[v1.4] AI broken and game still too difficult

I'd advise you install Heavenfall's After the War mod as it re-balances much of the game. Its effects are generally subtle and it does nerf some of the stats. The big one affecting your gameplay is that the AI can keep on spamming out cities without any restrictions. Heavenfall's mod makes building a new city cost 1 food which means that most civ's stop building at around 5 or 6 cities - which feels like a comfortable amount.

The AI does seem to race away in terms of its power. In my current game I was playing Gildar (for the reason you mention regarding the iron mines) and was boxed in by Umbar. When Umbar declared war I had a power rating of about 20 against his 60. I moved all units with armour rating to the frontier town along with the only hero I managed to recruit. Basically used the Frontier town as a tower defence point while I researched and built up. Any stack they sent into my territory was attacked and used to level up my developing units. By the time I had research and built up 4 metal armed and armoured units the power rating was about 35 for me and 100 for Umbar. With the stack of 4 plus my hero and sovereign I could go on the attack. The basic approach was to set up a shield of my troops and use arcane arrow on the enemy troops. Once they closed my two magic users would basically heal friendlies while the troops did the attacking. Worked well.

Das123 - which basically exploits the AI. A human player would not attack your defended town, but sent many weak, mobile raiders to raid your vulnerable resources. He would eventually force you to chase him around, eliminating the advantage of your fortress. 

You don't need to exploit the AI to win on Normal.  I've played many games on normal and have yet to find much difficulty at all.  The only issue I found was getting a mine at the start so my sov is a naturalist to accomplish this.  This way when I get to metal weapons I can make units right away.  I've never concentrated on armour in the game after leather armour.  Just weapons and bows.  Equip heroes with high damage weapons and bows for casters then you can shoot a few times and then cast a spell at the end of each combat move.  I usually make 10-12 cities quickly which gives me a larger production base for units and I can produce them quickly once needed as the AI starts demanding cash and going to war with me when I refuse.  I then take one or two groups of units and take out each enemy empire/kingdom one after another.  Just make sure you've build all available tech research buildings as you go.

Typically I play on a large map against all available enemies.  Hope this helps.

Just some things I do when I play, hope it helps.

1. When you build your faction/leader you might try picking the options that start you with techs (& bonuses to tech research) from the start, when your cities lvl, try picking tech only (or maybe a guardian unit, but never do this myself) -- This will help keep you above the curve

2. Make sure to customize your Sov with full set of armour starting off (maybe the boots that give move +1, comes in handy), you'll be able to buy an axe for better offense as soon as game starts due to step one.  You might choose the 'WarLord' option for your sov so you have a small army from start, but I always pick merchant for the mulla

3. The most important thing to research is leather armor, then custom yourself a 4 man (or what ever size they are now) unit with full setup of armor for each city then perhaps a couple for your running army, shield, & axe, & the +1 movement helps here again

4. Your going to at least try to get 4-5 cities right off, this should be enough to give ya a decent realm size to content with ai & increase the chance of a passing hero (You will want to marry soon so you can start your hero production)

I never had a problem beating the AI. My strategy? I level up my sovereign putting all points into Intel. In combat I use Spell Blast (33% Intel Damage Area Effect Spell), Arcane Arrow (50% Intel damage) and Touch of Entrophy (30 points of damage) to decimate AI forces while my forces pull back for a turn or two. My army usually consists of 2 archer units and 3 infantry units.

I think there's a clue in this statement.  Are we sure this chap is playing on the right setting?

As I stated twice in my opening post, I tried all difficulty settings from novice to normal, but not above that.

I also want to clarify that my problem with the game is that the novice and beginner settings are not really novice/beginner at all; instead, they are insanely hard.

I expect to have some challenge in normal settings though.

I really wish I had your "AI Problem" the AI in this game is a joke even on the highest difficulty level. 1.4 it did get better but still not that great. Games 10 to 15 years older have better AI. Maybe you not good at stratagy games or your use to games that have vary basic AI but this game is by no means difficult and that is one of the biggest problems with it. The AI is not challanging enough.

Maybe the problem is not inherent to the AI itself, in terms of the computer's ability to elaborate strategies. The problem is that computer controlled civilizations grow much faster that the player's. For instance, the computer is able to produce strong troops and has several cities dislocated through out the map before my main town has reached level 3. It looks like the AI can produce resources out of thin air.

I admit I'm not a champion at strategy games, but I'm not a complete dummy either. Again, the NOVICE difficulty should be a pushover for anyone, in order to cater for even the laziest players. That is not the case of EWOM.

Anyway, I'll try some more maps in the next days and take notes while I play, in order to provide a detailed record of my experience, to give you an idea of what I mean.

The AI in this game is actually quite strong! Its main weakness is that it doesn't push its advantage enough. For example, it can have 20 units when you have 3, and still not attack you. It tends to spread its forces between each city, so what you have to do is move quickly so the AI can't counter-act your movements. A quick strike is fatal to the AI in this game.

