Scripting armies/squads
 

I was just wondering...did anyone miss this feature like me? It would be cool to have a scripting system for armies. Imo it should work like the commander scripting mechanism. In many cases it would be cool to have this feature...[example -> archers script: fire, retreat, fire, retreat, fire. Meanwhile a melee squad should be scripted like hold, retreat, hold, hold, attack nearest enemy.]
Also there should more battlefield movement options avaible, like move N/S/E/W.

Re: Scripting armies/squads
 

Yeh, really, we should have better control over our Space Marines .. oh, wait, we're talking 'bout ancient/medieval style wars here, with all those mind-linked astral mages not among those guys ordered to "hold, attack rear" ... .

In earnest: Have you ever played a serious table top game? All those rules take exactly that kind of control away from the players, at least at the level Dominions depicts its armies, and they do it for a reason: There is no way to control your troops in such detail once the battle has begun.

You may order your troops to hold, advance, charge. If you're lucky, you can order your flanks to hold or advanced, to change the facing of the battle line or encircle the ememy - if you have thoroughly trained troops. If you have some troops of good or even exceptional quality, you might even order an ordered retreat, either as a feint or a rearguard ... but all too often any backward movement (deliberate or forced) resulted in panic and headless flight!

Maybe, just maybe, and more to strengthen the role of the melee commander in Dom, than for logical or historical reasons, maybe commanders should have more options (attack mages etc), or 1-2 additional 'command slots', or both. That way, if you really want a squad to do a fancy attack run, you would only have to set them to bodyguard a melee commander and script that commander accordingly. If he's fast enough, he should reach the enemy rear in 3-4 turn easily.

A general "skirmish" order would be great, though, to make horse archers etc. more useful... (basically "fire and stay behind").

Re: Scripting armies/squads
 

There's a way to almost do it : script your commander, and giver to your squad the "guard commander" order.

That way, the squad will follow its commander.

With this, you can for exemple make a flying squad wait for 3 turns insteads of 2 before attacking, or charge with your flanking cavalry afeter a turn instead of two, etc ...

What i didn't know yet is this :

Do units on "guard commander" fire their bows/xbows if commander is on 'hold' and no ennemy is in melee yet ?
(I suppose that they do, but I never tried this with dom2, and I'm still waiting for my copy of dom3 to arrive)

Re: Scripting armies/squads
 

Also, this was on many people's list of "what I want to see in Dom3", and later on their list of "pity this wasn't implemented". So you are not alone on this. I didn't feel it was important, and having that direct control could easily become a micromanagement nightmare.

Re: Scripting armies/squads
 

Sadly, no!

And units set to "bodyguard" do not count as un-routed units for general routing purposes ...

Re: Scripting armies/squads
 

The main problem is, that if you make tactical combat more complex the AI will lose on the battlefields more and more. Look at the traditionals like Master of Magic and Master of Orion 2. With some experience You could win battles with only a fraction of the enemy units. Just because you use retreat tactics or equal thing. Galactic Civ 2 refuses any tactical combat because of that.

And the combat AI isn't only in single player games important. MP Independence are anyway already in a bad position.

You can't make a tactical AI as good like a good human player. This advantage raises with the complexity of combat options!

Re: Scripting armies/squads
 

Argh, I was hoping they could !


... and now I remind why I didn't use this tactic in dom2.

When they said that routing and morale had been redone, I was thinking this was changed ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif