I see two major issues right now with the AI, that if fixed, would make a huge difference in the games challenge. The AI is incapable of handling powerful player units that have been heavily buffed up. It keeps sending swarms of regular units that provide nothing more than exp, further boosting the players units. The AI is capable of dispelling the buffs the player cast, but in the last map in a span of 350 turns the AI did so only 3 times, and the only time I lost a powerful unit was because the AI dispelled it and then focused fired with a large army to kill it. When focusing on the player the AI needs to dispel at a very high priority before sending in its units to attack. Otherwise its attacks are 99% of the time futile. Ofcourse ideally the AI would also make its own powerful units, buffed up, and send them in with lots of escorts, but I figure since that hasnt happened yet that its a lot more work to code. So at least having it dispel the buffs off of my units often would go a long way to making the AI pose a challenge.
The second issue is the volcano spell. It cripples the AI because it doesnt know how to clean up its land. With affected tile production being heavily debuffed, PLUS a large penalty to building upkeep on those tiles, PLUS a crippling movement penalty, a bunch of well placed volcano's can have a crippling effect on the AI. The volcano spell either needs to have its effects nerfed (I would recommend removing the movement penalty so the AI can at least fight back) and/or have the AI taught how to clean up its land from its effects. In the map I just played, the one AI sandwiched between two others, had almost its entire territory covered in volcanos. They guy couldnt move his troops anywhere and im guessing the upkeep+debuff destroyed his economy as well. This I think is way too much power in the hands of 1 spell. The player could use the spell to essentially create a wall of movement debuff tiles, choking up any enemy attacks and allowing archers to aoe attack the bunched up groups of enemy units with ease. I love the idea of such a tactic, but not when it can be abused to such crippling effects.
The second issue is the volcano spell. It cripples the AI because it doesnt know how to clean up its land. With affected tile production being heavily debuffed, PLUS a large penalty to building upkeep on those tiles, PLUS a crippling movement penalty, a bunch of well placed volcano's can have a crippling effect on the AI. The volcano spell either needs to have its effects nerfed (I would recommend removing the movement penalty so the AI can at least fight back) and/or have the AI taught how to clean up its land from its effects. In the map I just played, the one AI sandwiched between two others, had almost its entire territory covered in volcanos. They guy couldnt move his troops anywhere and im guessing the upkeep+debuff destroyed his economy as well. This I think is way too much power in the hands of 1 spell. The player could use the spell to essentially create a wall of movement debuff tiles, choking up any enemy attacks and allowing archers to aoe attack the bunched up groups of enemy units with ease. I love the idea of such a tactic, but not when it can be abused to such crippling effects.
