chrstgtr

Apparently it's been so long since any of us have played a game with ships (and for good reason) that we are all forgetting how the AI works.

So the overwork rakes out BuildingAI and replaces it with UnitAI? That's all fine and good (and I agree with most of what you say). But because UnitAI chases, your ships may move without you doing anything. That can be problematic with how clunky ships are (ships getting stuck behind other ships, ships getting lured, etc.). Non-random BuildingAI wouldn't have that problem because ships would only move when you tell them to, which also means that an enemy can't exploit it as easily. UnitAI and non-random BuildingAI aren't really that different from each other aside from the chase aspect. Long overdue.

You can just have separate behavior for siege towers and buildings.

There's some disconnect. Right now, ship AI behavior is buildingAI (I think, it is referenced in the templates and that is how I remember it). I think it makes sense for ship AI behavior to non-random buildingAI instead of random buildingAI. For ships, I think non-random buildingAI is superior to random buildingAI and unitAI. Non-random buildingAI allows for positioning micro and allows the rock-paper-scissors in wow's proposal to work. Random buildingAI will mess that up by shooting randomly, so the efficient build in Wow's model is just a mix mashed together. UnitAI is similar to non-random buildingAI except ships will chase the first ship that they come into contact with. This chase can lead to problems, including luring with rock ships with rock and/or paper ships. Because naval battles are so clunky, I think the AI behavior should be something that emphasizes ship positioning. Non-random buildingAI seems best positioned for that.

Agree. It’s an interesting idea (and one that I think I want) but it really isn’t used. But why is that mutually exclusive? If it is old buildingAI then the classes get muddled and you just need a mix of units. If it UnitAI then I think it could become just be a bunch of luring with sniping (targeting overrides). If it is nonrandom buildingAI then at least you get battle positioning.

It’s been a pretty long time now. It’s got less popular as time went on. At this point, I think people’s minds are made up. I think I agree with this. But wow already has a rework for ships I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive, though It was also integrated with siege towers but I think that make siege towers OP. I’m not sure if that just needs a stat adjustment or if there is an actual problem with the mechanism

There is a more full discussion in like three other threads. The short version is that non-random arrows creates lots of problems. Rushing is overly difficult. Sentry towers are too strong. Standing under a CC always creates unit loss even if there is no defending army outside, which means like 15 swords can defend against 2 rams and an army 3x as large. While it can be OP for both early and late game as described above, it also has lower dps than random arrows so the attacking army remains stronger in a way. Healers, including healing heroes, are ineffective and the ability to slowly level up units is much lower. And more. In addition to these clear balance issues, this is ultimately just a preference issue. For me, I like random arrows because it creates a more dynamic game. If you stay under a building too long with random arrows you suddenly begin to quickly lose a lot of units, which can quickly flip the direction of a game. But with nonrandom arrows that sudden reversal doesn’t happen. This quick reversal effect can also happen if an army becomes lower health and then runs into a full health enemy army in an open field even if the full health army is smaller. All this is to say, we tried. But it was disliked by a lot of people. It wasn’t the first change to suffer that fate and it won’t be the last.

Agree. Simplest and best.

Is any of this really necessary if we get rid of non-random arrows? I think there is a clear verdict on the non-random arrows at this point. Note, even after reverting back to random arrows, we might have to do a little rebalance to account for armor changes in the melee change.

Bolts are strong. But their use is mostly limited to turtling due to their movement speed and pack time, which makes them slow to retreat, slow to push, and extremely vulnerable to move. I vote to reduce the pack/unpack time. It’s just an annoying feature. It feels like you’re constantly playing with awful lag and it is the main cause all of the three problems I identified above. On siege, siege towers are ridiculously OP now.

So thread summary tabasco: you can use that mod but other people you play with might think you’re cheating. me: [ignore atrik] here’s a different solution that might help you Atrik: insult directed at me alre : don’t pick on atrik me: we’re not picking on him—he doesn’t care that people think he’s cheating and plays the victim at the same time atrik: “idc f u” also stop picking on me. conclusion: atrik is a nice guy?

Nice guy here.

You act like this is all me. It isn't. Literally every time you post your mod in people call you out and then you pretend you've never done anything wrong when nearly everyone you play with wishes you would delete the mod. Like here, you just want a different standard for yourself.

It’s not unjustified. He was told it was cheating and that people don’t like it. His response was I don’t care if the people I play with think I am cheating and that he would do it anyways. He took advantage of people’s good will and hesitancy to ban players. Once he did start to get banned, what did he do? Immediately complain that he was getting picked on. Just because he plays the victim doesn’t mean he is one.

If you are going to try to insult someone you should first use a dictionary to look up the words that you use in your insult. Your rebuttal should also be written intelligibly. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metaphor

I agree. That is why I don't see any joy in mods that automate eco/production. But here we are.

