A difficulty slidder instead of set difficulties

Exactly what the title says. I think it would be great for players training up to be able to take on harder AIs. Also you could put markers on the slider for where each of the traditional difficultiy settings were to use as benchmarks. In addition, I believe higher difficulties than were previously available would be great for the pros out there.
Don’t forget to upvote if you like the idea so the devs can see it!

I think the difficulty level is not linear on code side.
If you want more difficulty, then you have to code it and find out better strategies and build orders for the AI.
I don’t think it is possible to say that normal is easy for me but hard is too much so i want something in the middle.

@Zsombro said:
I don’t think it is possible to say that normal is easy for me but hard is too much so i want something in the middle.
I was thinking more along the lines of “I can beat hard, but hardest is way too much for me” (which it is; I get destroyed so quickly :stuck_out_tongue: )

I like this idea, it gives a little something to everybody and allows you to constantly be facing the toughest (For you) opponents in Single player. ^^

@Chasgior If i made the AoE then i would hard code the AI strategies for each difficulty. I don’t know how much you know about programming but it means that i would write down every single build order, attack plan, maybe patrolling and anything else the AI needs.
It would be an algorithm like

  1. one villager of the starting three build a house if he is done then send him to collect berries
  2. the other two collect some berries
  3. all starting food on training villagers
  4. first two of them on wood
  5. the others on food
  6. if i have enough wood then build a barrack
  7. then make 5 clubman
  8. advance to tool age if have the food

but on other difficulty it would look like

  1. first villager to food, second to wood and third builds a house
  2. build a barrack if i have enough wood
  3. train 10 clubman
  4. attack enemy

I’m not sure if it’s possible to make only one strategy which can be used on every difficulty by scaling the constants in its algorithm (normal -> 5 villagers, hard - > 8 villagers)

Maybe a possible solution for your problem is the handicap in AoM which does not modify the difficulty but can slow down the AI-s gather and building rates.

I agree with @Zsombro here - we need a handicap, not a difficulty slider. That’s just not realistically doable, since it would still be like a drop-down menu…just horizontal (if that makes sense).

@Zsombro said:
@Chasgior If i made the AoE then i would hard code the AI strategies for each difficulty. I don’t know how much you know about programming but it means that i would write down every single build order, attack plan, maybe patrolling and anything else the AI needs.
It would be an algorithm like

  1. one villager of the starting three build a house if he is done then send him to collect berries
  2. the other two collect some berries
  3. all starting food on training villagers
  4. first two of them on wood
  5. the others on food
  6. if i have enough wood then build a barrack
  7. then make 5 clubman
  8. advance to tool age if have the food

but on other difficulty it would look like

  1. first villager to food, second to wood and third builds a house
  2. build a barrack if i have enough wood
  3. train 10 clubman
  4. attack enemy

I’m not sure if it’s possible to make only one strategy which can be used on every difficulty by scaling the constants in its algorithm (normal → 5 villagers, hard - > 8 villagers)

Maybe a possible solution for your problem is the handicap in AoM which does not modify the difficulty but can slow down the AI-s gather and building rates.

@RWNorthPole said:
I agree with @Zsombro here - we need a handicap, not a difficulty slider. That’s just not realistically doable, since it would still be like a drop-down menu…just horizontal (if that makes sense).

Had no idea about that. :o Handicap does sound like a great idea then, hopefully can have something like @AssyrianAxeman said:

@AssyrianAxeman said:
it gives a little something to everybody and allows you to constantly be facing the toughest (For you) opponents in Single player. ^^

Thanks for the input guys! :slight_smile:

@Zsombro said:
@Chasgior If i made the AoE then i would hard code the AI strategies for each difficulty. I don’t know how much you know about programming but it means that i would write down every single build order, attack plan, maybe patrolling and anything else the AI needs.
It would be an algorithm like

  1. one villager of the starting three build a house if he is done then send him to collect berries
  2. the other two collect some berries
  3. all starting food on training villagers
  4. first two of them on wood
  5. the others on food
  6. if i have enough wood then build a barrack
  7. then make 5 clubman
  8. advance to tool age if have the food

but on other difficulty it would look like

  1. first villager to food, second to wood and third builds a house
  2. build a barrack if i have enough wood
  3. train 10 clubman
  4. attack enemy

I’m not sure if it’s possible to make only one strategy which can be used on every difficulty by scaling the constants in its algorithm (normal → 5 villagers, hard - > 8 villagers)

Maybe a possible solution for your problem is the handicap in AoM which does not modify the difficulty but can slow down the AI-s gather and building rates.

You were already able to write specific build orders for the AI in the original game. I doubt this feature would be removed, as it was used in many custom scenarios and all old scenarios will be compatible with the new version.

Here is what a part of an AI build order I have written:

B109 Town_Center 1 -1
U83 Villager 12 109
B45 Dock 1 -1
U13 Fishing_Boat____ 2 45
B12 Barracks 1 -1
U83 Villager 2 109
U13 Fishing_Boat____ 1 45

C101 R__Tool_Age 1 109
U83 Villager 2 109
B87 Archery_Range 1 -1
U83 Villager 1 109
T4 Bowman 3 87 4

You would not be able to tell the AI what resources to gather. It would automatically look at the few next items on the list and adjust its resource gathering based on that. It’s also not necessary to tell it to build houses, as it builds them automatically whenever it gets close to the cap.

In the original version you can’t make the build order depend on the difficulty and I think that could be a nice option.