I can understand why they took this approach. I spent months coming up with a system where the AI’s kept an Intel Object that was basically a copy of the map and what they knew about it. It updated dynamically each turn to account for the “recon” checks that the game made for every unit on the board. The Intel Object for each AI could only get information based on what its units saw. This allowed me to “hide” stuff from it but it also made the AI act dumb a lot of times. A human can look at the map and figure out easily what it needs to scout, where the threat vectors are and and where it’s blind spots are. A human can even infer from its own movement options if there is any enemy army blocking its supply somewhere out there that it can’t see. It’s a lot harder to get an AI to do that.
Sure you can use influence maps and come up with routines to analyze the data but it’s not easy.
The net result is that if you know the AI can see everything, psychologically its tough for me and I would suspect other humans to forget this and just play on. Humans can even use that knowledge to toy with the AI a bit. Leave a base undefended. Bait an AI with an easy target army. I think the psychology of this is worse than the actual effects that it has on the game play and the AI choices. It just feels wrong in a way that giving an AI more resources doesn’t. It’s tampering with the logic and heuristics and not just the starting conditions. But I completely understand why they took this approach. It’s not like the other options will create a drastically better AI. It’s also why a lot of people myself included think asymmetrical rule sets have real advantages. I especially think this is the case from a human psychology point of view.
Fun little story. SMAC used to really make me mad because I was convinced that at sea, the AI knew exactly where my ships were and would bee line for me even though I could not see them. I vaguely recall an admission that this was the case. But it might not be. Later, after I had written my own AI’s I was really embarrassed at how angry those routines and behaviors made me. I felt like I was being cheated and it’s that feeling part that is the toughest thing about writing AI that plays by the same game mechanics that the human player has to use.
I’m about to finish my first game simultaneous turns. It sped things up a lot which is great but three or four times I missed important AI moves while I was looking at my colony screens so I’m trying to decide what to do next time.
The game I’m wrapping up will be my first victory in normal difficulty. All the games I’ve actually won so far have been with Vanguard so I think I will try out other factions before moving the difficulty up a notch.
Also to correct an earlier confusion of mine, the plus experience commander perk applies to all of your troops not just the ones in the commander stack. So no need to worry about shuffling troops around for the bonus. :)
A quick note on something that was touched on earlier.
When you have a stack of units and some (or even just one) ran out of movement right next to the target stack you want to engage with, everyone knows you can select a unit with remaining movement to attack the adjacent stack, pulling in the rest of the army. Doing so means after the battle, the selected unit moves onto the target hex (assuming you won the battle, or the selected unit survived, of course).
Last night that did indeed bite me in the ass, I was right next to a fight I wanted to tackle because it was a small stack guarding a “everyone gains a level” location, only one unit had movement left so I let him initiate the fight… and of course after the battle that unit stepped onto the boon hex by himself, denying the rest of the army the pick-up bonus. Oops.
So, something to be aware of.
Also, in regards to simultaneous turns, @ShivaX and I did have an issue last night where he had a 3-stack army in a triangle cluster, the enemy AI was able to use it’s “priority” to set up two opposing 6-stacks of units to pin point strike and bring in only 2 of Shiva’s armies, which resulted in a devastating loss for the player. This could have happened in turn-based mode of course, and we were both just impressed the AI player did this - such a human move, to us, and a cool moment. But it did seem the AI had some sort of priority during the simultaneous turn. Like I said, I think if we had been in turn based mode something like this could still have happened, though being players we would have probably taken our turn first. Again, just an FYI.
Well, I think I’ve played enough of it for now. It did play quite a bit (my hours are overstated since I’ve left the game up many times when not playing - wish I’d stop doing that). I played the tutorial and part of the first campaign. Played 3 skirmish games on medium map with normal difficulty - all ended with me winning by doomsday weapon. I started a 4th and realize I’m just not feeling it. Maybe I just overdid it to quickly.
What it does right
I do think each faction has nice touches, or maybe its the path with the doomsday weapon that give it the nice touches - not sure. In any case each game I played had something about it that was cool - like generating new units from the plague your units can spread.
