how can we solve stuck recon?

[Tekamthi]

for a dev to answer: could early recon be given a 1-5 turn "build" that, rather than building an improvement, teleports them back to capital on completion? and could AI understand when to use it? I assume they know by now when their units are "stuck"

to broader community: what else can be done? seems like it should be a fixable issue, and its been present forever in both vanilla and this mod

 

[Arthur Jama]

We could even use the paradrop animation just for fun hehe

And by early recon I guess we could take pathfinders, scouts and explorers which are not really suited for combat

Lastly, I dont think it should work like an improvement, otherwise you could pre-work the tile (up to one turn left), and use it as an instant portal to escape from enemies

 

[Tekamthi]

We could even use the paradrop animation just for fun hehe

And by early recon I guess we could take pathfinders, scouts and explorers which are not really suited for combat

Lastly, I dont think it should work like an improvement, otherwise you could pre-work the tile (up to one turn left), and use it as an instant portal to escape from enemies

yeah scouts and pathfinders are the ones I most often get stuck, explorers sometimes too.

Good point about the standard improvement build mechanism -- if this were deemed achievable and the community's chosen direction, I'd suggest we place some restrictions on when the recon can actually build it: must be 100% hp, no adjacent enemies, maybe even upgrade must be available etc. We don't wanna close it down too much, so that it remains available when needed, but we would need to pre-empt the possible abuse. Alternatively maybe recon can be allowed to ugprade outside home territory, but every upgrade moves it back to capital. Wouldn't be as robust a solution, could still get recon stuck for a long time waiting for upgrade, but at least its possible to get em home

its definitely possible to re-purpose animations (see my wildfires in TreeSuccession, or clouds in MB+, the natural wonders in More Wonders, etc.), though I'd suggest maybe a puff of smoke, like batman

 

[Hinin]

We could simply allow all Recon units to enter rival territory freely.

 

[Tekamthi]

We could simply allow all Recon units to enter rival territory freely.

Aye there's modmod for that. I also made one where recon can enter rough terrain only in rival territory, trying to reign in the super power this confers to recon. Trouble is any enter rival ability is abuseable, and infringes on function of spies.

Just brainstorming for now, maybe a compromise might be to allow recon to enter border plots only -- probably a lot of new code for something like that though

 

[rkkn]

We could simply allow all Recon units to enter rival territory freely.

yeah one thing I like about other games is that open borders is the default. you gotta do something if you want them closed

 

[Amask]

What is the issue exactly?
Don't send your units where there's a risk of them getting stuck, or be willing to pay the price.
I don't see why we need a magical bail-me-out button for this.

 

[Tekamthi]

What is the issue exactly?
Don't send your units where there's a risk of them getting stuck, or be willing to pay the price.
I don't see why we need a magical bail-me-out button for this.

is it not the standard play to put a recon on auto-explore after turn 10 or so? exploration is literally the 1st X in the 4X genre, and we have a unit that levels up on this primarily, then often becomes useless unless player is willing to declare multiple wars just to get 'em home back again (a human-only play)

 

[CppMaster]

What is the issue exactly?
Don't send your units where there's a risk of them getting stuck, or be willing to pay the price.
I don't see why we need a magical bail-me-out button for this.

Yeah we don't need, but maybe we want.

Yet, I'd prefer if recon units could just ignore closed borders. It's less artificial and it makes them more useful.

 

[Stalker0]

Yet, I'd prefer if recon units could just ignore closed borders. It's less artificial and it makes them more useful.

You could likely get away with this if you did somethign where all recon units inside borders when a war was declared were sent to the home capital or something, rather tahn just pushed out of the borders.

There is probably some abuse you could do where you put in a lot of recon units in enemy territory, declared war, and then had all these units in little pockets around the border that could then snipe in and pillage things. People could also use this to get access to areas that normally borders wouldn't allow. Putting in a "kick to the capital" mechanic removes some of that concern. Its not perfect, but seems a reasonable counterbalance to giving recon units this much freedom.

The bigger problem is using recon units to screw with unit placements. Such as putting in a scout into an enemy citadel right as its built but before the aI moves in a unit, and then just leave it there to force the citadel to remain unused.

