Skirmish Opponents Brainstorming

[Sir Windows 75]

Greeting fair lords and ladies,

upcoming SH4 is going to feature a skirmish mode vs AI opponents. According to Firefly the game will launch with eight such opponents. I thought it’d be fun to share ideas, dreams or concepts on how these opponents could behave.

My hope is that the opponents will behave more like SH2 lords. Since SH4 will feature ranks again, it’d be great if the AI opponents‘ castles and economy reflected their rise up the ranks. In SH2 even weaker opponents such as Edwin, Lady Seren or Sir Grey used all kinds of buildings/towers which were unlocked at higher ranks. Another hope of mine is that for the first time the AI will be able to use the stables properly and mount knights on horses.

What’re your hopes, thoughts or expectations for the skirmish AI.

[Asophix 187]

Well, most likely the AI players will follow suit. If the AI from Warlords is gonna be ported/reimplemented in SH4, there will be a lot of fun to be had for sure!

In general, I expect them to work much like their recent incarnations. I really wish we were able to communicate with them again - the sound files are there for this purpose -, depending on a "mood" variable that makes the AI more or less inclined to obey our commands.

I also hope that the unit and siege AI will be a lot more intelligent, already evidenced by the fact that the military mission invasions' catapults will take time to attack targets on the ground.

[Sir Windows 75]

Communicating with the AI would be great. Hearing the original rat, pig and snake reacting to your requests should be pretty funny.

With the four dukes coming back, I wonder how Firefly will depict them in skirmish. The rat is obviously going to be the weakest opponent, so I don't expect many surprises there and an army mainly made up of armed peasants, men at arms, archers and catapults. Pig and wolf also have some very well established personalities over the games. Although the pig could probably use a bit more unit variety this time. Longbows might be a good fit since they're bald just like the macemen. I wonder if he's going to use pikemen this time around again like in the original SH. The specialists you've data mined are also quite interesting. If they're going to be present at launch I could see the snake using them intensively. It would fit with his military doctrine from SHC. Mixing European and mercenary troops. So aside from men at arms and archers, maybe the snake is going to come at the player with Vikings, saboteurs and hobilars as well. I'm assuming the Viking is going to be very similar to the SH2 berserker or SHL Saxon warrior. No idea if Sir Longarm will retain his knights focus. I could see him turning into the men at arms & swordsmen lord akin to Sir William or Lancelot from SH2/SHL.

Given how we have two units related to the Norse with the Vikings and shield maidens I've got to wonder if one of the new characters will be a Viking. Basically an Olaf like character with a wooden castle and primarily using Norse specialists. It would be an interesting idea for sure, given how extensive wooden fortifications are in SH4.

[Asophix 187]

1 hour ago, Sir Windows said:

Communicating with the AI would be great. Hearing the original rat, pig and snake reacting to your requests should be pretty funny.

Since Rat already has his lines fully added, I can only assume that the other lords will follow suit. 🙂 Even in Crusader 2 these guys were serviceable, if corny (SHC2 Pig is just low effort).

My takes on the original gang:

• Rat will field the lowliest units as usual, backed with catapults. It would be fun if he mixed both kinds of bowmen.
• Snake will like a balanced mix of Archers, Pikemen and Crossbowmen, with the occasional mercenary like those light scouts.
• Pig should be critting Longbowmen, with a higher emphasis on Macemen and Pikemen. If Vikings are like Berserkers, then he'll field them too.
• Wolf should be all bells and whistles and a large variety of siege equpment. Captains, Swordsmen, Crossbowmen, Pikemen, Longbowmen.
• Sir Longarm should be a balanced mix, with a Captain or two mixed in. I can also imagine him fielding Monks.

1 hour ago, Sir Windows said:

Basically an Olaf like character with a wooden castle and primarily using Norse specialists.

A similar shtick for a character could be used, in fact I wouldn't mind if all had some sort of niche or heavy bias. If we can edit the castles or the AI personalities in the future, then I would really like one like that.

[Sir Windows 75]

It would be interesting if each lord had a wooden and stone castle design, which they would both use during a match. Stone walls only become available at a later rank iirc. So each lord would first construct a wooden castle and then replace the wooden walls & towers with stone ones as the game progresses.

I'm not sure if this would be possible or really worth though. 😅

[Sir Windows 75]

The skirmish trailer just dropped. Showing us the castles of some of the lords. We can also see some of their units.

I could make out following units.

Lord Woolsack - Crossbowmen, pikemen, knights and some infantry I can’t make out.

Perwyn - Shortbowmen, men at arms, swordsmen and monks (which is really interesting)

Pig - Crossbowmen, macemen, armed peasants and shortbowmen (can‘t tell for sure)

Crow - Knights, swordsmen and longbowmen

 

Surprised the crow seems to be such a formidable lord. I’d have thought her a medium or easy opponent but her castle and troop roster look rather formidable. Also it seems longbowmen are no longer bald. They wear helmets in the trailer.

[Asophix 187]

The Crow is lowkey the main antagonist of SH4. She has been prominently featured in the last couple of videos. 🙂

I find it difficult to make out the individual troops, since the bird's eye view is so far away. What you write seems plausible though!

I'm really curious of the Snake (first and foremost) and the other upcoming opponents as well.

 

[Sir Windows 75]

I had to set it to full screen and zoom in to make out any units. 😅

There are also a couple castles in the trailer which aren’t tied to any lord yet. I like that some lords will be using wooden fortifications or combinations of both like Perwyn or the Pig.

