Alright, I understand, I just thought that it was your mod that adds this buff. By the way, the mod on the units recommended by you interacts very well. Thanks for the clarification.

@Valar That's the vanilla bonus the AI get on "Very Hard" difficulty. (Difficulty 5). Normally it's invisible, they have a hidden +3 defense and resistance, but I didn't like that being hidden, it makes it harder to calculate damage on the fly. So I made it visible.

The story mode difficulties are weird. There's 5 difficulties but the story mode merges them all into three. So it's possible that the "hard" mode of the previous level may have been using difficulty 4 (hard), and the "Hard" mode of this level may be using difficulty 5 (Very hard). (I'm guessing this is the cause, I've not tested the story.) I removed that bonus from difficulty 4 for balance reasons, but left it in difficulty 5.

Normal difficulty (Difficulty 3) will also have it because this mod has that set as the vanilla brutal difficulty settings (plus the extra cities, teleporters, and EXP).

If you hover over their character icon in-game you should be able to see what the real difficulty they have is.

Thanks everyone ^.^

@Passive I don't know of any other unit mods. I know they exist but I've not used them.

Moreover, if I play the same scenario (Goder's ascent, level 3) on 'Normal' difficulty, the buff is also present.

The units have advanced AI +3 to defense and resistance if you hover the mouse over the defense icon! And I was wondering why the AI was beating me so badly :)))))))

Estellese, hello, I am playing the story scenario (Godir's Resurrection, level 3) and there is a buff on the AI for defense on the "hard" difficulty! Was this intended by you? Or not? It's just that in the previous scenario on the same "hard" difficulty, the AI didn't have this.

Amazing mod. The AI is actually extremely intimidating now.

@estellese great mod suggestion, I love the new units. Can you recommend any other similar mods?

I'm trying easy mode as a new player and pleasantly surprised that I'm losing.

@Estellese pls accept my friend request I would like request mod for making stronger heros over all :P

where are that change notes? I don't see them im blind ^^

Yes, all updates are in the change notes.

hey did you make mod upgrade ?

ok papi sleep well and I'm glad to hear that you removed it k thx bye

You mean the defense bonus? I did end up removing that from hard.

I don't think they get a damage bonus. But I can check again in the morning. It's 4am for me.

you should remove the damage bonuses from hard ;-). damage bonus zukks.

@Practice Robot 5
If you have never played AOW before, I suggest trying the vanilla difficulties first. My easiest difficulty takes away a lot from the AI, but the buffs it adds might be a lot to someone completely new. Expansion works a little different here, and this mod makes them expand fast (usually), so make sure that's hammered down first. Then easy or very easy should be good for someone learning.

And yep it works with unit mods. I tested a lot with this one because I love this one.
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3023411279

But the other unit mods should also work as long as they don't edit the tomes. (If they do edit the tomes, put them after mine in the load order. The AI will lose the cooldown reduction for that tome, but the mod will work.)



@Kattepung
Thanks! Kept it to myself for like, a year 'cause I figured I was the only one crazy enough to enjoy this. But glad to hear others enjoy it as well. ^.^

@Estellese

Alright, that explains it. Thats a lot more honest as well

Anyways, amazing mod, i've always found the AI lacklustre in these games, but now its an honest challenge

So is easy a good place to start for a player familiar with 4x, but is new to AoW4? Will this work with mods that add units?

@Moon
Thanks ^.^ I am thinking of making an extra mod that just turns off that speed boost when both are used together.

@Kattepung
It does not give the AI units extra stats, the AI units had those extra stats on brutal difficulty in vanilla, but the buff was just invisible. So I made it visible because it was annoying hitting things and not knowing why the damage didn't feel right. As it would show them with 2 armor but they actually had 5, so it always felt off when hitting them.

Internally debating on whether or not I want hard difficulty to have that buff. As it's just part of normal brutal difficulty so I assume most are used to it. But game feels better (to me) without it. (Very hard and normal would still have it if I remove it from hard difficulty.)

Does it give the AI units stat bonuses? I noticed in a game now that the AI had very tough units, but dont know if its this mod or some other

Very good job. Your hard settings without challenging+ combat settings feel nice (compared to brutal, challenging+ and advantage/handicap which i played before with base game options). Used custom leaders with good tome paths and the experience was full of action, struggle and overall a very refreshing and stil probably more difficult alternative to the base early game oneshot fiesta with challenging+ buffs.

Sceptical on the movement speed and city cap increase on small & medium maps, though. Havent tried that yet.

The movement speed mod not work after yours

@PLum
Thanks, glad it is enjoyed ^.^

@Dynia
This mod doesn't make any changes to what units the AI builds. That is decided in a part of the AI that can not be edited by mods. All I can do is give it resources to make better things and hope.

The movement speed mod will work if it comes after mine in the load order.

As for the higher tier units mod, it is this one: (Plus it's submods)
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3023411279

Highly recommend, this mod maker did a good job. And the AI do use these units too, so while it doesn't tell the AI what to build, the AI has more higher tier options. (Although so do you)

Wow, u ain't kidding. Got my rear end handed to me pretty easily. Decent mod!

even I kill AI units he come back with T1 units mixed with T3 and better :P

this 100% movement speed not works with your mod, I have no idea what "the higher tier units mod" is

Although that could be the issue you were facing. As your screenshots were of two AI. A necromancer (Who will always have T1s as the AI will convert kills to skeletons). And a nature affinity leader. (The healing changes breaks nature's tier 3s. He can't summon as many protectors and nymphs because that mod undid my cooldown change. BY default, the cooldown is 1 summon every 5 turns. So Arerlazaliar's tier 3 lineup is gonna be almost nonexistant)

But use the Barentz cheat, it removes the fog of war and is great for testing this stuff. You can just go check what they are making in their cities and check what tier of city it is versus what they are making.