 

[Tekamthi]

You could likely get away with this if you did somethign where all recon units inside borders when a war was declared were sent to the home capital or something, rather tahn just pushed out of the borders.

There is probably some abuse you could do where you put in a lot of recon units in enemy territory, declared war, and then had all these units in little pockets around the border that could then snipe in and pillage things. People could also use this to get access to areas that normally borders wouldn't allow. Putting in a "kick to the capital" mechanic removes some of that concern. Its not perfect, but seems a reasonable counterbalance to giving recon units this much freedom.

Works for me -- I'd add that we reduce recon vision down to 1 while inside rival territory, but otherwise this seems acceptable as I reflect here, and probably easier than the suggested build i described in OP. As added benefit to this approach, recon can be used to defend land trade routes, another hole in vanilla/VP

 

[Amask]

is it not the standard play to put a recon on auto-explore after turn 10 or so? exploration is literally the 1st X in the 4X genre, and we have a unit that levels up on this primarily, then often becomes useless unless player is willing to declare multiple wars just to get 'em home back again (a human-only play)

Turn 10??? Is that a typo and you actually meant 100?
I can understand using auto-explore later in the game when it can get tiring (even though I would never do it myself). By that point open borders should mostly solve any issues.
But if you're already letting the AI play for you at such a crucial early stage, then we must be playing different games entirely.
In the game that I play, I'm the one making all the decisions, and I live with the consequences.
You can automate anything you want, that's not my business.
I just disagree with dumbing down the game to make that easier.

 

[Tekamthi]

Turn 10??? Is that a typo and you actually meant 100?
I can understand using auto-explore later in the game when it can get tiring (even though I would never do it myself). By that point open borders should mostly solve any issues.
But if you're already letting the AI play for you at such a crucial early stage, then we must be playing different games entirely.
In the game that I play, I'm the one making all the decisions, and I live with the consequences.
You can automate anything you want, that's not my business.
I just disagree with dumbing down the game to make that easier.

i only manually move them til I'm pretty sure all the goody huts are gone (i almost exclusively play 43-civ, so they go quick), and I have my local region all de-fogged -- maybe turn 20 is more accurate to my play. I usually bring my 1st back at the 1st breakout of war, and send a rookie recon out on auto in its place. Anyway point taken, not everyone uses the auto-explore.

Even without this consideration, it appears to me that AI and human aren't equally matched in this regard -- AI relies entirely on the auto-explore function; I could be wrong but I believe AI just deletes them when they get stuck?

 

[andersw]

Experienced recon units are super important for wars, I wouldnt dream of putting the first one on auto explore.
Later ... maybe if I get extra from vassals that I "dont need" but more likely I'd just sell them instead.
I do put a caravel or two on autoexplore in most games.

 

[pineappledan]

Agree that this is not something that is needed. It’s not even something I would consider good or healthy. You should be punished for careless play.

 

[azum4roll]

is it not the standard play to put a recon on auto-explore after turn 10 or so? exploration is literally the 1st X in the 4X genre, and we have a unit that levels up on this primarily, then often becomes useless unless player is willing to declare multiple wars just to get 'em home back again (a human-only play)

I never automate anything...

 

[Tekamthi]

How do AI avoid getting their recon stuck? Presumably they're using the same auto-explore as we have access to? or is there's better somehow?

Maybe auto-explore should be disabled if community consensus is that its broken?

 

[azum4roll]

I've never seen a stuck AI unit. Maybe they're good at avoiding that, or they just delete them.

 

[Tekamthi]

they just delete them.

I believe this is the case... many years ago I'd see them stuck all the time, but no longer.

If this is indeed the case (need someone familiar with the relevant code here to chime in), they're commonly deleting units with 1000+ XP while human isn't? Thats a huge disparity

 

[CppMaster]

How do AI avoid getting their recon stuck? Presumably they're using the same auto-explore as we have access to? or is there's better somehow?

Maybe auto-explore should be disabled if community consensus is that its broken?

Nah, what's the point?