Monsters coming from near and far to prioritize attacking my cities and various other stuff

from Elemental Forums

Monsters are coming from near and far to attack my cities. I have shrill lords from "Quest" (you know, the green tags) monster zones coming 20 squares away to attack my outposts and cities. They are VERY FAR from home. THe best part is, they just ignore the computer player (Magnars) city that borders the damn quest area as the computer loves building cities on the green borders of quest areas.

I am 99% convinced that this inexplicable monster behaviour has to deal with the players revealed fog of war. Basically, if I have revealed a monsters den with fog of war, it now by passes everything else to go way out of its way to attack me. This needs to stop, seriously. I have seen monsters attack players before, but I am convinced that they have to be illuminated with my sight for the monsters to acctaully target them. This is just a theory.

Also.. All my units are now getting one shot by splash damage from any creature that has it. As an example, a shril lord (Silly me) was surrounded by two of my hero characters and 1 unit. The shrill lord prioritizes the weakest defender and hits him, that unit took around 30-40 damage, and my all my characters took 100+ instantly dying.

And again, a slag comes into my city from clear accross the map in some other players region because i got a trade treaty with them, thus revealing this monsters den to my fog of war.... anyway, he comes in and in one hit with splash does 60+ to all my defending units one shotting them. This creature has 35 attack or something similar so i'd like to know how the math works there.

We seriously need to get this monster priotitization thing under control. It has been a major irritant this entire beta, as in, the WHOLE beta.

Lastly, its super irritating to have the computer walking through your territory every turn. We need to make it so they can't walk through your territory at all (its impossible) unless they are at war with me, or have a treaty set up. An awesome thing happened to me where later in the game the computer player walked deep deep into my territory to attack a recruitable NPC allied with the empire. This was altar that attacked the npc named sculla, who gives an epic 32 attack mace when you beat her. Thanks AI, because i wasn't saving that for later. I figured it was safe in my territory but no, the altar AI player marched in and took her out.

I realize that a change like that isn't just simple, you have to tell the ai to not even consider alot of scenarios but we really need this in the game. You know, canada doesn't march thorugh the USA to attack honduras. This is just silly.

8,413 views 17 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

If you start a new game the splash damage problem will go away.  There is some stuff about it in other threads.

Beta 4 is about cities, and I have also seen that the diplomacy system is going to get some love.  My guess is that because of these two things, and the number of complaints about AI walking through player territory, this will get fixed at some point.

About monsters attacking cities.  While I've seen a lot of people talking about this, I honestly don't have this problem.  Since .915 I've found the monsters to be at the right level of toughness and aggressiveness.  Anytime a large stack has attacked one of my cities it has been my fault.  I put up a outpost where I shouldn't have or let my cities borders expand to much.  But I should say I never do trade treaties because I don't want a road from a potential enemy to my capital.  You may be on to something about the fog of war.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

How is the splash damage supposed to work now?

 

I do not experience the monsters attacking cities problem that you describe

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top


I haven't been unduly affected by monsters last game a shrill lord razed my city but my borders covered him so my fault. Monsters do not, however, seem to bother with AI cities being right next to them. I know Frogboy or Derek said this was corrected but it hasn't as far as I can see.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting joasoze, reply 2
How is the splash damage supposed to work now?
End of joasoze's quote

splash is supposed to do a fraction of the damage of the initial attack to the neighboring units.

there are other threads about the splash damage bug, but basically there's a flaw in the way it calculates the damage done to neighboring units that is magnifying the damage rather than reducing it.

So instead of doing 20% damage, the splash does 400% damage or somesuch.  It also appears to completely ignore defense (which is just stupid).  So when the unit that gets hit might take 15 damage, the units around him are obliterated.

 

I do not experience the monsters attacking cities problem that you describe
End of quote

I certainly have seen this behavior.  It seems that there might be some sort of random trigger to make monsters to attack cities.  It's likely that this happens to the AI behind the FoW, but I have definitely experienced extremely powerful monsters wandering far across the map to attack one of my cities.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top


I am 99% convinced that this inexplicable monster behaviour has to deal with the players revealed fog of war. Basically, if I have revealed a monsters den with fog of war, it now by passes everything else to go way out of its way to attack me. This needs to stop, seriously. I have seen monsters attack players before, but I am convinced that they have to be illuminated with my sight for the monsters to acctaully target them. This is just a theory.
End of quote

 

It may also be a thing where they use all monster's FoW, or all player's FoW, and the random number generator just decided to pick on you.

 

Regardless, it is still a problem (though I have seen it less frequently in the most recent build).

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I think that if you enter the wildlands then you are subject to the monsters' wrath, and they do in fact target you over others, as you have trespassed into their territory.  

