2.11 Friendly Fire behaviour

[Karacan]

I don't recall seeing this before, so:


YAY!


After playing a bit with Ulmish Arbalescs (and you *will* notice friendly fire from those), I must say that the combat AI now takes considerable care trying not to damage your own units too much.

This is very appreciated, and while there's still some quirks (only three enemy light infantries left, for example, surrounded by my hordes of heavy infantry, but the archers still try to steal the kill...), I consider the issue of friendly fire for me, at least, completely and satisfyingly closed. Thanks, Illwinter.

[Cohen]

Well, I'd add the option to tell your archers to not to fire on melee engaged troops ... even if closest.

Something like fire closest ... when closest in melee, fire next closest.

[Gandalf Parker]

Putting archers to the sides of your front lines helps also also. Having them stand behind your guys and fire thru them at the enemy, especially with something like crossbows, is just asking for it.

[PvK]

I'm afraid I disagree. I don't think the AI takes any more care avoiding friendly fire.

It just shoots straighter.

That helps, but not nearly enough. I still frequently see battles where most of my losses are to pointless friendly fire accidents, such as when the enemy is fleeing and my archers pepper my pursuing troops, or when there are many targets available which are nowhere near my troops, but the archers fire closest or something and thus hit my troops as well.

Again, the AI should almost never fire where there is a risk of hitting friendly troops. Still my only real dissatisfaction with the whole game. I still love the game, and the accuracy does help, but it's still really frustrating to lose troops (often elite units) to friendly fire that should not have been fired.

I also do highly appreciate the improvement to missile scatter. Not only does it help friendly fire, but it makes inaccurate spells much more useful (in many cases, the difference between near-useless and actually effective), and it makes results make more sense and look a lot less silly.

I'm just still holding out for the day the AI actually avoids picking targets that risk friendly fire.

PvK

[ April 24, 2004, 18:54: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Teraswaerto]

Originally posted by PvK:


I'm just still holding out for the day the AI actually avoids picking targets that risk friendly fire.

PvK

Such AI behaviour should be optional, since sometimes one will field fodder (or troops immune to the missiles being used) the only purpose of which is to slow the enemy down while missile troops/mages fire away.

[ April 24, 2004, 19:06: Message edited by: Teraswaerto ]

[Norfleet]

I think the fundamental drawback here is that in the battle, the combat AI really doesn't have any sense of objectives or priorities: Obviously, the targets that would be picked would be different depending on whether your objective was to simply drive the enemy from the field while taking as few losses of your own as possible, or to prioritize killing as many as possible.

[PDF]

For my part I've observed a much more intelligent missile targeting from the AI in 2.11 than before.
For example I've seen flank archers move forward before firing into a melee where many friendly troops are, so there's much less chance of hitting friends !
And the new 2.11 targeting algorithm also make fire scatter much less than before (and Evo spells are usable now ! )
Overall to me the issue seems corrected .

[Karacan]

Yes, I think the targetting AI has much improved. I've seen archers change target after their initial target engaged in melee with my troops, and more.

I am rather satisfied, and have greatly increased the amount of archery among my troops again.

[HotNifeThruButr]

They still fire when you have a pile of Flagellants surrounding a goddang single Hoplite