Pathing Dilemmas

from Elemental Forums

 - Bound demons (Resoln) don't seem capable of entering tiles in which resources or outposts of any sort (non-hostile) are placed. The pathing AI does not seem to register this, however, and causes the pathing simply to stop. When you order the demon to continue moving, it simply stays put. With luck, you can maneuver the demon around the offending tile manually, but this is not always possible (bottlenecks with non-hostile cities).

- In smaller strips of land, after around mid-game, even 2 non-hostile units can clog up the board so severely that no movement is possible. Even 2 units can stalemate each other, forcing at least one to retreat dozens of turns around impasses to find a way back. I've seen the AI have many non-hostile forces stare each other in the face uselessly for scores of turns, each apparently waiting for the other to get out of the way.

 Please make non-hostile units stackable (able to occupy the same tile)!!

- For the above reason, units told to move 3 turns to tile T will sometimes, without informing the player, end up moving 33 turns to tile T (the long way around mountains), because a non-hostile unit or entity is moved / created in the path shown on some previous turn.

 Please make non-hostile units stackable (able to occupy the same tile)!!

10,503 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Boy this is really driving me crazy.

I'd really like to hear feedback from Derek as to how he, or other members of the team, see this. Thank you!

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top


I had two outposts separated by a third AI outpost in the middle - so one outpost of mine, one of theirs and then one of mine again.  I build a road through 3 squares of their outpost.  Above their outpost was impassible terrain (a mountain IRRC).   So any troops going East to West  had to dip into neutral territory for half of one movement and then continue on their way.  The units would not end up in neutral territory, merely pass through it.

 

The pathing would not do this.  It would continually re-route the units the LOOOONG way around the mountains adding several turns to a simple maneuver.  I couldn't even target the 1st square of my distant outpost from there without the little feet of pathing refusing to accept the shortest route. 

 

I damn near declared war on the neutral AI right there and then because of that sillyness every single time I wanted to move a troop across my empire.

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

The pathing is apparently biased against any kind of land the AI holds, be it neutral or enemy territory. I've noticed it would ALWAYS try to go another way round even if it would be possible for my 5 movement sovereign to just cross that outpost in one turn.

I don't think that this should be the way it is now. Since being in anybodies land technically is allowed the pathing should reflect this! :| or not?

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top


 - Bound demons (Resoln) don't seem capable of entering tiles in which resources or outposts of any sort (non-hostile) are placed. The pathing AI does not seem to register this, however, and causes the pathing simply to stop. When you order the demon to continue moving, it simply stays put. With luck, you can maneuver the demon around the offending tile manually, but this is not always possible (bottlenecks with non-hostile cities).

- In smaller strips of land, after around mid-game, even 2 non-hostile units can clog up the board so severely that no movement is possible. Even 2 units can stalemate each other, forcing at least one to retreat dozens of turns around impasses to find a way back. I've seen the AI have many non-hostile forces stare each other in the face uselessly for scores of turns, each apparently waiting for the other to get out of the way.

 Please make non-hostile units stackable (able to occupy the same tile)!!

- For the above reason, units told to move 3 turns to tile T will sometimes, without informing the player, end up moving 33 turns to tile T (the long way around mountains), because a non-hostile unit or entity is moved / created in the path shown on some previous turn.

 Please make non-hostile units stackable (able to occupy the same tile)!!
End of quote

Making non-hostile units stackable is a big deal.  If an attack happens who does it happen against?  How would I know if there was a unit I was at war with in a tile with a unit I'm not at war with?  Some would suggest not allowing them to stop in the tile but allowing them to move through the tile, which is also a major change (at this stage of the project).

So we are unlikely to allow stacking units because it will open up a host of new issues that are worse than the problem of having tiles blocked (ie: the cure is worse than the disease).

I am having a dev checkout switching it so that you can move onto or through improvements of neutral players (without destroying them).  There may be some technical issue that was added for, but if we can do it without causing more issues we will get it switched.

 

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Stacking units already occurs with non-player-controlled units.  You can have AI faction-controlled units in the same square as monsters and ruffians or other factions.  It happens all the time.  Only the player is restricted from doing this.  So, basically, the problem you're citing with the "cure" is already in the game, and has been for quite some time.  It's been reported several times, too.  Hell, I reported it back when LH was still in beta (although I'd seen it back in FE days).
https://forums.elementalgame.com/443646/page/1/ 

On a side note, my linked post actually reports two different problems.  The other one still occurs, as well.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Derek, reply 4


Making non-hostile units stackable is a big deal.  If an attack happens who does it happen against?  How would I know if there was a unit I was at war with in a tile with a unit I'm not at war with?  Some would suggest not allowing them to stop in the tile but allowing them to move through the tile, which is also a major change (at this stage of the project).

So we are unlikely to allow stacking units because it will open up a host of new issues that are worse than the problem of having tiles blocked (ie: the cure is worse than the disease).
 
End of Derek's quote

I think the questions you pose above are answerable. I'm not sure I entirely understand the difficulty, because under the current mechanics, you cannot initiate an attack against a unit unless you are hostile to it. The default cursor option is "talk to", not "attack". In order to attack a non-hostile unit, you must first declare war. One could have the option of "talking to" or "moving to", which shouldn't be that bad.

But if there is a stack of units, and some are units towards which I am not hostile, and some are units towards which I am hostile, then moving to or through that tile would no longer be allowable. Clicking on the stack could simply give me one of two options, since "move to" would no longer be valid: "talk to" or "attack". If the latter, then (obviously) battle would be initiated only between armies against which I am hostile. This is currently the case as well, when two or more hostile stacks occupy one tile.

In other words, IF a tile contains ONLY entities which are flagged non-hostile, THEN commands "move to" (and "talk to" if a unit and not a structre) are valid. IF a tile contains more than one army, THEN a number appears above to denote this; IF a tile contains more than one team, THEN a context-sensitive selection is offered for the command "talk to". IF a tile contains any entity flagged hostile, THEN command "move to" is invalid, but "talk to" is valid and offers the same context-sensitive selection as above. IF a tile contains any entity flagged hostile, THEN command "attack" is valid, and the same mechanic is used to select the target for battle as is used currently, when two or more hostile armies occupy the same tile.

I find the disease truly awful, and while I understand that the cure is more resource-intensive than I had originally thought, working out a way (via drop-down menu or context-sensitive mouse-over) to select a valid command (move to, talk to, attack) at a valid destination should be doable.

No?

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

When I returned to the game last week after a long hiatus this was one of my biggest annoyances too. Several times while traversing or even just arriving at choke points I ran into a neutral troop going the other way... and every time the neutral unit stopped there and as far I can tell stayed there blocking the chokepoint indefinitely (certainly 20+ turns anyway).

I'm pretty sure there is some bug at play, in one case the neutral unit wasn't even completely blocked but it still moved up adjacent to me and then never moved again, despite me walking away completely and not coming back for more than 10 turns.

But even if the bug was fixed it would still be annoying. It's bad enough when such a thing happens in Civ 5 but at least there chokepoints are fairly rare, enemy troops WILL keep moving rather than stopping indefinitely and you spend most of the time being able to embark onto water and go around the blockage. In LH when it happens that is it, declare war or forever walk around the long way for 30+ turns instead of the short way for 5.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top


One last thing: Currently, if you set mouse-over to show the path a unit will take, and click on the location, you will often be dissapointed to see your unit take off in another direction, because the computer will reckon the path differently (based on a non-hostile entity blocking the way) -- and you cannot stop that unit from moving in the wrong direction and wasting a full turn until the unit comes to a stop