Serious question for those who play Single Player

[WretchedGnu]

Although the consensus seems to be that the AI in H5 is on the poor side, I don't want to debate that here: But for the purpose of the question I want to ask, I assume we can all agree that, unless dozens of people are simply lying in these forums, the following scenario does not misrepresent the game:

You begin a single-player scenario. As with any game in this general genre (Civilization, Disciples, etc.), the fun of the early game consists in your efforts to build a city and an army in way that is both efficient (in terms of resources) and strategically sound. This is the source of your satisfaction (in the early game) because you know that you're doing everything possible to keep a “leg up” on the computer opponent (or at least stay on par with it), and that if you did not deploy your resources with this level of strategic efficiency, you would not be able to win.

Now fast-forward to the late game. You're bringing your strong hero in for the decisive battle. You have emptied your garrison, and if you don't capture the AI's key city, you're in a world of hurt. The enemy garrison is slightly larger than your army: it'll be a tough fight. Your movement points run out just a few yards from the enemy door. Suddenly an enemy hero emerges with half of the garrison forces -- to challenge you in the field, perhaps? -- but no: it runs off to recapture some mines. The half-strength enemy garrison is now easy prey, and you win the next turn.

Now, I know this doesn't happen every time; but we all know it does happen. What confuses me is the reaction to this situation by many people on these boards. Many people say, “yes, it's true that that happens sometimes, but overall there are many great aspects to the game, and it is still fun to play overall, despite such glitches.”

This reaction honestly baffles me.

It baffles me because when such a “glitch” occurs, what it means is that all the effort I put into careful and efficient resource-deployment throughout the game simply did not matter. I would have won the game even if I had put almost no thought into it at all and made totally inefficient choices. Because even if I had played so poorly as to have provided myself with only half the army I ended up with, I would have won.

I simply cannot understand the viewpoint that says, “oh well, you still had fun along the way, even if your strategic play never mattered.” To me, what this situation means is that I'm not playing a game at all. If my strategic choices and abilities never get put to the test, then I'm not playing a “strategy” game at all.

I agree that it's fun to build up your hero, and the great skill system, and all that: But all that is instantly rendered irrelevant as soon as you know that you're playing an opponent against whom you would have won if you had assigned your heroes skills randomly.

So here's the question: Why on earth do people play the Single Player game? Are there really people who believe that playing chess, for instance, and taking infinite care in strategizing and thinking about your moves is still worthwhile -- even when you discover that your opponent is a cat?

And, please: do not respond to this with the assertion that the AI must be good because it beats you. The only time this AI beats a competent player is when the game has compensated for the lack of AI simply by piling massive armies onto its stupid heroes. Even against such cheat-favored heroes, and even if you lose against them, your subtle strategic choices never actually mattered in terms of the ultimate outcome.

[DaemianLucifer]

I agree with you.Though I did finish just two campaigns,there was just one map that provided me with some chalenge,and it wasnt that great of a chalenge either.It simply isnt a strategy game if you can finish it with half brain.

[ThunderTitan]

Even against such cheat-favored heroes, and even if you lose against them, your subtle strategic choices never actually mattered in terms of the ultimate outcome.

Actualy then they do. Especialy is you win by a small margin. Means you used the right strategy to maximize ur army.

But ur right, the only chalenge is defeating the AI in battles where he has the numerical advantage.

[WretchedGnu]

Even against such cheat-favored heroes, and even if you lose against them, your subtle strategic choices never actually mattered in terms of the ultimate outcome.

Actualy then they do. Especialy is you win by a small margin. Means you used the right strategy to maximize ur army.

But ur right, the only chalenge is defeating the AI in battles where he has the numerical advantage.

I still don't understand. If the only challenge is in a cheating AI -- where its only "strategy" is to give itself enormous armies -- all you have to do is wait a few weeks for your own armies to swell up. Then you're right back where you started: pretending to "strategically" outmaneuver an absent opponent.

[ThunderTitan]

I still don't understand. If the only challenge is in a cheating AI -- where its only "strategy" is to give itself enormous armies -- all you have to do is wait a few weeks for your own armies to swell up. Then you're right back where you started: pretending to "strategically" outmaneuver an absent opponent.

Well that's true in some cases. I was thinking more along the lines of attacking him right away, or him attacking you.

