Easy Magic.

That scenario gives huge discount and removes the limit for casting.

The AI tends to keep a nonsensical bank of resources and units. The heroes were hired (it's just money), the units were some combination of already on the map and in fog of war, raised (Noctus is a necromancer), drafted, rally of the lieges, and maybe even spending imperium (there's a couple imperium tree 'raise army' options).

The AI seems to create heroes seemingly for free. I wipe them all out then a wave of all new heroes just appears - and often they have a bunch of items on them too.

All strategy games like 4x games lately cheat with economy, one of the ways the AI does this in the game is rally, the rally feature lets it almost instantly drop more than it could recruit from cities.
honestly i think the game says there is no economy advantage but its false, because i keep doing economy while fielding T1 T2 units, while the AI fields T3 T4 units no matter how many times i kill them, and they don't lose morale from not having enough energy or funds for upkeep like the player does, more sus is the fact that they can produce that many high tier units so many times in succession midgame, meaning insane funds for recruiting despite high upkeep.
The AI economy midgame feels like the player economy lategame even when you focus on economy and growth.

It's easy to program an AI to move perfectly in a grid, and use tactics, its not easy to teach it to use strategy or when to switch tactics, specially in a larger scale like a world map.

I still forgive that and play the game because its fun, it just could be better. FYI if you try the challenge map with Noctus (the librarian was it?), thats the biggest BS build in the game so don't get discouraged, It doesn't match its difficulty level, its harder than the hardest marked maps.

Well. you see, this specific scenario has been created by one of Triumph's veteran empoyees, Kevin. It's kinda a personal story, but I feel like this clarification is needed to let people understand what this is all about. So, Kevin used to be a real bookworm at school and in college, and he used to be a target for bullies for many years. it was a really traumatizing experience for him, and working on video games let him escape from the psychological trauma of his early years. It helped a bit, but he's still a virgin in his late 40s.

This scenario is a reverse experience that shows a bookworm in an alpha body of an orc warlord bulling the player. He has a lot of advantages and high tier books early in the game. You should have obviously hit him with all you got as soon as possible to show where whimps like him really belong. Too bad you were not man ehough to do so...

Originally posted by jackbpace:

How is the AI able to produce and move 60 units and 12 heroes to attack me in just two turns?
I'm playing a scenario where I need to eliminate someone called the Librarian. I had a solid economy and five heroes, each leading mostly Tier 3–4 units as well as storm giants. So, I declared war and launched an attack on one of his five cities. I sent four heroes with full retinues to begin the assault. To test the waters, I razed a mine to see how he’d respond.
The very next turn, he sent a full retinue of his strongest heroes against me. I took them down, losing only three units. But then he sent another wave—again, full retinues—and I lost three more. I regrouped my four groups into three, still holding 17 units and four heroes.
But the turn after that? Yet another full wave with hero leaders. My units were wounded, so while I won the fight, I was down to 12 units and three heroes. Then, in that same turn, he sent a second wave—and that finally wiped me out.
How is he able to field so many units so quickly, and at my location? Even if he had them stationed in other cities, how could he mobilize them all in one turn? Can the AI actually produce unlimited troops in a city in a single turn? I know I can only rush one.

Straight up cheating. Especially on campaign maps.

The AI does not cheat with mechanics, but does cheat with economy. Age of Wonders 4 offers a LOT of different paths to turn money into units. It's not uncommon for the AI to do massive Rally plays that aren't so massive because they have giant piles of money to spend on it, while also rush-building units from every city while also summoning. Necromancer AI's in particular end up with so many souls that I have had to fight off over a hundred stacks from one AI on brutal, with almost all of it being various flavors of low end trash that died on contact with my pyre templars.

Originally posted by AnemoneMeer:

The AI does not cheat with mechanics, but does cheat with economy. Age of Wonders 4 offers a LOT of different paths to turn money into units. It's not uncommon for the AI to do massive Rally plays that aren't so massive because they have giant piles of money to spend on it, while also rush-building units from every city while also summoning. Necromancer AI's in particular end up with so many souls that I have had to fight off over a hundred stacks from one AI on brutal, with almost all of it being various flavors of low end trash that died on contact with my pyre templars.

Hey broski, cheating the economic gameplay mechanics is in fact cheating the mechanics.

