Chancellor Kor AI in Parlamon Alpha (Invasions 2)

[Iacs]

So, last night I managed to finish second mission of Shakarn campaign. And i have just one question - wtf is with Chancellor's AI?

I have decided to play this map in accord with in game logic, as in declaring war on Iona the amazon, punching Poz the Kirko couple of times after Chancellor Kor has called me to war with Poz, ignoring neutral Syndicate player and vanguard players as they are too far. At the end I defeated Iona Caliri and added her two southern cities to my empire, then bought eastern one who fell neutral after hear death with diplomacy.

All this time Chancellor's superior army managed to do one thing - conquer Poz's city, lose it and reconquer back. He hunted neutrals, he sent single Sonocarns with few basic units to hunt neutrals and he was basically useless.

As soon as Voidbringers landed and goth their tentacles in his mind he started rampage. Gone were idiocy, gone we struggles. Single Sonocarn? Do you want three in one army, devastating everything in line with charged blasts? I had to ally to remaining two ELOP AI to even survive. Yet at the end I was reduced to two cities - my capital and former amazon capital with three cities taken by Chancellor who should not even come to two of them before fighting much closer Poz. One recently bought neutral city was lost to Dali the syndicate cultist.

Yes, I still managed to win, but it's outright rude, when AI is useless as long as it is your ally and then goes on competent rampage directed against player as soon as it becomes enemy. AI logic like this is exactly what asks players to ignore campaign goals and do wierd things.

Paradox, do you really want players to completely ignore ELOP and instead go straight to conquer neutral syndicate AI then place killer stack at chancellor's capital just waiting for him to get mad? That is strategically correct option even if it is utterly wrong from in-game perspective.

 

[MK1980]

the ultimate goal is to defeat the voidbringers, not their mind controlled puppet who happens to be your former ally. doesn't really matter what he or the other AI did before that point - once the crazy psi fish spawn your goal is to kill their portals and then rush their central structure.

i thought the game made that pretty clear. i didn't even entertain the idea that i was supposed to defeat the mind controlled chancellor with his silly OP doomstack

 

[Iacs]

Problem is that
1) He started to use his OP doomstack smartly only after he went mad.
2) He targeted me who was half map away instead of closer targets.

If he was always competent, i would not object. If he targeted me, Nicole and Poz equally, i would not object. But sudden competence plus clear targeting of player is bad AI design. Backstabbing player directly to cut his energy generation so that he gets into negatives and can not use tactical operations against Voibringers is smart idea, but it is smart idea from developers point of view, basically AI cheating. Thankfully i had cosmite to sell to Nicole Cestus, not that she had much energy, but i still got 50 energy for single cast which simplefied battle a bit, even if at the end it was still use Naranga Od with psionic bow and her general turned from lizard man into lion-man to snipe four Voidbringers surrounded by their army.

Basically what won the map is commander Naranga Od with Shrill of Discord (Tier 3 psionic bow)+ Old Jetpack (her starting mod) + Sequential kill system (vanguard mod from tech tree stolen in first mission) + her general Kudat Rotak the amazing lizard-man turned to lion-man with again, stolen Sequental kill system. Just accompany this pair with quest-gained Sonokarn with three primitive mods, starting avatar to boost sonokarn's damage a bit and few meat shields. Ideally if one of the meet shields is Tactician, then he can give heroes another strike.

Basically whole mission was
1) Raze 5 sectors to get Sonokarn while keeping Avatar from starting army alive
2) Wait for voidbringers to arrive
3) Bring Naranga, Kudak, Sonokarn + Avatar and Tactician with few meatshields through 3 spawners and finally Voidbringer's beacon.

Battles with "terrible voidbringers" were similar
Turn one - Avatar boost Sonokarn and it charges omni-beam
Turn two - Sonokarn shoots, Naranga with her jump + bow and Kudak with his Pounce jump onto voidbringers and finish them off. If one survive, use operation.
If there are two stacks of voidbringers like near second spawner and beacon itself, there is turn 3 to finish two surviving evil floating fishes, and tactician is good here as he speeds killing up with giving Naranga extra shot.

That is not strategy, that is spec operation at maximum.

Heroes come from previous mission, Avatar and Tactician are starting units, Sonokarn is quest one. I managed to lose first tactician to kirko attack (Poz pressed my main team with three his stacks and predictably lost), but there were enough time to research necessary tech and train replacement.

