The AI in my random shard games seems to be - ahem - extremely competent!

I had a couple of provinces in my latest game with spiders - 11 and 13 IIRC! Given the fact that my best hero was level 15 (or less!) and possessing some pretty average items, I decided to 'grind' so that I could conquer those provinces without significant casualties in my army!

The AI actually conquered those two provinces without breaking a sweat. It also declared war on me; I was expecting to be steamrolled! However the heroes were pretty low level with troops actually inferior to mine! I managed to defeat the enemy heroes, conquer provinces until the AI asked for peace. Normally that is an indication that the AI has run out of gas!

IIRC the AI was running around with shamans, thugs and executioners (the better stuff - it had some filler stuff also like militia). I had guardsmen, unicorns and knights. Just to be clear, most heroes had at most 1 or 2 level 3 slot open! The armies were decent but not ones which sweep aside level 4 province guards aside!

I am not sure how those AI armies were running around clearing such provinces easily? I cleared the equivalent (and tougher stuff) much later when my heroes were able to pack lots of high level items, units and spells! Also, spiders can't be negotiated with... I can understand a Scout with maxed out diplomacy simply running around 'persuading' provinces to join but it didn't seem the case here.

To sum up; it's a bit fishy!

P.S. Eador Genesis experience above, haven't played enough of Broken World to see AI behavior.

Don't think they do. But they are pretty reckless and attack stuff sometimes with lots of losses,what the player would do later.
You can watch the AI battles with cheatengine and that table that was posted here by tuxutat some months ago. If he had some poison immunity item on a warrior he could beat them pretty easily. A mage with some mass spells would have no problem I think.

Yeah just saw this and thought Mass Slow and/or Mass Disease would really hurt those spiders massively and leave them open to killing by the normal units. Not to mention Mass Suicide.

Sadly I do think the computer cheats it's Arse off as they win battles there is no way they should be able to.

I still like Genesis though and support it way over Broken World.

The AI's leading heroes at that time were a Warrior and Commander - plus in all my subsequent battles I never saw a mass spell! I remember that shard at being really poor at dropping mass spells; I finally got 'mass slow' after I built the level 3 spell building (forgot the name).

Perhaps the AI did conquer the province by losing a lot of troops; though the problem I have is that against a horde of spiders a low level army is simply going to be webbed and poisoned to death.

Typical order of battle:
1. Leading spider webs
2. Trailing spider waits
3. Leading spider 'bites'
4. Trailing spider webs

Kind of hard to fight without some level 3/4 units or spells!

A commander with a lot of crossbowmen might be able to win with heavy losses. 1 or 2 of those spiders might die before webbing anybody.

Commander-Scout hybrid can easily clear waves of spiders at high level. If lucky, can get enough slots by level 15ish to pack enough ranged units to blow away these units! I have cleared worse [multiple cyclops/hydras] with bowmen; if you can get elves or centaurs it becomes easier still!

Elves get double shot and fire arrows at pretty low levels. Centaurs can shoot and then fight melee to finish off low-hp units.

I'm not so sure, this thread is the first time I read anywhere that the computer cheats in combat. During my play on expert I did not notice this either. It would be easy to prove with the cheatengine table by watching the computer fights. Or backup the savegame of the round before the computer takes an impossible province. Then we can all watch it.

Maybe he did not beat the spiders at once, but lost the first fight and then sent in his second hero to fight the rest?

That's a good idea; I would definitely like to see how the AI fights! How does the cheat engine work? Do you get to see all the fights fought by the AI?

Tuxutat made a thread here on how to do it. Basically you download a hexediting program called cheatengine. Then you load his table of hex values into it and it lets you alter all kinds of stuff of the running game. I like it to monitor the immediate changes to karma value numerically.

http://www.gog.com/forum/eador_series/trainer_cheat_for_eador/page1


Actually now that I look at it you can only watch the AI fight against your own guards. The watching them fight neutral function didnt work quite right and always crashed. O-Bummer!

@Jamotide: Thanks for the explanation.

I still think that would be useful; often watching the AI fight your guards can tell you opposing hero spells. Most other stats are visible from the summary screen which gives the result. Obviously it helps to know if the Mage with five militia has a raise ghost spell!

One thing that really the game needs is a spy option which gives some idea of the opposing AI - development, income and army strength. Some things like resources and castle development can be inferred respectively from the diplomacy screen and non-scroll guards deployed; but it would help in having more information!

I had already thought the same thing as the OP but i did not think the question worth asking because i just assumed the AI would cheat in this manner simply as a matter of game functionality.

The AI cheats as he has a better chance of getting an alliance by simple entering the province. While I had no chance against centaurs, the AI just negiotated an Alliance with them, without those difficult quest involved and acquired the province without even fighting for it.

I think the AI always knows everything about your heroes, even when it hasn't met them in combat yet.

How does it know my lone Warrior is a powerhouse to be afraid of and retreat from? How does it know my Wizard is fodder to be rolled over?

Also your heroes, when giving hints, seem to be aware of the levels of guards / lair inhabitants. Pretty sure I've seen approximately the same number of the same type of guards can trigger a "this'll be an easy battle" or "attacking would mean suicide" messages for the same exact hero, I'm thinking depending on the levels of the enemies, without even using the Scout option.