I just hate winning. I absolutely love watching my villagers get massacred by the steam rolling AI.
THANK YOU DEVS!
8 Likes
Well, it is definitely beatable, after watching some pro players beat the hardest AI with ease, the key seems to be to harass the AI as early and as much as possible. Keep them busy in their own base and disrupt their economy. But to me, that’s not really fun. So I guess the hardest AI is now catered toward high-level players, and not for casual players anymore. Another easy way to win, at least for a casual player, is to play on black forest, you often spawn with just one narrow entrance into your base, so easy to wall off and defend. Or I guess just play 1v2 hard AI or something, to simulate the old hardest AI.
They really kind of messed this up by replacing the hardest AI with an outright cheating one, like many others have said, they should have added a new option for “pro AI” or something. I guess they couldn’t be bothered to make a UI change in the game create screen or something.
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This AI is pretty easy to defeat (just build walls) 
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That is good for pro gamers and people who play ranked, but not for the people who primarily play AI in skirmish or co-op.
People who almost exclusively play co-op are doing it for the love of late-game, where we can build huge bases and have huge armies and recreate medieval siege warfare. This new cheating AI is not conducive to that play style. It rushes hard, and if the game gets to late-game, it is too dumb to engage in siege warfare in a realistic manner. It just spams units with it’s 2x resources to brute force an ugly win.
This is not the game we paid for. Even all the trailers for the game display late-game battles with walls and trebuchets and huge armies in formation. Why advertise that sort of game, and then alter the AI to make it a rush game with few units? The pro player influence is showing very strongly in this change - the devs have been made to ignore the people who primarily play AI, and turn the AI into mere practice for rush games. It is the pro player advisors who have ruined the game here.
AI needs to be tailored to the game play style of people who actually play AI all the time. Not to the play style of people who play competitive ranked PvP.
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True, that’s why I suggested Black Forest. Makes it pretty easy.
I agree with this, the Hardest AI now seems to be for players who will not be playing against the AI anyway. I’m all for getting better at the game, with the Hardest AI now giving you a real challenge for that, but I’m not sure this is what casual players who just play against AI wanted. And it’s not what higher-up players wanted either since they don’t play against AI anyway. So a middle ground would have been better, leaving Hardest as is, and making a Pro AI option. All while continuing to improve the AI across the board as time goes on.
Maybe has it as so:
Easy - No bonuses
Medium - No bonuses
Hard - No bonuses
Hardest - 1.5X bonus
Pro - 2X bonus (Like how Hardest is at the current moment)
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No it needs to be 2 settings.
The problem in adding pro is that there would be no smartness difference between hardest and pro, but there is a big smartness difference between hard and hardest. Since hardest is already the best their AI can do. And it would be impossible to play the best AI with no cheats still.
So AI difficulty should represent only how smart the AI is, with no cheating, so that it’s possible to play the best AI without cheats.
And then they can add a separate setting for handicap. Which would be 100%, 125%, 150%, 200% gathering
This way you can play the best AI without cheat. You can also add handicap to any player or any AI level. Even in custom multiplayer matches if you want to help a lower level friend opponent
And difficulty scales way better.
4 Likes
Yes, I suppose that would be the best option. You do get the advanced settings mod that I think gives you such options, not sure now. But imagine how much work that would be for the devs to add a resource modifier toggle, and on top of that, make changes to the game creation screen with new UI features. It’s simply too much work. (I’m obviously just joking)
1 Like
no hardest should be like before. every thing above should be an extra option.
So, your answer is to play 1 way every single time?
That… is not a valid answer…
At that point delete every civ and just use Mongol tower rush. GG EZ…
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I just tried a battle against intelligence in Extreme… and for real, it’s cheating!
But it is not a stating bonus that can be corrected later (as Aoe2), literally the collection rate of all its villagers is absurd, and it lasts the WHOLE game. A counterattack with common economic means is not possible.
The only way to defeat this cheater is:
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Battle 2v2: Have another allied cheater AI with which to exchange the market trade route, to then equalize the gold and turn it into a battle between who is the best Spanish armies.
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Play in “High resources” Mode: In fact, this is the best way to win the 1v1 challenge for the final mastery challenge (lv15).
Playing on normal resources aggainst this IA is a direct death sentence, unless one day somebody finds some way to deccoy and defeat the AI, like walling yourself in or crushing their units with early Keeps. I skip that, and for the moment to train for ranked I will use 2 Hardest AI at the same time.
