So I attacked a lair with 6 unicorns using 9 addamantite ultra elite hammerheads. What would happen in vanilla? The unicorns would suicide into my dwarfs, easy win. What happens with mod? The unicorns teleport around. I spread my forces with one dwarf in every corner and edge. Carefully wait for them to teleport into attackable position. And win after 20 turns. And just imagine if AI was smart enough to recognize that my dwarves are spread thin and actually attack a single unit while the rest are not there to counterattack. While better AI makes sense for wizard opponents I would rather have stupid vanilla AI for lairs.
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Unicorn lairs
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There was a thread about this last year but everyone wanted to dumb down the neutral AI in a completely different way and there weren't that many replies so we ended up doing nothing.
But the way you describe the battle is weird. If the unicorns were scared of your more powerful army, they should have teleported into the furthest corner and stayed there unless approached. Randomly teleporting around is the tactic the AI employs if it cannot find a valid target for the melee attack, which would imply flying or invisible hammerhands.
February 4th, 2018, 14:37
(This post was last modified: February 4th, 2018, 14:38 by teelaurila.)
I just sniped a unicorn with 3 sprites. The 21 turn wait after the sprites have spent their ammo takes quite long with the port-around. Luckily was only 2 unicorns and 2 guardian spirits, so I was done in 3 turns. Would have shuddered (or yawn) at 6 unicorns. (Guess it would help to remove combat animations)
I think the avoiding is fair enough, makes you think against it, except that it mysteriously knows where invisible units are.
Yeah, I recall that thread. There were a good number of players who had preferences over dumbing down the neutral AI, but players appeared to have difference preferences in that regard. Some players preferred it as an option.
I'm strongly in the 'dumb down neutral AI' side, but only for a couple aspects. I think that units guarding treasure, if escaping, then would no longer guard treasure. Common sense, it is deeply frustrating that Caster plays this way to me. I wouldn't be surprised if certain players don't jump in simply due to this massive shift in gameplay, which can be very limiting when attacking lairs. So my preferences are into keeping neutral guarding AI normal-difficulty dumb. They can back and shoot, target the right units, etc, but not this 'hard to catch' chase game when you're supposed to collect treasure. I would love it if the air elementals/unicorns surprise-hit my archers within an army that has strong hitters that can kill them. (February 4th, 2018, 17:28)zitro1987 Wrote: Yeah, I recall that thread. There were a good number of players who had preferences over dumbing down the neutral AI, but players appeared to have difference preferences in that regard. Some players preferred it as an option. Supporting. The same can be said on city fights. If an army is outside of the city and the other one is inside, it makes no sense that after the combat the side that's left the walls still keeps the city just because it flies. So actually there's a better option to dumbing down AI. Simple check: if at the end of a combat the attacking army holds the central place (city/lair), then it has conquered it, and the other army is forced to retreat. If both armies are still there, then the one with more units (or total health left maybe?) over the central 16 squares wins. So the proposal is balanced: lairs become a bit easier (mostly less frustrating), but holding on cities a bit more difficult. It sounds simple enough, is it doable? We need to think of the ramifications, but reducing reasons for frustration and abuse already makes this desirable. (February 5th, 2018, 06:08)Suriname Wrote: So actually there's a better option to dumbing down AI. Simple check: if at the end of a combat the attacking army holds the central place (city/lair), then it has conquered it, and the other army is forced to retreat. If both armies are still there, then the one with more units (or total health left maybe?) over the central 16 squares wins. I like it for lairs, nodes and towers (as in neutral-only). *another similar idea is, if you have the amount of strength that causes neutral retreating, moving just one of your units right next to the tower/node/lair allows combat to end (ideally with a message that you win no experience, or the message of 'your opponents flee').
The battle is abstracted out. It's easy to imagine that the combat area is actually much bigger, and the unicorns can teleport all over out if reach of your units without actually leaving the area with the treasure, but the graphics we use don't match that. It's easy to imagine that the treasure actually goes with the monsters (air elementals have all the gold in their 'bodies', hydras eat the treasure, nightstalkers pick it up and carry it, etc), so the location doesn't matter, the monsters do.
Balance wise, dealing with the movement/specials of annoying units like unicorns/fliers/invisibles IS what gives them the rating that gives them the treasure. You want to change it so that location matters? Those units should drop to 1/10 the value they currently have for treasure. What would be the point? Quote:If an army is outside of the city and the other one is inside, it makes no sense that after the combat the side that's left the walls still keeps the city just because it flies. Unfortunately the game rules say you keep the city under those circumstances, so the AI must play to the best of their ability according to these game rules. Changing the rules is a different story but I don't think that's possible (and it's hard to define a rule like that for a game that wasn't designed for such.) The first obvious problem with the suggest one is, what if I park my 4 flying units in your city area? Then the city is mine? Why? What if I just summon a bunch of phantoms or air elementals and move them inside because they can walk through walls? As long as the defending army doesn't use more then 5 tiles inside the city, I can win as there are 11 total tiles - but if I use wall crusher, I can make 4 more so even with up to 7 defenders I can conquer the city this way. Or let's say the enemy decides to attack my archers and moves outside city walls. I quickly move my fast cavalry inside, city is mine. What about the enemy units if the city does get conquered? Only the attacker can "retreat exhausted". They'd need to flee and get wiped out by failing their fleeing rolls. Defending units cannot safely leave a battle, that's just not an existing feature in the game. This method would result it a LOT more abuse than the current one, and I'd make sure the AI does all the things listed above to take advantage of it. (Albeit most of this is pretty hard to do for an AI which is another reason why this rule is bad. We need rules that do not disadvantage the AI.) Quote:Balance wise, dealing with the movement/specials of annoying units like unicorns/fliers/invisibles IS what gives them the rating that gives them the treasure.Good point. If we make neutrals dumb, you can expect treasure value to drop to like half the current on average (1/10 for an air elemental, probably unchanged for a hydra which is slow and doesn't try hiding ever) - and then we have to redesign the entire game because without treasure the human player will be at a large disadvantage in the early game.
About the only time this kind of thing got completely out of hand in my games was when a single flier stood (hovered?) at the city gate, and the invading army could do nothing. So just maybe it could be worthwhile to invert the behavior of Flying Fortress for when the fortress does not fly. But then again, leaving the city should allow to fly again, which is probably too hard to bother.
Or, what if mode: Every time an attacking unit ends its turn in the city, there is +1% chance that the city is razed if the combat ends with max turns (or perhaps anyway)? Might cause all sort of trouble to implement, especially if said city has the fortress. But it might actually make AI attacks on player cities a bit more dangerous, and prevent the player from using silly defense tactics. Btw, my 2 endurance-buffed golems are currently staring down at Freya's fortress, defended by 7 sprites + dwarf hero... |
yes I know, ultra rare and completely not the point