Dynamic AI / World Difficulty

from Elemental Forums

Here's my #1 wishlist item for FE - the game to dynamically adjust the difficulty mid-game based on the initially set difficulty level (if an option is set to do so).

One of the major features of 4x games is that "power" increases exponentially, where "power" is a combination of things like attack capability, research capability, production capability, etc.  Using production as an example - city size adds 1, 2, 4, 8, and then 16 production: (2^(size-1)).  A city's production from materials starts out low (2 or something) and goes up to 10 or 12 or higher later in the game.  I wish I had a plot.  Even materials can increase from Arcane Forge or an Alchemist.  This, from what I can tell, is an intended feature of the game - you slowly build up and get more and more powerful, and it's a good one.  It's there in pretty much all 4x games. 

The trouble with exponentially increasing power is that it makes it easy to outdistance opponents if you get an early bonus or to fall behind if you suffer an early setback.  If I have 4 materials at the start I can get a pioneer out in 5 turns (with Enchanted Hammers).  An AI with only 2 materials and no earth magic might take 10 turns to crank out that same pioneer.  Now, at turn 12, I potentially have 3 cities to their 2, and can make more pioneers in that extra city, and on and on.  Or, in another game where we both build pioneers in 7 turns, if my first pioneer gets eaten by a monster, they now have 2 cities to my one and have double the production capability.  This leads to a boring late game in most games because, by mid-game, you've either pulled ahead and won or have fallen woefully behind and are just waiting to get pig-piled out of existence.  

Proposal for a solution - Dynamically adjust the game's difficulty based on an estimate of how well the player is doing and the initially set difficulty level.  What does that mean?  It means the game uses knowledge of how things are going and a measure of how well the player is doing (preferably a more accurate one than the current power rating) to trigger events that attempt to bring the difficulty in line with what was initially set.

Some examples of how a Dynamic Difficulty Engine (DDE) might work in action:

Difficulty: Easy
The player accidentally allowed one of their city's ZOC to expand over a Forest Drake's lair in the early game, and now that Forest Drake is rampaging towards their settlement on turn 30.  That's not "easy", so the DDE spawns an event where one of the following happens:

  1. If the town is big enough (>100 people) The townspeople band together and arm themselves with spears / clubs and the player gets an army of 9 9-peasant defenders, enough to have an epic battle where many of them die horrible deaths but still defeat the drake
  2. A Dragonslayer shows up and offers his services to the sovereign for a price in gildar, or maybe in food if they're short gildar (apply a food penalty to the town for N seasons), kills the drake, and departs.
  3. A single heroic peasant takes up a sword they found at an old battlefield and managed to heroically slay the drake.  The sovereign has the option of recruiting them as a champion
Difficulty: Any
It's mid-game, and the map has filled up.  The player isn't at war with anyone, and, maybe, has hit end-turn a couple times in a row quickly.  The DDE sees this and:
  1. Hard+
    1. Spawns one of those demon portals in the middle of their ZOC that starts spewing demons.  
    2. or, Triggers some titan-level event against the player to shake things up
  2. Normal-Challenging: 
    1. Invading troll armies
    2. or, Brush fire spread out of control and turned into a bunch if Ignys and Fire elementals somewhere in their territory
  3. Easy
    1. New resources spawn somewhere between the player's and the AI's ZOC
    2. or, New fertile land appears somewhere between the player's and the AI's ZOC
Difficulty: Expert+
Mid-late game the player is steamrolling an AI, taking several of its cities in a row.  DDE responds by
  1. Epic level magic cast by a desperate AI sovereign...
    1. Teleports the stack of doom you're attacking with, stranding you on an island far out to sea.  Spawns a quest by your capitol that gives you a water-walking spell in case you don't have earth magic, but the quest takes several turns by another champion
    2. or, Makes a bargain with <evil god-like being - what's that 10000 point win name?>, granting all of its units 4x hp, 4x attack, and 4x armor but requiring the sacrifice of 10 / 20 / N population per turn
  2. Betrayal by your most powerful champion - he suddenly appears at the head of his own stack of doom, made up of the AI's most powerful units, and attacks your invading armies.  

