Slightly unexpected tactical AI moves

[HJ]

Not the most experienced person to answer but I hope you don't mind...

Templars attacking the front - maybe they were attacking the rear of the army, just that the rear was fairly far ahead? I don't think that the commanders or troops on guard commander count, so once they became parallel to the rest of the army, they moved toward the center and slammed into the closest enemy there. Troops on guard commander don't seem to count toward army rout either (the army will rout even though the bodyguard squad wasn't even in contact with the enemy, and turn to fight if pursuers move close), so I guess that might be the case.

Acolyte charging forward - there has been some mention of this behavior with mages/priests before, I think in the AI thread (remember my mage who was cold when he ran into Breath of winter cloud? ). After he runs out of script, tactical AI decides what he's going to do, and that might not always be the best choice. I think that, since he had noone left to bless, he either reverted to stay behind troops, or attack. Stay behind the troops actually means that he will stay at the rear of the army, not that he'll stay put, so that's why he ran after the templars. The tactic that seems to work is once you don't want thim to cast any more spells, put him on "hold a turn" and then "stay behind troops". This will ensure that he'll stay put for a few turns, and move forward when the situation will hopfully be less perilous.

Crossbowmen - my guess is that it's also a case of tactical AI judgement. Since they were commanderless, they weren't scripted, and the AI judged that they should attack instead of fire.

[ November 09, 2003, 03:36: Message edited by: HJ ]

[Pocus]

this is a recuring problem with missiles able units, to move forward and then be caught by advancing enemy units. Thats would be rather easy to fix, but dont seems a priority, how strange it can be.

On the same trend, fire drakes often advances to attack, even when they still have all their fire breath ammo. And most of the time, they get killed in melee.

One of the problem is that group of missiles units sometime advance to be in range of their choosen target, even if some enemy units are closer. This is a legit move, as it prevents the AI to be fooled by a stray unit forward. So I think the targeting algorithm does a good job and should not be changed, when a unit group is on target none. What could be done is either a hold position or fire, so that missiles units dont move, or even better (one of my pet peeve), allow bodyguards to use their missile weapons, so you can fix indefinitively a group of missiles units, or let them advance after several rounds, by following their leader.

[ November 09, 2003, 07:57: Message edited by: Pocus ]

[Aristoteles]

Originally posted by PvK:

Their slaves led the charge, getting pelted by their own slingers (moronic but expected )

Yet another AI weakness. This is always worked very well against the AI. Hm I will update my AI weaknesses list with this.