I like the provinces and how they limit where the cities are. Annexing sectors give enough flexibility as to what direction to expand and focusing on a particular resource.
The sector improvements can be used to specialize sectors in an interesting way.
Of course they still do the battles well.
What I’m not crazy about
I actually prefer the random research in AoW3. It makes me adapt without overloading. Part of this is related to the Planetfall tech tree. With the unit mods there is just too much choice without me being able to easily evaluate what would be best for the situation. Do I want this unit or go down this path to get this mod? I don’t know.
I kinda wish there were more ways to specialize colonies. I feel like I got a good taste with what is there, but I want more ways.
I just don’t like how the campaign map looks. It’s busy without it being easy for me to see what I want.
Due to things like unit mods I feel like it is just too much work to figure out what has what, and what I need to do to prepare for what the enemies have.
One thing I really should have tried in my last game I quit on was to slow down the pace. Make research take longer so I don’t feel like I’m getting barraged with constant choices. I can see how that is a plus for some people, but I like things more measured. A part of me feels like there is something I can do to rejuvenate my interest, but maybe letting some time pass is the best thing.
So I think they actually did a good job with what they did - not a bad game by any means. Maybe just not what I was looking for. Sometimes I’m just too hard to please and I focus on the things that bug me - that’s my fault. I just can’t seem to change my way of thinking. I wish I could inject @Scotch_Lufkin 's positive vibe in me and be able to focus on the good and find ways to enjoy what things are.
That has been my experience as well, but @ShivaX had mentioned he tried to position or move his guys but wasn’t able while the AI moved his stacks. Not totally sure what might have been going on, I just got pulled into the combat (we have “always watch manual fights” turned on, though he was my ally at the time).
Not a bad idea at all! However, in a few weeks my son is moving out to college so I’m slowing down on my gaming for a bit so I can spend as much time hanging out with him as I can before he’s gone. I guess I’ll have a lot more free time after he moves out though. Sigh.
I actually wondered that very thing a few times while you were posting. I’ve only put about 18 hours in so far, 1 victory and two defeats (two of those three games were multiplayer). Take a break, let it “cook” a little and dive in when you are feeling it once more.
LOL well, I can sometimes be maybe too upbeat, but to me gaming is a hobby and I don’t tend to let it get too me too much if something isn’t perfect. I’m more interested in what works than what doesn’t, which makes me a fantastic consumer but I would probably not be very good at creating a game, maybe.
Too bad those first 20 seconds are used up by the camera flying around the map because some neutrals wanted to tell you a quest expired, or someone wants to threaten you. Don’t worry cause the camera doesn’t go back to where it was afterwards.
It’s great how fast they have come up with patches, changes, and solutions. Just heard on today’s stream they are going ot make the early aquatic tech easier/cheaper so that water sectors can be just as viable from the start as land sectors, for instance.
In fact, I’m picking up lots of great bits of info and strategy ideas from today’s stream:
As far as I can tell, no limit - though only one “copy” of each, so no queuing up like 5 copies of some sort of strategy map strike that deals 20% of each units health. :)
But if you have multiple versions of said operation, e.g. from techs, then you can do this :D.
I know what you mean. It used to be far worse. I have asked that ALL notifications default to the right side, and that NONE popup, except maybe if you are being attacked.
edit: fwiw, this is one of my bugbears and I whinge alot about it :(
Hey, I was the guy who couldn’t find listening stations! Now all I need is a way to see enemy armies on the mini-map and the worst of my UI concerns will be alleviated.
Is there a way to disable the new hero spam? IE: I do not want a new hero, yet every turn I have to request a new one. Hitting cancel doesn’t seem to do anything other than dismiss the UI.
I also am getting spammed with the thing that keeps asking me to start a new operation, every turn.
I have brought this up before, but in every single game I have the growth as an NPC faction. I have played like 10 games and in all of them, the growth is there. Some factions I have only seen once or rarely. Is this some kind of map setting where my default is to always include them?
How do you set up simultaneous turns? I was looking for this in the settings and I didn’t see it.