Difficulty: Easy-Normal
Mid-game the player (or an AI on normal) is falling behind technologically, the DDE:

  1. Triggers a discovery event, where the player or AI learns a new technology
  2. Triggers a sabotage event if the player is falling behind, where AI's tech discovery is sabotaged to allow the player to catch up.

And a whole lot more things that can be spawned or triggered when the DDE sees something not matching the difficulty level happening.  Is it cheating?  In a sense, definitely,  But anyone who plays at a difficulty level that's not Challenging is cheating anyway - at lower levels by handicapping the AI, and at higher levels by buffing the AI.  The DDE just takes it one step further and dynamically adjusts things to try to maintain that difficulty level.  

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

No, no, no, and effing no.  Did I say no?  Is there is one shitty thing above all others, it's rubber band games.

You lost a game because of a bad start?  Either learn to recover from a bad start, or get a civilization that does not care about bad starts, or play at a lower difficulty.

You won a game too easily? Play at a harder difficulty. You won trivially easily on Insane? Stop using the quest loop, and play an average faction.

Where is the challenge if you are guaranteed that no setback matters, because the dragonslayer ex machina is gonna save your butt?

If there is no penalty for failure, the reward from success is devalued. 

Well, it sounds better in my native language, but I hope I get my meaning across.

I remember the first time I encountered rubber band games.  Warhammer 40K, Final Liberation.  I had just won my first run, and was feeling pretty good about it.  So I decided to give myself a challenge.  I would use only space marines (or a specific chapter, or whatever, I have blanked the specifics)

So field an army on the small side, and I win a few battles.  By the time I am fighting my third or fourth battle I realized that the orks were also fielding small armies.  The fucking game thought I was having trouble making money, or losing my armies, or whatever, and it was spoon feeding me adequate challenges.

My first win was tainted, by second play-through was pointless, I put the CD in the trashcan then and there, and even when quite a few of my friends wanted to play multiplayer, I would not buy the effing game again.

It is stupid, stupid, stupid to have the game make allowances for how well you are doing. 

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Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I kind of like the idea.

One of the strengths of Fallen Enchantress, as I see it, is the wide variety of circumstances that greet the player each time around.  Starting locations really vary incredibly, unlike, say Civ V.  Available goodie huts and quest locations provide wildly dissimilar benefits.  Starting a new game is not just the same damn thing all over again.  I really like this.

But the dark side to this is that quite a few games become blowouts rather quickly -- usually in favor of the human player, but sometime not.

I would not want to see such a strong rubber band effect that a player would almost prefer to be in the lead, but significant random events can be done in such a way that tension remains when leading and hope remains when behind.

As to the reply above, keep in mind, it would only be an option.

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top


Got to agree with tuidgy. Late game is, frankly, supposed to be you against the other players, not the wildlife. The problem is a more minor one of balance.

Can't agree about Final Liberation though. That game was brilliant and you should be ashamed of yourself Sir! :P

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I liked Final Liberation, but the dynamic difficulty was a poor choice in my opinion. I had a lot of difficulty in the last mission since I had very good troops, so I disbanded some and the mission became a cakewalk.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Tuidjy, what you're talking about is manually making the game harder by not using some of the mechanics.  That's fun?  To you maybe, but not to me.  I could make up a game in FE where I was only allowed to arm my units and champions with clubs and cast no spells, and it would be very hard.  I'd probably get crushed.  You might love it though, I'll freely admit you're a better player than I am.  I can win on Expert, but not ridiculous or insane.  But I don't find those fun, as it's not a challenge, it's an auto-lose.  

I suppose I could self-impose rules at a lower difficulty, but playing with less of the game is not a good solution.  It should be playing with more of the game.  In your playthroughs, how often have you cast the epic spells (birth of summer, curgen's volcano, etc)?  How often have you recruited dragons with that storm dragon tech?  Or created companies of units?  From what I've seen, you don't get to those techs before winning (or losing).

