Combat AI improvements (1.02)

[DeletedUser10694]

I am doing fine with LR for the vast majority of my neighborhood battles. I think it is a little exaggerated to say they are useless. It sounds like a lot of the problems people are complaining about could be solved by building more military buildings. You shouldn't have to wait 16 hours before attacking unless you are running with the bare minimum number of buildings. You have chosen to build other things with your space and shouldn't blame an improvement of the game for the consequences. It was boring being able to go through most of neighborhood without losing any units tbh

Very boring yes. I felt the same way to. But at least I could occupy my time and mind in between building and farming to play PvP battles. Don't forget, if you loose say 4 canons in one go in same barracks, then 1st one is not available for 16hrs, 2nd for 12 hours 3rd for 8 hours and 4th for 4 hours. So that's a big loss for a long time. I only have so much space like most people. I have 3 canon camps, 3 treb camps, 1gsw, 1 ranger, 1 musketeer, 1 longbow and one Imperial guard. I don't do colonial yet, only defense. That's a lot really, and I doubt i will have more than 15 to 20 battles a day just waiting for the damaged units to become usable. I don't have all the nice 120% attack/defense stuff yet. If I did then I doubt I would be posting here. All I know is I am getting bored already because I have nothing left worth fighting with.

 

[DeletedUser]

Well they give you all kinds of unattached units that you can use for defense, so you do not have to waste replaceable units on that. I think you have it backwards though. you get the 1st after 4, 2nd after 8, etc. I do think they need to let you know what barracks units are from or let you move them between barracks b/c it is ridiculous when you lose 4 from same barracks and none from another. That being said, I don't often lose 4 in PvP battles though and if that is a chance (which should be easy to tell if you have 4 cannons in first place), then you should just retreat. Most people don't switch defense up much, so it is often pretty easy to anticipate so that you never have to retreat.

 

[DeletedUser10694]

Well they give you all kinds of unattached units that you can use for defense, so you do not have to waste replaceable units on that. I think you have it backwards though. you get the 1st after 4, 2nd after 8, etc. I do think they need to let you know what barracks units are from or let you move them between barracks b/c it is ridiculous when you lose 4 from same barracks and none from another. That being said, I don't often lose 4 in PvP battles though and if that is a chance (which should be easy to tell if you have 4 cannons in first place), then you should just retreat. Most people don't switch defense up much, so it is often pretty easy to anticipate so that you never have to retreat.

I don't have any unattached ones, and defence isn't my worry anyway. Yes, it should be the other way around I rarely loose more than two, but since new and better AI, I have lost 3 or 4, now i have none left. Next one due in just over 2hrs I'm sure it will all balance out better soon enough, but for now I'm bored I do keep a spreadhseet of every player and what defence they used last time, so I do my homework and try to play intelligently. Even so, I'm loosing so much more now than before, or badly dented helmets, it's really brought it to a halt for the time being. See how tomorrow goes hu!

 

[DeletedUser]

Long range units die in 2 hits and are generally targetted first. They were good when they were ignored in preference to grenadiers as they'd get the first shots off and kill either enemy long range or short range units without retaliation and still survive the following rounds. Now they get one round off and then die.

 

[DeletedUser5180]

On a more serious note (not that the above isn't true though), reworking the points system is one of my bigger priorities right now - so don't despair. As long time users can tell you, it may take some time for things to get adjusted, but that doesn't mean we aren't working on them.

Regards,

Anwar

I WELCOME THE CHALLENGE, even if my 6 Breech Loader camps are not as useful now as previously. if tactics have to be changed then changed they will be. I think players not in full time employment will benefit most as they can retrain units every 4 hrs where'as players out working for 10/12 hrs a day or so will have less opportunities to recruit / train troops.

If the scoring system could be changed as Anwar has suggested, then this could be the best improvement to FoE yet. More battle points thus ranking points would compensate for loss of troops and encourage players to sacrifice a couple of houses or supplies buildings for more military barracks

BRING ON GUILD WARS...........we welcome the chase

 

[DeletedUser10694]

I WELCOME THE CHALLENGE, even if my 6 Breech Loader camps are not as useful now as previously. if tactics have to be changed then changed they will be. I think players not in full time employment will benefit most as they can retrain units every 4 hrs where'as players out working for 10/12 hrs a day or so will have less opportunities to recruit / train troops.

