Suggestions / improvements

[Aart1977]

First of all, congrats with the new release 19. Thank you for this beautifull game.

I'd like to report some odd beheaviour of units I noticed, and I have some suggestions for further improvement.

So far I've only played against the computer "AI: Petra Bot". I think some of the behaviour is related to this Bot.

1. When an unit is attacking ot hunting an enemy-unit, it focus on this unit, even when it is attacked by another enemy. E.g. I send out a cavalry-unit. It meets some enemies. They going after it. I send my horse back along a group of archers. I circle my horse around and around, and my archers can take out all the enemies (even when I send the horse through the group of archers)

Suggestion: reset target to another target (or re-evaluate the order off attacking) when attacker is attacked by a new enemy

2. Units stay gathering resources when enemies are coming. Even when nearby units or buildings are attacked.

Suggestion: units with in aggressive mode, break off gathering and attack their enemies when they come in sight

3. Attacker hunts for his target in a straight line even when the target is out of sight. E.g. I send out a cavalry-unit in a circle (as a scout). He bounced on some infantry-units. They're going to hunt him. The cavalry units is faster and come out sight of the enemy-units. The cavalry unit bends in another direction and finaly stops in my village. After a while the enemy units arrived, but they are not in the same path as my cavalry unit. They come in a straight line and seem to have a binoculair.

Suggestion: Units stops hunting when hunted enemy become out of sight. Or alternative: They go tracking and follow the exact path of the hunted enemy.

4. Terrainslope doesn't effect walking speed and there's no difference in passability between infantry, cavalry and siege units.

Suggestion 1: Make walkingspeed depending on slope

- Speed of siege weapons is highly effected by slope (uphill much slower, downhill a bit faster)

- Speed of cavalry is not or nearly not effected by slope

- Speed of infantry is much effected by slope but less then siege-units (uphill much slower, downhill a bit slower)

Suggestion 2: Make difference in passability for different units

- Passability for cavalry can remain as it is.

- Passability for Siege weapons stops at less slope then now

- Infantry units can overcome much steeper slopes then now possible in the game. See also suggestion 3

Suggestion 3: Infantry units go climbing at a certain slope. The speed is 20 times lower then normal

5. I'm not 100 % sure, but it seems that slope doesn't effect the attack range of archery-units

Suggestion: Vary the attack range depending on slope

6. Archers shoots through walls. This is very odd.

Suggestion: Let archers shoot over walls. It's not really necessary to change the visual animation. I think of halving the range and decreasing accuracy with 90 % (because enemies are not in sight)

7. Archers garrisoned on walls seems not to have any advantage above units on the ground

Suggestion 1. Archers on walls has more accuracy when shooting (because they're shooting downwards)

Suggestion 2: Units on walls have a defence bonus (lower hit-chance) because they're defended by the battlements.

8. Petra Bot seems to know what I'm doing and acts accordingly. (and I never see a scout)

- If I go for a fast economy and recruit much women workers, I get an earlier attack then when I recruit much defence-units

- If I build an defence tower I get an attack from another direction. They don't come in sight and bend to another direction. No, they really come from another direction

- If I build a second civil centre, the enemy comes in a straight line towards it. No searching first, never a scout.

9. Petra Bot seems to have a revealed map

If I play with the map "Corinthean Isthmus", I'm used to post a unit as a sentinel at the landbridge. After some time, I see a bunch of workers coming. I killed them. Then there come some others, I killed them. When I look where they're heading for, I find a new site for a civil centre, just next to a metal mine. I'm sure there was never an enemy-unit in the surrounding. So I decided it must be unexplored area for Petra Bot. I even think, this is the reason for issue number 8.

Suggestion: Change Petra Bot, so it can only "see" things in explored area (the same as a human player).

10. Stolen rams are not attacked. If I have stolen a ram from the enemy it seems that he isn't aware that it's a new enemy. If I send champs with some siege-units, they are equally attacked. If I steal some rams, they seem to be ignored until all my other (own) units are killed / destroyed.

[niektb]

Point 8 & 9 are indeed true. Petra has no such thing as a Fog of War (unlike you who can't see everything)

[wackyserious]

I believe the game Project Zomboid uses something called "memory" for their AI unit tracking behavior, where memory can be set to "high, medium or low"

Where,

• the predator unit will store the last points or locations of the prey unit in its memory
• and memory fades away according to setting "high, medium or low" (example in game would be, civs or units that are known as good trackers will have good memory)
• unit speed is the key to outrunning predator units (If prey makes a good amount of distance and the memory faded, the predator would stop chasing the prey, in AI's case, AI would issue a new order to the predator unit)

Plus an AI behavior where, "X" amount of distance that was ran will cause the AI to stop chasing prey unit (This = Smarter AI, no more kamikaze charge when AI chases you back to your territory)

Edited January 30, 2016 by wackyserious
Minor edits