Originally posted by Rumi:

Originally posted by AnemoneMeer:

The AI does not cheat with mechanics, but does cheat with economy. Age of Wonders 4 offers a LOT of different paths to turn money into units. It's not uncommon for the AI to do massive Rally plays that aren't so massive because they have giant piles of money to spend on it, while also rush-building units from every city while also summoning. Necromancer AI's in particular end up with so many souls that I have had to fight off over a hundred stacks from one AI on brutal, with almost all of it being various flavors of low end trash that died on contact with my pyre templars.

Hey broski, cheating the economic gameplay mechanics is in fact cheating the mechanics.

What they mean is that the AI doesn't magically get units for no reason.

Everything the AI does, you can also do if you have a better economy.

And the AI are limited to never having more than 2.25x your military regardless of their economy on max difficulty. This number is lower on lower difficulties.


The exception to this are the special rulers and story campaigns. I think they do cheat a bit but I have not tested it.

Originally posted by Estellese:

The exception to this are the special rulers and story campaigns. I think they do cheat a bit but I have not tested it.

Special rulers just tend to start with a bonus (for example, the demon prince starts with a bunch of extra units researched and the demon major transformation). Story missions do have events that spawn units.

Originally posted by Estellese:

Originally posted by Rumi:

Hey broski, cheating the economic gameplay mechanics is in fact cheating the mechanics.

What they mean is that the AI doesn't magically get units for no reason.

Everything the AI does, you can also do if you have a better economy.

And the AI are limited to never having more than 2.25x your military regardless of their economy on max difficulty. This number is lower on lower difficulties.


The exception to this are the special rulers and story campaigns. I think they do cheat a bit but I have not tested it.

Wholey and completely untrue, I wish people would not pretend to state facts that are clearly wrong, The AI very much cheats, and in multiple ways, they ignore economy almost completely, as well as makeing units far faster than is available to the player, And i have personally witnessed them move units in ways that are entirely impossable. Not to mentioned a host of other mechanics they ignore seemingly at a whim. I dont have it saved, but i remeber the dev mentioning that they give the AI the ability to cheat to present a challenge to the player. But what good is a stratagy game based on rules, when the enemy does not have to follow said rules. Many stratagies are just moot when they have no effect except that you believe it does.

Originally posted by Ravensong:

And i have personally witnessed

So your source is "trust me, bro".

You are, in fact, wrong. There is nothing in this game's programming that allows the AI to cheat in ways OTHER than economically. And if it's not programmed, it's impossible.

you're complaining about a challenge with buffed player with five cities having an army?

I guess the devs need to add difficulty settings for these...

Originally posted by Ravensong:

Wholey and completely untrue, I wish people would not pretend to state facts that are clearly wrong, The AI very much cheats, and in multiple ways, they ignore economy almost completely, as well as makeing units far faster than is available to the player, And i have personally witnessed them move units in ways that are entirely impossable. Not to mentioned a host of other mechanics they ignore seemingly at a whim. I dont have it saved, but i remeber the dev mentioning that they give the AI the ability to cheat to present a challenge to the player. But what good is a stratagy game based on rules, when the enemy does not have to follow said rules. Many stratagies are just moot when they have no effect except that you believe it does.

That is some extreme projection friend. Everything you accuse me of is what you just did here. Here's the statement from the devs that you are citing.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/feature-request-no-more-ai-benefits-i-e-no-really-what-are-the-a-i-benefits.1636183/

The devs do say, in this linked thread, that they give the AI some advantages to be a challenge. But those do not include free units or special movement or ignoring base game mechanics.

They can't even build more than double your army on max difficulty. So if you keep a small but efficient army you just cripple even the best AI. Because they can't function with a small army.


https://steamah.com/age-of-wonders-4-ai-explained/
They do not get movement cheats.
They do not get any free units after the initial start of the game. (except story mode)


They do not make strategies moot. If your strategy is moot it probably isn't a very good one. If you want to face an AI with zero bonuses, play against a very easy AI. They get basically nothing. Higher level AI are not smarter, they just have more stuff.



I know this because I got frustrated with how weak the AI are, and learned how to mod this game specifically to make them better. I have seen the files (in the editor), I have watched the Ai with fog of war off and studied what they do.


If you really want to stand by this stance that they cheat their movement or in other ways, then go get evidence. It isn't hard. Find it in the files or play a game with classic turns, turn off fog of war, turn on observer mode, and watch them when it isn't your turn. You can use the steam recording tools to easily record your game. As soon as you see it you can just go back in steam replay and clip it.