For those panning dynamic difficulty - i'm not talking about automatically making it harder if you're winning.  Only if you're crushing and the game is on a hard setting to begin with.  It's not solely about making it harder or easier, it's about making it more interesting, more dynamic, and challenging for more than just the first 40 turns of the game. 

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Poko8, reply 6
Tuidjy, what you're talking about is manually making the game harder by not using some of the mechanics.  That's fun?  To you maybe, but not to me.  I could make up a game in FE where I was only allowed to arm my units and champions with clubs and cast no spells, and it would be very hard.  I'd probably get crushed.  You might love it though, I'll freely admit you're a better player than I am.  I can win on Expert, but not ridiculous or insane.  But I don't find those fun, as it's not a challenge, it's an auto-lose.  

I suppose I could self-impose rules at a lower difficulty, but playing with less of the game is not a good solution.  It should be playing with more of the game.  In your playthroughs, how often have you cast the epic spells (birth of summer, curgen's volcano, etc)?  How often have you recruited dragons with that storm dragon tech?  Or created companies of units?  From what I've seen, you don't get to those techs before winning (or losing).

For those panning dynamic difficulty - i'm not talking about automatically making it harder if you're winning.  Only if you're crushing and the game is on a hard setting to begin with.  It's not solely about making it harder or easier, it's about making it more interesting, more dynamic, and challenging for more than just the first 40 turns of the game. 

 

I agree with this. It is not fun to gimp yourself on purpose. It has its novelty, but eventually the inclination is to simply use the tools you have available. It's more fun to play the game more, not less. 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting harmonic42, reply 7
I agree with this. It is not fun to gimp yourself on purpose. It has its novelty, but eventually the inclination is to simply use the tools you have available. It's more fun to play the game more, not less.

I don't know...  

Once I have found a solid strategy and won with it, I may take it for a perfect test run... once.  I do not see why I would play with a quest loop once I've beaten Insane with it.  By the way, it is not even a chore, it's a blast.  Once.

Once I beat ridiculous with a fortified, dodging dazzler, I have not played Krax based races. 

I do not  play Trogs anymore, I get more enjoyment of trying to kill the Juggernauts I've designed.  It's damn near impossible, unless you know what's coming.  Well, I do.

Nowadays, I mostly try to add to my guide, or make easing into Fallen Enchantress easier for non-Beta-testers.

When I play for fun, it's Stormworld, on Expert, for the sheer fun of discovery.  One of the fun things about Stormworld is that the race pretty much sets the difficulty (for example, the Angels are much, much, MUCH stronger than the Elves)

I can see the desire to balance the game by reducing the power of some synergies (Quest loop, I'm looking at you!) 

But to balance the game by helping you when you're playing poorly?!  That's insulting.  Hindering you when you're winning?  That's stupid, the hindering should be an option that you can turn on, and independent on how you're doing.  (You can bet I would use it)

Quoting Poko8, reply 6
In your playthroughs, how often have you cast the epic spells (birth of summer, curgen's volcano, etc)? How often have you recruited dragons with that storm dragon tech? Or created companies of units? From what I've seen, you don't get to those techs before winning (or losing).

Well, I've taken every play-through to victory before turn 150, or left it in a very favorable position when a new version has come out.  Why would I use a nuke that I do not need, or play with a dragon that the AI does not know how to handle?  I've had a dragon by the way, from the dragon eyes quest.  Once I used it, and I once I left it in my single city.

As for companies of units, I have done it, but once again, why research something that you do not need?  Winning effectively requires foregoing what you do not immediately need.  You do not research economics if you have not built a single tax office, and every outpost of yours is on a road.  You research it when you (1) need it and (2) are ready to use it.

 

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

I would like to have something where I can say "I've essentially won, I'm unbeatable.  Now lets see my score (which isn't kept!!!) and make it tougher).   i.e. I'm at the steamroll stage, I'm set up and about to finish the game - now give me a real challenge to finish things off.  

