Roman legionares can build roads, colonnies and fortresses

[Ultraworld]

I gave Roman legionares the ability to build roads, colonnies and fortresses.
Pretty cool and also very realistic.
Now they can build the roads to the battlefield.

[LouLong]

Yep, problem is the AI cannot handle it. So for you it is OK but the AI cannot use them that way (cf thread what the AI cannot do).

[Ultraworld]

hmm . . . weird. The AI should, when building roads, just search for a unit which has the build_road-box true.

[Mithadan]

I gave the Legionary every single possible Worker task, so it's basically a worker with no population cost that can't found cities. The AI can handle that, from what I can tell. You just have to tolerate Legionaries building mines and planting forests. Not a big deal for me, anyway.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Mithadan
I gave the Legionary every single possible Worker task, so it's basically a worker with no population cost that can't found cities. The AI can handle that, from what I can tell. You just have to tolerate Legionaries building mines and planting forests. Not a big deal for me, anyway.

But do they still use them militarily? It would make the Romans pretty useless if all their UU's were out building mines and planting forests instead of fighting.

[Ultraworld]

But do they still use them militarily?

Yes of course.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Ultraworld
hmm . . . weird. The AI should, when building roads, just search for a unit which has the build_road-box true.

No, it doesn't work that way. Unless you have all the Worker flags enabled, you can't even automate the unit. Which means the AI can't use that particular ability.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Ultraworld

Yes of course.

Interesting. I'll have to check that out sometime and see how it works. I never thought of trying that.

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by Ultraworld

Yes of course.

Does the AI use the SAME unit for both offensive combat and improvements? -- By analogy, if a unit is flagged both "offensive" and "defensive" the AI will apparently designate some of the units of that type for offensive strategy and some for defensive. Hence I wonder if some of these get flagged "offensive" and some "worker" ... ?

-Oz

[Akula]

Originally posted by Ultraworld

Yes of course.

Not really it randomly choose a strategy for the unit so some will become workers and some will become soldiers, and this is permanent so you'll propably risk unballancing the game, but it'll reassign flags for the unit if it's upgraded

[Mithadan]

The AI has attacked me with Legionaries that have the ability to do all the Worker tasks, so they are used militarily. I don't know if other Legionaries were slotted only for Worker tasks, though.

[pdescobar]

Mithadan, try a small game under debug mode. In debug mode you can see what AI strategy a given unit has and you can verify which units are doing what. I expect that it is doing exactly what oz and akula suggest, which is picking some to be permanent workers and others to be permanent military which may or may not work out to be what you intend with them.

[Akula]

SOME of them are used as military units other are not, as I said before some units will get the offence flag others will get the Worker flag, if a unit has 2 or more flags it'll, when it builds the unit, randomly choose one of the flags and use that flag as long as the unit exsists

Edit: To slow

[Mithadan]

Oh, well, that's wacky! Might as well just give the Romans a Worker with Legionary animation for some flavour. Nice to know about the debug mode, though, thanks!

[Louis XXIV]

Originally posted by Akula

Not really it randomly choose a strategy for the unit so some will become workers and some will become soldiers, and this is permanent so you'll propably risk unballancing the game, but it'll reassign flags for the unit if it's upgraded

Not random

The AI decides if it needs a worker, or if it needs an attacker

[Akula]

hmm...
In my experiments it appeared quite random

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by Akula
hmm...
In my experiments it appeared quite random

Yup, me too -- yet obviously it can't be, as it's driven by an algorithm. Why the AI chooses to build the units it does (most especially if there is any sort of complex choice among options) is, AFAIK, the great uncracked mystery of the AI engine ...

-Oz

[Akula]

If Firaxis would just tell us how the AI works it'll be much easier to predict and use the AI's behavior

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by Akula
If Firaxis would just tell us how the AI works it'll be much easier to predict and use the AI's behavior

My greatest fear re: the game is that Firaxis won't tell because they're embarrassed

-Oz

[Akula]

Bet they are sometimes it's more stupid than allowed