For players who had chosen other secret tech at the end of previous mission "voidkill" army would be a bit different, but in the long run nothing major changes. Only luck element for me was getting Shrill of Discord in first mission, but it is easily replaceable with any other 1ap per shot weapon.

That is it - voidkill team. Third hero was low level dedicated healer with shepherd's staff.

 

[Ericridge]

First thing, Paradox is just a publisher. They aren't the dev team for age of wonders. Thanks.

Next step, I noticed the worthless waste of air that is chancellor when he was on my team. I basically changed difficulty level to easiest and then cleared the map. I do not tolerate mentally retarded allies. I have enough of that bs in my life that i've spent playing games. They're very exhausting to play with. Tiring. he even lost a stack that had at least one of his t4s in it attacking a city with only militia in it.

Chancellor used splash! It didn't do anything....

Then chancellor turns into a gyarados after he goes mad.

It didn't help me watching my ally being air waste while I was doing all the fighting. In real life, i would've just resigned immediately and left the planet and never look back and leave the chancellor to fend for himself. I'm much happier as the result XD

 

[Eomolch]

Hi Iacs, I'd just like to clarify one thing for you: we don't actually have a different AI in campaign. There is some control over diplomacy to make sure that Chancellor Kor e.g. honors your alliance or that your supposed enemies don't offer you a peace treaty (unless there is a story explanation), but other than that the AI is just following their normal plans and routines.

So you must have simply gotten unlucky with the Chancellor on that map. Maybe he was more cautious to move against Poz and Iona since they have substantial armies themselves. But whatever it is that made the difference, I can guarantuee you that there is no scripted in "berserk mode" that suddenly powers up the Chancellor's capabilities when he is your enemy. (if anything, joining the invasion could have made him act more reckless as a general gameplay mechanic)

 

[coodav]

Well, I have to agree that the execution of this map is not all that well conceived. Historically, the point of any PVE campaign is to allow the players to overcome the AI once they have figured out the strategic or technical lesson that episode is designed to teach. Once you have it, you should be able to complete the mission economically. Thing is, I am not sure that is what happens in this campaign. It really wants to drag.

My thought was that it was almost entirely about those Therian lion-kangaroos (Apex) units that you were showing as your second hero. Those units are given to you in the earlier campaign, and are absolutely insane with the right synergies. Note that you should have had this setup instead:

And on both heroes - from the previous campaign. Then swap the holo field for Therian legs for fast move when you make peace with them. This gives you the absolute maximum flexibility, plus it gives your heroes resurgence, which is critical when they just get focused by the entire army and taken down. So here, you can't hardly lose with this arrangement, which I took as the lesson. You can probably assault anything on the map once you know how to use it.

Which takes us to the campaign design. And yeah, they really try to put the pressure on you, but the way they do that though is really frustrating. The computer is given such enormous advantages, that even if you maximize growth on the first rounds to the 10's, you are so grossly outnumbered and outmatched in production you are likely to face a wall of units every few turns. Note that the AI starts with 4 high-pop cities each (one off-map), and are attached to gold and silver landmarks by default:

Which means that their resources will be absolutely crazy by about turn 5. You are going to be behind, and their numbers will be maddening.

So what do you do? The lesson that I took from it was to assault their capital cities from the go. Your city will certainly be under siege the second you get 10 spaces away from it, so know that, and go for the quick elimination. And store up tons of energy, because you will need it. If they take your capital, you will not have a city producing any energy, except maybe an expansion, but you don't need it. You are on track for taking out one of the AIs and getting way more out of it. Just know that you are facing the brunt of a big army.

You do have two stacks of six though, one of which is solid, and is enough:

And you are facing a total of somewhere around 100 units from each AI, plus their multitude of units built with their crazy cities. And their starting units don't suck:

Yes, that is a T4 unit in that army, and two T3 units in 2 other cities. So there is that.

Plus, the quests really lend themselves to this type of play:

To get these, you have to be on the offensive, and many times. Seems coherent so far.

And with the two Apex, you can move right into the Amazon. Note that you can't really go into the Kir'Ko, because their weapons penetrate armor. The amazon just can't hurt you. That also seems to be part of the lesson.

And so I conquered the Amazon by about Turn 15 +/-. I got two of their amazing cities out of it, plus a Sonokarn and a Refractor, which are ludicrous at that stage.

BUT, once you conquer the Amazon, that is not the end of it. It immediately triggers the invasion. So you are unlocking the invasion at about Turn 15, and lose all of those quests in between. You just get a string of 'quest failed' and 'new quest,' which skips all of that content.