I'd like that type of interaction, I've won against the AI, now lets see what my winning strategy can do against (fill in the blank with something crazy).

I wouldn't want terribly time consuming... but maybe 4 massive armies moving towards your capitol - so 4 different fights.  A highly mobile force can get to a few of them, but not all.   A single stack of doom might not be enough, maybe you need 2 or 3 and as an adjunct strategy you need to keep that in consideration.

 

Who were the bad guys from gal civ?  Something like that (but shorter, don't want another 20 hrs).

 

Or a random challenge:

You now have 20 turns to kill off X's sovereign

You need to take 5 cities in 20 turns, etc, etc

 

I just spent 20 hours polishing this nice toy that let me win - let me use it a bit more.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting jutetrea, reply 9
I just spent 20 hours polishing this nice toy that let me win - let me use it a bit more.

This I would really appreciate...

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting jutetrea, reply 9


I just spent 20 hours polishing this nice toy that let me win - let me use it a bit more.

 

This sums it up quite nicely. It is fun to build up your perfect soverign/champions/army/cities/whatever. But inevitably, you will become unstoppable, usually well before the "end game". I don't care for short, quick games, I want to live in the world I've been refining and controlling, rather than just sit lonely at the top with every corner of the world explored, harvested, conquered, and beaten.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tuidjy, reply 8

Well, I've taken every play-through to victory before turn 150, or left it in a very favorable position when a new version has come out.  Why would I use a nuke that I do not need, or play with a dragon that the AI does not know how to handle?  I've had a dragon by the way, from the dragon eyes quest.  Once I used it, and I once I left it in my single city.

As for companies of units, I have done it, but once again, why research something that you do not need?  Winning effectively requires foregoing what you do not immediately need.  You do not research economics if you have not built a single tax office, and every outpost of yours is on a road.  You research it when you (1) need it and (2) are ready to use it.
 

Exactly - you haven't needed them because you've won the game well before they could be researched, and that's because the game is decided too early.  That's a 4X thing, not a FE-unique thing.  The spells are really cool though - Kurgen's had me cackling with glee and Birth of summer allows a lot of strategic options for fortifying your territory.  Neither is needed in the slightest though.  Maybe Birth of summer should be moved earlier, but Kurgen's and the Falling Star and the recruit Dragons are really powerful and are properly late-game techs.  Dynamic difficulty would scale the game so that the world and the AIs remained competitive longer.  And maybe continuous adjustments aren't the way to go - maybe every 50 turns is looks to see how you're doing and adjusts.

Don't dismiss the "make the game easy" part either - people play with the game on easy because they don't want things like Umberdroths chewing on their early civilization.  Lots of people complain about that on these boards.  Spending an hour starting and seeing it ruined by a non-difficulty-level-appropriate encounter is frustrating.  If the game is on normal or challenging or above, in no way shape or form should the difficulty be adjusted down.  Just up if you're crushing it.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting harmonic42, reply 11

This sums it up quite nicely. It is fun to build up your perfect soverign/champions/army/cities/whatever. But inevitably, you will become unstoppable, usually well before the "end game". I don't care for short, quick games, I want to live in the world I've been refining and controlling, rather than just sit lonely at the top with every corner of the world explored, harvested, conquered, and beaten.

Very nicely stated

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting jutetrea, reply 9
I would like to have something where I can say "I've essentially won, I'm unbeatable. Now lets see my score (which isn't kept!!!) and make it tougher). i.e. I'm at the steamroll stage, I'm set up and about to finish the game - now give me a real challenge to finish things off.

I strongly agree with your point of view. Part of the fun of a 4x game is to grow a strong power base, and this is weakened when you don't get to use it.

But making the game difficulty dynamic is not the correct way to do this, mainly because players tend to find it unfair, and they also tend to abuse it (either knowingly as an overpowered strategy, or unknowingly due to not being punished by doing stupid actions).

