Hyborem is stupid (and his world spell is annoying)

[Kilrathi]

I'm playing the Sheaim and summon Hyborem. This was on a Terra map, I think, so he shows up on the other continent and basically hangs out there for a long time, with contact only with me, Hannah and Perpentach. Wars go and come and he doesn't have enough contacts to get involved and never builds ships despite my giving him all the techs necessary.

Finally, just as The Big Showdown between Hannah and her vassals and me, Perpy and our teammates is about to start... Worldspell! My second city, the AV holy city, becomes Infernal. That's really annoying, but not such a big deal, right, since now maybe Hyborem will actually get on with helping me raise the ac... or so I thought at first. But I forgot that the city he took over was the one in which I'd built the Nexus, meaning that all those Obsidian Gates I'd used to move my mages and interplanar creatures around disappear. Still, maybe not a terrible tradeoff if Hyborem were to start gating in guys from his other continent to help with the war effort.

Does he? No. He won't get involved in the war despite being friendly to me and furious with Hannah. So my mages are stuck schlepping across the continent, dramatically delaying my war efforts, while my "powerful" "ally" does nothing but sit there in my former great city and watch the action.

Obviously, this is annoying, but it's also just sort of dumb AI behavior. He took a quality city but hasn't done a thing with it, and has the chance to jump into a war on the winning side (which makes sense either from a gameplay or RP perspective) and instead sit there lingering towards the bottom of the points heap, peacefully. Other than changing the spell itself -- which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world -- I'm not sure what AI changes I'd make to make this more interesting but at the very least he should be more aggressive and using the Nexus to try to get a foothold on our continent, which has tons of free space thanks to plenty of AC-raising razed cities lying around.

On the plus side, I did make a save just before summoning him and plan to load that and play as Hyborem once this is over... and now I know a pretty easy way to get myself into the fray back on the main continent -- Nexus, here I come!

-Kilrathi

 

[Ahriman]

Actually, think of it this way; Hyborem took the single most useful city you had, and did in such a way that dramatically slowed your ability to win the game. Seeing as the AI doesn't *want* you to win the game unless you are allied with it, that sounds pretty intelligent to me.


But yeah, the AI has always been useless at intercontinental warfare. Thats why I mostly play Pangaeas.

 

[arcticnightwolf]

I never play as bad guy. ... ok, sometimes I play as Faeryl

Thats why I mostly play Pangaeas.

or "Balanced"

 

[zup]

Indeed, only barbarians use ships for transport and even then very very late. But I'm sure it will not be easy to teach the AI to use them.

 

[Hoerks]

Actually, think of it this way; Hyborem took the single most useful city you had, and did in such a way that dramatically slowed your ability to win the game. Seeing as the AI doesn't *want* you to win the game unless you are allied with it, that sounds pretty intelligent to me.


But yeah, the AI has always been useless at intercontinental warfare. Thats why I mostly play Pangaeas.

1. As far as i read his post he was allied with him.

2. It really shouldnt be Human vs AI if you dont want it to be. So the AI should not be coded to gang upon the player, which is a lame way to compensate a lack of AI.

 

[Nor'easter]

I had Hyborem do the same thing to me, using his spell to take the city in which I'd built the Nexus. Since he was all the way on another continent, I just declared war on him and retook my city.

 

[Amerigo Arturo]

Ha, I always take my city back.

 

[Annex]

1. As far as i read his post he was allied with him.

2. It really shouldnt be Human vs AI if you dont want it to be. So the AI should not be coded to gang upon the player, which is a lame way to compensate a lack of AI.

Unlike Basium, Hyborem doesn't enter the game as your permanent ally.

 

[zup]

Yes, and that makes him far more fun. I would love to play Basium but I don't want a team with a dumb AI.

 

[Kilrathi]

Good points about him not being my ally -- he wasn't, though he was "friendly" and always has been. I guess I get it from a gameplay mechanic standpoint but it's annoying from a roleplaying standpoint in that I summoned him into the world, have been spreading AV and doing all sorts of things to raise the AC, while he's just sorta hanging out half the world away not doing much (I've been too busy to send ships over there recently to see what's going on, though I think the first three Horsemen showed up on his island). Even if he's trying not to let me win, he's clearly not going to win by himself and it seems to me there should be some sort of "link up with the Sheaim to raise the AC" mechanism -- though maybe that's hard to code. At the very least, though, I'd like to see him use the Nexus (can the AI do that these days?) and send somebody over to our continent to start razing some hell (or at least raising some). Seems like the perfect setup for him -- a safe home base worlds away from which to send mayhem-sowing Manes.

Guess I should have just taken the city back right away, but I liked the RP feel of his move and of being friendly with him and assumed he'd do _something_ interesting or useful with the city!

 

[Anathema]

Somehow Hyborem always seem to get the shaft as far as placement - like on that deserted continent far away from the people he's supposed to be conquering, or isolated in terrible arctic areas no one wants - and this happens even on large mostly-land maps where there are far better places for him to spawn, like unsettled/barbarian areas with excellent resources right next to civilizations ripe for conquering. Sure with fallow you're a bit more flexible on where to put your cities, but you want some room to expand and some civilizations to turn into hell, not to mention a few non-ice hills to mine.

Also, I hate his world spell. When I play Hyborem I wind up with a useless city, far from my spawn point in the core of a different civilization, incurring massive maintenance costs, suffocated by culture (of a friendly AV civilization I'd rather not have to conquer) and constantly revolting. And when I don't play Hyborem but summon him, I'm forced to declare war on him to get one of my essential core cities back, a city that's completely wasted in his hands (for the reasons listed above). I mean if I'm playing a bad guy, founding the Ashen Veil and summoning Hyborem, I want to help him turn the world into hell and conquer the good civs - but he doesn't help me and the world spell encourages me to go against him.

