Blashy Posted December 26, 2008 Share Posted December 26, 2008 The following are suggestions of how I have learned to play the AI while making it as difficult as possible for myself without doing things that I feel would break the historical part of the game, for example you could declare war to Russia and all the minors from the start as Japan but that feels like breaking the game in my opinion. So I have devised a few ideas that I have mentioned before in other SC forums and in a few threads here but now I will elaborate in details for those of you that get to the most difficult setting and feel you need a more challenging experience. 1) Play at +2 experience for the AI . 2) Play at 100% setting for plunder, you will receive very little plunder this way. 3) Do not watch the AIs turn. Press F3, this speeds up the animations so the AI turns go faster. 4) Do not watch the pop ups. 5) Do not invest in diplomacy, even if the AI has and is getting hits. 6) Do not invest in technology. 7) SELL all you starting technology chits and waste them by investing in a tech you will NOT use or simply remember to never upgrade that tech even if you have levels. 8) Do a declaration of war on a few minors that would eventually join one side (ex: I always DoW on Nepal and Tibet as soon as the game starts when I play Japan) this is not going totally unhistorical and offers the Allies a minor bump in MPPs and a couple of extra units. As the Allies I do not do a DoW on anyone. 9) Do not build fortifications. 10) Do not EVER attack AI HQs, it has a tendency to make them easy targets at times and if you start to kill them you can pretty much railroad the AI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottsmm Posted December 26, 2008 Share Posted December 26, 2008 Why even bother to play if your simply going to hinder your own capabilities. This is simply 100% unreasonable for anyone that doesn't want to lose. I think you forgot one. Disband all units, and don't invest in any new units, and disband your new units that come by the production queue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottsmm Posted December 26, 2008 Share Posted December 26, 2008 I do agree however with 1,2,3,maybe 4, and 8. Everything else is absurd however. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blashy Posted December 26, 2008 Author Share Posted December 26, 2008 You will be surprised how good you get in time, you will not lose even with these 10 settings in use. So far I have used 1-5 and 9. With that I still have not had my total victory playing Japan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuniworth Posted December 26, 2008 Share Posted December 26, 2008 Blashy>>> Scotty smacked you good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xwormwood Posted December 26, 2008 Share Posted December 26, 2008 Why even bother to play if your simply going to hinder your own capabilities. This is simply 100% unreasonable for anyone that doesn't want to lose. I think you forgot one. Disband all units, and don't invest in any new units, and disband your new units that come by the production queue. Exactly my thougts! Sacrifice one unit at the start of each turn to please the mighty Sun-God. Sacrifice one unit at the end of each turn to please the mighty Moon-God. Keep your breath while you play your turn. If you can't hold out any longer press "End turn" first before you start to breathe again. Oh boy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blashy Posted December 26, 2008 Author Share Posted December 26, 2008 You guys are being unreasonable, I simply say do a few things and you both go off exaggerating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill101 Posted December 26, 2008 Share Posted December 26, 2008 Blashy, I take it that this advice was intended for people who are very familiar with the game, and who have had a good bit of experience playing the AI in Operation Z? Hopefully most people buying the game are a little way off having your level of expertise and experience, especially considering that you had a few months headstart on everyone else! My recommendation for anyone who has got a good number of games against the AI under their belt and is looking for an extra thrill, is to play another human. Nothing beats it, and you will soon realise when you're up against a veteran player that it's a whole different ball game. In the meantime, improvements to the AI are being worked on all the time (well, not literally, given that it's Christmas: we all need a holiday sometimes!) so those who generally beat the AI in its current version should find it more of a challenge when they play it again after the first patch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xwormwood Posted December 26, 2008 Share Posted December 26, 2008 Blashy: Yes, in my case you are right. But don't you think it would be better to improve the AI instead of thinking and planing how to cripple yourself to get a challenging game from a less improved AI? For starters it might help to reduce the first incomes of the allies when under human control, so that it becomes impossible to rescue american troops or planes from the Phillipines, or to defend Java against the japanese AI. The solution should always be to change and improve the AI, not to write the high book of "do it wrong to do it right", because that reads itself somewhat bizarre. And when you lead someone (or better: me) to this point, where he (still me) recongnize the bizarreness of your post, than this person (again me) might feel compelled to answer in an exaggerating kind of way. Sorry if i did hurt your feelings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottsmm Posted December 26, 2008 Share Posted December 26, 2008 Blashy, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings either, but this post was simply absurd with half of the things you mentioned. So if I hurt your feelings I'm sorry. Bill101, I think I could play this game for years on end, and I'd still not be able to understand the sanity of this person who made this post. Fact is this post is simply insane, and isn't in anyway good advice. Now with this being said I don't think Blashy is insane I just think this post by him was. Xwormwood, Thank you for seeing the craziness of this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZGungHo Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 Well this thread sure humbles me! I've played SC1, 2, WaW, PDE and now Pacific, and my first