Uemon
Posts: 112
Joined: 12/11/2020 Status: offline
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I played 2 different games now and it does appear that minor AI's are much better at protecting capital; i did see a couple of extremely fast major take overs of minors, but i dont have any idea what happened there (im talking like major snatching a minor within a couple of turns). Couple points regarding design: -It is still incredible easy, overall, to beat minors and annex their cities. This allows players to snowball extremely fast. I personally find it very unenjoyable to watch majors go from 1 zone to 10 extremely fast within only a few dozen turns. -I dont know for sure whether this is true, but it seems to me like minor raiders and slavers react to human player differently to how they react to major AI. With human player, if you border a raider or a slaver regime, they will push into your territory and keep pushing as long as they possibly can, until you establish relations or block them physically. This does not happen to major AIs. And this kinda sucks because it allows Major AIs to focus their army onto blobbing (send everything toward 1 single minor and focus defeat them) until there are no more minors with cities that can be annexed. Meanwhile i am forced to essentially wipe out any slaver or raider faction i run into because if i leave that border open without units blocking movement, they will push all the way to my capital and declare war on me. What this does in practically every single game without mistake is major AI's blobbing like there is no tomorrow, and when you factor in the fact that they can web roads across the map at 0 industrial cost (something i cant do) it starts to feel fairly bad as its obvious im playing against the AI with completely different rules (something i personally dont find enjoyable and would even go as far as to say that i absolutely hate). I would suggest adding some sort of counter blobbing mechanic that persists on map even after land is conquered, something that would force major AI's to both slow down their expansion and garrison their land with units. Wildlife does this somewhat, but as soon as its wiped out, the land is basically 100% secure until another major walks over it. If wildlife was to respawn, or there were some events spawning things, it would get far more interesting. -Today for the very first time i have encountered a farmers minor regime that was completely passive toward me. I did not push into their territory, i merely touched on it, and they didnt send any units to walk into my territory - i have never seen this before. Farmers used to react like slavers/raiders, and would be hyper aggressive. I dont know if this is a bug or a feature, but i like it. -The event that allows you to talk to an AI core or whatever it was, the one where you have like 3 different options, it spawned a AI revolt with 2 walkers; One of those walker stacks acted sensibly and went all over my land in a predictable way. But the other walker AI unit weirded out. Instead of trying to snatch my land and be a nuisance, they instead walked into that passive farmer minor regime, cut their land in half, and it seems like they fought it out, because AI walker stack was wiped out. I have never seen this before either, and i assume this is new behavior. I find it strange that an revolt thats supposed to punish my country would just walk off into another regime. Suggestions: -Would it be possible to expand a little bit on regime archetypes? Its kinda boring when you happen to border 2 farmers minors and they are essentially the very same thing, same units, if you beat one, beating the other one will be the exact same experience. Maybe increase their unit diversity a little bit etc? -I would like to argue that minor regimes (especially the ones with sizeable cities) should be buffed, significantly. Once you understand the basics of how the game works, it is incredibly easy to defeat them, i have done so with just militia units many times (and im not even talking about abusing the no garrison city bug). The main reason why im suggesting this is because it seems like major AI's are just steamrolling them within a couple of turns, leading to snowball of power effect in every single game, which means that every game is essentially the same. AI blobs all over the map. AI attacks you. Fight off hordes of AI trash units. Fun first half a dozen times, but gets old real fast. -I would like a world generation option that disables guaranteed metal deposit for everyone. I find that this thing is the main reason for ridiculous amounts of blobbing. Regimes shouldnt be set up for full economic and industrial explosion from turn one. -Same thing with having more powerful minor regimes, an option to turn that on/off would be awesome. I personally would prefer worlds that develop more slowly, as opposed to majors walking over 70% of the map within 100 turns. Especially because this behavior is 100% only possible because AI cheats with free roads.
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