About the AI cheating

[danhvo]

I'm yet to be convinced that the AI does cheat in TotE. I've never seen creatures appear from nowhere, and even though I play on Hard, I find they are rarely far ahead of me on experience when I first meet them.

You know computer players are nowhere near as aggressive as you are (or at least as I am) in terms of attacking neutral stacks and guarded mines. In a previous version of HoMM (III?), this meant that by the time your armies clashed, your hero would be like level 18, and the computer hero would be like level 10. Not very challenging at all. On some maps, people would fix this by writing a script that runs on the first day of each week, giving each computer players about a week's worth of resource (10000 gold, 7 gems, 7 crystals, etc.). I even remember a map where, on the first encounter, the computer hero would be instantly given 10 additional levels.

Well, I've noticed that in HoMM V, computer heroes advance as fast as my heroes, sometimes faster, and they still cower in their towns most of the time, leaving a lot of neutral stacks alone. I've mentioned this in another thread. In one 4-player map (I can't remember which), where I can choose to play any color, each player's area is the same as the others (has one mine of each type, one power-up of each type, etc.). I used one hero to clear my entire area, getting to level 16, and then moved on to attack a computer player in its area. I could see that it hadn't captured a few mines, and left a lot of neutral stacks untouched. And the hero guarding the town was level 18! No ... way. And after I captured the town, I saw that it was a lot more developed than mine. Where the heck did the computer player get the resources for that?

Maybe this particular map just have some special scripts, but haven't you been surprised that computer heroes in general level up at fast as yours, considering that they clearly fight a lot fewer battles? And considering they are much slower than you in tagging mines, it's amazing that they would have a level 34 town while yours is like level 22. And they always have money to buy every creature in their towns.

[tb5841]

According to the fan manual, the computer gets the same starting resources as the player on Hard. As for behaviour:

'The AI has no spell restriction and may cast area of effect spells
between units. It moves its stacks depending on the positions on the
enemy units, avoiding to be reached first, and targets flyers, shooters/
casters and melee units in this order.
The AI builds every day if possible. It hires 2+Controlled_Towns heroes
(where T is the number of controlled towns), with a maximum of 14. It
gives a higher importance to towns, is more aggressive towards human
players than other computer players, and flees more easily than in
Normal difficulty.'

As for my experience, I've found computer players (on Hard) to be very aggressive in terms of attacking neutral stacks and guarded mines, even to the point where they ignore flagging the mines just to save movement points. They prioritise building low-level upgrade buildings and rush to L7 units, giving them the best possible neutral-killing ability. Usually my hero and the computer hero are vaguely similar levels when we first meet - generally there will be a high-level creature stack between us, or something like a dragon utopia in the middle of the map, and whoever defeated this will have a higher level hero.
Sometimes computer heros fight each other before they fight me, and then they will have far more experience than me.

AI players on Hard build every day if possible, so they almost always have a higher town level than human players, as it is sometimes wise not to build. And they definitely do not always recruit all the creatures in their town, I have had instances where they could not afford to do this. But I am often surprised by how much they seem to afford, and wonder whether it's possible or not... I've just never had a situation where I could be completely convinced it was not possible.

[Khelavaster]

Relatedly, is there any way to revert back to seeing what the computer does in its turn, instead of getting the silly black screen? Is there a toggle somewhere that I've missed?

I mean I get that it makes the cheating more "natural" and it helps to hide as much as possible what's essentially the 2nd worst AI of the series, but at least there was some entertainment value in watching its cluelessness at work.

--Khelavaster

[Kildars]

All I have been able to do, is to see what it built and what creatures it bought in the console. But sometimes I really wished to see its battle and the outcome, for instance, how many units it lost after engaging what...
Or...we could bind a key that reveals the entire map, like we did in binding the "`" key for the console to show up. But then the AI behavior would completely different! I have noticed that the AI doesn't do anything weird in my sight, but in the fog of war, it kinda kills "lots" of death knight without losing anything, with a not-quite-mighty army. (This happened several times in the map Key to Victory)

But anyway cheat or not, I finished the map Heritage of Deleb with Orc in 2nd week. YAY!!

[PhoenixReborn]

If you are playing single player you should be able to see the enemy moves in the part you have uncovered.

@kildars there is an opencirclefog command if you want to see the enemy right from the start, check a cheat page or the ai testing thread for the exact command.

[Kildars]

Ya I know thanks but I personally prefer a short cut key so I added a line like (bind fog_of_war "CTRL" + "whatever you like") and after enabling cheat code I just need to press this short cut key and BOOM!!

@PhoenixReborn
Do you mean in multiplayer game you can't see the already uncovered area!? Sorry I just know nothing of MP game...no one wants to play with me...ima crappy player...

[PhoenixReborn]

Hmm, clarification always brings up more questions.

MP mode against AI causes the problem that Khelevaster spoke of where you get a black screen on your turns.

In an mp game against another human the game acts normal where you can see what's going on during enemy turns.

[Ya5MieL]

H5 miss the good old hard difficulty level.

IH h5, computer actually cheats on both hard and heroic, it is hard codded and so far cannot be moded.

So you can either play normal vs AI that sucks and builds every second turn, or play hard vs slightly less sucky AI with practically unlimited cash.

Not to mention that prices for AI on hard are reduced to 66%.

[tb5841]

Are prices definitely reduced for the AI then? Any way to test/prove this?

I find medium is unplayably easy. The computer goes for melee units first in battles and doesn't use high level spells, making battles a joke. But it took me a lot of practice before I could win on Hard - I think lots of people would appreciate a difficulty level inbetween the two.

[Kildars]

Yes! The gap between Normal and Hard is something...not to be trifled with!
Honestly, I liked the difficulty progressing system of Heroes 4!(although I have never played any map under Expert+ setting) There the enhances were gradual enough to make them naturally wanted improvements in difficulty. But with Heroes 5 it takes a while for us to get used to the Hard AI when progressing from Normal mode...
But yes Normal mode is unbearably easy, doesn't even give you chance to use your high level units!
And now, this is where the classical AI mod by Magnomages(?) come in!...

[okrane]

wow.... you beat hard??? How did you do it? Please give me some advice...

[tb5841]

Practise playing 2-player games on small maps, with factions that are good early on (Academy, Dungeon, Necropolis). If you win the first battle convincingly then the map becomes quite easy, as you don't really need to leave much defence behind in 2-player games. Then after mastering this, try other factions/levels with more players.

I tried playing Former Friends 2-player with every single faction before trying other maps. Because every hero has to go through the central area to get to any other town, if you and your opponent decide to attack at the same time you'll meet in the middle, instead of having to fight two battles. I couldn't win this map with Fortress or Inferno though.

[PhoenixReborn]

Pretty sure Okrane was being sarcastic.

[tb5841]

Ah, I see... Well I found it difficult anyway