Is the AI too difficult now?

[Seleucids]

I've seen several posts that suggest that the current Petra is too difficult, after my changes to its behaviour. My question is, should I make new PRs to nerf it

Also what about creating more granular difficulty levels? For example we can lower the very easy to even lower and add some more extreme levels.

Currently the only cheat of Petra is in terms of eco. We can give the extreme levels other cheats such as bonus to atk, unit hp, building hp, unit movement speed, training time discount, projectile accuracy, armour, price discount...

[DesertRose]

No, medium AI is fine. It's about the level a somewhat competent player can beat consistently after 1-3 tries.

AI can be made easier by decreasing how many units they produce (e.g. Very Easy AI stops producing units when it hits 1/4 of max population), and only advancing to Town Phase / City Phase when the majority of human player clicked on the update.

Giving units / buildings bonuses to their combat stats is a terrible idea. It makes it virtually impossible to learn the game.
You cannot learn to gauge the strength of your opponent's army, and learn how strong different unit classes are if AI units "behave" differently.
Discounts seem pointless when you already have an eco bonus.

The only one that looks acceptable is training time discount.

[Deicide4u]

1 hour ago, Seleucids said:

Currently the only cheat of Petra is in terms of eco. We can give the extreme levels other cheats such as bonus to atk, unit hp, building hp, unit movement speed, training time discount, projectile accuracy, armour, price discount...

Even that one cheat is enough, when combined with all-seeing eye of the AI. We don't need more.

I am actually fine with the difficulty of AI. Medium AI should play like a half-competent player, that's the point. It's just a fair challenge without any bonuses.

People just got used to weak AI in the past releases, so they will have to adjust their strategy. Proper booming is now a hard requirement to beating the Medium AI, and players need to learn how to do that. It should be nearly impossible to beat the AI 1vs2, otherwise the AI is very weak.

Honestly, it's boring to always curb-stomp the AI without a challenge. People need good introduction to the meta, and your changes to the AI achieve that well.

Edited March 26 by Deicide4u

[Arup]

1984 "big brother" was actually Petra all along

[Seleucids]

OK I played 1v3 against very hard AI and it was easy for me. Case closed. 

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Edited March 26 by Seleucids

[AlexHerbert]

I just observed that they go everyone against one player (me), and when team game, Petra plays very hard for them but sometimes for my team decide is time to go on vacation.

Edited March 27 by AlexHerbert
Missed one word

[Atrik]

In any games, but especially RTSs, you can expect a huge level disparity, even between newbies. It's not always obvious what actions are important to win a game.
@Seleucids you already did try to help a lot with tutorials etc. We could always use more of these, or increase their quality. 
The game itself should also rework some of its design to make technicalities easier to overcome for players, or more obvious how to handle them.
These points would make the game much more attractive and accessible. The AI difficulty right now is actually very low, your PRs didn't fix the main issues with it. But for players who don't know the basics it's easy to get overwhelmed, but that's not because of the bot difficulty, who is probably max 1250 in "very hard" mode. So don't worry, if your changes did improve petra, it's certainly a good thing.

[Deicide4u]

22 minutes ago, Atrik said:

The AI difficulty right now is actually very low, your PRs didn't fix the main issues with it.

I wouldn't say it's very low, but decent. Very low maybe for a player who can be considered a veteran of the game or "pro".

But yes, there are still some issues. The AI doesn't counter-react to player's strategy, doesn't heal its units well, and still sends his gatherers to distant resources. Another major issue is the grouping logic, as the AI keeps sending attacking units in a straight line.

Oh, and the classic one: it doesn't use Civilians only for gathering food and wood, and CS only for mining.

[guerringuerrin]

Would be very nice to list all the things to improve so we can keep working on the AI. There are also some AI mods that seem to have good improvements. 

[Perzival12]

3 hours ago, Atrik said:

who is probably max 1250 in "very hard" mode.