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Malsqueek, reply 5

Regardless, it is still a problem (though I have seen it less frequently in the most recent build).
End of Malsqueek's quote

There's the Good News !   Like Malsqueek, I am experiencing significantly less of the "Long-Distance-(why-me-why-not-the-AI?)-Monster Rampages",  that had been so prevalent, prior to the release of v0.915.  I think the incidence of them has dropped by about 2/3.  Hooray! 

The Bad News (as leeboy26, the Original Poster, and others have suggested above) is that they have not stopped altogether.  AI settlements, in particular, are still being side-stepped far too frequently, despite assurances to the contrary, by Derek Paxton (or was it Brad Wardell?).  For sure, two of the bullets in the AI section of the v0.915 Changelog (dated May 17) stated:

          + Monsters less aggressive about going after cities

          + Double/Triple checked to make sure monsters like eating AI as much as humans ...

On the plus side, there have been so many complaints about this gameplay "feature"  XD   (this is at least the 3rd or 4th Discussion thread to address the subject, in the last couple weeks!), that I have to think that the FE Devs will get this fixed sooner or later ... probably in the next update.    Hang in there, guys ...  :thumbsup:

 

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

So when might the Beta 4 be released then?  I figured this was the last until the full release in "the summer"...?


I also see some crazy stuff of monsters going way out of their way to go after you, but as one poster put it, i suspect it's because I put an outpost that overlapped their territory.... :borg:

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Darkchaser, reply 8
   So when might the Beta 4 be released then?  I figured this was the last until the full release in "the summer"...?

End of Darkchaser's quote

Toward the beginning of the Fallen Enchantress v0.915 Changelog (which was dated May 17), there was a section identified as the  "Foreword from the Frog".  The following statement was included near the end of that Foreword:

"  The next beta (Beta 4) won't be here for about a month.  That beta is all about your civilization.  A new city construction system wll be introduced, the FE specific economic system will be introduced. "

However, I have also seen speculation (from knowlegeable respondents, in other Discussion threads), suggesting that the Beta 4 release more likely will not occur until near the end of June.  Of course, Darkchaser, none of us will really know for sure, until it happens  ...    o_O     :|     :(       

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Just had a cool game where I placed a city in peril next to wildlands and next to a group (the one that spawns single units) of Umberdroths. I kept the city alive and saw that an Umberdroth killed of a pack of shrills (I love such stuff). A bit later an Umberdroth (probably the same) can next to my city and it was down to 32 hitpoints (must have had a new fight). I killed it of and was happy.

Then came a Shrill Lord out of the wildlands and killed me easily. It was very exiting, and I love the danger that this game holds. Still, I could have avoided it by placing my city further of.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm going to try to reapply the update because i'm still getting the splash damage problem and its really frustrating me. Its really harsj as resoln with my no armour

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

I was playing Yithril and lost my capital to a rouge monster stack.  Though in their defense I didnt really have a heavy defending force (and my sov was out curbstomping Pricy for messing with me) my sov was too far away to make it back to help.  I think it was forced out of its den by kraxis who had a border nearby.

 

I do gotta say though that the maul ability on the bears can be pretty nasty when you are lower level.  I think I've seen a chain as long as 4.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Wait till you get the Berserkers sword (has maul).  only 4 accuracy per hit reduction.  When you put it on a path of warrior sov..... with discipine (+accuracy per level)..... 50 attack with base accuracy over 120.   I killed a dragon in 2 turns :)  and on the dragons trun Sov dodged!    Maul is crazy

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Don't lose heart about the difficulty of protecting your territory--definitely some tweaking required there (and it's no simple task, but I bet everyone involved knows how important it is).  That said, I like the threat level being there (so long as the AI facing the same threats, rather than some cheaty "truce" with the vicious roaming monsters)--this reality forces you to strategize about the risk of leaving your valuables undefended in a nasty, chaotic world.  I have been seeing recently that if you clear an area with your main force before leaving it, your cities are far safer being left on their own (with the exceptions of building around the crazy-tough monsters so you make sure your borders do not break them out of their lairs).

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Glowing_Ember, reply 11
I'm going to try to reapply the update because i'm still getting the splash damage problem and its really frustrating me. Its really harsj as resoln with my no armour
End of Glowing_Ember's quote

 

To be clear you have to start a new game.

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Glowing_Ember, reply 11
I'm going to try to reapply the update because i'm still getting the splash damage problem and its really frustrating me. Its really harsj as resoln with my no armour
End of Glowing_Ember's quote

 

To be clear you have to start a new game.

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top


I had a game today that the showed some insight into the problem. The AI built a town near some monster lairs. Creating a town auto removes the lairs if they ar ein the adjacent squares, but not the monsters. So then the monsters all left his territory and went straight towards my city six or seven sqaures away, which we alreayd know the monsters ignore the AI for the most part.