If the scoring system could be changed as Anwar has suggested, then this could be the best improvement to FoE yet. More battle points thus ranking points would compensate for loss of troops and encourage players to sacrifice a couple of houses or supplies buildings for more military barracks

BRING ON GUILD WARS...........we welcome the chase

I'm not sure I understand the more points part. I might be missing something obvious, but even if i got an extra 10,000 points per game for loosing more infantry which doesn't seems to make sense, it doesn't help me fight more battles a day more intelligently because I wont have that much left worth fighting with, so no way to earn the extra points. And I am back to the boredom of waiting hour upon hour again & doing 15 a day rather than the 50. Though there is one solution that would help. Have a city in 3 or more worlds to spread the waiting time out The only people I have seen who have attacked me to now that dont seem to be that affected by the new changes is those of colonial/industrial age with 100+ % attack/defense bonuses. They might leave with a slight dent in one or two players and thats it. They could easily play 50 battles a day at that level.

 

[DeletedUser]

I like the updated AI, it is a good improvement.

My only real observation is that short ranged units seem to like sitting on rocks a little too much. There's no reason for them to go out of their way to sit on a rock when they can't attack something from it that turn.

 

[DeletedUser]

Improvement? I just watched 8 trebs/cats attack me. I had 3 cats, 3 xbow and 2 berks. The mobile units moved one time, xbows stood on the rocks and berks hid in the forest, stood there the next 3-4 rounds until they all got knocked out. They never advanced after my cats were destroyed, wonderful...

 

[DeletedUser10694]

Improvement? I just watched 8 trebs/cats attack me. I had 3 cats, 3 xbow and 2 berks. The mobile units moved one time, xbows stood on the rocks and berks hid in the forest, stood there the next 3-4 rounds until they all got knocked out. They never advanced after my cats were destroyed, wonderful...

The AI, while not perfect is far far better than it was. If your a producer of goods and don't play for PvP, you should be very happy. Just don't use trebulas any more for defense, they seem pretty inefective as a defence, and also for attacking now unless all you have to kill is iron age archers or mounted archers. As for PvP play, well I have just tried a few more games and I'm done with PvP for now. Tomorrow I'm getting rid of the lot, keeping only ranger and musketeer camps for defence, then I'm going to just make goods for my guild and come to the game 3 times a day to collect goods, fill some trades, continue my city progress slowly until I reach end of Industrial age in the hope that the FoE team have made the PvP part fare and balanced to make it worth playing. I've totally had enough of having nothing to play battles with now, so damn bored and deflated I can't even be bothered to make a new city in another world and play PvP there. Call me negative, call me what you like, but this will be the death of PvP for most players until it's made better balanced. I predict next weeks towers will only have a small handful of high age players in it with the GB bonuses, and the rest will be just sector maps and the odd few names with small battle numbers. I usually get attacked several times a day & mostly I loose. Today I have been attacked only twice and lost to one Industrial age player. So my guess is those who don't have the 100+% defense attack bonuses have either got nothing left to fight with, or they have just given up on PvP for now as a pointless exercise like me. Sorry, but that's just how I feel right now.

 

[DeletedUser]

Sounds like a lot of ass kissing, lol. I think the change is about the worst thing to happen to the game since I've been playing. You have lower point players that are strapped for cash/supplies as it already is and now if they wish to keep fighting and advancing they have to pretty much tear down all their long-ranged military buildings and start their army over. I play Dinegu mainly, and I use diamonds to an extent. I can make it through my neighborhood still. Sure, I lose a few more units and whatnot, but I don't really care about that, I've got enough of an army to cope. It's the freaking TIME it now takes to battle. It doubled my time. I'm using an all InA army usually and now I can't sim a battle against freaking HMA units (or lower) because the units now just ignore everything and run strait at the breech loaders. Fun! Let's call a spade a spade here. I give this aspect of the changelog a solid F-. Good work FOE! Let's make the most interesting part of the game less fun and more time consuming! lol

 

[DeletedUser9252]

I like the change! Its about time too. You just cannot go through your whole neighborhood like before incurring little to no damage with 7 long range and 1 heavy infantry. It was boring. This way, it requires more skill now and you cannot farm the whole neighborhood within an hour or 2 because your army will take damage and time to heal. My suggestion to make the fight even tougher is for the defensive AI long range to target the offensive unit with the lowest defensive points first. This way fighting your neighbor would be a bloody and bruised war as it should be.

