When I started to play FfH months ago I noticed that the game was fairly more difficult. While on Civ I could win most of my Emperor games it was difficult for me to win a Monarch game on FfH. Since Shadow I've noticed a great reduction in this difficulty.

The AI seems to gain techs slower.
If I don't trade techs to the AI they won't even get Trade before half the game is done.
Religions are founded much later allowing me no rush in selecting my religion and still getting it first let alone multiple religions.
The hordes of AI units are reduced (I remember my last MP game with a friend on Immortal, by the 100th turn Falamar invaded us with 4 stacks all over 10 units, now I don't see a stack of greater then 5)

All the new stuff in Shadow is great but as it stands the AI seems to have gotten woefully pathetic. My next game I'm going to try Diety with the no building requirements because the AI has just stood no chance recently.

There are severe problems with the economy AI (worked tiles and Improvements), which is why you're noticing the failure to get technology (as an example). I'm not certain if these are BtS defects, or BtS interacting with FfH II, but in any case, it's pretty bad.

My investigation showed that over 1/2 the time, entire civilizations seem to get their cities locked into very tiny numbers (3-5) when they have happiness and food to support far more. This is because the placement algorithm for worked tiles needs work - it has unacceptable "holes" in which cities can get stuck into 0 growth.

This particular issue is one of the next issues I plan to address in Wiser Orcs.

For me FFH was always EASY than Civ at same difficulty level.

There are too many complex matters compared to Civ. Magic, heroes, units handling, terraforming - it was always problems for AI.

In my current MP game (players on Monarch), I took out the Khazad on turn 150 and all he had was one worker, one scout, and a couple warriors on his only city. He hadn't built a single improvement with that worker, despite having a generous number of flood plains, rice, and cows. I guess he was going straight for RoK, which I can't imagine is ever a good strategy vs. agriculture+education and some cottages in that situation.

Yeah..i thought something was up with the AI. I started playing FFH again last week with v.23 on Noble. I got stuck on an island with only one other AI, which I decided to kill off. I neglected to go sea exploring as I forgot how important tech trading was, so by the time I met all the other civs on the other main continent, they were all way ahead of me in points, tech, etc.

I caught up eventually though and beat them down so I decided to try Prince with v2.30. Same thing happened except my neighbor was killed by Barbatos. But even when I was teching away on my own, I noticed that I was still topping the most advanced civ thing. And by the time I met the other civs, I was way ahead of them in points. That never happens so early in the game for me.

Anyway, long story short, AI used to be pretty challenging for me, but something went wrong with the transition to BTS. Is it the better AI interfering or not working right maybe?

The AI works fine for me, even on Noble the Svartalfar have built a pretty huge empire - and are better than me as the Sidar even though they didn't fight a war yet (except for sacrificing a few stacks of Scouts to my Axemen, but I only destroyed a young city of theirs).
I do have a clear tech lead, but the other AIs are doing pretty well as builders (there hasn't been a real war yet though, and I'm already at turn 400 or so).

I think in Ice the AI is going to be redone so they can use all the stuff they curently have probelms with and are generally better.

I don't find ffh easy although I am a bit of a noob lol. I generally play on Noble, I don't know what difficulty I usefor bts because Ive never played a whole bts game through.

For me FFH was always EASY than Civ at same difficulty level.

There are too many complex matters compared to Civ. Magic, heroes, units handling, terraforming - it was always problems for AI.

Ditto. Unquestionable, either.

I think in Ice the AI is going to be redone so they can use all the stuff they curently have probelms with and are generally better.


I've read this about Fire and Shadow already.

Well, personally I've seen an improvement in ai, and they certainly don't seem to neglect trade.

Instead my favourite version, for the challenge, remains FFH2 0.21. After that one the AI kept declining more and more. But I must say I haven't had a chance to play 0.30 yet.

Playing with Sidar, Emperor-Raging Barbs and the AI is really far behind.

With 0.25, Emperor was easy (I usually chose Immortal as difficulty setting), but it had never been so easy...