This makes me think that part of the description for each AI difficulty should be it’s corresponding rating.

[Obelix]

Only 35 Issues themed AI open on Gitea: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues?type=all&state=open&labels=20

[ittihat_ve_terakki]

Petra has some pretty obvious flaws. For example, if I take one of Petra towers, it's basically the beginning of the end for Petra. It doesn’t think like “There’s a tower here, I shouldn’t pass until I have enough units.” If there’s a tower (or fortress) in the way, their units will just walk right by it.. and die. Most of the new units it produces end up behaving suicidal because of that. Sometimes I even send all my resources just to keep Petra alive.

Now plays better than the previous version, but what it really needs now isn’t stat boosts: it’s improvements in behavioral intelligence. Petra needs to be able to analyze the map and adapt to the situation.

Also whenever I play against a random very hard Petra, it almost always launches an attack around the minute 10. This typical behavior doesn’t feel random to me at all, it seems like a very specific play style.

Petra could behave in more diverse ways. Petra never harasses with cavalry or sneaks rams around for a surprise attack. Its predictability is, in my opinion, its biggest disadvantage, even in "random" mode.

 

On 27/3/2026 at 1:41 AM, Seleucids said:

OK I played 1v3 against very hard AI and it was easy for me. Case closed. 

 

Btw I checked the replay and this is 1v1v2. Green and Yellow had already weakened each other before you attacked them. 

I’m sure you can handle a 1v3 as well. It’d be great if you shared the replay of it too.

[Tapothei]

11 hours ago, ittihat_ve_terakki said:

Btw I checked the replay and this is 1v1v2.

?????????????????????
And here I thought @Seleucidsactually 1v3.... can you please word it properly next time and not sound deceiving.
I would like to see you actually 1v3ing those AI or is 1v2 your limit? Oh and I'm talking to seleucid here not you Ittihat.

Edited 12 hours ago by Tapothei

[Deicide4u]

2 hours ago, Tapothei said:

I would like to see you actually 1v3ing those AI or is 1v2 your limit?

I don't think she can either win 1v2. In her 1v1v2, two of the AIs were fighting each other, so she actually played 1v1 for a while.

@Seleucids, for your test to be successful, you need to play 1v2, against two very hard AIs that are in the same team, with teams locked.

And the AIs need to be at their best, so choose two strong civs, like Romans and Seleucids.

Edited 10 hours ago by Deicide4u

[ittihat_ve_terakki]

45 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

I don't think she can either win 1v2. In her 1v1v2, two of the AIs were fighting each other, so she actually played 1v1 for a while.

@Seleucids, for your test to be successful, you need to play 1v2, against two very hard AIs that are in the same team, with teams locked.

And the AIs need to be at their best, so choose two strong civs, like Romans and Seleucids.

1v2 on very hard isn’t that difficult, I’ve done it many times. I’m sure @Seleucids can push it even further. (There was a YouTube video of her where she played 1v7 on very hard but I don’t know that game details enough to fully understand what was going on and the video quality wasn’t good enough to catch the info. Also it was previous versions of the game. The graphics were also terrible because of the mod she was using, it made everything look like an x-ray.)

Today I did 1v2 very hard and it can be seen how effortless it is. I'm not even playin agressive or doing weird tricks. I could have played more harder and finished the game faster but I preferred a more relaxed run. With better preparation and ideas it's possible to do 1v3 or more.

 

 

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[Tapothei]

1 hour ago, ittihat_ve_terakki said:

Today I did 1v2 very hard and it can be seen how effortless it is. I'm not even playin agressive or doing weird tricks. I could have played more harder and finished the game faster but I preferred a more relaxed run. With better preparation and ideas it's possible to do 1v3 or more.

