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Empire Earth seriesEE1's Cheating AI(16 posts)solved(16 posts)solved
(16 posts)solved
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This is my favourite topic
Posted December 08, 2015
It's all over the reviews that Empire Earth 1 is totally ruined by the AI which just cheats, PROFANELY, in every possible way that it can, regardless of difficulty level settings.

Cheating AI's are also one of my absolute all time pet-hates too! Why do these utter t\/\/@ts of programmers insist on taking the piss by creating such stupid AI's? All they do is utterly destroy their own games. Which is a great shame as "Empire Earth 1" could have been real diamond!

Anyway, I've only just started playing EE1 and already I've noticed this AI - even the second mission of the first (the Greek) campaign has proven impossible! I've not played a skirmish mode, but read in the reviews skirmish is even WORSE!

My question is "how EXACTLY does the AI cheat"..... I will create a cheat table on Cheat Engine to give me the exact same cheats and level the playing field! Then I can get a fair and square game out of it. I could just go for infinite resources and god modes, but they take all the point out of a game! I just want to balance it.
Even better - is there a patch that removes all the cheating from the AI?

Other than that, this is going in "GOG.com total turkey waste of time" bin. And believe me, "Empire Earth" will NOT be alone in there!!!!!

PS/ Is "Empire Earth 2" the same with it's AI? If it is, I will make sure I WON'T be foolishly buying that one in the future neither. And is "Empire Earth 3" really as bad as everyone says?!!!!!

I understand a lot of the cheats given to the AI are actually to try and hide some of the awful programming behind it. You can actually play with the AI cheats disabled (some of them anyway - I don't think all get disabled) but the AI plays poorly then. The developers have tried to mask their dog shit (the poor AI) by wrapping it in cat shit (the cheating)!
All I can say to the programmer(s) of "Empire Earth 1" is "Thanks for all that shit wrapped in more shit" - you've degraded what should have been an absolute star of a game!

Or maybe it is actually the entire <ahem> "science" <ahem> of "Artificial Intelligence (or rather Stupidity) that's to blame..... IMO much of this field (especially the Richard Dawkinsian fields of artificial life / conciousness) is utter bollocks!
Post edited December 09, 2015 by JMayer70
This question / problem has been solved by ChrisTXimage
Posted December 10, 2015
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JMayer70: My question is "how EXACTLY does the AI cheat"..... I will create a cheat table on Cheat Engine to give me the exact same cheats and level the playing field!
The A.I. receives obscene amounts of resources every second so their economy is basically just for show. You can bomb their workers into smithereens and you'll experience no slowdown. You can even kill all the enemies' citizens and if you leave production buildings alive, you'll experience endless waves of hostile troops spammed towards you.
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JMayer70: Even better - is there a patch that removes all the cheating from the AI?
You can turn it off in the scenario editor under AI settings.... but uhm.... the AI is really barebones. Basically the reason for the insane levels of cheating is that the AI is abysmal and is expected to lose a bazillion of soldiers because it can't manage their troops in any way whatsoever. Play with the AI on hardest settings with that cheat box unchecked. The AI will very likely never be able to produce troops in any significant amount.
Posted December 10, 2015
Ok - sounds like a scenario where you would have to give yourself what would be "god mode level" cheats to even get even with the AI. Which would render the game pointless unfortunately. So that's not a solution.

I have tried it with the AI cheating turned off, and the AI does indeed seem pretty damn shit without it. Probably the worst AI I've seen in ANY RTS game. EVER. Including even the absolutely godawful original C & C games and even more godawful "Z"!!!!!
I did manage to get the AI to give me somewhat of an on-going skirmish game by deliberately being very passive myself (ie I only defended against it's few attacks and avoiding attacking it back). Not much of a "game" to be sure!

The only solution to that would be a mod that totally re-writes the AI routines. Maybe I'll get the time to try and dissect the code do that myself - if the game's developers have made it openable for reviewing/editing that is! I bet the tight-arsed bastids have not! Transplanting the AI from "Age of Empires 2" might help, if poss, also! AoE2 wasn't perfect neither, but it gave you a fair game with seemingly minimal AI cheating.

Other than that, only by using the mission editor to make script driven scenarios, avoiding sandbox skirmish style ones, will get you a scenario worth playing.

What a sad spoiling of what should be a such a nice game - all thanks to some ret@rd who couldn't even code an "IF..... THEN" into the game's AI.
Post edited December 10, 2015 by JMayer70
Posted December 10, 2015
The resource cheating can be really bothersome during skirmishes (at least towards the end - the first 75% of a skirmish is wicked fun for me), but I didn't find it much of an impediment in the campaign, which I thought was a lot of fun.

You say the 2nd greek mission is near impossible? Is that the one where you've got to build some boats and settle a new land? I finished that level a couple of weeks ago, and it wasn't that difficult but it did take some time. I used cyclones to get rid of several enemy ships on the ocean, and when I finally landed on the other piece of land I managed to accumulate quite a formidable cavalry army by converting the enemy's horse riders.