 

[DeletedUser]

I'm with you,toady9, I was destroying my military buildings, cause with 2 load guns and 1 grenadier(buildings),I overun the hood without losses.
Now is playing another song, more time to battle, more damages and more losses.Results,gonna be very hard to make 55 battles a day and even we get a new map, so even with a lot more of troops, you will follow need a lot of time and a lot more of military buildings.
In the PvP, for sure the points will be lower this week , cause even an Lma player defending, makes some damage to you.But that's the war, no? we were very comfortable with the 7LR/1gren tactic, now we need to think and to sweat a littl.
I'm happy is not a military parade the battles, like before.

 

[DeletedUser3157]

The AI, while not perfect is far far better than it was. If your a producer of goods and don't play for PvP, you should be very happy. Just don't use trebulas any more for defense, they seem pretty inefective as a defence, and also for attacking now unless all you have to kill is iron age archers or mounted archers. As for PvP play, well I have just tried a few more games and I'm done with PvP for now. Tomorrow I'm getting rid of the lot, keeping only ranger and musketeer camps for defence, then I'm going to just make goods for my guild and come to the game 3 times a day to collect goods, fill some trades, continue my city progress slowly until I reach end of Industrial age in the hope that the FoE team have made the PvP part fare and balanced to make it worth playing. I've totally had enough of having nothing to play battles with now, so damn bored and deflated I can't even be bothered to make a new city in another world and play PvP there. Call me negative, call me what you like, but this will be the death of PvP for most players until it's made better balanced. I predict next weeks towers will only have a small handful of high age players in it with the GB bonuses, and the rest will be just sector maps and the odd few names with small battle numbers. I usually get attacked several times a day & mostly I loose. Today I have been attacked only twice and lost to one Industrial age player. So my guess is those who don't have the 100+% defense attack bonuses have either got nothing left to fight with, or they have just given up on PvP for now as a pointless exercise like me. Sorry, but that's just how I feel right now.

In PvP, no matter if post or pre 1.02, lion share of offensive losses come from just a few fights that go very bad. If you are limited by troop numbers, I would recommend avoiding/retreaing from such fights, until you have figured out the strategy dealing more effective with those. It also takes some foresight/expierience to see when a fight is about to turn nasty, sometimes without u doing anything wrong and it being just luck. You mentioned above about fight losing 4 cannons - in your case it was not a victory doing that fight cause u could not finish ur hood. In such situation it can be better to retreat, get no losses and come back tommorow with correct offense agaisnt that player instead. What I'm saying is that it's better to fight 50/54 in ur hood and leave out 4 nastier ones than take on the 4 nastier ones and make it only half way.

 

[Praeceptor]

My two-pennyworth...

I like some aspects of the new AI - a little more challenging.

I absolutely cannot see the point in making long range units redundant. I fight a lot, and it's quite clear that breach loaders are now almost worthless. I still attack my whole neighbourhood every day, so it's no problem for me - I'm a strong player, even without spending loads of diamonds. But why remove a strategic unit from the field of play? It makes no sense.

 

[DeletedUser10694]

In PvP, no matter if post or pre 1.02, lion share of offensive losses come from just a few fights that go very bad. If you are limited by troop numbers, I would recommend avoiding/retreaing from such fights, until you have figured out the strategy dealing more effective with those. It also takes some foresight/expierience to see when a fight is about to turn nasty, sometimes without u doing anything wrong and it being just luck. You mentioned above about fight losing 4 cannons - in your case it was not a victory doing that fight cause u could not finish ur hood. In such situation it can be better to retreat, get no losses and come back tommorow with correct offense agaisnt that player instead. What I'm saying is that it's better to fight 50/54 in ur hood and leave out 4 nastier ones than take on the 4 nastier ones and make it only half way.

I agree. I have played over 3500 battles since December so I'm wise to what is good for what. I even have a spreadsheet with what defense they used last so that I can go better prepared to win. Even so, I am getting too much damage each game to make some of the troops usable for another game. Loosing canons was just an example, i used to have 14 military buildings of different type and even they have turned out not to be enough now to cover similar amount of games per day. I wont spend any money on 40 diamond repairs, its a waste of good money for something that will no doubt be a mess or die from the next game. Buying expansions, BPs fine, but not repairs, and certainly not at the excessive cost now. Only being able to play around 15 a day has made this so boring. I didn't do PvP to plunder people, only for fun element and to win tower(s). So last night I have deleted all my armies and left two only for defense until this has been re-balanced better. Hardly anyone has attacked me since this upgrade went in, and only those with Colonial / Industrial troops with onuses of 100% or more have tried and walked away relatively unscathed. So I can see the only real winners here are goods producers and high age players of colonial or more with lots of expansions to build on. They can still do there 30 to 50 a day and have fun playing a better AI & win every tower with ease. Time will tell, next week will be interesting. I suspect most towers will have 3 to 5 Colonial people hog the top 4 positions and lots of free medal slots below with very few people of more than 50 battles playing anymore, or just sector map wins. And before you comment I need to play smarter, i have been doing so for a long time and have won more towers than I can count, so I'm not a total noob here.