[Kristo]

You're bringing your strong hero in for the decisive battle. You have emptied your garrison, and if you don't capture the AI's key city, you're in a world of hurt. The enemy garrison is slightly larger than your army: it'll be a tough fight. Your movement points run out just a few yards from the enemy door. Suddenly an enemy hero emerges with half of the garrison forces -- to challenge you in the field, perhaps? -- but no: it runs off to recapture some mines. The half-strength enemy garrison is now easy prey, and you win the next turn.

Yes I agree that is just stupid. Even the Heroes IV AI had a survival instinct. One quick question - do you win said "easy" fight straight up or does it take a lot of magic to do it? If it's the latter, we just have a problem with it estimating how strong your force as a whole is. If it's the former, we have a larger problem. It's likely the AI doesn't even know its home is being threatened. Further, it's likely that it doesn't know it will surely lose the game as a result of stripping out half the castle defenders. This case requires much more work than the first.

So here's the question: Why on earth do people play the Single Player game? Are there really people who believe that playing chess, for instance, and taking infinite care in strategizing and thinking about your moves is still worthwhile -- even when you discover that your opponent is a cat?

This is precisely why I haven't bought the game. Nor will I consider buying it until I can get some assurance that the computer opponents have been improved.

And, please: do not respond to this with the assertion that the AI must be good because it beats you. The only time this AI beats a competent player is when the game has compensated for the lack of AI simply by piling massive armies onto its stupid heroes. Even against such cheat-favored heroes, and even if you lose against them, your subtle strategic choices never actually mattered in terms of the ultimate outcome.

I agree wholeheartedly. The only time the AI should be allowed to win is:

1. on the highest difficulty setting, where some cheating is to be expected.

2. if the player does something incredibly stupid.

The most fun AI to play against in my opinion is one that knows it's not going to win. Armed with the knowledge that the human player will win in the end, it instead focuses on ruining your day as much as possible. It's this playing to "not lose" mentality that makes the player have to work hard for his eventual victory. That to me is the best part of a strategy game.

[RK]

well my only complaint is that at certain point of game time, what you do doesn't really matter any more. u just clear everything, get xp, flag mine, grab resource, repeat.

I played against my cousin last night, I picked Sylvan to build an avenger hero with Imbue Ballista + Rain of Arrow.

It didn't work. It simply is mind boggling how we both simply steam rolled stacks n stacks stacks with little thought. He getting more and more stronger, XP and Army wise, while I make do with what I got.

It got to the point where I realized, I'm going nowhere with this game. If either one of us decide to siege each other's castle, we're simply gonna get our ass handed to us. So tell me, wtf are we supposed to do to achieve 'superiority' status over human player besides hoping he screws up somewhere? We cannot rush like in RTS to stifle his growth with those lvl 4-5 mobs blocking the way.

-Confused Fan

[Joskevermeulen]

Thanks for describing the broken A.I.
Another reason for me to not buy this game at the moment.

Your frustration is the same frustration many players had with Heroes IV, but there at least the hero would sit like a duck on the end. Now it does even run once you are going to attack him. Yes, i know it does not do this all the time, but the A.I. sitting like a brainless duck also kills the game spirit for me.

I don't have the luck to have someone permantly sitting around to play hotseat around :o( so I'll have to pass.

[cornellian]

While I love Heroes, to answer the justified pleas here, I must say that you guys need to look at Galactic Civilizations II, one of the very few games that has an AI that does not cheat.

And the surprisingly good thing is it can still beat you, and in alot of different ways; for example by organizing a 5 player alliance by good relations, bribes, technology gifts etc. and then gangbanging you, as it did to me last time ...

[Ethric]

It does cheat in GalCiv II, at the highest settings (it gets an economy bonus).

But on the highest "fair" setting, you don't even have to do something incredibly stupid to lose, as Kristo argued. The AI has every intention of winning and can beat a new\average without cheating simply because it is well made.

It is quite baffling how someone making a turnbased game can skimp on the AI, like they have seemingly done with H5, as games against the AI are arguably the majority. I'm not expecting SkyNet here, just something that puts up a fight and refrains from doing\not doing incredibly stupid things. Like ignoring unguarded mines and similar (as I have seen it do in H5). This is possible, and it doesn't even have to cheat to do it. What it does require however is some decent time and effort to make.

