I just played a match of the dehli sultanate vs the british intermediate AI. I didn’t enjoy it.
Highlights.
Blatant AI cheating. They literally walked men at arms over a stone wall (with the placement for towers on it) and then went on to murder my villagers.
Subtle AI cheating (or really good scouting) they sent parties of troops and I got to see them real time alter their movements to pursue a group of villagers they had no LoS on.
Economic hands tied. I felt the entire match that my hands were tied. There was far too much either locked behind research or locked behind upgrades. For example. A simple tower would have allowed me to have some breathing room. But nope, towers simply cannot have basic defenses. In the mid game, I couldn’t figure out their mechanics, because I was constantly being harried by weak units. I eventually lost.
Too much focus is wasted on the scout. Scouts should be able to be sent to autoscout, while the job of running the empire is left to the player. Speaking of scouts, the ai can run like… 10 of them. And run an economy. first, do they get those scouts for free? Second, should the number of scouts a player is able to have at a single time be capped? And is it realistic to expect a single player to control 10 scouts while also controlling an empire?
Lots of aggression is there, but not alot of defenses. This is the hallmark of bad balance, or catering to players who like to wall other players in. I am not sure which, but it turns the game on its head. You can’t empire build (actual fun) you have to get into a war with an ai who likes to launch lots of little probing attacks, and the attacker ALWAYS has the advantage. That is bad design.
I would not recommend this game in its current state. I am going to go play a different RTS.
Are you sure that you placed the gate or towers facing the right direction (there is an arrow direction when you try to build Stone gate or wall towers) , cause if you didin’t then units can climb on the walls from the outside
Im guessing you’re referring to outposts. Initially they are just buildings in which you can garrison and use for vision. (note that when you garrison them units fire arrows out). Later on you can upgrade the towers to have their own weapons or even just get tankier.
10 scouts is excessive and inefficient. Most players just use like 1-2 for actual scouting and the rest are used to hunt deer around the map.
Though I do sympathize with people wanting an auto-scout function, I also don’t think its beyond asking to just micro a little.
They’ve made walls really strong currently. It actually encourages you to protect your empire and defend it.
It sounds like you just want a more passive Ai that doesn’t try to attack you?
You wouldn’t be the first and by no means is it something bad.
I just feel this has less to do with balance and more to do with how you personally want to be able to play.
Outposts should get arrows from age 1. And then you should be able to upgrade them from arrows to that ballista thing and then the cannon. Or straight to cannon. The thing is, your put into a scenario where your short on hands, and your resources you put into tower SHOULD be put into an army instead. problem is, unless you scout, the army you built can be countered. And the AI cheats with vision, so no point in building an army, because whartever you built will be hard countered. Wanna see it in real time? play a game with all vision on. Ofc the ai is supposed to see in this scenario but the thing is that the ai plays no differently between vision and no vision. So you get hard countered.
The thing is this is a bad design because it does not put building defensive positions on an equal footing until you have a significant advantage to hold the harrasment off. The thing is it wouldnt be as bad if the ai didnt constantly cheat.