I played a skirmish last night and was taken by two things. One, my God these people can create a LOT of elephant units. SO MANY. They just keep coming and coming.
And two, if you wipe out 2/3rd’s of their town they can rebuild a dozen buildings in 2 minutes. So you look away and that town you destroyed? It’s back.
I don’t see how the AI can have SO MANY UNITS and SO MANY BUILDINGS. Yes, I’m doing all the basic stuff. I can play III on any level up to and past intermediate with no trouble at all. But IV? I just get streamrolled. Oh, yeah, eventually after I’ve had my army wiped out three times I’ll win. But it’s not fun have twenty elephants attacking your guys.
Well, rest assured that the AI doesn’t start cheating until you reach a difficulty level above Hardest:
Easy, Intermediate, Hard: The first three difficulties has a delay in the Villager production, and military production, so gonna win if your villager productions is continuous and know how to counter its attacks with “Counter-units”.
Hardest.- The proper 1vs1 “Fair”, but the IA has the level of gameplay of a Gold I player (can change beetween seasons), but with a Micro to make Villagers escape of a Diamond player… except some times that is bugged.
Ridiculous, Outrageous, Absurd.- They have a bonus that recolect X1.2 o X1.5 or more resources in all their gather buildings, and more unit production bonus. So they ever gonna have more resources than you, even if you make the same build. I didn´t suggest play this difficulty, because don´t reflex properly how is to play with Humans, another players. “Ridiculous” at least can be beated, with enough rushes and village killing, or distract attacks, but the others, deppending of the map and the civ played, can be impossible to beat. They are supposed to play with friends or companions in 3v3, or 4vs4 aggaints Absurd IA, and use the sinergy with allies to beat them, becuase is a a IA, so they commit many mistakes humans don´t.
Note: There is a theory that IA can see It can see through the fog of war, which explains how it can sometimes use precise coordination to escape your attacks. Now, here is another point to exploit regarding the AI: since it flees frequently, its bases often waste time evading rushes—and thus fail to gather resources—giving you the advantage needed to defeat it.
Aggainst elephant: Their counters of the Melee War Elephant is the Spearman (but only in large waves), Crossbowman (the best counter) , and Ribauldoquins (If you play French or Engrish.
Aggainst the Range Tower Elephant… supposedly is the Horseman, but A LOT, but I prefer using Mangonels (they count as range) and Cannons, being Bombard or Culverins in mase, or more Ribauldoquine. They are VERY costly, so usually only in super-Late Game, you gonna see them (25-45 minutes),