Therefore, as odd as it may sound, one of the strongest tactics is using a caravan to build a road between your city and the AI's.

The AI has two main bonuses that tip the balance in their favour. First, they always see the entire map including resources. Therefore, they will often expand much stronger than you in the start. Second, their pioneers cannot be attacked by monsters like yours can.

What the AI is NOT good at, is taking advantage of what it gets. Its development usually follow the same patterns, with the same research. This is a major weakness. If you start next to many shards, you should go for magic. If you get many metal ore mines, you should focus on getting strong steel gear quickly. So, how do you use this weakness? Don't play every game the same. Adapt your research order according to the game.

Try just playing on 'normal' I found the AI did odd things and was much more aggressive on 'easy' then I though it should be.  I got the chop the first game I played too on easy but I was unfamiliar with the whole game at the time so it wasn't a surprise.  Also play against as many opponents as possible on your map.  This will let the AI fight itself and buy you some time.  Hope this helps.

1. Install After the War patch.

2. Set difficulty to challenging (best AI and health settings).

3. Go to the Workshop from main screen and download my map, Prirod. This map provides a fair and balanced game for 7-8 nations. It has strategic choke points that prevent the AI and you from steamrolling. It has areas designated for monster spawning, separating nations into groups of 2-3 until the endgame. The resources are well balanced, allowing the AI's only economic strategy to flourish as much as yours. There enough shards and Arcane Temples to make magic an actual part of the game. Some people are willing to suffer through the hilarious random map feature for the sake of randomness. If you are having trouble with the game, I recommend a sure thing. 

Do you mean that "easy" AI was stronger than the "normal " AI? I experienced the same.

NOVICE is actually invincible

BEGINNER is a bit weaker, but still overwhelming

EASY is hard

NORMAL is.... normal

It's the opposite of what it should be!

So that explains why the AI's pioneers beeling for special stuff and stroll right past a huge stack of monsters unescorted as the monsters rush past them to attack my army guarding my pioneer.

In the code I thought the line "<AIFOWCheat>0</AIFOWCheat> " set it so they could not always see the entire map including resources and it was not until the higher levels of difficulty when it changes to "<AIFOWCheat>1</AIFOWCheat> " that they could.  Perhaps I am understanding it wrong and what the AIFOWCheat does.  Does it refer to units only and not terrain / resources?

Don't know, it was possible the functionality was altered to make the AI seem harder.

To me the AI is always like a younger brother that is five years my junior. I feel bad about being stronger and smarter, but I know he must be regularly beaten and demoralized before he starts to grow into something that can challenge me. I set my AIFOWcheat to 1...

As it turns out the After the War mod was actually making it even easier for the AI to spam pioneers. If you were suffering from the AI covering the entire map in a few turns, download the 1.6 version instead. They can still go wherever they please, but it costs a bit more to produce so they can't just send out armies of them.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/412225 

I agree, the AI is ridiculous, especially with it's city spamming. To beat it, just go on the offensive take over all their cities. This is annoying though, as I don't feel like I have created my empire or planned my cities. This really grinds my gears!

However, i'd just like to play the game more relaxed, maybe build a couple of cities, not worry about the AI taking up ALL the land. So i shall be trying this mod that was mentioned previously. Come on Stardock, sort it out, I've supported you ever since Stellar frontier!!!

Updates are done. Won't get a 1.5 till long after FE is patched up, if ever. That said, just make your own map with choke points. Put a city at the choke point and never ever sign a treaty. Now you can build up in the area you have cut off. The AI will do so on the other side. Once you have influence over every tile in your space, you can sign treaties with your friendlies and war with your enemies. Giving the AI 500 turns is about right for having really fun wars. 

But yes, the game is ultimately not going to satisfy everything you crave from TBS. That is why we have FE. 

I just started playing Elemental and this is what I did to get a hang of the game without getting swarmed by the computer controlled kingdoms and empires from the start:

I made a random map with the excellent toolkit that came with the game, I put one starting position on a small island and another one on a large continent. As I started the game, I noticed I happened to be the one not stranded on the desert island (otherwise I would have just tried again and hoped to be assigned the good start position next time).

So now I can just wander about exploring the complex game without hurry, while quests, wandering monsters and the sheer quantity of game mechanics still offer me a lot of challenge. Highly recommended for new players finding the game too tough in my opinion!

I find the computer players are able to recruit wandering mobs..

They get things like ogres and other random mobs.

Has others found this to occur?

I have seen various monsters in ai armies, but assumed that they were from city leveling with the random gardian option.

harpo

Nope, they have trolls, tyrants, drakes, Shrill lords.

Tough enough with out the computer auto recruiting NPC mobs.

If you reas the manual the difference between the AI's is the use of complex and incomplex algorithms.

On easy it used alot more incomplex ones and may thusly do things that seem unexpected to you.
It's not that it's as much "easy" as it is brutish.