Auto-routing alternatives

[Sombre]

Why did the longdead remain if his side had autorouted?

[Argitoth]

Sombre, that's a good question that Endo brought up. However, I doubt the tartarian could have done 123 damage in one swing. So that's why I think the golem just died. Plus there was no damage numbers floating above his head when he died.

Endo: I don't know where you got the idea my golem had attack of 13. He had 20 attack (15 + sunslayer bonus = 20) Sunslayer also does AOE damage. I'm just trying to defend the fact that my golem would have kicked the Tartarian's A**. Also, near the end I show you how many afflictions I caused, plus old age. That was in part because the tartarian wasn't poison resistant. Why is the tartarian not poison resistant?

[Endoperez]

I'm sorry I got your Golem's attack wrong. I didn't notice the +5 attack of Sunslayer at first, and didn't remember to change that part after I did.

If you launch Dominions with -ddd or similar (from command line, from shortcut, etc), just view the battle and read the log.txt (in the same folder as dom3 executable).

[Argitoth]

alright Endo, I'll have the log for you soon. For now I have to go to bed, I've been up for more than 24 hours working on homework. *dies*

[Zeldor]

I didn't see that battle of Argitoth but Golems do DIE at turn 50 on attack. Exactly when turn limit comes. From what I know they won't die earlier if their friends decide to rout.

[NTJedi]

Here's my last comments on this topic... hope we see some type of adjustment.

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With regards to immobile commanders/units the end result should be the same result as what happens now when using map edit commands and placing two different nations on the same province. This scenario would have the defender still owning the province and the attacking immobile sitting on top without access to anything within the province. Thus next turn results in an instant battle.

This might be too much programming... so as a second option leave the auto-kill for only immobiles and provide an auto-retreat for only attackers.

An increase for battle turns would be appreciated... as time passes it's inevitable gamers will need to upgrade their computers. The computers of today and tomorrow can handle the increased battle turns. On reflection for increasing battle turns... anytime we've seen in increase for commander and unit limits we've only seen praise and happiness in the community.

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[Endoperez]

I just saw the auto-rout kill something for the first time. I tested an unscripted holy 4 supercombatant against independents, and because it was unscripted, it proceeded to cast Word of God at the retreating enemies. Because it was alone, and did nothing but endlessly paralyze the three units left, it retreated on turn 50. The three remaining units died on turn 75 because they couldn't get out of paralyze.

It's hard to come up with rules that would work in a situation like this. What if the mage had been a measly S2 guy lucky enough to paralyze the enemy SC for a few turns? He has no chance, better that he runs away. What if it was a single militia, but very close to the mage? Should he try to kill him in melee, or to cast Mind Burn and risk going unconscious? Attacking when all enemies are paralyzed is stupid if you're crippled and unarmed, and they are heavily armored.

The only thing I can think of would help against the turn 75 auto-kill, and not the auto-rout:
First, kill all paralyzed units. If the battle hasn't ended yet, kill all unconscious units. If the battle hasn't ended yet, kill all units.

[cleveland]

It seems to me that the autorout/kill mechanism was implemented to prevent infinite-loop behaviors, like that mentioned by Endoperez.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume the cutoffs were set at 50/75 turns for Dom2, when battles were smaller, CPUs were slower, and ISPs charged by the minute.

However, people (myself included) are complaining that turn 50 is being reached before battles are reaching any sort of infinite-loop behavior, when there's still fighting to be done.

In light of all this, and the need for a simple solution that won't take pages and pages of code rewrite, I propose the following quick solution:

Increase the autorout time by 5X.
Increase the autokill time by 5X.

In other words, autorout kicks in at turn 250, autokill kicks in at turn 375.

Modern CPUs can easily handle the extra processing time, and modern networks can easily handle the occasional 375-turn-battle-containing-.trn file.

[Endoperez]

Not everyone plays Dominions with a modern computer. I've had this computer for longer than I've had DomII, so increasing the limits by 5 is way too much.

[Sombre]

Who says it would require a more powerful computer anyway? Usually in all those extra turns very little would be happening. It wouldn't be common to get past turn 75 or so anyway.

It might be a problem with VotD though.