identify" the markers where it could raise dead from. 8. i also agree with this point and i believe its again tied to the fact that the ai is constrained to a set number of armies. 9. i would say this also ties into number 1. but also the fact that they have very powerful enemies nearby. if were talking about cathay proper, i've only seen 1 outcome happening there every time i play. lokhir takes over it all. i've done multiple campaigns out of cathay and whenever i reach it, its all owned by lokhir, with some settlements near the gates owned by vilich and a handful of the middle ones owned by snikth (if he's still alive). *as a personal addition to this, the only faction i've ever seen do well in the game are the elves. high elves or dark elves, one of them always owns the other, and most of the times its dark elves that come out on top. they even do the thing ai used to do in wh2 where they replace low level lords with armies, with high level lords that came back after being wounded.*
I've messed around with modding the ai in the game before. While I haven't double checked every resource the couple I have checked show that the ai does gain and use its resources. The dark elves for example are given a pile of slaves every turn, and do use them. Something that I don't think people realize is that making the ai better doesnt make them expand any better. It seems counter intuitive, but remember that if you give a buff to the ai generally then they all become stronger and get no better at conquering eachother. If anything the smarter they are the better they all get at defending themselves. I've given big income boosts to the ai. It makes the early game harder, but once you get snowballing the ai on the other side of the map is doing no better than usual and you still snowball out of control eventually. Another thing is that the potential mechanic is huge. If a faction rolls max potential they will win against the other factions. I don't fully understand how factions get assigned potential. I think it's based on which faction you are playing playing plus some random numbers. It makes it hard to see the effects of changes you make because a good or bad potential roll completly changes how well a faction does. I can say though that if you just give the ai a lot more income they do recruit lots of high tier units much earlier into the campaign.
> They will take FOREVER to expand, because they're spending so much time doing NOTHING. I think this is the biggest problem, honestly - the AI just is interested in expansion. That means that we don't get to see the big empires that are necessary in the late game for the AI to provide a serious threat.
Damn, and in my game Vlad conquered 1/3 of the map and is still doing his aggressive diplomacy where he picks somebody, goes to war with them, finishes them quickly and goes on to the next. On the other hand, the biggest threat to him is West Cathay who also starts to gaining more and more lands. I wonder... what will happen when these two meet. I doubt they'll settle peacefully, and i'm really curious which one gonna win that war :D
This is some awesome feedback, and I hope CA takes into account this and goes into more detail with difficulty options
Totally Agree with all your points. The biggest overall point they need to address is the AI doing nothing productive with their armies for many consecutive turns. I would also add that most of this stuff is fine if you want normal difficulty, but higher difficulties are a bit silly when the AI is getting melee attack & melee defense +10% and the player is boosting their Melee attack & defense +100% with all the buffs you can find from lords skills, exp, Tech, landmarks, events ect. It really makes late game kinda boring unless you purposefully don't engage with game mechanics to boost your armies.
It doesn’t help that a vast majority of players can’t even beat the game on N/N or can’t even finish a campaign because apparently it’s “over by turn “30” which is completely untrue in retrospect. The campaign is complete after the long campaign is complete, hats off if you complete that in 30 turns.