[DaemianLucifer]

It got to the point where I realized, I'm going nowhere with this game. If either one of us decide to siege each other's castle, we're simply gonna get our ass handed to us. So tell me, wtf are we supposed to do to achieve 'superiority' status over human player besides hoping he screws up somewhere? We cannot rush like in RTS to stifle his growth with those lvl 4-5 mobs blocking the way.

Resource harrasment.Harras his mines untill hes forced to attack you on the field,in which case only the better tactician will win.

What about civilisation AI?It doesnt cheat on middle difficulties,yet it is quite good.I also liked the SF AI(didnt play SFII yet).I know its a RTS,not TBS,but still.I remember this one map that was so incredebly hard for me(the one where you get the dark elves for the first time).I had to restart it twice in order to,barely,win.

[Infiltrator]

I had some problems with the 3rd Inferno mission, but the rest wasn't hard at all.

[dragonn]

I agree with you.Though I did finish just two campaigns,there was just one map that provided me with some chalenge,and it wasnt that great of a chalenge either.It simply isnt a strategy game if you can finish it with half brain.

Firstly, it isn't a strategy game because of the hack n' slash Initiative Bar system...

I wonder how a battle with 3600 nagas would look in Heroes. And it was possible to win! It was in Dracon campaign. I've had a lot of luck, because there was a map object which surrounded my Titan from three sides. I've used Clone in every turn to block the fourth passage, and I've won.

Not possible in the no-strategic H5, in which one Nightmares stack attack you three times one after another....

[Gus]

I fail to see how the ATB bar means the game is not "strategic". Sure it's not the same strategy in battles as it was in previous games. That doesn't mean it is not strategic anymore, just that the situation has changed, and _you_ need to adapt your strategy to that. If you want the same game than before, re-install H3 (i did finally experiment WoG, and it's great).

As for the situation described by the OP, i haven't ever experienced that. Usually the AI waits for me in its castle, i've never seen it split off in two smaller groups, waiting to be wiped.
That doesn't mean the AI doesn't do funny things, mind you. It definitely needs to play better, without necessarily giving it a lot of resources.
I do have the feeling that i have "mastered" H5 SP already. Whenever i start a map, i know that unless i have really bad luck, if i play half-carefully, i will win in the end.

[DaemianLucifer]

@dragonn

And how does the initiative diminish strategy?It just changes it.Sure,there are exploits,but there were exploits in previous systems,right?The example you mentioned is a pure exploit of the system.And think about this:If you have a machine gun and your opponent has a revolver,standing some 500 meters from one another,who has greater chances of killing the other?

[ThunderTitan]

If you have a machine gun and your opponent has a revolver,standing some 500 meters from one another,who has greater chances of killing the other?

The guy that can aim. Machine guns are better against crowds.

[DaemianLucifer]

The guy that can aim. Machine guns are better against crowds.

Always the smartafivefive?What if it is a fact that the 5th bullet will surely be a hit,and the rest would miss for both of them?

[Noobie of Doom]

What heros game has had a good AI?

Civilization is a much easier game to make AI for, as theres no seperation of teams and much less resourse management. There also isnt 2 ais to program(strategic and tactical). So the obvious, make the computer cheat. Because its the only way youll get the computer to do good. Even games with good ai always include cheating levels of diffuculuty, because inevitably players will surpass the AI.

As for strategic battles.
A Charge Time Battle System is more strategic than turn based, so just dont put it on dynamic and its an extra layer of strategy, cordinateing those units who act at diffrent times.

[DaemianLucifer]

What heros game has had a good AI?

Both HII and HIII had excelent AIs for the times they were created in.

Civilization is a much easier game to make AI for, as theres no seperation of teams and much less resourse management. There also isnt 2 ais to program(strategic and tactical). So the obvious, make the computer cheat. Because its the only way youll get the computer to do good. Even games with good ai always include cheating levels of diffuculuty, because inevitably players will surpass the AI.

Civ is easier to make AI for?With the diplomacy,religion,tons of units,enourmous maps and a huge timespan?

And there is a strategy game in which AI doesnt have to cheat:Chess

[ThunderTitan]

Always the smartafivefive?What if it is a fact that the 5th bullet will surely be a hit,and the rest would miss for both of them?

And what if the world blew up? Too many stupid conditions. That's the problem atm with the ATB and ur example.

Oh, and guys: the battles employ tactics, not strategy. Strategy is the part where you decide to leave behind certain creatures so you can have 2 stacks of Hunters etc.