Thank you for checking out the Tellurian AI! I hope that it can be a valuable tool to assist you in practicing, or to fill a spot in team games. This guide will help you better understand the AI's limitations and maximize its potential.

Did you know there are AI specific Add-Ons?? You may use these to practice against different strategies or to make the AI play in specific ways. Current tactics include:


Level 1 Rush

• Normally I wouldn't recommend putting L1s in the AI's army, but if you do, use this

Level 2 Rush
Level 2 Proxy Rush

• AI Builds chamber near your base at L2 and attacks

Fast Level 3

• AI does not build any units until L3

Economy Focus

• At Level 1, the AI will focus on expanding its resources instead of leveling up
  
• Great for big maps!

Flyer Rush
Reduced Resources

• At Hard and Expert Difficulty, the AI get a resource bonus. This will reduce that bonus.
  
• Great for practicing if you can't quite beat Hard or Expert otherwise.

If you don't select an add-on tactic for the AI, the AI will analyze the map and its own army to select a tactic, with a little randomness sprinkled in.

The first things that you need to do is pick an army for the AI. The best armies are well balanced with pretty basic units that do not require special strategies or micro. The AI are terrible at microing units and abilities, so avoid armies with the following abilities: Web Throw, Defile Land, Loner, Hovering, Assassinate, Digging, Flash, Stink Cloud, Plague, Infestation

Next, make sure that there is a balance of range, melee, and artillery in the army. In general the AI are not as good at using armies with pure swimmers and flyers, although that shouldn't be a major issue most of the time. I also do not recommend giving the AI Level 1 units unless specifically practicing for L1 rushes using the Level 1 Rush Add-on

Map selection is crucial for the AI to play well. Remember that the AI cannot do the following:
- Use a Gyrocropter
- Convert Resources
- Target Electrical Generators
- Know when an ally is already mining coal piles
- Understand chokepoints and when to go around

These are huge limitations that we cannot fix. Therefore, I recommend selecting maps that:
- don't have cliff expos/geysers that are only accessible via Gyrocopter
- have a lot of coal and not too many geysers
- have allies positioned close together (warning, it will steal your coal!)
- do not have water access for building a water chamber
- do not have one central chokepoint

Great maps for the AI include Eroded Forts, Grove, Hill Fort*, Tier*, Fortress, Desolation, Highlands (usually), and most 1v1 maps.

Bad maps for the AI include Badlands, Plateau, Deep freeze, Eroded Duos, Nautilus, Maya, Viridis Ravine, Rift

*Chokes can make these maps work less for AI if there are a lot of fences

If you understand how the AI works, you can exploit it in order to beat it more easily. For example, the AI are unable to use Lab Defense or Sonic Boom/Air Burst, so attacking the AI by massing flyers and lab rushing is not really fair. Avoiding these exploits is a great way to make the AI more challenging to play and better practice for yourself.

The AI cannot convert resources, so if you are playing with the reduced resources add-on or on Easy/Normal difficulty, you can try not converting resources to make it a more fair fight. Otherwise, the bonus that Hard and Expert difficulty gets is meant to offset the resources that a player could otherwise have access to converting.

Keep in mind the following:
- The AI cannot use Lab Defense or Sonic Boom/Air Burst
- The AI are not good at facing Loner/Hench Heal attacks or any sort of fencing
- Early game rushes/defense requires good micro, the AI are not very good at defending early game
- AI cannot build fences or use hench heal


That's all for now! Let me know if you have questions by commenting here or tagging me on the Discord Server.