Fortunately, you can't hardly lose fights to the NPCs either, as they just don't stack up to your super kangaroo heroes. Nobody does. You have it once you get there.

But is that really how this map was designed? Why have all of these quests if you can't use them? Why build all of these systems just to skip them? No, I think that I side-stepped what was really supposed to happen here with this episode. I don't think this was conceived for this kind of approach, even though it seems natural. I think you are supposed to slowly build-out, defend a ton of fights, and go for a targeted hit on the AI while the whole map slowly is turned into a volcano.

But what lesson does that teach? How to fight against an AI so horrifically stacked against you that you are purely defensive, just to switch to a NPC to do the same thing? How is that a lesson?

So yeah, you seem right. This doesn't seem to be a very well designed campaign, though you don't have to go to that extreme regarding the Chancellor. Either way though, I just can't figure out what they are trying to do with this mission.

I must say though, hopping around with the kangaroo heroes was the most fun I have had with a unit in a long time. Those guys are so maddeningly OP against the AIs, it is craaayyzzeee.

So someone tell me otherwise. Is this a goofy campaign design, or did I miss something?

 

[Iacs]

Hi Iacs, I'd just like to clarify one thing for you: we don't actually have a different AI in campaign. There is some control over diplomacy to make sure that Chancellor Kor e.g. honors your alliance or that your supposed enemies don't offer you a peace treaty (unless there is a story explanation), but other than that the AI is just following their normal plans and routines.

So you must have simply gotten unlucky with the Chancellor on that map. Maybe he was more cautious to move against Poz and Iona since they have substantial armies themselves. But whatever it is that made the difference, I can guarantuee you that there is no scripted in "berserk mode" that suddenly powers up the Chancellor's capabilities when he is your enemy. (if anything, joining the invasion could have made him act more reckless as a general gameplay mechanic)

Well, he could not move against Iona because
1) She did not border him, only Poz did. Iona bordered Poz and Natalie with large borders, had some distance from Dali and has single point contact with me. Yet this single point of contact was star port landmark that i had to take for myself. Thus our war was started.
2) I have killed her by the time invasion triggered.

What is surprising about chancellor is that rampaged right through Poz's territory to kill my cities that were farthest from him before going to Poz's capital. Something is fishy...

Well, I have to agree that the execution of this map is not all that well conceived.

I have conquered amazon a bit later, around turn 25-30, as she really had small border with me, and Kirko was annoyingly requiring attention. And i had only one lion-transformed hero, because Naranga had Shrill of Discord+Old Jetpack combo that worked just as well for jump and kill. I won't repeat my hero load outs, as i have already shown them. However i have to notice, that your suggested hero setup has a big problem - it lacks "recover ap on kill" mods. Basically yes, you are nearly unkillable, but your heroes clear battlefield two times slower than mine.

I suggest you to infiltrate Vanguard commander in first mission to get her tech tree - Sequential Kill system is just that good.

 

[coodav]

Well, he could not move against Iona because
1) She did not border him, only Poz did. Iona bordered Poz and Natalie with large borders, had some distance from Dali and has single point contact with me. Yet this single point of contact was star port landmark that i had to take for myself. Thus our war was started.
2) I have killed her by the time invasion triggered.

What is surprising about chancellor is that rampaged right through Poz's territory to kill my cities that were farthest from him before going to Poz's capital. Something is fishy...




I have conquered amazon a bit later, around turn 25-30, as she really had small border with me, and Kirko was annoyingly requiring attention. And i had only one lion-transformed hero, because Naranga had Shrill of Discord+Old Jetpack combo that worked just as well for jump and kill. I won't repeat my hero load outs, as i have already shown them. However i have to notice, that your suggested hero setup has a big problem - it lacks "recover ap on kill" mods. Basically yes, you are nearly unkillable, but your heroes clear battlefield two times slower than mine.

I suggest you to infiltrate Vanguard commander in first mission to get her tech tree - Sequential Kill system is just that good.

No, not at all. I have the hero trait that gives you a move point on kill. I think it is "Veteran" or some such. The combination of that and sono-fins allows you to fly over with those two heroes and absolutely erase their entire front line in one turn.

It does sound intriguing though. I may consider it on the other hero, even though I like holding the defensive mods for psi-attacks. It seems too easy to get focused down by them. That said, here is what it currently looks like when I get to their front line:

The main hero leaps, then swings on fresh targets (or re-positions for a better next strike),
The secondary hero leaps, then reactivates the main with sono-fins,
Then the main hero gets 3 FULL SWINGS, killing at least one unit - probably way more
Then with her bonus move point, reactivates the secondary with sono-fins
Then the secondary swings 3 FULL SWINGS, killing whatever is left, typically not much

All in 1 turn. No army I have faced defeated this.