If I had a suggestion on how to keep the challenge at an acceptable level, it would be to allow the player to change the game/World/AI difficulty in-game. You had a very strong start and you are twice as powerful as the next AI? Bump their difficulty to Hard. Your capital got razed by a random pack of trolls? Bump the world difficulty down to Easy while you recuperate. And so on... Some RPG does that, so why not a single-player TBS? It's up to the player to not abuse it, and a locked difficulty mode can always be added.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting harmonic42, reply 11

Quoting jutetrea, reply 9

I just spent 20 hours polishing this nice toy that let me win - let me use it a bit more.

 

This sums it up quite nicely. It is fun to build up your perfect soverign/champions/army/cities/whatever. But inevitably, you will become unstoppable, usually well before the "end game". I don't care for short, quick games, I want to live in the world I've been refining and controlling, rather than just sit lonely at the top with every corner of the world explored, harvested, conquered, and beaten.

 

Leaving aside some of the deadlier Wildlands, it sounds like you haven't discovered Master's Affliction, Seanw's mod.  It will terrorize like you nothing else, and tenderize your troops like a well-beaten slab of beef.  It's the thinking person's torture chamber.

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

My first time setting up my first game I looked for an option to have the difficulty raise at set intervals, but couldn't find one. :(

Fall From Heaven 2 had an option like that, but it increased the difficulty every 50 turns all the way to the highest difficulty, which is pretty extreme unless you're either starting on one of the top difficulty settings already, or unless your goal is to dominate as super-fast as possible while you can.

I can't stand rubber banding in games, but having a set season where you know ahead of time that the difficulty is going to go up that you have to prepare for and build up for would be very cool to me.  Are there any mods that do something like that already?

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

I personally believe the game in its current state falters at about the early-mid game stage.  What I mean is that there is not enough mid to late game content to keep it interesting past the first 200 turns or so.  This is precisely the point in the game where the RPG element needs to shine.  You've claimed the wilds and built up a good empire, now let's get into the really cool shit.

Weak quests, weak random events, weak items, weak spell effects, weak monsters.  Hopefully these issues will get rectified in future expansions.

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

I would support the design of the OP under a couple of restrictions.

1. It was incorporated as options, not mandatory to use

2. It was not so difficult to develop that it adds $ to the price of the game.

 

Options are always nice. Keeps the replay-ability alive.

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

Part of what the initial poster is unhappy with is a problem in most 4X games that I call "tip over." That is the where run away growth out strips the AI players, and you are left with nothing but mopping up their remains and getting the game's official recognition of your victory.

FE has some good mechanics for delaying tip over: dividing a fix population growth pool by the number of cities and unrest in conquered lands slow you down, but to my mind they don't do enough.

Basing growth of Faction Power means that the dominant sides get even larger. There's no reason they couldn't have made the pool of growth include other factors, including negative ones that would be designed to delay the tip over point. For example, average unrest level or percent of conquered cities could be used to calculate a reduction in the growth pool.

High unrest levels could be made more persistent, and possibly have worse consequences, for example only decaying by itself over a very long time, having a chance of a revolt giving the city to another side and/or damaging units or improvements.

Note that none of this is the dynamic adjustment Tuidjy objects to, it is trying to design things so players get a longer period in the game where you feel you are struggling against roughly equal opponents.

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm guilty of doing the bare minimum on defense/troop buildup for as long as realistically possible.   Buying off enemies, setting them at each others throat, etc     Then when I get my power base settled, my fortress updated a bit, a moderate amount of research THEN I start producing troops. 

In every game so far, up to ridiculous, I've been able to do that and once I start building mounted knights and archers (primarily archers with champions as melee) then its pretty much all over.

So if I can get about 10 cities and keep everyone off my back till chain/archers/juggernauts and mason's are researched - its pretty much game over.   Depending on location I'll usually go for a wildland or two for loot or go for the smallest nearby enemy.

