Balanced Scenario Editor Test: "Very Hard/Aggressive" AI still loses?

[SomeGuy]

I'm brand new here (just introduced myself elsewhere), so I may be totally out of line, but I wanted to share a confusing experience and see if I'm doing something wrong...

As a noob who wants to explore simple military maneuvers, I created a flat skirmish map (Atlas) with equal number of "Britons" fighters on both sides as follows:

• 16 x infantry_melee
• 4 x infantry_ranged
• 4 x default_cavalry

I put them in symmetrical formation facing each other at some near distance, and set Player 1 to myself and Player 2 to AI.

I figured that within 0AD itself this would allow me to try different formations against different levels of AI strength and fighting style to see what I could learn.

What I have found thus far is extremely confusing...

Without giving any instructions to my Player 1 troops, even setting matches on this map at the AI Difficulty="Very Hard" and AI Behavior="Aggressive" my Player 1 wins by a healthy margin repeatedly. In fact, my "hands-off" Player 1 often beats the AI set to Difficult="Very Hard" by even fewer lost troops than are killed when set to "Very Easy."

Okay, so I must be doing something weird here. But if not even bothering to engage with my Player 1's controls still makes my equally matched army beat the AI under every circumstance, what am I missing about the playing against the AI in the first place?

FYI, I've attached the two Atlas-produced test files I created that lead me to draw these observations shared above.

What I was expecting: That I would have to master some level of game play technique before being able to successfully compete against the AI, that some intervention and control on my part would be required to defeat the AI, and that the harder I made the AI the better my skills would need to be to prevail.

Is what I've observed in this equally-matched test map surprising to anyone familiar with the AI and gameplay?

If so, what am I missing about what I should be expecting?

Many thanks for your experience and insights!

 

 

 

Test-Skirmish_2p.xml Test-Skirmish_2p.pmp

[alre]

the difficult AI doesn't know any better moves than the easy one. the only difference is that at higher difficulty, the economy of the AI is faster, simply thanks to hacky multipliers. it's written in the popup description of the AIs.

[SomeGuy]

22 minutes ago, alre said:

the difficult AI doesn't know any better moves than the easy one. the only difference is that at higher difficulty, the economy of the AI is faster, simply thanks to hacky multipliers. it's written in the popup description of the AIs.

@alreAh, this is a great explanation. Many thanks - much appreciated. I haven't come across this key detail in AI behavior from what I've seen in pop-ups so far, clearly I have missed it somewhere.

However, this still leaves me wondering why my "doing nothing" with my troops still consistently beats an equally-matched AI army by a hefty margin. I typically have about half my army left after obliterating the AI opponent (regardless of setting "aggressive" or "defensive").

Given this observation, it seems wise for me to let my armies just "do their own thing" without my intervening as a military micro-controller... which seems counterintuitive to much of what the game is about - given all those formation commands, micro-control tactics, etc. .

Shouldn't I need to take control and perform maneuvers in some manner in order to beat an "auto-pilot" opponent? In fact, I'm not even telling my army to "attack" in this test map... they just take it upon themselves apparently.