Alright that was a funny game with how your horseman disabling their market. The thing with this map is the enemy can only come in one side. I would like to request you to 1v2 it in an open map like mainland or foothill where they can expand fast and be a manace. I was able to 1v2H AI and it felt like 1V2ing VH AI from 0.27.1. In a chokepoint of any rts its a fun way to play it, but I am going to miss being able to 1v3VH. But hey if any of you can show your replay that you can 1v2 or even 1v3 them in an open land map, I a casual too can do it, you just have to prove it. Thank you bro. Also my setting(1v3ing them) at that time was 300pop limit and low resource, no treasure.

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Edited 8 hours ago by Tapothei

[ittihat_ve_terakki]

59 minutes ago, Tapothei said:

Alright that was a funny game with how your horseman disabling their market. The thing with this map is the enemy can only come in one side. I would like to request you to 1v2 it in an open map like mainland or foothill where they can expand fast and be a manace. I was able to 1v2H AI and it felt like 1V2ing VH AI from 0.27.1. In a chokepoint of any rts its a fun way to play it, but I am going to miss being able to 1v3VH. But hey if any of you can show your replay that you can 1v2 or even 1v3 them in an open land map, I a casual too can do it, you just have to prove it. Thank you bro. Also my setting(1v3ing them) at that time was 300pop limit and low resource, no treasure.

commands.txt 539.81 kB · 0 downloads

Here is your Mainland Balanced 1v2 Very Hard Aggressive Romans.

The map being mainland doesn’t really affect the process much, you just need to set up your defense accordingly. I still played slow and relaxed. After a while, Petra starts to lose momentum. 

Petra is always predictable, it launches an early attack, loses. Once it regains strength, it attacks again. By the second or third attack, it starts bringing rams.
If it manages to defeat you, it’s usually only because it overwhelms you with numbers, which makes dealing with Petra’s armies much harder in 1v3+VH situations. Still, as I said, I think it’s possible with better management and strategy. If you build your game around Petra’s weaknesses, you can achieve it.

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[ittihat_ve_terakki]

3 hours ago, Tapothei said:

I would like to request you to 1v2 it in an open map like mainland or foothill where they can expand fast and be a manace. I

Here’s another one. This time the placement is “circle”, in the previous game it was random. So in this match the 2 Petra were evenly spaced around me and could launch joint attacks. However, the outcome didn’t change.

 

 

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[Tapothei]

@ittihat_ve_terakkiThank you.(This emote is funny)

[Perzival12]

20 hours ago, ittihat_ve_terakki said:

Now plays better than the previous version, but what it really needs now isn’t stat boosts: it’s improvements in behavioral intelligence. Petra needs to be able to analyze the map and adapt to the situation.

I definitely agree with this. Even just the ability (as you mentioned above this) to locate a tower or fortress and go around it would greatly improve it. Other thoughts I have: it wastes time killing women when there are more important targets near by, it never targets high-priority targets like Siege Rams, Heroes, and ranged units, and (as I’ve definitely said in other topics), it never upgrades it’s old sentry towers.

[ittihat_ve_terakki]

56 minutes ago, Perzival12 said:

I definitely agree with this. Even just the ability (as you mentioned above this) to locate a tower or fortress and go around it would greatly improve it. Other thoughts I have: it wastes time killing women when there are more important targets near by, it never targets high-priority targets like Siege Rams, Heroes, and ranged units, and (as I’ve definitely said in other topics), it never upgrades it’s old sentry towers.

I also have another idea that comes to mind quite often: when defeat is clearly inevitable, Petra should type “gg” and resign. Ragequit behavior could be added as well. Watching it try to rebuild from scratch somewhere on the map with just 4 units against my full army is a bit of a waste of time.

 

2 hours ago, Tapothei said:

@ittihat_ve_terakkiThank you.(This emote is funny)

You’re welcome. Here’s a new attempt: 1v3 on the same map that I shared earlier. This is the first time I’ve won a 1v3 on Very Hard. The Petras had random civs and random behavior: two Germans and one Carthage. The Carthage Petra could have been much more effective here if it had built siege ships. 

 

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