Dark Knight

[quantum_mechani]

As nice as it is to be able to see things in black and white, the world, and even the dominions world, is a messy place. Even assuming the issue is 'resolved' (i.e., all future use of the tactic that has not been explicitly allowed is considered cheating), that doesn't really answer the question of what qualifies as an unacceptable exploit, and moves the line to much fuzzier place.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I thought the archer decoy was common knowledge as well.
It's one reason to break your archers into squads- you shouldn't always fire closest. The targeting of 'fire none' can be handy.

I sometimes put some tough units in the rear, instead of my mages, so attack rear commands don't quite go as planned. I often have to deal with short range spells, so sometimes I even have my mages in the frontline, with a small bodyguard. Not often, but sometimes.

[Xietor]

The answer QM, to your question is this: if you think what you are planning to do is questionable, post on the game thread and ask the other players if it is acceptable.

In Alpaca, Valerius captured the Dark Knight, and posted
the question as to whether it would be proper to copy the commands and use them on other commanders. The other players informed him it was an exploit-and he should refrain from doing it. But he was thanked by everyone for his honesty.

If in doubt-ask.

[quantum_mechani]

That is not a very satisfactory definition. First of all, it doesn't really measure what is most exploitive, only what people are most accustomed too. For instance, people are very unlikely to outlaw archer decoying, not due to any particular judgement about it's abusiveness, but simply because people are so accustomed to using it. Further, even if it was decided exploitive, it would be almost unenforceable since it's impossible to say if that smallish group of units near the front is actually a decoy.

On top of that, it assumes a basic intuition of what would be considered an exploit, which implies another definition.

[Chris_Byler]

I thought archer decoying only worked if the archers were explicitly scripted to fire closest - if you leave them on AI (or fire none) they'll ignore close groups that are too small to be worthwhile.

If that's the way it works then I think it should stay - if their God orders them to fire at the closest unit, they'll do so even if it's two militiamen.

[Xietor]

As for decoys, that is not an exploit. When a tactic is listed in the strategy guide that you buy with the game, you are assured that that conduct is not an exploit.

[quantum_mechani]

Cris: It usually works on default order archers too.

Xietor: I doubt if IW did more than skim most the strategy entries in the manual. And archer decoying was in fact a known issue that there were attempts to resolve.

[Ironhawk]

Xietor said:
As for decoys, that is not an exploit. When a tactic is listed in the strategy guide that you buy with the game, you are assured that that conduct is not an exploit.

This comment is completely at odds with my experience in the beta test. IMO, archer decoying is an exploit of the targetting AI. That fact is brought even more to bear by the efforts of the devs to remove it. Its just so commonly used that no one wants to paste the "exploit" label on it, unlike the situation of the bogus orders.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Does archer decoying still work if you have fire none orders, or does it only work when you're set to fire closest?

[Edratman]

The archer decoy is common knowledge to MP players. Alas and alack, I am solely a SP.