I guess it would be even crazier if I had a mod on the second hero, but typically there isn't much around after this combination goes off.

And I can't recall, but the mod that gives that 1 point doesn't stack with the trait, correct? That would be just madness. I don't think they do though. And I know you don't get a second leap.

It is a good idea though for the second hero. I wouldn't have to worry about who is who. I may do it again just to get that.

Just thinking about it though, it would be available late-game for all the Apex heroes. This combination could be on everything. My god that would be a slaughterhouse. I just wish you could get the on-kill full refresh from the Kir'Ko mod, but you can't put it on. That would be just ludicrous.

Edit:

Also note that with the holograph projector mod, you can throw down a 'grenade' on the back-line without interrupting this sequence. The holo-grenade does not use the move point, it leaves just one, which does nothing if you have just one. That makes it particularly strong against ranged units, and is fairly essential when going up against psionic units. They are typically ranged.

 

[Iacs]

And I can't recall, but the mod that gives that 1 point doesn't stack with the trait, correct? That would be just madness. I don't think they do though. And I know you don't get a second leap.

If i am not mistaken, mod stacks with trait - it still procs one time after your first kill, but you recover 2 ap instead of one. Through it does not matter with Apex's pounce - it leaves you with 2 AP with just mod - 1 from Pounce and 1 from kill. 2 ap is enough to move to next target and strike or to strike 2 times getting couple of kills. Trait + mod on apex will leave you with 3 AP after lethal pounce.

 

[coodav]

If i am not mistaken, mod stacks with trait - it still procs one time after your first kill, but you recover 2 ap instead of one. Through it does not matter with Apex's pounce - it leaves you with 2 AP with just mod - 1 from Pounce and 1 from kill. 2 ap is enough to move to next target and strike or to strike 2 times getting couple of kills. Trait + mod on apex will leave you with 3 AP after lethal pounce.

Oh my god wow. That would be absolute madness. If this is right, It will be a complete game-changer for these guys. We won't have to worry about losing the armor on these guys, they will kill with such abandon that it will be completely irrelevant.

Seriously, getting a 30% damage boost, plus one additional move is an effective 60% damage boost all by itself. Better even, because it is multiplicative. And heck, stack on top of that the Might of the Therians, and you have a perfect storm. I have got to see what that can do. Could you imagine? Two of those guys flying through and refreshing each other after multiple kills. I am going to do that just for the heck of it, it will be glorious.

 

[coodav]

For all of you who may have wondered about this, I did in fact re-do it with the suggested mods (didn't save so I had to do the whole thing again), and played the second map with this guy (X2):

And yes, it is a flat ton of damage. And yes, you do in fact get 2 additional move points on kill, one for the trait, and one for the on-kill mod. So when you pounce, you do in fact land with 3 attack points if the targeted unit dies (which is easy to arrange).

And it is a bit more tactically relevant, as you can easily kill with a critical pounce, then move and burn down pretty much any T1 or T2 unit in 2 swings, so that is probably 3 kills +/- on every single pounce exchange. But the downside is that I still get focused down once in a while by hordes, despite the relative durability and the early 'Pride' from the Might of the Therians mod. You are just so far forward, and you don't have nearly the same defense.

So then you revive with 1 move point, no active abilities, and 25% health. To keep the unit alive then, I have to use the second hero's 'pull' to ensure their safety, losing move points and my one team heal.

I am just not sure if it is practically better to get these mods for them. I don't feel any more deadly. In the end, I think the massive AOE debuffs the other approach featured worked better in practice, despite the nerf to this unit.

I am going to play with it a bit more, but I don't know. I take twice as much damage overall with this setup. Maybe someplace in between is better, I will have to see.

My prediction:
This is great against single stacks of units. So if I was fighting 6 powerful units, this unit would probably get the upper hand. It does so damn much damage, it could probably burn anything down, and is more flexible in that first pounce exchange. Problem comes with larger mobs. If you are facing 3 stacks of 6+, this unit starts to suffer. The original setup can sustain through pretty much anything with the pull and roar. This unit is burned down a bit too fast for that.

I bet the right setup for this map is a combination. I would probably keep it on the secondary hero, but that holo projector is just not optional. Keep the AOE debuff for sure. Just swap Might out for holo projector. Then swap to two defensive mods on the main, and let her be further forward, your main damage sponge. So sequential kill swaps to hunter's pride, and Might to the holo projector. Do this, and you will reduce stress lines on your face.

