Automation, scripted army orders

Rasorow · #1 November 2nd, 2004, 03:16 PM

I am asking here before placing on the Dominions wish list because - quite frankly - I am a poor player (and yes I have worried and fretted my hour upon the stage... opps wrong script)

Anyway, two things.

1 Can armies be ordered to journey from point A to point B (which normally would take several turns to do so) automaticly? Give the order and over the next 4 turns the army will move into position? Can way points and patrol paths for armies through provinces be set?

2 Can you turn off the hide in castle like a chicken feature? I repeatedly have massive armies hide in castles when attacked by smaller armies. I had a Dryad with 28 eliven statues, 20 summer lions, 20+ Centaur archers, 20+ War Minotaurs and a Mounted Commander with 20 Heavy horse and 15 light Calvary (archers). Both commanders were spell casters and the Dryad was in the Hall of Fame (and was greatly enchanced). The province they were in was a castled province with a defence of 10. An enemy army of 50 (Jout. Militia and a commander) attacked and took the province while my massive (comparativly) cowered. The enemy spoiled my attack (planned the next turn) and threw off my re-enforcment schedule. All because my army which should have (and did next turn) eliminated the enemy before they took the province, tucked their tails between their legs and ran for the castle.

There should be some setting to control running for the castle walls. Active or Passive defense. Meet enemy in field if enemy is 1/3 less the size of your army. Maybe even make that setting adjustable for lower quality armies 1/4, 1/3, or 1/2 less the size of your army.

Anyway is this something that can be done now or should it be added to the list?

Rasorow

Tuna · #2 November 2nd, 2004, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Rasorow said:
1 Can armies be ordered to journey from point A to point B (which normally would take several turns to do so) automaticly? Give the order and over the next 4 turns the army will move into position? Can way points and patrol paths for armies through provinces be set?

No, and stacking any main-map orders for as many turns as you wish would be right up there in the top of my personal wishlist together with queuing multiple commanders and automatic tax-rate setting.

Quote:

2 Can you turn off the hide in castle like a chicken feature? I repeatedly have massive armies hide in castles when attacked by smaller armies. I had a Dryad with 28 eliven statues, 20 summer lions, 20+ Centaur archers, 20+ War Minotaurs and a Mounted Commander with 20 Heavy horse and 15 light Calvary (archers). Both commanders were spell casters and the Dryad was in the Hall of Fame (and was greatly enchanced). The province they were in was a castled province with a defence of 10. An enemy army of 50 (Jout. Militia and a commander) attacked and took the province while my massive (comparativly) cowered. The enemy spoiled my attack (planned the next turn) and threw off my re-enforcment schedule. All because my army which should have (and did next turn) eliminated the enemy before they took the province, tucked their tails between their legs and ran for the castle.

Set your troops on patrol and they will fight outside the walls if enemy attacks.

Cohen · #3 November 2nd, 2004, 04:29 PM

But perhaps you don't want to patrol, since patrolling kills population!!!
There should be a need of a defend province other than the defend castle order (that already exists when you've no castle in the province).

Soapyfrog · #4 November 2nd, 2004, 04:39 PM

Patrolling only kills pop if you have unrest, and even then its not a LOT of pop.

Rasorow · #5 November 2nd, 2004, 04:56 PM

but it still kills pop and some unrest is normal...

and I should be able to set when my army defends a forward position (the province) and when I retreat to my strong hold.

After all I am the defender - you are not going to keep an army of 50 giants or 100s of other troops a secret from the villagers who will run to their Lord for sanctuary or flee the province where the other provincial Lords will learnd of it. I should have the advantage of defending forward (hardline defense), Defending in depth, or defending the stronghold instead of always turning chicken and running to the nearest stronghold.

Rasorow

Arralen · #6 November 2nd, 2004, 06:29 PM

"Some unrest" is not normal. Even if you have turmoil-3, you will have ZERO unrest in your provinces unless

a) you keep loosing it to raiding bands and have to recapture them each turn. To be precise, ever battle causes a small amount of unrest.
b) there's some site generating unrest
c) there's enemy dominion in your province.
d) you're doing bloodhunting

Pop losses from patrolling against 1..10 unrest is negligible.

Actually, you can tell your army to either defend the castle or intercept the intruder - by setting them to "defend" resp. "patrol" (you know that). That it's called "patrol" is just the case because the game engine doesn't differentiate between small or big invading armies.
You can even set the movement into one of your prov and change the orders to "Move and Patrol" afterwards to incept enemy raiders (did you know that?)

so little problems IMHO

A.

Cohen · #7 November 2nd, 2004, 07:08 PM

You've a Move&Patrol order?
I didn't know I can move an army and in the same turn make it patrolling the just reached province

Vicious Love · #8 November 2nd, 2004, 07:29 PM

Mages and minion-summoning demon lords have much, much better things to do with their time than patrolling. Being forced to make one's mages and SCs patrol is about as bad as losing one turn's worth of income and having one's army delayed for a round.

Ironhawk · #9 November 2nd, 2004, 07:29 PM

Unrest is not normal. Any province that has unrest is just wasted money for you.

There is a Move&Patrol order. Tho it is hard to find and not documented as far as I know. What you do is this:

-Select a commander
-Order him to Move to a province (this is the default move order)
-Click on the commander's Move order to bring up the order selection popup
-You will now see a "Move and Patrol" order. Select that

Cainehill · #10 November 2nd, 2004, 11:55 PM

"Unrest is not normal"? Sorry, but while I tend to have 0 unrest in ... 50-75% of my provinces, I also wind up with 1-20% in a lot of others.

As I hate killing population (even as my kinder, gentler carrion woods) I hate patrolling in those provinces, even when I "have" to do it in order to defend a fort.

And "losing" a turn's defense because a mage forging (or researching) inside a turn instead of in the open isn't great either, albeit I understand there is a game design tradeoff here, I think it goes the wrong way, in that researching or forging in a province with a fort _should_ be a bonus, but it actually often isn't.