6 hour test on Challenging - Monsters NEVER attack AI

ouch suspicions confirmed...

Noticed the AI often doesn't attack my settlements either, even when it would win easily.

This isn't an AI cheat as much as it is part of the game's design to me.

 So far I've lost 4 of my 10 cities to roaming groups of monsters but they never attack the AI cities or outpost. I really like how threatening and hostile the world is with all the horrible creatures but I don't like losing soldiers and resources to monsters when the AI is able to avoid it and build many more cities and large army's while I'm fighting some angry earth elemental. The monsters should attack the AI with the same zeal it attacks me with.

I think another problem is the AI doesn't attack monsters either. 

Just about finished a large map game where I conquered about half the map after ~500 turns of defending my medium sized kingdom in a corner. The AI kingdoms/empires had loads of, fairly well developed cities spread across the amp BUT ALL MONSTERS WERE STILL THERE AND ROAMING ABOUT.

After 500 turns, when most of the map has been claimed for hundreds of turns, i roll in enemy territory and see anything from weak wildling groups to strong and deadly Ogres, Drakes, Bandits... etc, roaming about the place like it's still turn 1. complete with loads of dens, bear caves and even UNGUARDED BUT UNCLAIMED points of interest the AI seems to have no interest in.

This makes zero sense (since you'd imagine the AI would be interested in leveling its armies on these monster groups like I do), and it completely kills immersion.

I love you guys

Before v1.3, the monsters attacked the AI. I can confirm seeing it.

The AI has always been rather sloppy about clearing its lands but... with the latest 1.3 version I've seen a pack of wolves raze an AI city, I've seen AI scouts, pioneers and champions get whacked by roaming monsters (I've seen the animated combat on the strategic map) and I have seen AI players attacking (weak) monsters quite often. Just observe an AI sovereign at the start of the game if you chance to encounter one early on. It's quite obvious he/she is clearing some goodie huts.

But yes, it's far from optimal but the AI probably needs the monsters' more benevolent disposition towards it to survive.

In current version (1.3), monsters are actually AI's natural defenders.

Almost every time my troops move into AI's territory, groups of roaming ogres, drakes, bears, spiders 2 tiles away will aggro on me, abandoning their lairs to kill me.

What worse is that, if I don't clear those monsters before I heading to the next AI's town, they will most likely to attack the town I just captured, consider the monster density in AI's territory spawned from lairs for hundreds of turns.

The AI should be tweaked to hunt down monsters. It is an unfair advantage... for the player, since that way the AI is missing out on a whole lot of XP for their armies and heroes. Even the +1 fame for clearing lairs helps quite a bit.

I believe based on another thread that monsters never target Outposts, human or AI, although they may occasionally move into one at random. I believe not having the AI aggressively clear out lairs was a design decision to leave some for the player to fight later in the game, I don't know if the monster aggression against the AI was toned down to compensate for this. Certainly on higher difficulty levels the mobile monsters actively attack me, and if strong enough will head straight to attack my city, and I don't think they do that to the AI.

Monster behaviour has changed quite a lot in the last couple of patches, I haven't had that much chance to observe. Certainly lair monsters are much less likely to leave their lairs. They will apparently ignore cities more than one tile away. A strong mobile monster stack deliberately targeted one of my cities with weak defenders. On the other hand weaker stacks seem to wander past my city without attacking. I get the impression that mobile monsters are patrolling around a certain point, they seem to regularly return to that point. I don't know if they have a preference for certain types of location; for example in my current (Insane) game a Fallen Juggernaut has set-up camp next to a road. If it spots one of my units it will deliberately target it.

I believe based on the previous thread that monsters do treat the AI factions differently, certainly on higher difficulty levels. I'm not sure about Challenging. If:

then clearly the monsters kill the AI sometimes. I don't know if mobile monster movement is essentially random on lower difficulty levels, becoming more focused on the player at higher difficulty levels; that is certainly my hypothesis based on what Frogboy said in this thread:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/448183/page/1/#replies

I don't know. I"m still mixed on whether Monsters give AI special treatment or not. I think the AI have some special treatment.

