AI Inquisitor races

[Seravy]

It has been mentioned that AI players might perform poorly, or even get doomed to lose with the Inquisitor retort, as not every race works with it. Rather than disabling the retort for AI, I think the best solution is to limit the AI to pick specific races, if they have the retort.


Myrror
Every Myrran race is reasonably powerful and at least good enough to fight against Arcanus wizards, so no restriction needed here. A Myrran Inquistor wizard has the entire plane so they will be able to spread and have many cities, on top of that, they will most likely wipe out any neutrals, making sure the other players don't get a chance to have a city of the other myrran races either.

Arcanus
This is where we want to apply the restriction.

Barbarians : Obviously horrible choice as the realm has no late game and berserkers are easy to stop. Early expansion is worthless if you can't use it to take over cities from other races. Verdict : Disable.
Gnoll : Pretty much works the same as Barbarians, while they get a bit more building options, their units are all in the "high power many figures low resistance melee" scheme, and lack versatility. This race is also awful if it cannot get units of other races. Verdict : Disable
Halfling : These guys have close to no capacity of offense whatsoever except in very specific strategies that are easy to counter for a human player. Verdict : Disable.
High Elf : They produce power, have every building and have good units. Verdict : Allow
High Men : A race with a weak start, but strong late game. Risky choice but can pay off very well if Paladins are reached early thanks to the extra gold. The harsh unrest tables mean not having other races is less of a problem. Verdict : Not sure but probably allow.
Klackon : Offers the best synergy with the retort and is a race the AI can use well. Verdict : Allow.
Lizardmen : Massively powerful economy that benefits well from double taxes, acceptable power output, and strong early units. Late game is not that good but turtles can be tough and they're definitely not a bad unit. Lack of research is a concern but this wizard can win the game through sheer early advantage. Verdict : Allow.
Nomad : Has reasonably good units that are highly resistant, but the race has two major weak points, it is completely annihilated by Famine due to no food buildings, and it relies heavily on bow units which are easy to counter. Verdict : not sure, probably allow.
Orc : A generic race that has all buildings so economy has no problems, but all their units have bad resistance and they don't have anything really outstanding. I tried this with Inquisitor once and lost on Normal because I had no outs against Death wizards with my low resistance units. Verdict : Disable?

Due to existing code structure, the best case scenario is if we allow 5 races and disable 4, but disabling is not any harder (allowing more is). If there are no objections, I think the 4 to disable should be Orcs, Halflings, Gnolls and Barbarians.

[Nelphine]

.I'd be OK with it, although honestly the higher the difficulty the less it's a problem. I very rarely lose wars (or the game) because of city built troops. The important battles are almost always fantastic u nuts, although skirmishes and outer cities are often determined by city built troops.
I'd say extreme and impossible it simply wouldn't be an issue, easy it wouldn't matter, but i dont know about normal and hard.

As an extra aside gnoll and orcs are hands down the best races for defeating other AI (8 figures beats practically everything, including high level heroes and very rares) so it's interesting to see them both on that list.

Overall I wouldn't disallow any more than four. I'd be fine with leaving all races as an option (it's not a common enough retort to be a big problem, and at least AI vs AI, only halflings will be hurt by picking it.)
It's also not going to come up often enough that it will be a problem to disallow the four races

[Seravy]

As an extra aside gnoll and orcs are hands down the best races for defeating other AI (8 figures beats practically everything,  including high level heroes and very rares) so it's interesting to see them both on that list.

That is actually the worst case scenario. It means the AI wizard that is no challenge to the player eliminates all the others. This is mostly true for Gnolls, at least with Orcs the AI has the option of having powerful magic to make up for lack of units against the human player. However Orcs are the most boring race so having the last enemy standing play Orcs is still not the best outcome.
It's worth saying however that the Inquisitor wizard being good against the other AI is not a good scenario to begin with. Since they're forced to raze everything, they don't get stronger, but others do, so this only helps the human player. With other wizards this is not the case as towns change owners, and the strong wizard grows stronger.

In short, we want the Inquisitor to play races that are strong against the human player, and not outstanding against other AI. Which might actually mean Lizardmen are a bad idea to allow ...tho with their crazy settling capacity, the AI has a way better chance to grow strong as an Inquisitor using Lizardmen than with any other race, and the best part is they don't need to destroy other wizards in war to do so, and even if they do, they can settle the empty territory at a reasonably fast rate for it to be serve as an expansion.

[Nelphine]

Ah true enough about the one dominating AI. I agree with that. I LIKE orcs though. Not boring at all. But, that's personal preference of course.

[GermanJoey]

High Men are actually probably the best race for Inquisitor, as they have priests (to counter corruption spam and healing) and engineers (a big deal, for logistics and what will turn into a massive gold bonus), all the economy buildings, and awesome high-end units. Their slow start doesn't matter as much because Inquisitor sets your development on warp speed. At least, that's how it is for the player, dunno how it'd be different for the AI.

In contrast Nomad don't feel so good with the Retort, because even though you can still rush in all your buildings you end up stuck building Housing forever to make up for your horrible growth. Well, I guess Inquisitor does shore up their weakness in this way.

[zitro1987]

Barbarians : Obviously Disable.
Gnoll : Unsure - possibly enable due to sheer power of units translating to early conquest of nodes/lairs, but player may easily take advantage of low resistance units and lack of amplifyier/wizard towers can hurt AI.
Halfling : Unsure - possibly disable despite excellent economic potential of race. Player can work around their better units.
High Elf : Enable. Slow growth and expansion, but the cities turn out great. Very good units as well.
High Men : Enable. Slow start but cities eventually turn out great and later units are good.
Klackon : Enable. Stag Beetles are diverse and fast. Super low unrest benefits retort.
Lizardmen : Enable, even after race got weakened.
Nomad : Enable. Later choice of melee flying vs ranged ground helps race. The food weakness can be taken advantage with 'famine', but it's up to the player to figure that out and it affects few games.
Orc : Enable. Great economic potential translates to many summoning units. Also, wyverns have decent resistance (though I recommend increasing their base melee to 8, from 7).

[Al_Al]

Zitro1987, the problem is that apparently it is technically difficult for Seravy to exclude number of races that is smaller than four:

Due to existing code structure, the best case scenario is if we allow 5 races and disable 4, but disabling is not any harder (allowing more is).

Therefore, in your opinion, which race should become the fourth exclusion?

[zitro1987]

Barbarian, Gnoll, Halflings

1 Myrran Race - not sure if dwaves (slow movement) or Trolls (enemy AI does not benefit much from regeneration)

[Seravy]

Maybe I wasn't clear enough but it has to be 4 or more Arcanus races.
It's possible to do it otherwise by replacing the entire part but it takes an extra 30 minutes and I don't think enabling orcs is worth that time.
Also, while Orcs have good economy, that only translates to many summons if the player has good summons and there are no spell effects preventing their use (Nature's Wrath), even then the effect is very limited because casting skill is nonlinear. A noninquisitor wizard who can conquer and obtain Amplifying Towers from others will likely have more casting skill and summoned creatures.

[Nelphine]

Has anyone actually seen games where the AI has done poorly with inquisitors?

Unfortunately my experience has been on impossible so I feel like I can't really help with this except to say when my barbarian opponent (not inquisitor but it was a game with 0 neutrals and the ai spent most of the game allied) got time stop, barbarian didn't seem to be a hindrance.

Is it possible we're overreacting and the change doesn't need to be made?

My guess is if it is a problem it would be worst on hard. Can anyone test a pile of hard games? Maybe code inquisitors in on one AI each gane, and see if its noticeable?