Agree. @SKAcz: if you dislike eco constraints, you can also just play with higher resources (i.e., death match starting resources or the "gift from the gods" cheat).

One of the reasons, yes. I also think balance makes it pragmatically difficult (or impossible) to do, which I think you would agree with at this point you've tried too different versions that are presenting big balance issues. All personal preference. None of these are objective conclusions. None of these are valid reasons to do a change. I disagree with all these positions and actually say that the opposite. Because it is largely about personal preferences. Diving under buildings without consequence This isn't true. You do get damaged. You do die if you stay too long. To the extent you can rush without dying, I think that is a good thing. Basically no one has said that rush was a problem before. buildings acting like a timer for the soldiers to leave This is the same thing as "Diving under buildings without consequence" Healer auras invalidate arrows This is obviously a problem with healer auras. That is what should've been fixed. Note, non-random arrows largely invalidates healing as a concept. This is bad. Lack of control over arrows I kind of agree with you here. But I don't think manually control of arrows is actually used a lot/effectively. Manually control of arrows is possible with random buildingAI This is less important that buildingAI behavior because it occurs less frequently. -------- To the extent there are objective criteria, that objective criteria favors random arrows because random arrows was already balanced. We don't even know if it is possible to balance non-random arrows and your efforts to do so are getting more complicated but with no more success.

I like this (I think I actually suggested it myself at some time in the past) but I think it requires new code to do. Chariots has been something that everyone agrees needs to get changed but there isn't a lot of agreement on what that change should look like or the desired change (trampling) has to get new code to be possible. As a result, we have what we have for now.

This poll is equally clear that non-random arrows is disliked: 66% of votes cast called for random buildingAI for CC/fort ("Reverse the non-random arrows entirely," "Make buildings shoot at random unless targeted," or "Make the civic center and fortress shoot at random unless targeted") Note this 66% vote share is as great or greater than questions 3 and 4, which you point to as a clear issue). 61% of votes cast called for random buildingAI to be reversed for all buildings ("Reverse the non-random arrows entirely" or "Make buildings shoot at random unless targeted") The largest vote getter called for random buildingAI ("Make buildings shoot at random unless targeted") But a less popular buildingAI behavior was implemented ("Balance the CC, Tower, and Fortress arrows"). In every way, this was a disfavored option by the voters. To the extent there are "mixed feelings" it is whether a player should be able to override random buildingAI and manually target units. This doesn't consider the likely outcome of a rank order vote. This is like if you asked people what their favorite ice cream flavor was and gave them the options of dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and vanilla and the votes came out as below: Dark chocolate (3) Milk chocolate (2) Vanilla (2) In this scenario, it is clear the people want to chocolate but spread their votes out between two similar options. Same too here. Rebalancing non-random arrows is only popular to the extent that you ignore 2/3 of all votes. Put simply, non-random arrows is/was unpopular. No one has put forth a reason why a new mechanic is needed. By your own admission, the old mechanic worked fine. Change should not inherently be favored. It is also untrue that no one has explained why non-random arrows is bad or why random arrows is good. It is just a question of personal preference, which has clearly been expressed several times at this point by the larger community.

I think the bigger problem that you are getting at is that there is a problem with inf/cav balance.

There should be rigorous debate. If you look back in trac at some of the least popular changes, those were the changes that typically had the least discussion or where dissenting opinions where just outright ignored. Disagree on each version of the community mod being disliked. To be honest, all the versions before 26.6 were pretty widely liked at initial release and those changes are still widely approved of. There are mechanisms to reverse changes. Indeed, we appear to be in the midst of changes with buildingAI and melee rebalance.

I like both. With (2) already committed to a27, I see no reason not to include it. Speaking of a27 commits, I think the Iphicrates patch would also be nice to get into the community mod too. What is your plan for the next community mod, mostly cleanup with arrows/melee balance? I think that is a good plan. If you want to add new ideas, I think the wonder is ripe for reform. Ton of things we could do there. But right now it does basically nothing.

So it is a problem with doing random arrows and manually targeted arrows at the same time ("Make buildings shoot at random unless targeted")? I didn't realize it was built directly within buildingAI. Your choice if you want to try to pursue it. To your point above, the "Make buildings shoot at random unless targeted" might be still be problematic, so it might not be worth you spending time on it instead of just doing a total revert.

What do you mean? Wouldn't it just be a total revert? I'm not sure this is entirely true. At least not for early game. It is really hard to target arrows during rushes, especially when you are also trying to hide women/bring men by CC. Meanwhile, players don't like to stay under CCs for long so the defending player has to act really fast. To the extent people can do this, I don't think it's bad to reward them for their micro skills. To your point, late game it might be a problem still. But to the extent it is a problem, it would be similar to the impact of sniping, which isn't done a ton nowadays.