I still strongly recommend using the higher tier units mod if you want the AI to use higher tier units though. It helps.

I am still testing, but you can put your movement speed mod after mine and it will still work. So far in the test, only the healing changes mod seems to be breaking important things.

In my tests, their endgame armies have a lot of issues with stale units. This mod doesn't change what units they make. So turns 1-20 they can only make tier 1 and 2 units. Those units, if not killed, still exist in their army later on. And any new cities they make can also only make tier 1 and 2 units until they build the city tier upgrades.

The AI can not cast more enchantments than they have. In the tests I have run, I've seen the AI using 100% of their enchantments that are unlocked.

Although in these huge modded maps I am seeing an issue with the AI not building as many cities as they should. Not taking advantage of the space. I will see what I can do about that.

hey I also noticed AI still don't use many enchants

@Estellese - can you make movement speed from 30% to 100% ?

https://imgur.com/a/r2hHm5x

finally xD, AI made this but still they like to make T1 units in turn 150+ even I killed thier units few times and he rebuild

well AI still make T1 units :P
also don't see they have more enchants at all

ok removing all other mods

2) double check the in-game AI difficulty. If you hover over the portraits, every AI should say "Very Hard" under their info.

3) Check their leaders/heroes. In their buff list there should be a modded buff that reads "difficulty enhanced, +400% exp" and I also made the game's standard unit buffs that the very hard AI gets visible. (So there is no questioning why you feel like you do less damage when the Enemy AI seemingly has same stats). So they should also have a buff that just reads "very hard Ai"

The movement speed mod will conflict, but it is -probably- okay. Movement is in a different file from the AI changes. So if it overwrites the movement file, the AI changes should be safe.

I will research and test this mod list once I get home from work. But a few things you can do before that.

1) Put your movement speed mod at the very bottom of the list. And then put my mod on the second from the bottom. (So those are the last two.) My mod being last should help negate some conflicts. Then just keep the movement speed buff after mine so it overwrites my movement speeds.

read carefully what this mod changes

Mod description I quote: - Everyone (AI and Players) has +30% movement speed on the world map. While this helps the player, it helps the AI ​​more (IMO) and lets them attack things that are a bit farther away.

I suspect your mod 100% move speed could conflict with this mod, since this mod does that too, but I'm not sure, best ask the author

I play on standard world threat
challenging SI without +

https://imgur.com/a/z6W9rKi

no other AI mods

I will try resubscribing

DYNIA, try unsubscribing to the mod and then subscribing again; it often helps to refresh your data. I suspect it's something to do with your settings.

My only guess at the moment is that your playstyle or PC is screwing with the AI somehow. Or maybe the world settings behind the scenes. Or a mod conflict. But I can't replicate it, and if I can't replicate it I can't really pick apart what is going on.

If you are dedicated to fixing this, I have an idea that may or may not help. I would need to test if it is something your are doing, or if it is your PC. The way to test that would be to find a day we are both available, and to put you in a remote play game on my PC. (You would be controlling my PC and playing a game hosted here) To see if you get the same results.

Then, either your issue pops up on my end and I can see it more clearly what is going on/causing it. Or it works fine and we narrow it down to your PC/world settings. At which time you can stream me a game from your PC (start to finish) so I can try and see what is going on over there.

I have next week off work, so I can be flexible to time schedules all next week.

2/2

I'm not able to replicate this. I can see a lot of summons in those pictures, so it seems my mod is functioning. AI won't typically have that many in vanilla. But I only ever see this behavior in the very easy/easy AIs when using my difficulty mod.

Are you using any other mods?

1/2

https://imgur.com/a/YeXIfDb
https://imgur.com/a/RhrQxn6

turn 150+

@Dynia
This mod doesn't change the AI's unit choices. But the base game AI typically pick the highest they have. But they can go stagnant, if they never go to war their low tier units from early game may still be alive.

This is what the mod looks like in turns 100+ on my end. Map had a lot of fighting, so everyone has lost and rebuilt their armies a few times over. black AI (very hard) took nearly the whole map by himself. Only really opposed by purple AI who he had a back and forth with over that central area. While the light blue AI to the south have just been harassing me all game and I opted to play passive to see what the AI would do if I did nothing to progress a victory condition. (These links only work for two days)

https://cdn.steamusercontent.com/ugc/9787479671347420140/8FB536CA92EE8710942EF95D90194162B685DF7C/

https://cdn.steamusercontent.com/ugc/12908889308029465115/46DC189DC2D14720A8FCE7014104607488DC8B90/

@Valar
Awesome! Thanks for helping debug ^.^

@Furin
My testrun of very hard ended up with a level 20 giant and so many stacks of legendary phantom warriors at my door on like, turn 20-ish. I was quite sad.

I play on brutal now, AI make armies but they still make T1 units after turn 150, I don't see much diffrence with mod and without expect they hero got more levels

AI has enough stacks, I see 5 to 10 in their cities and they are defending. It has become good.

You will propably be sad :) Genius!