 

[DeletedUser12183]

I've noticed a massive and distinct drop-off of people attacking in my neighbourhood. I usually aim to get 75,000 points per day for the CA tower and the rest for the InA tower, just to stay above the next person in the rankings but today I didn't actually need to do anything. This may create an interesting, and perhaps more disparate, effect on the points scoring as a whole as the monsters of PvP with huge attack bonuses will continue to hack their way through the neighbourhood and score points while people without them are quite rightly afraid to do attack runs because they cannot sustain the losses to make it a worthwhile endeavour.

The top two players in my neighbourhood are kingjoseph2000 (150% attack) and myself (140%) attack and we both still seem to be accumulating points - albeit at a slower rate than before - whereas everyone else just seems to have gone into stasis.

 

[DeletedUser8793]

I've noticed a massive and distinct drop-off of people attacking in my neighbourhood. I usually aim to get 75,000 points per day for the CA tower and the rest for the InA tower, just to stay above the next person in the rankings but today I didn't actually need to do anything. This may create an interesting, and perhaps more disparate, effect on the points scoring as a whole as the monsters of PvP with huge attack bonuses will continue to hack their way through the neighbourhood and score points while people without them are quite rightly afraid to do attack runs because they cannot sustain the losses to make it a worthwhile endeavour.

The top two players in my neighbourhood are kingjoseph2000 (150% attack) and myself (140%) attack and we both still seem to be accumulating points - albeit at a slower rate than before - whereas everyone else just seems to have gone into stasis.

thats what I say on Testforums before release...

I'm with you,toady9, I was destroying my military buildings, cause with 2 load guns and 1 grenadier(buildings),I overun the hood without losses.
Now is playing another song, more time to battle, more damages and more losses.Results,gonna be very hard to make 55 battles a day and even we get a new map, so even with a lot more of troops, you will follow need a lot of time and a lot more of military buildings.
In the PvP, for sure the points will be lower this week , cause even an Lma player defending, makes some damage to you.But that's the war, no? we were very comfortable with the 7LR/1gren tactic, now we need to think and to sweat a littl.
I'm happy is not a military parade the battles, like before.

if you have enough space you can fight the same amount as before...
and I don't start today my round... and I have 69 neighbors

This picture is from the Testserver

 

[DeletedUser10694]

I think the FoE team should have listened to you piohh. I am surprised at how few people have expressed there view on what is a really big change in the game, for PvP players at least. That is either a good sign or a sign that this latest upgrade is a massive mistake & has basically dampened PvP games so much that many have just lost interest. Worst case it's killed PvP dead for 90% of players. One player who is always not far behind me and plays around 35 games a day has only done 12 games and that was it since yesterday. I told him the HMA & LMA towers are his for winning now that I have deleted all my army bases, and he still has not played another battle since. I sent a message to 4 Colonial players I have been friends with for ages asking what they thought. Both have 35% bonuses. 2 have replied and they both said more or less the same thing, that it has dampened there enthusiasm to play seriously for tower positions. Hopefully the dip in activity is because people are changing there armory, but I don't see the players I know who play this often changing anything yet.

 

[DeletedUser4906]

Hasn't stopped me...

Kill 'Em All!:cool:

 

[DeletedUser]

really big change in the game, for PvP players at least.

Two things: According to our recent survey that's about 10% of the people who play FoE - looking at the threads AND the survey we have an overwhelmingly huge number who request improved AI. Second, the AI is an AI. Which means, as I mentioned elsewhere, it will always remain exploitable. Sure, it's a new AI and yes, it's not as easy to find the exploits as before (when they were served on a silver platter). But hey, isn't finding and exploiting the weakness exactly what strategy players want?

Regards,

Anwar

PS: The screenshot above is from the beta server. Many people go there just to check things out, not play actively. My neighbourhood on BETA also has 69 players - NONE of those are even in industrial age.