But I did watch Altar lose it's last city to monsters surrounding it's last city, there was like about 15 monsters just chilling. I think it only got attacked because I dumped a falling star that oneshot everything in it except for heroes at 1 hp. They can take a falling star and be merely incapacitated Then i reloaded to get the monsters and ruffians has slain altar faction message for screenie, except this time, it went on for 40 turns without being attacked even once and i kept on dropping falling star every turn and raged. I think relias was taunting me so I moved my sovereign into the range of his city and summoned a volcano to kill us both.

The behaviour described (monsters kill AI city once, but then don't attack for many turns when the game is reloaded and replayed slightly differently) could fit with the hypothesis that monsters will attack the AI troops and cities, but that this is more or less random. Mobile monsters definitely target my units and cities on Ridiculous and Insane. I don't know about lower difficulty levels, e.g. Challenging.

Well, if the AI is not trying to take out monsters - I mean if it is WAD not to - then there should be an alternative way for it to getting XP and leveling it's troops. I know they are going after quests, but that is not enough imho. Leveling heroes is important but so is, and maybe more, leveling ordinary troops. Leaving them for the player is kind of worthless, since when the player decides or is forced to invade the AI, they usually are beyond the monster-killing-for-XP stage.

The only way I can get my heroes and accompanying troops strong enough to go after tougher quests and higher level monsters is by hunting mobs and lairs all over the map. And even basic troops that survive from the first stages of the game are quite powerful when they are leveled up. It's unfair for the AI not to be doing that. Maybe it should be tweaked it to aggressively target roaming spawns and leave lairs untouched ? 

I sort of agree with the decision for the AI not to take out all lairs (assuming that's still in, clearly AI behaviour has changed significantly in the last couple of patches). At least, I can understand the reasoning; taking out lairs is fun, and if the AI made clearing them high priority there would be none left from quite early on in the game. If you think this puts the AI at a disadvantage, you can compensate for the AI by increasing the difficulty.

If you cast inelectable vison in the late game you'll see a large swarm of red dots on the map around the AI, which pretty much proves that the AI factions don't attack monsters, and more than likely, the monsters don't attack the AI. (Otherwise they wouldn't have many cities left, if they did)

No need to worry about that, the AI heroes and troops are obviously subject to different rules when it comes to gaining experience. This was especially apparent during the earlier 1.3 version when the AI players would sit in their cities and do nothing. Their troops along with sovereigns and champions were still gaining levels quite nicely, on a par with my own.  So... there is no need for them to dirty their weapons with monster blood.

the more enemies you have, the more xp you may get. isn't the battle the reason for playing?

To some extent yes.

In early game, more mobs match your army's strength is nice. But be careful if you want to rush AI early, because monsters will target you first. and you better raze AI's city settled right next to bone ogre, drake, dragon, fire elements etc, which is annoying.

However, later on it is getting tedious to clean up the 'mess' and 'junk' in AI's territory. Because most of those mobs (bears, wolfs, darklings, spiders, trolls, etc.) are not interesting anymore. More fun in the wild land in my opinion. Sometimes there are drakes and dragons next AI's city, which is kind of a  interesting fight.

And in the middle and late game, do I need even more XP/level for my main hero? or maybe I do need level up a 2nd or 3rd commander, to clean up the 'mess' more efficiently.

Sorry but this is nit true.  The monsters do not treat the AI differently.   It is probably true that the AI doesn't do a good enough job going after the monster lairs and thst is something that needs to be further worked on. But the monster attack code is trivially simple and does not know which player it is evaluating.

One can easily look at AI champions and see injuries that were inflicted on them. Play a 1 on 1 game and then look and an AI champion. Those injuries didn't happen on their own.