I pretty much agree to all of this. Us casual players did beat the hardest AI easily because it has certain behaviors devs have left behind as secondary or low-priority tickets. If you really wanted to do this (developers), you should have explored the options better.
As many people are saying, this is “Pro AI”, which would be consumed by no pro’s at all, BTW. In my opinion, you should bring the AoE II handicap system to AoE IV. Graduated advantages to the lesser player is what you should have provided.
As it is right now, and I cannot possibly think that you did the math, you’re not just giving 2x resources to the AI, you gave a vill that does the work of 2 vills, but costs the same, AND no population penalty, meaning that the AI can have 50 vills that are worth 100, for the cost of 50 vills, both in resources and population.
What I’m trying to say here is: Granting 2X resource gather rates goes beyond the granted resource gather rate.
If hardest AI is too hard for you, you may try switching to Hard AI instead. Or you can get better, that is an option as well.
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Hard AI is too easy. Hardest is a cheater and frankly, stupid in late game. One does not get better by playing this cheater AI. Have you actually tried playing it and seeing how stupid the cheater AI is in late game? You think playing against that makes one better?
You know what is an option as well? To stop defending a meaningless AI and to demand a proper proficient one instead.
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Well you won’t get better by playing against the old hardest AI either. I understand and agree when people say they should have just made another AI level instead of changing this one, but if you seek improvement you should play MP and SP
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Playing against humans improves gameplay against humans, nothing else. Some of us like playing long games with siege and walls, which humans do not provide. Hence the need for good AI. The game is about enjoyment, not “improvement”.
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if only there were more people like this in aoe4 section of the forum, there’s plenty elsewhere, to add a bit, if you don’t enjoy the game, would you want to improve at it, my guess is no
The game is about enjoyment, not “improvement”.
You said:
“One does not get better by playing this cheater AI”
“You think playing against that makes one better?”
I am merely replying to these.
Playing against humans improves gameplay against humans, nothing else.
Playing against humans DO improve how well you play against AI. AI is stupid. It does not matter what difficulty, it will just throw units at a wall. You can beat any AI just by the most basic micro ever. You can write inspect what AI does and see that everything it does has a few branching patterns.
Hence the need for good AI
Nobody said anything about demanding bad AI or opposing good AI. I want better AI too. However we have to make do with what we have. AI won’t get much better, believe me. I study this area and it requires simply too much work, money and time to develop even the simplest of AIs. We already have one and the company that made this game and the AI won’t make a new one just to please a small group, I can guarantee you that.
Some of us like playing long games with siege and walls, which humans do not provide
There are communities for this in Discord, Reddit and other social platforms. I am sure you will find people who will want to play like that. You can simply create a custom lobby and play with them. Workshop mods can also help you achieve that. You have the solutions at hand, you just need to utilize them.
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That is fair. But I have to ask, does playing against this cheater AI really make you better at playing against humans? The playstyle is totally different and I cannot see how it helps there.
AI can definitely get better. I come from AOE3, and that AI is miles better than this one. It even knows when to surrender.
It is not a small group. The people who play against AI are the majority, and the people who play against humans are the minority. I don’t know why PvP players keep making this mistake thinking that they are the prime playerbase.
I prefer to play on my own free time. Co-ordinating with other people for custom lobbies is difficult across time zones, and even within the same time zone because not everyone has the same schedule.
This is why quick match and AI is important, so that people can just launch the game and be playing in a matter of minutes whenever they want to, without having to co-ordinate with other people. Please do not deign to offer “solutions” that ignore common sense.
That is fair. But I have to ask, does playing against this cheater AI really make you better at playing against humans? The playstyle is totally different and I cannot see how it helps there.
Nope, I agree with you there.
AI can definitely get better. I come from AOE3, and that AI is miles better than this one. It even knows when to surrender.
Although the two games are similar in nature, their AI is different. If they simply replaced the AI in the 4 with the 3, it wouldn’t work. Units are different, buildings are different, civilizations are different, age up system is different. Could the AI in 4 be made better when it was designed? Absolutely. However I don’t think it will have significant improvements unless they have it in their agenda, and that seems unlikely to me.
Please do not deign to offer “solutions” that ignore common sense.
What do you mean? Can you elaborate? What are you referring to with “ignoring commong sense” here?
Would you be happy if Relic removed quick match making from PvP and asked you guys to go arrange matches between yourselves on reddit, discord, forums etc? So why should any one say that PvE players should use those avenues to satisfy themselves instead of asking for a good AI in Quick matches? Arranging matches outside the game should not be offered as a substitute for a good AI in quick match.