AOE Magic: OP, or does the AI just need to counter it?

OK so after a good number of games under my belt, there seems to be a pattern emerging from the matches: stacked AI armies in full plate melted into stinky goo after 1-2 turns of tactical combat.  Or frozen solid, take your pick.

This wanton destruction usually comes in the form of a powerful mage or a dragon.

In other 4x games, Master of Orion 2 and Endless Space come to mind, AI opponents would actively counter whatever type of offense you were beating their brains in with.  It might take a few turns, but you would notice that their next wave of reinforcements would have a defense against what you've been blasting them with.  I can't say that I've ever seen that in FE:LH.  This is on Expert difficulty.  There are certainly a number of ways to counter fire or ice damage, but if they've done it it hasn't been effective enough to stem the carnage.

Furthermore, the AI doesn't seem to utilize this stuff itself at all.  I have never seen a dragon in an AI army.  That's not too surprising, I guess, since the AI tends to avoid all the uber mobs in general.  But I am pretty surprised that I don't see more fireballs lobbed my way.  And the AI should at least have a mage in it's most important armies to actively interrupt a cast such as Blizzard.

Then again, I think the way the AI utilizes champs could use some work anyhow.  They seem to spend way too much time buffing/debuffing, then meleeing.  And we all know how well melee champs scale for endgame, at least without super weapons dropped from Wildlands or Quest bosses, which the AI never gets.

Anyone seen better results?

I suppose I could just avoid mages and dragons but a world without nukes is a world without fun.  IMO.

P.S.  I HAVE been nuked to oblivion by STRATEGIC spells...once...which I posted another topic on.  But there was something not-quite-right about how that went down and anyway here I'm specifically talking about TACTICAL spells.

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Reply #1 Top

In my latest game, the AI used a lot of tactical and strategic spells, especially very annoying ones like Pull of the Earth (tac) and Tornado (strat).

So I do not share (that part of) your experience at all. The only gripe I have with AI armies is that they tend to favor armor over everything else. Units with 50+ armor and initiative 10 will die very easily to spells and elemental damage, usually without ever getting to act. This could use some improvement, imo. Maybe setting a minimum initiative of ~16 in unit design?

Keep in mind the AI will never be as smart as a human player. Figuring out the best combo's with the tools available in every specific situation is complicated!

O, and comparing the AI unfavorably with classics like MoM or Master of Orion 2 just makes me frown (or giggle, depending on my mood :D ) In MoO 2, the AI were complete tools, and balance was a fiction. Being the first with Ion Pulse Cannon -> game won! Having Shield III vs Shield I -> game over, etc.

Reply #2 Top

Yeah I wasn't comparing the AI as a whole, just this one particular "countering" aspect.  And I ended up having to play MOO2 on "Impossible" to get any kind of challenge.  Interestingly, I don't think I ever really used the Ion Pulse Cannon.  I was a Graviton Beam/Pulson Missile guy.  Not to derail the thread, but I will add that the mutually exclusive choices you had to make on the take trees was a great mechanic.

In a complex game like this, I'm sure AI programming is fantastically difficult.  Endless Space doesn't have nearly as many layers of complexity.