And yeah, AI is terrible at continental warfare. And the Hyborem AI is terrible at.. well, everything, including conquering the good civs, and getting along with the AV civs, although much of this can be blamed more on the problems mentioned above than on the AI itself. Hyborem should be the catalyst for Order/other good civ vs. AV warfare, supporting and encouraging the AV civs to go die killing the good guys and thus strengthen Hyborem so he can finish the job. Instead he peacefully sits in his isolated corner of the world, weakening the best AV civ by stealing a city he then makes no use of and just being all around worthless to the bad guys that summoned him.

Side note: if you summon Basium he's:
1.) your ally
2.) owning a city you CHOSE for him, hopefully a city you can afford to lose that gives him some contact with bad guys and room to expand.

This works out so much better than Hyborem's:
1.) start in a random and usually terrible location
2.) steal a random (and probably not useful to him) AV city
3.) refuse to help the AV civilization in its wars against the good guys - sometimes too far away from the parent civ to even make contact with them, particularly on large maps and/or maps with multiple continents.

Not saying that Hyborem should copy Basium's mechanics, but something unique and lore-appropriate that has the practical effect of working more like Basium.

Edit: a shameless tangent. You know those spots of hellfire terrain with Hyborem champions spawning on them? Absolutely terrible on large maps, I wind up with 20-30 champions bankrupting my economy from maintenance costs, some of them stuck in hostile lands where they are instantly killed (no weapon upgrades, no promotions, str 6 units are free xp to my enemies) - OR they wind up in the land of a potentially friendly civ I haven't contacted yet, stranded in place because they can't move without declaring war - OR they're miraculously not stuck in friendly territory or killed by enemies, they're just 40 turns of movement from my territory. I end up deleting all the ones that are more than 15 turns from my territory or in a bad location relative to other civs, worthless.

 

[psychoak]

To play Basium without a dumb ai.

This is preferable with a philosophical leader, more tech popping before it goes off.

Find optimal location for your future power house production settlement, build as many classy wonders in it as you can manage while preparing for the inevitable. Build no other settlements until you pop your preferred religion in it, pass on building the religious heroes as well, get good use out of the great people. Right before Switching, declare war on... everyone? Kill all defending units the turn it pops.

Tada! No team.

 

[Verdian]

Oh boy, let's suggest new mechanics to fix the above mentioned problems!

1) New world spell - Fury of Hell: Grants all Infernal units the Enraged promotion. This could be expanded to say that it skips units if they are in a city, so Hyborem does not lose all of his defenders. I think it works especially nice if you are still at peace with the barbarians.

2) Have Hyborem start in and take over the city with the highest crime rate that has Ashen Veil. That way you could kind of control where he appears, and even use it against your allies or enemies. It also still lets Hyborem take over an Ashen Veil city, with the above change to the world spell.

3) Give Hyborem more units to start with, so he can take over cities instead of settling down.

 

[MiKa523]

The AI "just" needs to learn how to use the gates.
It's always stupid when AI Hyborem casts his worldspell and then won't transport unit in the new city.
Since gates are part of each Infernal city the AI has to learn to use them.

 

[Amerigo Arturo]

When I play as Basium, I like to declare war on every one, turtle up, and watch my team member get destroyed, then come in and take his cities he has lost. Plus, my teammates dead become my soldiers.....

 

[Rod]

Hyborem doesnt need good territory. As per design he can prosper on any territory as long as there is war in the world.

AI needs to taught, that it doesnt need to settle to prosper but to wage war to prosper. Of course this is completely contradictionary to the current programmed AI behaviour. Hence Hyborem is not played well by the AI.

 

[Vitek]

Indeed, only barbarians use ships for transport and even then very very late. But I'm sure it will not be easy to teach the AI to use them.

I has already been ship invaded few times. Last it was even from Jonas. Though I have to admit he was far more advanced than everyone else. Quite shocking when I moved my axemen a few champions to face invasion and all kinds of Ogres jumped out of the ship.

 

[Kyroshill]

I has already been ship invaded few times. Last it was even from Jonas. Though I have to admit he was far more advanced than everyone else. Quite shocking when I moved my axemen a few champions to face invasion and all kinds of Ogres jumped out of the ship.

Two games ago, while playing the Bannor and having Basium on my team, I was within 100 turns of victory when never-ending waves of ships began appearing attacking my shrine (and 2nd most important) city.

I spent 50 or so turns repelling wave after wave of skeleton-summoning vampires with Sphener leading the defenses.

Then Perpentach sends three stacks of galleons loaded with Freaks and Beasts.

Once the Doviello showed up in their attack boats (no lie.... the Doviello had a navy!) they dropped Battlemasters and Horsemen near my capital, which changed my reinforcement plans.

Next thing I know there is a stack of Vamps, Rangers, and Skeletons at the choke point on the supply line to my shrine city (now under siege for about 80 turns).

By the time Valin and his troops can hack their way through, my shrine city falls.

Seems to me like the AI can occassionally conduct warfare.

Sadly... it's not often.

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

The AI "just" needs to learn how to use the gates.
It's always stupid when AI Hyborem casts his worldspell and then won't transport unit in the new city.
Since gates are part of each Infernal city the AI has to learn to use them.

Unless this has been changed, only cities that Hyborem builds himself has all the free buildings. Conquered cities have nothing (I think the worldspell counts as conquered)

 

[megamanx06]

I think in general Basium and Infernal start off too weak. It seems kind of weird for a civilization that is supposed to "destroy" all evil has 200 points when the weakest player besides has about 1000. Also, I don't think Basium should be automatically your ally. I think it should spawn in a similar way to Infernal, although perhaps not in a barbarian city.