Quick bits of feedback after about 100 hours of play

Arryn · #1 January 29th, 2004, 05:01 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by diamondspider:
4) Firing at enemy commanders. Yes, it is true, the AI is targetting my commanders with missle fire in very unrealistic ways. I saw another thread regarding the fact that they AI might still be doing this since it was a feature in Dom1 (if I understood the post correctly).

Well, the upshot of this problem is having a huge impact on my game. So many times a large group of AI controlled crossbow troops are given the order to fire at my commanders that, practically speaking, there is no way for me to survive these battles apart from given 10 Air and blessing them or spending all of my resources creating etherial/lucky/armor items for ALL of my commanders.

Have you tried moving your commanders to the far back of the field, rather than having them behind the troops at the front line? Works well for me. The only thing that can target my commanders that far back are spells, and the AI tends to prefer hitting troops that are closer.

diamondspider · #2 January 29th, 2004, 05:21 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Arryn:
QUOTE]Have you tried moving your commanders to the far back of the field, rather than having them behind the troops at the front line? Works well for me. The only thing that can target my commanders that far back are spells, and the AI tends to prefer hitting troops that are closer.

OF COURSE! My commanders are always kissing the back wall.

I had several cases in my Last game where Pythium won battles that I had probably double the number (and power) of troops by moving about 20 Xbows up until they could hit my main commander and raked it over and over.

#3 January 29th, 2004, 05:35 AM

That's good news for me. The computer is inept as far as firing on my commanders

Maybe you just got unlucky.

Targa · #4 January 29th, 2004, 05:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by diamondspider:
...but even more annoying, and similarly, I really hate when a huge unit of mine breaks a small and fast one early in the battle and then tries to pursue it all the way off the board instead of changing targets.

Yes, I also find it annoying when my heavy-hitter spends his time chasing a single routing militia off the back of the field rather than helping the rest of my guys who are getting their butt kicked.

Quote:

This should be very easy to fix in that it could just, maybe, pick a random number between 0 and 3 and pursue for that many rounds then switch to the closest target at that point.

Or just code it so that when an enemy unit is routing, if any are still non-routing, switch to them, otherwise continue pursuit. It's common sense really. For example, you and 5 friends are (god forbid) in a street fight with 6 opponents. Even matchup. You hit one guy in the nose, and he runs away. Would you chase after him, or help your friends deal with the remaining ones? Giving chase to routing opponents while the rest of your army is still engaged in combat is not a reasonable (or logical) combat tactic.

Quote:

3) Starting placement. This is minorly annoying in single player games, but would be TOTALLY annoying in a multi-player game (haven't done one yet). --snip--

STILL, while I haven't played with the map editor enough to know if it is possible...

Yes, I believe you can specify either exact provinces or have it choose from several that you designate as starting provinces.

diamondspider · #5 January 29th, 2004, 05:40 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zen:
That's good news for me. The computer is inept as far as firing on my commanders Maybe you just got unlucky.

I thought that was the case for a while Zen. Then I had the following situation occur.

The computer had a unit of ONE crossbow troop. I had 6 commanders on the field. By chance, the one crossbow guy was left unharried in a huge and important battle.

What did that guy do the ENTIRE battle? He shot at my MAIN commander over and over (about 6 time) and finally killed him thereby winning.

No way was that luck. My commander was surrounded by about 20 units and was also summoning skeletons by the bushel.

Also, Kriss or Johan did confirm that he thought this might be the case in another thread (I can dig the quote up if you want).

So, YES, I think you are just getting lucky or maybe it is Pythium specific somehow.

[ January 29, 2004, 03:42: Message edited by: diamondspider ]

Arryn · #6 January 29th, 2004, 05:40 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by diamondspider:
OF COURSE! My commanders are always kissing the back wall.

I had several cases in my Last game where Pythium won battles that I had probably double the number (and power) of troops by moving about 20 Xbows up until they could hit my main commander and raked it over and over.

Then split your forces and be sure the one to the side of the field has orders to target enemy archers. The center force should then engage the enemy infantry, while the side force will go look for those pesky archer types. Archers tend to have low morale so they should rout quickly and your problem will then be over. This tactic should work even better if the archer-hunters have their own leader with a horror helm or other such fear-inducing item or ability.

If you outnumber (and outpower) your foe there's little reason why you should allow the enemy archers to get free shots at your leaders. If you engage the archers, they'll be too busy to shoot things you very much don't want to see killed.

diamondspider · #7 January 29th, 2004, 05:44 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Arryn:

quote:
Originally posted by diamondspider:
OF COURSE! My commanders are always kissing the back wall.

I had several cases in my Last game where Pythium won battles that I had probably double the number (and power) of troops by moving about 20 Xbows up until they could hit my main commander and raked it over and over.

Then split your forces and be sure the one to the side of the field has orders to target enemy archers. The center force should then engage the enemy infantry, while the side force will go look for those pesky archer types. Archers tend to have low morale so they should rout quickly and your problem will then be over. This tactic should work even better if the archer-hunters have their own leader with a horror helm or other such fear-inducing item or ability.

If you outnumber (and outpower) your foe there's little reason why you should allow the enemy archers to get free shots at your leaders. If you engage the archers, they'll be too busy to shoot things you very much don't want to see killed.

I have to disagree with you here. The range of crossbows makes it VERY easy to just put them behind serveral melee unit close to the front and do MANY hits on my commanders by the 2nd round of combat.

There is no defense against this except getting high air blessings, using magic to lower the power of missile fire, or giving crazy amounts of protection to all commanders. Also, I suppose that IF I had fliers I could tell them to hit the archers and hope they selected the same unit that was targeting my commanders.

However, the MAIN issue is that the computer is CHEATING!

[ January 29, 2004, 03:47: Message edited by: diamondspider ]