MArcomage

After the recent change to AI challenges there were some complaints about the challenges being too difficult. So, in this thread we are going to discuss various strategies of how it's possible to beat a specific challenge. I'll start with Captain Demetrios.

First of all I'll be lowering his starting magic to 5 from 6 which is a very important change, considering that his average gem cost per turn is 5.81. This will slow down his destruction spells a lot.

To beat this challenge you need to create a very specific deck. You probably won't win with a deck that you use to play normally. I recommend these cards:

- Magic well
- Mithril mine
- Preparations

These card should help you maintain your facilities. Also

- Oasis
- Alchemy
- common restoration cards

are very good for maintaining your facilities, due to Restoration keyword effect, which many players ignore. But the most important cards would be:

- Conscript army
- Cursed amulet

Conscript army can discard rare cards as well, but the best card is the Cursed amulet. You see when the AI draws a rare card, you will discard it, but the Cursed amulet will take place instead of discarded card. Unlike popular belief, rare cards in your hand can be very useful even if you can't play them. You could get some bonus effects with Legend keyword or Vulture, but the best part is that the AI will try to discard rares on your hand, because it's aware that they can still pose a threat even if you can't play them.

So after playing the Cursed amulet, if you draw a rare yourself, the AI will likely return the Cursed amulet back to you, which will grant you a stock bonus and another use of Cursed amulet in case the AI get another rare. Convenient isn't it?

Cards that can also be useful against Captain:

Saints Day
Abyssal Scavenger
Judge
Farm
Don't be hasty (he plays a lot of poison frogs)
Soul Cleaver
Cultists
Treacherous Artifact

He also relies on Poseidon's Wrath, so it maybe is a good idea to put Aqua cards in order to trick him. I haven't try it though.

Yeah, very interesting, apart from the fact that nobody won a single challenge since rares have been disabled.

Just goes to show that people were relying too much on gimmicky, overpowered rares then ^_^

Most of the previous victories in AI challenges were just waiting for a game changer rare card. This destroys the whole AI challenge idea. So, if there will be some adjustments to AI challenges it will be in form of changes on starting facilities, resources and AI behavior.

I haven't played a challenge since recent update. Does the AI also plays with disabled rares or it's just for the player?

Also, I think it would be interesting if we had a rare-disabled mode for PvP games. I think that would be a "true" long mode :)

I tried the AI challenge today first time, I took my standard tower destroy deck.. and I won on the first try... ;)

dimitris wrote:
I haven't played a challenge since recent update. Does the AI also plays with disabled rares or it's just for the player?

Also, I think it would be interesting if we had a rare-disabled mode for PvP games. I think that would be a "true" long mode :)

The AI is free to play rares in AI challenges.

No rare cards mode? Hmm... fairly implementable.

Oh, I see Vault beat Demetrios with a tower damage deck. Nice :)

well, in fact the card that saved me was a ninja.. and last hope, because I survived apocalyptic rain with 1 tower ;))

vault wrote:
I tried the AI challenge today first time, I took my standard tower destroy deck.. and I won on the first try... ;)

Yeah, Ninja is the key to win Demetrios. :) Someone else mentioned it also.

Mojko wrote:
The AI is free to play rares in AI challenges.

Well that's a bit of unfair don't you think? I mean the AI has the advantage of higher facilities/tower/wall and also the advantage of playing rares? It should be disabled for both I think.

They're not supposed to be fair. That's why they're called "challenges". Besides, the AI is just a stupid 100-line PHP function, whereas you have a brain with trillions of neural pathways. That's unfair. :P

Keep in mind, most of the AIs have few rares (the Marquis only has one, iirc), so it's not as unpredictable as in a normal game, and you should be able to think about how to counter them.

dindon wrote:
Besides, the AI is just a stupid 100-line PHP function

Hey! It's not stupid, it's brilliant! :P

dimitris wrote:

dindon wrote:
Besides, the AI is just a stupid 100-line PHP function

Hey! It's not stupid, it's brilliant! :P

Well, it actually has 402 lines, but yeah, I wouldn't call it stupid, but simple or rather narrow minded, short sighted perhaps.

dimitris wrote:
Yeah, Ninja is the key to win Demetrios. :) Someone else mentioned it also.

That was me. I'd played Ninja over several turns for the win. I hadn't drawn any Rare cards, so as far as I'm concerned I still have him beaten even by today's standards.

i've actually managed to have a pretty even win ratio against him with my deck that is designed arround working without facilities, it has cheap cards and stuff like sacrafice etc, however 30% of the wins (give or take) was from catastrophe (easily summoned)

http://arcomage.netvor.sk/?location=Replays_details&CurrentReplay=157627&PlayerView=1&Turn=1
Key to the victory was summoning earth elemental, so he didn't have enough bricks to rebuild his tower. Ninja was helpful also ^^

another way to kill him, hire some mercenaries and infect him with plague
ahr!
and be patient...
and why the hell I didn't put ninja in that deck?