settlers scared by ocean animals

In Dune Wars (now with its own sub-forum!) we have a problem where AI settlers are built, but left sitting in their cities afraid to move. This is on an archipelago type map, and we have observed that when the ocean animals are removed, then the settlers will move. The ocean animals are actually sandworms, and they are supposed to be able to destroy stuff, that is the point. BTW if you haven't seen the sandworm art, go look and come back. It's jawdropping good.

I would like to find some way to have dangerous ocean animals, but still have the settlers go out. If they do not, then the human player can easily out-expand the AI and the game is not challenging.

I thought about making them into features. I could swap out the feature and then swap it back in when the sandworm moves. But when the user mouses over the terrain, the feature will be noticeably absent; this seems fake.

I have tried making them defensive only just as a test; this did not seem to help, which is weird, because the settler should not be scared of a defensive only animal. Perhaps the AI does not include defensive-only in its check.

Currently the sandworms are part of the standard barbarian civ. I thought about making another civ, which would be friendly with all the other civs. Then the sandworms would belong to this other civ. Maybe the settlers would not be scared. I don't know how to create another civ within python. Also the game mechanics will probably either prevent my friendly civ from attacking, or will make the civ an enemy after it does attack; so that is not a permanent solution in the game.

Can anybody suggest a way to have strong animals, but keep the settlers moving?

Are the sandworms bAnimal?

Yes; how does that help?

I wonder, if it makes a difference, if you turn them into a simple barbarian
So the AI wouldn't be aware, that these units can walk around early in the game.

One function causing the problem is AI_getWaterDanger, which checks for any unit which is enemy and can attack. So I think both animals and barbs would trigger this.

Is there a problem to lower the calculated value?

david -

why isnt the current transports of setller is good for dune?

why do you want to have setllers walk around on deseRt/sandsea ?

YOU KNOW,
IN THE MAPS KOMA CREATED BASED ON LAND, THE SELLERS DID GO OVER DESERT WITH THE SDK LINE KOMA DID, YOU KNOW WHAT IM TALKING BOUT *****oops sorry for the caps lock....

maybe you can give the settler some strength or something,so it wont be afraid ...hehe.

perhaps ,
if there wont be solution - you can turn the worms, into an event that happens a lot, with some triggers, like units moving on desert, maybe using the code melinko wrote - msound - every unit building and city creates sound - the higher - the more chance it will attacked a worm - it can be lower with promotions, buildings and such.
the worm will apear for a few turns on a certain area, then it will disappear.
then the ai wont be afraid of an animal huh?

The_J said:

Is there a problem to lower the calculated value?

Click to expand...

I have not dug far enough back into the code to see how it gets used. But, maybe.

keldath said:

if there wont be solution - you can turn the worms, into an event that happens a lot, with some triggers

Click to expand...

I don't like the idea of worms randomly appearing next to you. I like the idea that if you have high visibility scouts, or recon missions, you can see worms from further away. So I want the worms to be always out there, even if you cannot see them.

Further discussion (and solution) at this link.