[Taqwus]

DominionsFan --

Heh. Well, I suppose that depends.

For instance, going back to the original thread target, it was possible to use weak cheap units as "chaff" to distract its missile firers. Not being a beta-tester, I don't know whether this has been improved. Mind you, the missile-firers may have a different interest than their general -- what if the "chaff" isn't the main threat in the battle, but it threatens the missile-firers themselves?

Magical targeting is trickier, for balance reasons. Consider the "save-or-die" spells, such as Disintegrate. Imagine Illwinter generated an excellent evaluation function -- or even let players script their own -- that compared enemy units based on proximity, whether or not they could fly given weather conditions, their hp, att, prot etc. Suppose it could identify, perfectly, the optimal threat. Would it be reasonable to allow these death spells to always target the nastiest threat in range, or would that lead to magic-dominated gunfights (mages on both sides slaying each other, then the surviving mages pick off supercombatants, then killing off the remaining commanders...) ?

There can be /too/ good targeting, I'd say; both from a balance perspective, and also from a "realism" perspective e.g. could a mage really, during a melee involving perhaps hundreds or more units, pick out the main threats so accurately? Outrageous cheese -- truly silly uses of chaff, say -- shouldn't be possible, but there aren't many units that can justify supreme targeting logic either. Say, flying units might have an edge on this since they could see more of the battle. If Illwinter wanted to implement "does the commander notice this" sort of logic, they could probably also factor in unit experience.