Official KaM Remake Ideas topic

[sado1]

So, I guess we want something like: when we right click with archers on a group, the archers should walk so they got the group in range, then start shooting. There are 2 approaches we can take there:

-we allow the archers to walk to the group in a way that makes every archer have that unit in range, just like it happens with buildings now (archers that are too far away, are walking up into the range)
-we keep the formation of the archers, but only 1 (2?) row(s) are walking inside the range of the group.

Second solution makes more sense from a micro point of view, I think no one will use a feature that makes your archers all scattered when attacking enemy army. (Maybe with exception of a few newbies)

[dicsoupcan]

there is a kind of fix to that, when you roder your ranged troops to halt they wil pick new targets. sure it is still random, but the chance is quite large they shoot at the enemy ranged too.

[Lewin]

-we allow the archers to walk to the group in a way that makes every archer have that unit in range, just like it happens with buildings now (archers that are too far away, are walking up into the range)

That's how it works right now when you order archers to attack units.

there is a kind of fix to that, when you roder your ranged troops to halt they wil pick new targets. sure it is still random, but the chance is quite large they shoot at the enemy ranged too.

But if we change it to work like pawel described (and me in my last post) then 100% of them will shoot at the ranged units, so you can control exactly who will be shot at all the time.

[pawel95]

Oh wow. Didn´t thought about the horse dance That´s why bowmen are shooting randomly, propably because of that also random results come out in fights. But that will make bowmen OP then again, when it wouldn´t be random.
Hmmm can´t find a good solution now. After I have read Lewin´s post, I rather thing my idea was unnecesary Beause you have the "turn right" "turn left" button and should be able only with that to "aim" at units, that you wanna kill.

However I said, they will ignore my new task (when 2 different groups have the same distance to my bowmen). But what is when I go a step to the back, and click then on the other group? Or even only hold them(like Disco meant)? Then I press to attack the axefighter group, and they will follow my task. So the problem is just that the player has to stop them first, after he can change the task. So that wouldn´t bring any advantage, right? Or will some of these bowmen still shoot on the bowmengroup,because of that "random function"? hmmmm....


I mean

If you have a group of archers that is already shooting, and you order them to attack some other unit, they will ignore you.

you understood my point well, but with "other unit", I meant an other group of soldiers. Not an other unit IN the same group. just to make that clear

[cmowla]

Lewin,
I guess I understand why you won't be implementing the changes I suggested about he woodcutter's and the fishfarm, however, here are two more suggestions for the woodcutter's:

(1) In the English translation, it doesn't make sense to say "fell only". Shouldn't it be "chop only" or "cut only"?
(2) Would it be bad to also have a "plant only" option? (If it's a bad idea, can someone explain why?)

[Lewin]

@cmowla:
1. Fell is a less common word for chop or cut, especially used in relation to trees (check the verb definition of it here). I thought it sounded more fitting to the game than chop or cut because fell seems like an older word (remember all ye Olde English from the campaigns?). I'm pretty sure the woodcutter's description when you click on him even says that he "fells" trees.
2. Well plant only isn't really useful. Try to imagine a situation where you wouldn't want a woodcutter to chop trees? Fell only is useful because you don't want the woodcutter planting if you are clearing an area. Having two woodcutters next to each other, one on plant only and one on cut only won't be any more efficient than having them doing both.

@pawel: You're right, it's already possible to achieve this targeted aiming by pressing halt (H on keyboard) then immediately right clicking an enemy unit, who will then get shot from every archer in your group Could people please test if this is abusable/exploitable in a multiplayer context? (does it make knight dancing useless?) If it isn't then I guess we can allow you to give your bowmen specific targets.

Another interesting point is that once the bowmen have killed that one unit you told them to shoot, they will go back to shooting random targets. I could make them pick targets only from the group you told them to shoot (and if it's out of range, pick random targets). But then knight dancing would be completely pointless because it would be possible to control which group your archers are shooting.

I guess we need to completely rethink the purpose of giving archers attack orders, like sado's ideas.

[Lewin]

i got a small idea that only affects singleplayer atually, it is about the defense positions.

how about a checkbox to enable the ai to also attack when an ally of them is under attack?

