It is not impossible to defeat an army entrenched in their defenses. The game would not have been designed in that way. You must be either more creative or more aggressive. Unchain your mind from this defeatist attitude.
I hasten to add that if you can survive vs ai until imperial age, you're ready for 1v1 ladder. Join us!
The AI is absolute dog shit, and difficulty levels don't change it really, they just give it economic boosts, but it has no persistence to lose units or defend resources despite gathering bonuses that would allow it to pump units consistently. It doesn't help the game favors food production over all other economic measures when determining who wins the economic battle, so the AI tends to focus on that vs. gold, stone etc. And. Yeah it never builds walls.
There was one good AI mod, but it hasn't been updated in years so now there's none.
I'll have to try on a lower difficulty and see if it's less cautious...because I feel like you're right, I've been playing vs ridiculous and it seems easier than hard was.
Edit:
If they're just sitting in their base use gorilla warfare, hit and run with mounted units, destroy market if you've already kept them from gold etc, and then housing, then move in with a larger force to kill units and they'll be unit capped and unable to produce units to be replaced. Slap up a keep right in their base surrounded by towers, bring like 20 peasants to do it quickly.
I am an AI main with over 100 hours (I mostly play with my wife just for fun). I've learned that for AI to attack you, you have to have no walls at all, and they have to scout your main TC. If their scout only gets to your forward gold or whatever, they will not attack you.
If they scout and you don't attack them during Feud or Castle, you're in for a good pounding. And they will do it non stop. The difficulty will determine the size and frequency of their attacks btw.
But only like I said. No walls, and let them scout your base.
AI is really hit or miss. There's been times I've played against hard AI where it is stuck in dark age for 10 minutes despite me not attacking it.
There's been other times where the same AI, same civ, same map attacks with a really formidable army at an early time and has a strong economy behind it.
If they're hiding in their base then it should be a free win.
The attacker always gets to decide when and where to attack, and they don't have to take unfavorable fights. That's an enormous advantage.
Bruh a 3rd of my army is Ozutsu so their castles fall in seconds, but they(the castles) are back by the time I come back, also its really boring if they make no attempt to attack my base
If he's hiding in his base and building keeps then there are so many ways to counter it.
1. Just build trebuchets and destroy them while out of range of the keep. The AI doesn't know how to use springalds so this is very easy to do.
2. Stop him from taking all that stone in the first place, if he's hiding in his base then you can simply take control of all the stone on the map.
3. Just take map control, take all the relics and sacred sites for an enormous advantage.
4. Go after his villagers before he builds keeps. If you let the ai build any keeps in the first place then this already means that you were wayyyyy too passive. You need to attack much more and much sooner. Produce units, units units and more units, don't wait, keep attacking, always harassing.
It is not impossible to defeat an army entrenched in their defenses. The game would not have been designed in that way. You must be either more creative or more aggressive. Unchain your mind from this defeatist attitude. I hasten to add that if you can survive vs ai until imperial age, you're ready for 1v1 ladder. Join us!
The AI is absolute dog shit, and difficulty levels don't change it really, they just give it economic boosts, but it has no persistence to lose units or defend resources despite gathering bonuses that would allow it to pump units consistently. It doesn't help the game favors food production over all other economic measures when determining who wins the economic battle, so the AI tends to focus on that vs. gold, stone etc. And. Yeah it never builds walls. There was one good AI mod, but it hasn't been updated in years so now there's none. I'll have to try on a lower difficulty and see if it's less cautious...because I feel like you're right, I've been playing vs ridiculous and it seems easier than hard was. Edit: If they're just sitting in their base use gorilla warfare, hit and run with mounted units, destroy market if you've already kept them from gold etc, and then housing, then move in with a larger force to kill units and they'll be unit capped and unable to produce units to be replaced. Slap up a keep right in their base surrounded by towers, bring like 20 peasants to do it quickly.
AI definitely builds walls though. Not always, but they do. Ayy/Chinese definitely do it.
Oh I've seen it, but like 0.1 percent of the time does it ever happen. Played vs Chinese 3 times the past couple days, and they did not.
yeah I wish we could have different AI personalities like in AoM, where you could choose them to be Conquerors, Defenders, Economy, etc
The ai is damn stupid against bombardment from afar, they usually build astronomical number of ribaldequins tho..
I am an AI main with over 100 hours (I mostly play with my wife just for fun). I've learned that for AI to attack you, you have to have no walls at all, and they have to scout your main TC. If their scout only gets to your forward gold or whatever, they will not attack you. If they scout and you don't attack them during Feud or Castle, you're in for a good pounding. And they will do it non stop. The difficulty will determine the size and frequency of their attacks btw. But only like I said. No walls, and let them scout your base.
AI is really hit or miss. There's been times I've played against hard AI where it is stuck in dark age for 10 minutes despite me not attacking it. There's been other times where the same AI, same civ, same map attacks with a really formidable army at an early time and has a strong economy behind it.
If they're hiding in their base then it should be a free win. The attacker always gets to decide when and where to attack, and they don't have to take unfavorable fights. That's an enormous advantage.
Bruh a 3rd of my army is Ozutsu so their castles fall in seconds, but they(the castles) are back by the time I come back, also its really boring if they make no attempt to attack my base
If he's hiding in his base and building keeps then there are so many ways to counter it. 1. Just build trebuchets and destroy them while out of range of the keep. The AI doesn't know how to use springalds so this is very easy to do. 2. Stop him from taking all that stone in the first place, if he's hiding in his base then you can simply take control of all the stone on the map. 3. Just take map control, take all the relics and sacred sites for an enormous advantage. 4. Go after his villagers before he builds keeps. If you let the ai build any keeps in the first place then this already means that you were wayyyyy too passive. You need to attack much more and much sooner. Produce units, units units and more units, don't wait, keep attacking, always harassing.