The Pig appears to be very close to his SHC appearance so I maybe the Snake will follow suit. Possibly using both types of bowmen along with men at arms. No idea how they’ll translate his slaves raids to SH4 though.

Definitely an exciting trailer in my opinion. 😁

[--)- SLAY ---- 3]

Is it just me or the Wolf won't be in the game? It looks like we have the eight lords complete:

 

-Rat

-Snake

-Pig

-Crow

-Lord Woolsack

-Sir Longarm

-Penryn

-Ysella

 

There was also a video from Firefly, where they shown all the voice actors for the characters, the Wolf wasn't listed at all (https://youtu.be/zb2HF58lfTo?t=627). It is still Early Access and perhaps he will be added after release, but kinda a daring choice for Firefly, not including him?

[Asophix 187]

Yeah, looking at the video for the third or fourth time actually makes it much clearer. I suppose we'll get the next batch of the guys with a next demo or a trailer.

3 hours ago, Sir Windows said:

The Pig appears to be very close to his SHC appearance so I maybe the Snake will follow suit.

I noticed it too. 

3 hours ago, Sir Windows said:

No idea how they’ll translate his slaves raids to SH4 though.

Snake could use the Levy unit, which carries a torch and seems to be able to ignite buildings from a range, so that should get you covered! 🙂 

Also: the protagonist is called "Penryn" of Wethel, not "Perwyn" 😄 

[Asophix 187]

3 minutes ago, --)- SLAY ---- said:

There was also a video from Firefly, where they shown all the voice actors for the characters, the Wolf wasn't listed at all (https://youtu.be/zb2HF58lfTo?t=627). It is still Early Access and perhaps he will be added after release, but kinda a daring choice for Firefly, not including him?

We can only speculate so far, however the Wolf has a good chance to appear and Skirmish in the story in one way or another.

I did a datamining for the first demo where there were already traces for Duc Volpe to come, which you could trace back right here on SHN. Obviously, anything is subject to change and maybe the Wolf won't be featured the way most of us would expect. But maybe, is this what Firefly also wants us to think? 😄 

[Sir Windows 75]

1 hour ago, --)- SLAY ---- said:

Is it just me or the Wolf won't be in the game? It looks like we have the eight lords complete:

I think you might be onto something. When they showed the skirmish opponents during the trailer we saw six characters. This would leave two missing. One of those is surely the rat. So either Ysella or the wolf aren’t going to be a skirmish opponent at launch.

Lord Woolsack also uses grey as his team color in the trailer that’s usually the wolf‘s color.
 

1 hour ago, Asophix said:

But maybe, is this what Firefly also wants us to think? 😄 

That would be very sneaky of them. But I could see them holding back the wolf for a while in order to keep things fresh.

 

Also speaking of characters, didn’t they make a big deal out of that other new villain called the fox? He’s probably also not going to be a skirmish opponent at launch either.

[--)- SLAY ---- 3]

1 hour ago, Sir Windows said:

So either Ysella or the wolf aren’t going to be a skirmish opponent at launch.

 

If you look up on the official website, 4 lords are shown that would likely be in skirmish, one being Ysella.

 

I can only speculate, we get more lords during Early Access as it moves forward to the 1.0 version, adding the Wolf, Fox and Toad. I think the Wolf doesn't need to appear in the campaign and if so, perhaps just for a short appearance in the final cutscene until the credits rolls.

 

3 hours ago, Asophix said:

I did a datamining for the first demo where there were already traces for Duc Volpe to come, which you could trace back right here on SHN. Obviously, anything is subject to change and maybe the Wolf won't be featured the way most of us would expect. But maybe, is this what Firefly also wants us to think? 😄 

 

Yes, I saw that in your thread, including mercenary units Firefly hasn't talked about yet. But Stronghold games always had stuff ghosting in the gamefiles, that were probably planned until Firefly scrapped them. An example is the Caliph and the four dukes having audios files of their messages inside SH2's files and SH3 even had more stuff that has never been used since the game itself is still incomplete, I think you even did a thread of it long ago, searching the datas andalot of stuff was found, including a planned skirmish mode?

[Asophix 187]

34 minutes ago, --)- SLAY ---- said:

I think you even did a thread of it long ago, searching the datas andalot of stuff was found, including a planned skirmish mode?

That's exactly my thread for SH4. It is also way too early to consider what will or will not remain, as SH4 is going to have an early access period lasting about a year. So far most of the information has also been confirmed in a lot of ways in Firefly's videos and other drip-fed sources. 

It seems that the story and broadly speaking, the universe will have enough characters to sustain the model Firefly likes so much for their games: 4 DLCs, each adding 2 extra characters for a doubled roster. We'll see how it goes.

[Sir Windows 75]

If they release him later they can also make sure he’s by far the strongest lord. Since they’ll have an idea of how all other lords perform and tune him up accordingly.

In games with only eight launch characters Firefly also likes to group lords into pairs according to difficulty. In Crusader you had very easy opponents like rat and sultan, easy like snake and caliph, medium like pig and Richard and finally hard with Saladin and wolf.

After the newest trailer just by the looks of their castles and troop selection Woolsack and the crow seem to the hard opponents. Penryn and the pig are probably medium difficulty. The snake and rat would occupy the same spots they do in Crusader. This leaves Longarm and Ysella for the very easy or easy opponents slots. 

[--)- SLAY ---- 3]

Here are models from the opponents, in the skirmish demo. Nice that they continue this feature from Crusader 2 and giving each lord their own model. Hopefully, you can use them as your own lord as well.

 

The demo also states, that more lords will be added during early access phase, so big change for Wolf, Fox and Toad to be added later.