The toggle already exists.

Play on Normal.

Normal mode is too easy. The computer is far more aggressive and careful on Hard and Nightmare.

And don`t say that the only difference between Normal and harder difficulty levels is cheating, because that would be (and is) untrue. Not to mention the robust apportioning of starting gold on Normal.

Playing with 2(human)v3 AI should be easier, as you can make sure you dont feed them whereas the AI doesn't put quite as much effort into that.

I'd like to see a softer curve between tournament Normal and Hard.  Normal is an absolute walk in the park but on Hard where the computer supercharges relatively early agianst your devastatingly stupid AI team mates.... That's not challenging, its annoying.  Especially on some of the game modes where you have to one man army the entire map and it basically becomes almost impossible.  I've won Hard tournaments, but it doesn't feel like skill, it feels like luck of the drawer. 

Non moronic teammates in Hard/Nightmare pls

Hard AI definitely does cheat. (+50% exp and gold and twice the starting gold) The only reason you don't notice Hard AI cheating is that it plays so badly that it doesn't end up any stronger than an average human.

This is from game.lua:

I'm interested to know why the Rook AI sucks SO DAMN HARD even now after several updates.

All AIs have got similar floors, not retreating early enough given the threat level, not retreating in an effective direction, retreating at 70% health taking 5 steps then changing it's mind and going to attack again, and doing the same thing at 20%(!) health when I'm clearly going to kick his arse.

The Rook however is in a whole different league of pathetic.  All Demigods seem to stutter when retreating when under fire but for some unknown reason the Rook stutters so much when retreating under attack he pretty much doesn't move at all.  He is the easiest DG to kill when AI because of this complete failure to move.

Starfury,

Notice that the Normal AI doesnt have access to the same Favor items as Hard and Nightmare.

Also thats not the only difference between Hard and Normal. In the code something called the PlanDepth is adjusted for Normal and Easy. This may be making Hard AI play better.


Also note in tournaments:

On Easy -> Player team mates are nightmare; Enemy are easy
On Normal -> Player team mates are hard; Enemy are normal
On Hard -> Player team mates are normal; Enemy are hard
On Nightmare -> Player team mates are normal; Enemy are nightmare

Its possible to mod these things, but I havent been bothered because the mod support from the devs is pretty poor (as in limited doco avaliable)

I saw some new (retarded) behavior from the AI today (rook). Pantheon match (fortress), Erebus/UB vs Rook (ai)/ Oak. The match started as a typical match does. Sometime around the middle of the match, I attacked a fortress just to get a few hits in before I retreated to go heal and the rook was guarding it. I hit the fortress 1 time, then retreat and witness the rook use structural transfer ON HIS OWN FORTRESS! They didn't even have health regen for buildings! Fortress was near death at that point.

How to improve the Rook AI to make it more competitive enclosed!!

I agree with the posters here, while programming an AI that can provide a challenge to a player WITHOUT cheating might be very difficult without relying on cheats, providing an AI that is competent shouldn´t require various after-release patches to polish.

I prefer playing the game single player only or over the LAN with some friends so the AI flaws are more glaring, so I decided modding the game for my benefit as I don´t have to worry about online play and the lack of mod support so far.

I know what is causing the infamously horrible Rook AI that causes it to stutter nonstop when trying to flee. I managed to fix it practically for my own personal play and would be glad to provide others with information on how to do it. 

I can´t point to the code that is causing the with full knowledge but I have pinpointed it to the Rooks Independent weapons, more precisely, the Archer Tower causes the most problems.

Apparently, there is some problem with the Archers firing while the Rook is trying to move, causing it to pause or even re-engage when the Rook AI obviously wants to flee...  Its like a split personality where the archers take over the Rooks Body while the Rooks AI wants to run for the hills, causing it to stutter and dance, and die messily.

I managed to reduce this annoying behaviour drastically by modding the Archer towers to not be able to fire on move as shown in the .lua code below:::

{

BallisticArc = 'RULEUBA_LowArc',

CanDamageReturn = false,

CanFireWhileMoving = true,  ####  THIS IS THE LINE YOU WANT TO CHANGE TO false TO REMEDY THE SITUATION

CantSetTargetUI = true,

CollideFriendly = false,

Damage = 5,

DamageType = 'Arrow',

DisplayName = 'Arrows',

DoNotUseDamageRating = true,

FireTargetLayerCapsTable = {

Land = 'Air|Land',

},

FiringRandomness = 0.1,

FiringTolerance = 2,

Label = 'Arrow01',

MaxRadius = 15,

MinRadius = 0,

MuzzleVelocity = 30,

NoWeaponBuffs = true,

NoFloatText = true,

NoItemEffect = true,

NoSplashDamage = true,

ProjectileId = '/projectiles/Arrow02/Arrow02_proj.bp',

ProjectileLifetime = 2,

PrefersPrimaryWeaponTarget = true,

RangedWeapon = {

MuzzleBones = {

'sk_Rook_Turret03_REF',

},

ShotDelay = 0,

},

It also seems that the Tower of Light shoulder enhancement and the Trebuchet also cause this stutter effect...  The difference being that the Archer tower fires 6-12 arrows TWICE per seconds, which prevents most Rook AI builds from retreating effectively.  The Tower of Light fires once every two seconds I believe, and the Trebuchet once every three seconds, so the disruption is less noticeable.

Anyways, thats just a work around.  The real solution I imagine has something to do with the fire on move bugs that seem to plague the game, also probably related to the skill activation problems.  It seems the Demigods cannot chew gum and walk at the same time.

This piece of code is located in the file HRook_unit.bp in the dgdata.zip file in the dgdata\units\heroes\HRook directory when unzipped.

In order to modify it without corrupting your original game files, you want to do the following steps:

1. Unzip the dgdata.zip file located in your Demigod main directory which should create a dgdata folder

2. Rename the original dgdata.zip file to something else such as dgdata(original).zip for backup purposes

3. Rename the unzipped dgdata folder to dgdata.zip so the Game uses that information when it loads instead of the original dgdata.zip file

4. Modify the files that are located in the dgdata.zip folder you created to your hearts content.

Hopefully this information can be passed along to GPG so they can remedy the situation.  This game is exactly the kind of game I always wanted to play so I really hope they dedicate the time required to polish it.

Enjoy!