[Suggestion] Zone of control on the cloth map

It already works right now. Don't auto-follow the spiders.

When you're one square away stop all auto-movement and move it manually. The spiders will move on their turn, then on your turn it will wait for you to move instead of moving automatically.

The behavior problem we have is because of a bad pathing AI when following a unit.

And why not getting bigger ZOC is an army has a lot of men ? ZOC was something missing in civ4. I hated how a unit could pass your defences.

Zone of control is essential, I remember in MOM that there was always units passing  around me. It was also difficult to protect areas. I even suggest that cities has zone of controls and that they can be more than 1 point  size if the city grow.

hmm, I think after 100 soldiers, every time the size squares itself it gets another tile. So 10,000 soldiers would have a ZOC of two-tile radius. (might even take up more than one tile?)

or maybe 500, 5000, and 50,000 make better milestones. for 1 tile, 2 tile, and 3 tile radius to zones of control. Naturally anything from a motte'n'bailey to a fortress would increase natural zone of control by 1, while a full citadel would increase zone of control by 2. So 50,000 people occupying in (and around) a citadel would have a zone of control of 5 tile radius ... thats a hefty chunk ... covering a whole valley or so. Should a hill/mountain presence (if they are familiar with that terrain) gain an extra +1 ZOC as well? or simply LOS? in any event, I think LOS should be 1 tile farther than zone of control (at least) and be added upon by extra scouting units to join army ... possibly. Maybe the super-high end scout would only gain +1 or something.... otherwise you simply retain your normal LOS if you enter jungle or forest.

If you have an army of thousands of men, then you have patrols out, centuries watching and foraging parties nearby...thus you have a zone of control.  However, if you are a single individual or small group you do not have those things which generate a zone of control.  Two armies of a few hundred men could pass within a mile of each other and not realize it, particularly in bad weather or rough terraine.

So I would suggest no ZoC unless the units meet some relatively stringent size requirements.

So yea, as an update to what I said, no zone of control until 500 soldiers, 2 tiles for 5000, and 3 tiles for 50,000+

I think a sovereign/magical creature should increase LOS by one, but not be cumulative. Also, a Massive magical creature (like a Groblok or a dragon) should increase Zone of Control by 1 up to a total of 3 tiles ... will not increase zone of control for a massive 50,000 man army. It would still increase the Line of Sight by 1 though ... due to flying capabilities (but other flyers, or the sovereign, could of already added this bonus)

First, I don't think that you should have so many units present in order spread a ZOC. I would say:

• 0-299 units - no ZOC
• 300-499 units - 1 square ZOC
• 500+ units - 2 square ZOC

3 square ZOC would be too much in my opinion. It's like:

XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXOXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX

Horribly too big. I understand that bigger army would be able to cover bigger area, but if you spread your units so much, than how can you expect to intercept the enemy with all your forces? Seems illogical to me, and on the top of that: if you have smaller maximum ZOC size, than you have to tactically place a few sentries.

Second, I have another idea about ZOC. Let's divide the whole system into two parts: ambush and blockade.

Blockade is the typical stuff that we are discussing right now. You have an army, you put it into one place. If you spend 1 turn waiting in one place, you will spread your typical ZOC basing on the size of your army (described above). Although, if you spend 3 turns waiting (clarification: you have to choose blockade action; if you don't choose it, even if you wait 10 years, you won't set a blockade), you initiate a blockade. This way your ZOC increases by 1 point (+1). I know it's contradictory to what I wrote above, but at least it's semi-balanced, as you need to wait in one place for 3 turns. The drawbacks of such maneuver: you have to wait 3 turns in one place (first drawback), and after you want to move out, you have to wait 1 turn to repack your things and continue your pursuit.

Ambush is something more interesting. It works in similar way like the blockade with a few notable differences. First thing to note is that ambush can only be set in special zones. In normal games it will mean that you can prepare ambush in forest & mountains; while the modders might extend the functionality to other zones.

Second, your ZOC is always 1! This way it reflects the reality better. You can't make an ambush everywhere, where your units are. There is only a specific place in which you can ambush an enemy.

Third, in order to set up an ambush, you have to spend 2+1 days (I will explain the 2+1 notation in a moment). That means 3 days.

Fourth, (at last some bonuses) after the second day (and further) you become invisible! Yup. The enemy won't be able to see you (assuming he doesn't have any special units).

Fifth, you gain an advantage fighting a foe that went into your ambush. Let's say you will be able to make the first turn, while the opponent won't have such possibility, or your atk/def stats will increase by some %.

Sixth, ambush party can't sit in one place (ie. hide) for infinite amount of time. After a successfully prepared ambush (3 days), you can wait max. 7 days. If you cross the deadline, your units will become once more visible, and in order for them to become invisible once more, they have to move to some new position.

What ya think, guys?

Yea, you would really need an army closer to a million to say, cover 4 squares or something, similar to the Sword of Truth series with Emperor Jagang, the dreamer, and his multitude of forces which literally covered the land-scape as a fast-moving glacier of intolerant humanity.

His army was about 2 million, vs the 200,000 or so available to Richard Rahl and friends. Obviously armies of this size are simply mind-boggling and illogical for a post-appocalyptic world, and armies in the Real World never entered those sizes until the Nationalism became involved (The French Revolution).

While it would be kinda nice for battles to cover more than one square, and for an army to possibly be big enough to cover more than one square at a time ... such things wouldn't actually happen until you get into the hundreds of thousands.

Therefore, Having no more than 2 squares Zone of Control is perfectly Acceptable, but Shouldn't Happen until 10,000!!!!

I vote 0-999 = no control, 1,000-9,999= 1 square of control, and 10,000+ grants 2 squares of control.

Now, no matter what the size, sitting on a Citadel will give you 2 squares of control, and sitting on a fortress will give you 1 square of control.

Same for Cities (2) and Towns (1) and Villages (0)