Bots

Many of the opponents you encounter in skirmish are not real players, they are AIs (a.k.a. bots). Recognizing when you are fighting a real human vs. a bot is important, as the bots are very predictable, and you can use this to your advantage.

There are 4 things to look for to identify a bot. None of these are perfect but between them you can be fairly certain you are going up against a bot.

1. When you first start up skirmish, it will look for a real human. If it can't find one after a certain period of time (about 5 seconds), it will load a bot instead. Once it shows the opponent's name, it will start loading the game immediately. With real players, there is more of a delay after it shows the player's name. Also with real players, there is often lag throughout the game, that is, brief moments where everything pauses.

2. Bots will always be the opposite side as you (loyalist or chaos). Real players could be "suspected turncoats". But a bot never will be. Also, bots will always be the same rank as you (e.g. Castellan).

3. Bots almost always use uncommon heroes. Usually a Vexillum. Often they will have wargear bonuses that are impossible to get in uncommon wargear (e.g. +25% damage bonus, which is the level of an epic wargear). Real players almost always use rare/epic heroes, and their wargear must match the rarity of the hero.

4. Bots never use their hero's tactic. So if you ever see a player using a hero tactic, you know it's a real human.

Bots follow certain rules that you can use to your advantage. They are:

• If units are on a node which is currently converting to their side, they will not move off the node until it has completed converted. This is true even if they have multiple control groups on that node. Once the node converts, though, they will immediately move out. They may split up control groups at this point. If your opponent has fast units and you don't want to fight them, beacon your units away from adjacent nodes immediately before/after their node converts. Over time you will get a sense of the timing of when their units will take control of nodes as those are the moments in time when you may need to react.

• When moving away from a node, bots will favour moving to a node that is controlled by you or has your units on it. They will not move to a node they already control unless they have no other choice. Once they start going to a node, they will not change their direction unless you move a stronger army into the node they were heading to.

• Bots will generally avoid entering a fight they deem they cannot win. But if their units are cornered, they will move into a conflict that is to your advantage.

• Bots will always move raptors toward groups of units that cannot shoot up (unless they are defended by an anti-air turret). But they don't consider anti-air turrets on neutral nodes. If your army is mostly units without an air attack, try to take control of an anti-air turret right as the raptors arrive and they will stand and fight the turret. Heroes with a Teleport tactic (such as Veltin) are also excellent at taking out raptors as you can jump right on top of them and once they engage your units, they won't usually be able to get away.