game, which I played as Allies, I got a Stalemate! I didn't get Tokyo in time darn it! Oh, and my settings for the AI were the default ones, so not all of us are so good we can whoop on the AI like it's nothing! :-) Hey - it takes all kinds to make a gaming community right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timskorn Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 I'm with Bill on this one...at that point, highly recommended you go multiplayer instead. You'll get a much better game experience and hopefully one that is unlike any AI could ever throw at you. I'll gladly replace any insufficient AI for anyone finding the current one too easy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottsmm Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 I find the AI too easy, but then when your one tile away from claiming victory in San Francisco and ultimately the war itself you get hit with segmenation violations so I guess for a lacking AI the machine never losses because of this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blashy Posted December 27, 2008 Author Share Posted December 27, 2008 Of course the AI should be improved... it ALWAYS is being improved. But AI is nothing close to playing a human and most people get to a point where they beat it every time at the most difficult setting. These suggestions add difficulty without gimping you apart from the tech once you are good enough that you can win without using tech and all other 9 suggestions you should really take the time to play some PBEM games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hubert Cater Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 Scottsmm, looking at the screenshot you provided for your latest game I can see why you might find the AI easy... customizing the map with an unsinkable Japanese island right off the coast of the US would probably make an invasion of the US mainland pretty easy for most people Either way it looks like the error you received in game is one of the known ones and already fixed for the first patch. I will send you an email with a workaround so you can continue your game. Hubert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hubert Cater Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 Blashy, it is an interesting thread but I think you might scare off a few people in thinking the AI is not very good at all... which in my biased opinion I would of course have to disagree Is it perfect? No and it can always be improved and that is something we are always trying to do throughout the history of the SC series. Good news is that for many players, like for example AZGungHo, it is already pretty darn good and so we are very happy about that. For those that need more of a challenge I would also second the Multiplayer suggestion as it really is a whole new experience Hubert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blashy Posted December 27, 2008 Author Share Posted December 27, 2008 I agree with your opinion, the AI is quite good. This thread is as Bill stated for very experienced SC2 players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blashy Posted December 27, 2008 Author Share Posted December 27, 2008 FYI, I wanted to edit my post and add at the top that this is geared towards very experience SC2 players. Maybe one of the moderators could do so? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottsmm Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 Hubert Cater, once I got the editor for my first game I spiced it up with that island, but I didn't know that there was some AI event that would ultimately continue bombing my Invasion called island, and it's port facilities. Besides that I set up a neutrality pact with China, created a ton of British Indian units in India, and prepared the Japs in Asia to fight for India, and Burma. Let's just say I was winning until a small little problem along the way. If anyone wants to try this mod out just send me a message. Although I couldn't blame you if you didn't want to try it, or didn't like it. It has quite a few intersting challenges with another one if you so chose being the invasion of Australia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottsmm Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 Oh by the way Hubert, it is a hard task assembling all the troops, planes, and ships all the way from Asia to spots in Hawaii, Midway, and Invasion island. Believe me not every player out there could do that, but after they did it, the actually invasion should go pretty smothly, because the AI just wastes all of it's ships before the invasion, and they evacuate those pesky aircraft of there's after landings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hubert Cater Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 FYI, I wanted to edit my post and add at the top that this is geared towards very experience SC2 players. Maybe one of the moderators could do so? No worries Blashy, I think for anyone that reads through this thread will now understand the original intent Hubert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hubert Cater Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 scottsmm, no problem at all and in fact that is what the Editor is for At the same time though and with that many customizations it can break the original scripting of the AI if not properly adjusted so it can result in a less than desirable AI experience depending on the amount of changes. I only mention this as the current AI is really fine-tuned to the existing design etc. But the good news is that the AI does also play very well on a generic level, i.e. generic land, air and naval combat and this would for example explain the AI bombing your Invasion island off the US coast as there are no scripts telling the AI to do that. Rather it probably just recognized these targets and decided to have a go at them etc. For the mod, you should definitely make it available as it sounds interesting and feel free to post it either at CMMODS or within the Battlefront repository. Hubert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottsmm Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 Hubert, because of the importance of my invasion island, let's just say the bombers didn't last to long. I of course sent over my best fighters, and without any protection those bombers where sitting ducks for my zeros. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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