This is now implemented, it will be in the next nightly build
BTW, I tested it, this doesn't happen in TPR, they will only defend their own units/houses. So by default this checkbox is disabled.

[sado1]

Just to clarify: my post above meant that I wanted to remove the aiming feature, so when the archers will come into the range, they will not start shooting an individual unit, they will normally shoot random guys instead.

[dicsoupcan]

i got a small idea that only affects singleplayer atually, it is about the defense positions.

how about a checkbox to enable the ai to also attack when an ally of them is under attack?

This is now implemented, it will be in the next nightly build
BTW, I tested it, this doesn't happen in TPR, they will only defend their own units/houses. So by default this checkbox is disabled.

yes i know they did not do it in tpr, but thanks for implementing it.

[The Dark Lord]

i got a small idea that only affects singleplayer atually, it is about the defense positions.

how about a checkbox to enable the ai to also attack when an ally of them is under attack?

This is now implemented, it will be in the next nightly build
BTW, I tested it, this doesn't happen in TPR, they will only defend their own units/houses. So by default this checkbox is disabled.

Please explain me how this works? I'm interested.

About the ranged unit shooting thing... I agree with sado. Right-clicking on a hostile unit should mean: walk up to it until it's just in range, then select a random target from the position the archer is standing at. If you could select which units your archers should shoot at, that would be too abuseable methinks.

[Lewin]

Please explain me how this works? I'm interested.

Well you know how the existing system works? When an AI unit or house is attacked, any defence position in range of the attacker will be ordered to attack them. If this new option is enabled it just extends that functionality to allies, so any allied defence positions in range will be sent to get the attacker. That's all there is to it.

About the ranged unit shooting thing... I agree with sado. Right-clicking on a hostile unit should mean: walk up to it until it's just in range, then select a random target from the position the archer is standing at. If you could select which units your archers should shoot at, that would be too abuseable methinks.

You're probably right, I guess I'll change it to be like that then. Seems like a step backwards because it's making archers dumber/less controllable

[The Dark Lord]

Please explain me how this works? I'm interested.

Well you know how the existing system works? When an AI unit or house is attacked, any defence position in range of the attacker will be ordered to attack them. If this new option is enabled it just extends that functionality to allies, so any allied defence positions in range will be sent to get the attacker. That's all there is to it.

I see; so how does the static script look like? An extra 0 or 1 behind !SET_AI_DEFENSE lalalala?

About the ranged unit shooting thing... I agree with sado. Right-clicking on a hostile unit should mean: walk up to it until it's just in range, then select a random target from the position the archer is standing at. If you could select which units your archers should shoot at, that would be too abuseable methinks.

You're probably right, I guess I'll change it to be like that then. Seems like a step backwards because it's making archers dumber/less controllable

Yes, but it's the best option. Shoot and go back would become way too strong (kill closest unit --> retreat --> kill closest unit --> retreat), and it's likely to be abuseable in other ways as well.

[Lewin]

I see; so how does the static script look like? An extra 0 or 1 behind !SET_AI_DEFENSE lalalala?

No it's a global switch for the player, like NO_BUILD. You can't set it for individual defence positions.

[Lewin]

Ok I basically made the changes sado suggested. Here's what happens when you order archers to attack an enemy units:
1. If any of the archers are within range of the target, they will face it then pick a random target in that direction.
2. If any of the archers are out of range they will move to the closest tile in range and face the target, but staying in their formation (like if you ordered the group to move to that closest tile, but only out of range archers will move there). They then pick a random target in that direction. This means only the first row will be in range and the other rows of archers will just sit there if there's no other target to shoot at.
3. If the target keeps moving away, the archers will follow it, always moving to the closest tile within range as in step 2. This continues until the unit they were ordered to attack is dead. However, if the unit dies while they were still walking to within range of it (as in step 2), they will continue walking there and shoot any other targets they see when they arrive.

It seems to work really well, it's much more useful and intuitive. You can try it out in the latest nightly build

If anybody sees archers trying to walk into melee combat, please send me a replay. This shouldn't happen any more and if it does it's a bug.

[RandomLyrics]

Hm i notice that u cant build roads near enemy towers, can we disable it by script?( Acions.DisableRoadBlock(aPlayer))