What are the precise numerical bonuses the AI gets at each difficulty?

[Booo]

There's a bonus/penalty that isn't documented here that the AI gets to its operational abilities. This one seems to have varied a lot since release, at release I thought this was just a bonus to the defenses of hard and very hard AIs. I decided to look into how it works today and currently it seems to be bugged so that very hard AIs get a penalty of -3 to its operational ability instead of a bonus.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...al-defense-penalty-for-very-hard-ais.1241969/

Someone might be able to locate this modifier in the game files so we can add more objective numbers to the list.

 

[Elgareth]

Because there are hard limits in game AI. Short of making a AGI (Skynet or Data), this will not change.

Well, there IS Google DeepMind (REALLY interesting watching the games!

) where the great thing is that it works with incomplete information. But yeah, it's a very special case and the neuronal network learned from thousands of prior games, what you can't do in a new game. Also Starcraft 2 is of course a lot less complex.

But there is a middle ground somewhere, like an AI sending a scout, and if it doesn't find an army near that edge of your territory, will start a push with maybe a two-stack army.
Or armies going for the city directly, instead of the sectors (which I always find weird, since all that does is give me enough time to get an army to the city).
Or the battle AI could stop always running near you, spamming grenades, porting Kir'Ko Hidden ones directly in front of your melees ()... that doesn't require Skynet to have it act a bit less suicidal.

 

[The Founder]

Well, there IS Google DeepMind

Wich is still just a AI.
Unlike the existing Starcraft AI, the players have not yet learned it's weaknesses. And those can be harder to nail down. But they are still there.

Beating the max number of max difficulty AI's is never about getting good at the game. It is learning the bugs in the AI and how to abuse them to make it easy. Starcraft is a good example, as they have a archievement for that (outmatched).

 

[Elgareth]

Wich is still just a AI.
Unlike the existing Starcraft AI, the players have not yet learned it's weaknesses. And those can be harder to nail down. But they are still there.

Beating the max number of max difficulty AI's is never about getting good at the game. It is learning the bugs in the AI and how to abuse them to make it easy. Starcraft is a good example, as they have a archievement for that (outmatched).

Well, I'd say beating the game on max enemies and max difficulty makes you a pretty good player
The nice thing about DeepMind is, that it constantly plays against itself, and evolves by dropping the loser, changing the winner a bit and fight against the winner again.
Thus it got several "tactic strains" that emulate a player really well.
Sometimes it quick techs for deathballs, sometimes it rushes, sometimes it even hides proxy buildings.
Unless you know beforehand which of the strains you'll be fighting, you can't just do "tactic xy" and win relatively easy, as DeepMind will scout you, and it will now the counter to your tactic

So we are not that far from really decent AIs.
You can even choose to play in a league with other players and DeepMind AIs, not knowing when you'll be playing a bot, and you won't be able to tell when it's the bot.

 

[The Founder]

Well, I'd say beating the game on max enemies and max difficulty makes you a pretty good player

Nope. It make you good at abusing the weakpoints of the AI. Nothing more, nothing less.

Or how does this:

make you "good at the game"?

Human players - even bronze league - could have survived that.
The specific bug has since been fixed, propably.
But there are still other ones, like the AI having only 1 Doomstack and it rushing back to base the moment it is threathed by even a single reaper.

 

[Mcwynne]

Sorry to barge in on your other discussion but does anyone know if the lower difficulties and barred from building the elite building? Having played mostly on normal I don't think I have ever seen the AI use any elite units, apart from the Celestian tier IV (which is why I suspect it is building related, Barons are also quite common). I am currently in a war against a hard AI and I noticed it really likes building Subjugators, I even think I saw a non militia Wraith.

Or is this just a thing where the AI needs the extra income to feel it worth it building higher tire troops? Or maybe its just something that has been fixed with the new patch (although I didn't notice it during the beta)?

In any case it feels wrong for a difficulty called Normal to not have access to every tool. Especially since the higher tiers aren't that much more powerful in this game.

Or is this something that only happens for me?

 

[Elgareth]

Sorry to barge in on your other discussion but does anyone know if the lower difficulties and barred from building the elite building? Having played mostly on normal I don't think I have ever seen the AI use any elite units, apart from the Celestian tier IV (which is why I suspect it is building related, Barons are also quite common). I am currently in a war against a hard AI and I noticed it really likes building Subjugators, I even think I saw a non militia Wraith.

Or is this just a thing where the AI needs the extra income to feel it worth it building higher tire troops? Or maybe its just something that has been fixed with the new patch (although I didn't notice it during the beta)?

In any case it feels wrong for a difficulty called Normal to not have access to every tool. Especially since the higher tiers aren't that much more powerful in this game.

Or is this something that only happens for me?

I think it's mainly their missing Cosmite. T3 upwards costs cosmite by Default, and the AI doesn't prioritize cosmite sectors as much as you should I think.
So until they get Bonus cosmite they just use it all up by spamming modded T2 Units and modding up their NPC Units.

I base my assumption on normal allied AIs that never accepted a energy for cosmite deal, always saying "I just don't have the ressources for that" in the endgame.