So yesterday while playing mono Death on impossible using the last vanilla release, v1.31, I came across something I had never seen before. The AI used the 11 book Wraith strategy AGAINST me, and it was quite amusing the watch. They were surprisingly competent at it too, sending 2 Wraiths to take over all my poorly garrisoned cities. Check it out for yourself in the attached save.
Did anyone else run into similar situations? I would like to hear more about them.
Interesting. Quite curious to see the AI pick Cockatrices over Basilisk for Nature, given how squishy they are at range. Storm Giant + Flight is an okay 11 book combo for Sorcery, but the others are not particularly great.
Cockatrices fly, but I doubt it matters, as the AI will likely be summoning Gorgons there anyway. I'd agree that double summons seem mostly pointless, but besides adding Prayer, removing them is probably the only worthy change that was done here. For the record, I think Angels are actually a far better pick for the AI than Incarnation. Altar of Battle might be too. In any case, I'd argue that the lists shouldn't be fixed like they are. That was likely just a quick and dirty solution that was never gotten back to.
Incarnation would be fine if the AI equipped him with items. But I never see the AI equip heroes with items. Honestly though, it might be better for the AI to amass Invulnerable Guardian Spirits on the offensive.
(July 14th, 2021, 23:58)Anskiy Wrote: Incarnation would be fine if the AI equipped him with items. But I never see the AI equip heroes with items.
That's not really a thing in v1.31. The AI is special-cased to not receive items from lairs or the Gift event, and doesn't get merchant offers at all. In theory, casting Enchant Item and Create Artifact should be possible as far as I can tell, but the priority of doing so is extremely low. Both spells compete in the "summon" group, and have weights of 20/30 and 30/40 respectively, depending on Artificer. By contrast, the actual creature summons have weights of (cost/10)^2, which is 225 for the cheapest Uncommon. Furthermore, the sum of all the weights must be less than 512 to fit the original RNG, and they are all halved, rounding down, until it is. By the time Rares enter the equation, that means a final weight of at most 1 for each crafting spell (in up to 512), and at Very Rare, only Create Artifact with Artificer can even be rolled for, everything else has strictly zero chance.
Regardless though, Incarnation with items would likely still be worse than anything that can be cast repeatedly. It's a single unit. Not really suitable for the AI's way of "thinking" (plus, it's bugged in v1.31, as the AI checks the wrong unit type when deciding whether it can cast it or not). Invulnerability could work, but the AI would probably never cast it on Guardian Spirits. Players do that solely because of its movement type, not because it's a good unit, and that's kind of difficult for an AI to weigh.
I see, seems like it would be a bit complicated to solve. The AI could still be taught to use a single powerful unit well, given that it was using Wraiths well enough against me, only sending 2 of them to beat my garrisons. But it would definitely need more forces to back it up. And good point on the Guardian Spirit too, it's not actually powerful, it's just that it's one of the few creatures that can freely fly around right from the start.
(July 15th, 2021, 19:30)Anskiy Wrote: ...The AI could still be taught to use a single powerful unit well...
It's not so much that it's a single unit, the issue with Incarnation here is that it's a unique unit. The AI can't summon another one to defend itself after sending the first one off to conquer far-away lands. This would have worked in HoMM, for example, because in that game there is a 7-turn delay between losing all cities and being defeated, so the AI could put all of its eggs in one basket without really risking anything. You take their city while they're out? No problem, they'll just take yours because you're out too. That doesn't work in MoM, unfortunately. Whoever gets there first wins. Which means the optimal play for the AI is to keep Torin defending the fortress. Which promptly defeats the purpose of picking Incarnation as a starting spell. At least, that's the way I see it.
With Wraiths, Gorgons, Chimeras, you name it, the AI can send them on the offense while summoning more to the capital. Angels fly too, so they're actually good for this, they're just kind of underwhelming in combat for their upkeep cost.