People at Noble seem to have no complaint about AI, maybe some change affecting higher difficulty levels only?

And by the way, the usual comment for a first time poster, this mod is astonishning, you guys must continue the good work^^

The AI is now a lot less aggressive, probably due to BtS because with the expansion pack AI was made less agressive than the Better AI. I don't know about the characteristics of FfH2 AI but it just attacks more rarely.

I have noticed also that Sheaim don't build the Planar Gate so they really don't take advantage of AC.

would disagree, in .30 the AI is now using balanced stacks (not just catapluts and chariots), finally using magic and even building forts, although these are often under defended. Jungle/heavy forest starts are still crippling to the AI and although it is too early to say - the last few games i have played have been more polarised with 80% of the factions all adopting the same religion (RoK)

I wonder if the AI is incapable of dealing with adapting it's strategy to different terrain. For example, as a human player if my starting area is predominantly hills I'll pursue RoK, if it's forest I'll go for FoL, the AI doesn't really do this.

I've noticed them building forts in actually quite strategic places, like mountain passes, dunno if it does it on purpose or not though. Also I have noticed the Ai building forts on every single square of dessert, 5 or 6 in a little block which is annoying.

I think the forts should:
- Have a zone of control that enemy units can't pass through without attacking the fort.
- not be able to be built within 3 tiles of each other.

In my most recent 0.30 game, the hippus declared war on me, and they actually did pretty well against me. They sent tons of chariots and horse archers after me, pillaged almost all my improvements, and attacked my cities only with high-withdrawl units. Thats not to say they were perfect, they used the sun2 stun spell on my cities when all I had were firebows and crossbowmen, and they were very behind in tech; This war was caused by me starting the tower of mastery

I think the forts should:
- Have a zone of control that enemy units can't pass through without attacking the fort.
- not be able to be built within 3 tiles of each other.

I second this request because it would make forts a lot more strategic but maybe the limit should be 2 spaces away instead of three.

For me, ai sucks, they never reach the trade technology, or worst... they wait for long time to research bronze working... so they loose against barbarians,... the barbarians for me are only cannonfodder for my veteran troops...
The games is beatiful.. there are a lot of options diferent strategies ... but if the ai cant do anything with it.....

Well, personally I've seen an improvement in ai, and they certainly don't seem to neglect trade.

I agree. They virtually beeline for it sometimes, it seems....

So far, in my current game on Noble as the Balseraphs, the AI did well. They got bronze working fairly early and trade before I did. Well, except for one person, who sadly had The Red Dragon 3 tiles away from them, which stunted their growth. Oh, and as for fighting, my first opponent, the Elohim, did badly, as their warriors were no match for my swordsmen. The sidar, however, are proving much harder. Currently we're in a "tug-of-war" over one of my cities.

I've also noticed it as being quite poor in Shadow - only in my first game (Prince) but everyone around me is pathetic. I had a terrible start getting pummelled by the raging barbs, one city only for a long time. Its now near turn 300 and the enemy are defending with warriors everywhere. It took until about 250 for a secdond religion to be founded. I'm not sure why its worse than 0.25, is the AI confused by some of the new stuff?

People seem to say on Noble its fine but other difficulties it failz. I'm going to load up a game on Noble and see how the AI reacts. I'm tired of facing off against Civs who defend their empire with 1 warrior and 1 scout per city when I'm well past turn 300.

People seem to say on Noble its fine but other difficulties it failz. I'm going to load up a game on Noble and see how the AI reacts. I'm tired of facing off against Civs who defend their empire with 1 warrior and 1 scout per city when I'm well past turn 300.

Playing on Noble I had some good rivalries in my last game, but I just attributed it to me being awful.

Heh, the Elohim have decided to piss me off. First, they got Svartartalfar to declare on me, then they managed to raise the AC to 40(they adopted Ashen Veil after the sheaim spreaded it to their lands), and then, as the world burned around them, they cast Sanctuary. I won't be able to attack for 30 turns or so, and have Elohim and Svartalfar troops using guerilla tactics against me. And I was so close to taking their last 3 cities...