With a resource cheating AI like the one in EE, I find that encroaching fortified settlements/bases are effective. For example, on that 2nd greek level, I built a small settlement on the hill (with a stone deposit?) southwest from where you're supposed to build your new capitol. Walling in the settlement and building a temple, university and hospital, it becomes an armoured forward position. If someone gets attacked close to the settlement, I retreat them behind the walls, and let 2/3 priests convert a couple of the attacking force. This works quite well in skirmishes also.
Posted December 13, 2015
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Matewis: You say the 2nd greek mission is near impossible? Is that the one where you've got to build some boats and settle a new land? I finished that level a couple of weeks ago, and it wasn't that difficult but it did take some time. I used cyclones to get rid of several enemy ships on the ocean, and when I finally landed on the other piece of land I managed to accumulate quite a formidable cavalry army by converting the enemy's horse riders.
It's the one were you have that Pelop, or Ploppy or whatever his name is, and his three sons whom you have to "get to Argos". They must need a new dishwasher badly or something :D
Anyway, Ploppy keeps on suddlenly croaking in even minor battles, for some reason, once I've got them to what is meant to be mainland Greece! The mission fails if Ploppy cant hold his sh*t in! :D
Post edited December 13, 2015 by JMayer70
Posted December 13, 2015
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Matewis: You say the 2nd greek mission is near impossible? Is that the one where you've got to build some boats and settle a new land? I finished that level a couple of weeks ago, and it wasn't that difficult but it did take some time. I used cyclones to get rid of several enemy ships on the ocean, and when I finally landed on the other piece of land I managed to accumulate quite a formidable cavalry army by converting the enemy's horse riders.
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JMayer70: It's the one were you have that Pelop, or Ploppy or whatever his name is, and his three sons whom you have to "get to Argos". They must need a new dishwasher badly or something :D
Anyway, Ploppy keeps on suddlenly croaking in even minor battles, for some reason, once I've got them to what is meant to be mainland Greece! The mission fails if Ploppy cant hold his sh*t in! :D
Lol yes I remember, it is that same mission, and he is a bit squishy. Best to put him on defensive stance asap, and leave him at the new capitol.
Posted December 16, 2015
I don't play campaign mode. And, yes, the AI "cheats" in random map, too.

One way I've found to keep it a challenge at medium levels without being obnoxious is to edit the files so everyone gets 3 pumpkin patches at start of game. It makes no difference later in the game, but gives you a shot at getting a sufficient defense by the time the AI starts beating down your door.

I generally play 1v3 or if my son is playing, 2v5. With a good initial placement, maybe more is do-able, but even that can sometimes be intense enough.
Posted December 21, 2015
Pelops is just a renamed horse archer with 6x the normal HP. The AI isn't killing him with cheats, they're killing him because a few shock units (the RPS counter to archers), like those horsemen one of the mainland enemies specializes in, is all it takes to kill him.
Posted December 27, 2015
Funny enough, as I've continued playing EE and the Age of Conquest DLC, the AI does *not* appear to have "infinate resources" IMO. In fact the only glaringly obvious cheat the AI employs appears to be the build rate for building and units and also repair / heal rates of the same. They are at least five times your rates. You can be pounding a tower with several battleships and just two, heck even one, civvie can outpace your damage per second with his repair per second!

Of course you just battleship that civvies ass first and continue pounding the tower.

Other than that the AI has been proving to be exceptionally retarded. Overall as the AI is now not so "unbeatable" after all it has, despite the continued shitty game it gives you, improved the gameplay somewhat from the totally and utterly shitty it seemed at first!

PS/ I don't call it "AI". I call it "AS", "artificial stupidity"..... and I believe the entire "science" of it to be just as stupid, and all these games I'm seeing are giving me the self-proof I need! Sorry to all the "AI / machine consciousness" Sheldonistas, and all the little "Richard Dawkins imps" that may offend!!!!! ;D

Actually not sorry in the slightest!!!!!
Post edited December 27, 2015 by JMayer70
Posted December 27, 2015
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Snowball359: Pelops is just a renamed horse archer with 6x the normal HP. The AI isn't killing him with cheats, they're killing him because a few shock units (the RPS counter to archers), like those horsemen one of the mainland enemies specializes in, is all it takes to kill him.
By "shock" you mean sword and mace armed toe-to-toe melee units - but not spear or polearm units melee, as they are "pierce" class attack units, right? Or is "pierce" class for the thrown spear, units or any other thrown weapons? "Rock throwers" for example?

Anyway units with "shock" class attacks are then "scissors" to poor old Ploppy's "paper"?

PS/ Should it be "toe-to-hoof"? Ploppy is on horseback if I remember?!!!! :D
Post edited December 27, 2015 by JMayer70
Posted March 16, 2018
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JMayer70: PS/ I don't call it "AI". I call it "AS", "artificial stupidity"..... and I believe the entire "science" of it to be just as stupid, and all these games I'm seeing are giving me the self-proof I need! Sorry to all the "AI / machine consciousness" Sheldonistas, and all the little "Richard Dawkins imps" that may offend!!!!! ;D

Actually not sorry in the slightest!!!!!
Actually A.I. Stands for Artificial Idiocy, not Artificial Intelligence.
Posted April 06, 2018
Its still brain dead on my game they don't even get out of the first Epoch most of the time.
Posted April 06, 2018
...Then advance five ages at a pace of one age every five minutes, naturally without needing any resources for it.

The game reminds me of Call of Duty in that your only way to victory is advancing forward. The enemy cannot be starved to death, cannot run out of troops or resources.
Post edited April 06, 2018 by Themken
Posted April 25, 2018
I vaguely remember my last game of EE1 from several years ago - a landlocked skirmish map. I'd progressed from Prehistoric to either Renaissance or Imperial, but I highly doubt I reached Industrial. I never finished the game, but I held out against the AI for as long as I could. Walls were essential for deterring raids, but the AI was relentless with pumping out masses of siege units. Much of the game was spent playing defensively, as the AI's sheer aggressiveness and resilience made mounting any kind of offensive almost ineffectual.
Posted April 25, 2018
In skirmishes I can never take any enemy territory before the industrial age. Strange that despite how dumb the game is in many ways it still pulls me back for a night with it once year or so. The campaigns have several excellent battles and fleeing in a potato lorry will always stay in my memory.
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Empire Earth seriesEE1's Cheating AI(16 posts)solved(16 posts)solved
(16 posts)solved