 

[Gutzzu]

Damn thank you so much guys
i was wondering is this all on HARD difficulty?

 

[coodav]

Whatever difficulty is the max. There is no setting hard enough for this not to work. You just have to worry about getting your hero into a fight so big that they can't pull through it. Even the weakest unit will hit you for 2 or 3 damage per attack. Eventually, with 1,000 units on the other side, your guys will fall. So take it slow, know that you have a 3-turn cooldown heal to bail out of problems, and stay alive.

 

[Gutzzu]

For example on the first map I managed to get to kill end the mission without getting all my techs .. alao I can’t even dream about getting to the late techs of the AI .. my heroes reached lvl 6 and not 8 . The only way is to actually fight them which I find it way more difficult .. but I am getting better at it .. this is for the first map .. second map I approached it in few different t ways .. one being going to war turn 1 with the Amazon .. this worked but I had no clue I had to bundle up and defend till the alliances change .. I will explore your strategy

 

[coodav]

.. alao I can’t even dream about getting to the late techs of the AI ..

Wait... well... there are two things. First, it doesn't take much tech to go crazy with these units. You really just need the sono-fins and the exoskeleton. The rest you buy, or get at the same time. Here is the gig:

Weapon: Carbon sword (purchased from Therians)
Alt weapon: Sono-fins (T6 Shakarn)

M1: Exoskeleton (T7 Shakarn)
M2: Might of the Therians (purchased from Therians)
M3: Holographic Generator (Same tech as Exoskeleton)
M4: Enhanced Limb Augments (purchased from Therians) OR Hunter's Camoflage (purchased from Therians)

These are trivially easy to get, and they make your guys SUPER tough. This is particularly effective on the Dvar and Amazon, which is the first map. Soooo... you really should be able to hit these marks, I mean, probably by like turn 30 or 40, regardless of difficulty.

The only way is to actually fight them which I find it way more difficult .. but I am getting better at it .. this is for the first map .. second map I approached it in few different t ways ..

So, a few questions. First, are you playing on the hardest difficulty? Because this strat is really more necessary the higher you go. You can do anything on low difficulty, and win pretty consistently. Hell, you can probably skip the whole map by winning basically with quests alone.

And please know, I am not recommending that you 'bundle up.' You have to attack pretty much every turn (initially PVE), to clear enough sites for the Black Market doctrine to get you the cosmite you need. And for the experience, obviously.

But when the computer gets going... yikes. They probably produce a fully modded 6-stack every turn, maybe more, on hardmode. And every fight you get into, you will be fully surrounded, by enemies that don't suck. Only by having units that really can't die, and that kill everything they hit, do you not get withered to nothing against those odds.

But seriously, if you aren't playing on hardmode, stop right now, switch it up, and do it again. The experience on normal, it just... well, it just isn't the same.

 

[Gutzzu]

Yea I am playing on hardest difficulty and only hero resurgence on auto battles which I hardly do since they always fail
Yea it makes sense now since I do a lot of quests for the THerians and I easilly can get to their mods and units .. maybe I am not explaining that enough .

on medium it was very easy which I also disliked . It’s like on easy mode they are non existent and medium is literally same so I only enjoy the hard difficulties .. it was similar witi the Heretic campaign but I won that one after trying out differnt strategies and Learning the different ways to take on the maps .. (which is kind of a sign of a good way to push limits of how good I understand the game) .

This works great since I kind of know most of the races but now it’s time to learn the Shakarn I guess and I am getting a lot of information here

 

[coodav]

Ok, well, you got to Invasions 2 on hardmode, so is sounds like you have it under control. And if that is true, then yes, the Amazon is pretty much the mandatory target. Going after the Kir'Ko at first is tough, especially at the beginning.

So yeah, otherwise I tend to agree with everything. So tell me how it goes. Then try the Oathbound. That one is even harder.

 

[Gutzzu]

Thanks man , I am also glad people are playing the campaigns I find the story very good and compelling and shows that the devs know a lot about AI and future possible outcomes of society

and yeah I just find this campaign a bit more difficult than the others though I had some share of hardship with the Heritor campaign also but winning that map was super fun at the end

 

[Gutzzu]

Also what do you pick for background for the Hero ?

 

[Gutzzu]

The carbon sword that I am suppose to buy from the THerians is not actually sold by them .. am I missing something ?