Easy AI Too Hard

… But I suck so much that I get my butt handed to me against Easy AI. :sweat_smile: It just keeps rushing me with spearmen and no matter how well I defend they always seem to get me with my pants down. Not only that, but when I try to return the favor and launch an attack of my own, I just get wrecked. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. This feels like AOE:DE where even on the easiest difficulty, the AI is still extremely aggressive.

At this point, my problem isn’t even with the game. It’s just me. I’m just bad.

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Don’t worry, it takes a lot of time to adjust to this game. You’re certainly not the only one.

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I hope there’s a “braindead” AI setting on release :sweat_smile:

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Try out the English they’re really beginner friendly!

Their villagers fight with bows so they actually hold up pretty well against a few spearmen plus If the enemy gets close to your base you get attack speed bonuses.

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Just keep playing. The most important thing is to keep your town center making villagers and watch your resources. English can make some defensive swordsman in Dark age if you need the units.

You can fine tune the difficulty a bit by adding more allies to serve as a distraction while you are building up.

As others pointed out, the most basic thing in this game is to keep growing your economy with an endless stream of villagers until you are at a point where you feel comfortable. AoE4 helps on that more than its predecessors by freeing the town center from the distraction of having to age up through it.

It took me 3/4 matches but I really like it now. It’s a lot of fun. I just need to find a build order but I am surprised on how great the stress test has been!

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Did you try the tutorial? I’m sure it’ll be much easier to learn the game once we have access to the single-player campaigns and additional tutorials.

I recommend playing as England while you still getting used to this game, they are friendly to start as in my opinion :slight_smile:

Something I’m doing to prevent early rush is to build the wooden palace (wall) around my base as that’s pretty cheap, just make sure to have 5-10 villagers on wood and you should be able to do that. It will buy you some time.

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IMO easy AI is way too aggressive in the beginning, which can really catch player pants down if he has not trained enough military units fast. It should be more passive in the beginning. This would match better with how weak it is in end-game, because it only trains villagers until has 31 of them.

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I’ll be honest with you, Easy AI is a bit too strong right now for an Easy AI, while Hardest AI is a bit too easy for a Hardest AI. Not your fault.

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I tried Skirmish with easy AI, but it’s not easy at all. It attacks too soon and then builds walls and besieges as an upper-intermediate or hard AI. I don’t know if it’s a bug, but it’s kinda frustrating not to enjoy a play.

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Uff, dunno how to say this but the AI is super, super easy. Even the hardest is not too hard.

How are you playing this? Have you taken the basic tutorials? What else have you learned? Right now I can tell you this: Resources not spent is not good. Always spend your resources, ideally in techs and military. Also always grow your economy by always creating villagers.

Etc. There’s so many little things that make AoE up. Cover the basics of the game first. Then you’ll see that the AI is not a worthy opponent at all.

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The AI plays very poorly on any difficulty.
How can you not beat easy AI 0_o

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What is the enemy AI making that’s giving you trouble? I have a theory that new players are struggling against vanguard MAA from the English Easy AI in particular… When the game teaches you about that unit in campaigns and such, it’s first as an English mirror.

this is not a bug as AI is working fine.

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Hello, welcome to the forums. I understand, the ai doesn’t give you much time to breath if you are new to the game. Unlike AoE2 easiest ai, easy on here will begin sending a flow of units in various batches, and will attempt to make counters. The easy ai doesn’t have a very good economy and doesn’t upgrade their units effectively. You simply need to get into feudal age, and right when you hit it, make a unit production building, then train 10-20 units. Don’t forget to upgrade them. Here is a basic build order to help you get started:

6 villagers on sheep
Scout for 2 extra sheep(should be located near your town center) and bring them to your TC by “right-clicking” the town center with your scout), then continue to scout for more sheep in the fog-of-war.
Create 3 villager and put them on gold, don’t forget to build a mine and a house
Create 6 villagers and put them on wood, don’t forget to build a lumbercamp
Age up by building a landmark with two woodcutters, this should happen around 3:00minutes into the game
Create 6 villagers for berries or deer and build a mill
Research “wheel-barrel” from the mill
Create 3 villagers for gold
After you finish your landmark and enter age(II), build a house and a military production building with your two builders, then put them back on wood.
Create 10-20 military units, and keep making villagers(very important!)

This should help you get started and hopefully resist the evil machines. If you just want to explore everything without pressure, it is perfectly fine to set up a solo skirmish where you play alone. It is actually something professional starcraft player WinterStarcraft says to do. Fire up a solo game and try to reach 200 population as fast and as efficiently as you can.

If you still are unsure what to do, Trump has made a handy video on getting to age(II):

Have fun, and don’t worry, we all have struggled, even if we don’t like to admit it.

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In my opinion for some players the AI might be really unsatisfying to play. It don’t let you chill the first 10 minutes and often rushes you with spearmen. For sure with a non-decent build order you can easily beat them, but some migth just want to chill, boom and figth in age 4 and thats something players can’t do.

On the other hand if you fight just do your build order and try to figth the AI at their base, they don’t defend well, it’s just an unsatisfying win, cause they don’t put a mid or endgame-fight on you.

So in my opinion maybe you should be able to choose a personality for the AI like, boomish/turteling/agressive etc.

Just to be clear I don’t think the AI is per se to hard but unenjoyable to agressive for a lot of players. Some might not want to get better, do the Art of war etc. and just want to enjoy.

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well said yeah the AI even on hard is not very challenging, just be prepared for the initial rush after that they don’t send anyone

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Hi there,
I’m a just a random casual player who decided to give AoE4 a try (played the old games quite a lot also a game of SC2 roughly once or twice a week) and I personally find the 1vsAI (which I often play in the evening just to cool down after work) a bit harsh for me. I barely manage too defeat the AI on easy and it’s a mess and I don’t really enjoy it as much as a SC2 game or the old aoe-titles.
If you mess up a bit, you’re toast, even on easy. I mean there are a lot harder modes, why start at such lvl on the easiest settings. My little boy just quit after trying for a few games and moved back to other titles despite enjoying the mechanics and the graphics a lot actually.
Maybe we’re just too untrained in RTS, but in the easier modes that shouldn’t matter too much in my opinion.
Especially if one keeps in mind that there will be an ai-learning ki implemented for better gamers in the future.

greetings

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