For me, that is the "tipping" point.   I think I'm going to set up a better power base than the enemy, they usually try to be aggressive pretty early.   I'm not going to start a war I'm not going to win, and win handily.  They seem like they'll start a war for the heck of it.

There are other posts that discuss expansion that kind of ties in with this.  Expansion = growth, growth = long term power.   I as the player can see this and plan for it.  Any conflicts that do arise, I try to end as quickly as possible - purely to not interrupt my growth.

I play vanilla so far, but will be trying out the mods soon.

 

 

Reply #20 from Elemental Forums Top

I agree completely with Poko8.  The "tipping point" phenomenon is well established in 4X games, and there's no easy cure.  As far as I'm concerned, it's the defining problem of the genre.  Fall from Heaven 2 tried to introduce some late-game uncertainty through the Armageddon Counter and associated calamities - very innovative, and it did indeed help keep things interesting.  For a little bit, anyway.  

In FE, once I'm ranked #1 in power, I've won.  Enemy AI won't declare war on me, and rampaging Skaths no longer worry me.  It's game over.  Poko, your examples of late-game technologies or strategies are spot on - I have never trained Dragons, and never will.  I cleared exactly one Wildland one time, because I had nothing better to do with my giant army, and will probably never do so again.  Heck, has anyone ever finished the Epic Quest victory? 

All of this is a big shame, because there are some awesome late game concepts (dragons, Wildlands) that just never see the light of day because the player has already tipped over into insurmountable dominance.  Poko's dominance-triggered events would at least keep you guessing a little farther past the tipping point.  I have a game right now that I will definitely quit UNLESS a portal of ravenous demons opens in the middle of my domain.  Here's hoping. 

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

Hey guys,

Interesting ideas from all sides.

Maybe my grasp or understanding of FE's capabilities are flawed or unsubstantiated. Partly by my own designs I have not read too much on modding & the game universe & rules as I do not want that info to influence any future plans I have brewing....

Isn't FE Moddable?

Couldn't a Modder who wants a feature, design that feature into a stand alone map?

Short version:

Modder designs a map, tacticals, and some other tweaks that he/she wants to implement.

Modder designs like, in the module I was envisioning, 3 sovereigns. The 2 AI sovereigns are battling for supremacy in a stand-off. Picture the scene in LOTR at Helm's Deep, but instead of the Orc Horde having a "Sapper's Charge of Tharazdun" to breach Helm's Deep's walls, the armies are in a loooong siege {many years}. The 2 AI channelers are chipping away at each other with Strategic Spells. Then they accumulate mana over many seasons. A stand off.

The player starts the game and picks the modded map and uses the Faction/Sovereign provided {the story line Champion}. Difficulty is by design of the Modder, who recommends a level of normal,challenging, hard, etc.

The entire Map is story driven with quests and unlocks that lend to the story.

The player can even choose which AI to help/hinder or defeat. Does he/she play as a spy and infiltrate the "good guys" to find out how to disrupt the Magical Barrier surrounding their lands? Or does the player help the "good guys", and either help defend the city and throw back the "Evil Wizards" armies and eventually surround his Tower {or w/e} and battle him for the "good guys"?

Yes, the Dragonslayer can be unlocked to help defeat an optional side quest Dragon, but not necessary. Maybe it just gains the player this Hero unit? IDK...

Point is, isn't this DDE kind of in the game already (?), but to make it happen and for another player to experience it, a modder would have to take the time to make a stand alone module...

{note: I understand the OP's wanting scaling difficulty based on some variables, just throwing out options}

SS

 

Reply #22 from Elemental Forums Top

Perhaps it would be nice if every starting location would consist of some 3 grain 3 material 2 essence tiles.

Reply #23 from Elemental Forums Top

I categorize fallen enchantress as a strategy game. And a strategy game should never ever punish you for good play and be lenient towards bad play. Because if it does, it basically doesn't matter what you do, you'll get at the same position after x time anyway. So you may as well not play at all, your decisions don't matter anyway...