(6-NS) Allow Recon Units to Cross Other Civs' Territories

[alchx]

I already said: more tiles purchase or unit not blocks. It doesn't need to be easier imho.

So the proposal is that the AAA civ is now forced to spend several hundred gold to buy tiles (or buy units to block) just because the BBB has a stuck unit under the current rules? Now BBB can simply remove their stuck unit and buy a new one or produce in 3-4 turns at most - scouts are a relatively inexpensive unit. In addition, it is not clear why the penalty for a stuck BBB unit is imposed on AAA.

The AI periodically deletes units that cannot move (or have become significantly outdated in the meantime). Why should a player be able to save his unit?

Auto-explore is how AI explores, so how is it fair punishment to it if it's forced to it?

All AIs get stuck on scouts equally. No one suffers unnecessarily. All these moments are balanced.

Finally, you can simply declare war and run away with your unit, making peace after 10 turns.

 

[pineappledan]

I'm still in the git gud camp I guess.

This wouldn't be a problem for people if they managed their units better, or invested in the embark/mountain movement promotions that allow them to get out of a scrape.

 

[CppMaster]

So the proposal is that the AAA civ is now forced to spend several hundred gold to buy tiles (or buy units to block) just because the BBB has a stuck unit under the current rules?

No, it's not forced at all. It just cannot limit BBB that easily.

The AI periodically deletes units that cannot move (or have become significantly outdated in the meantime). Why should a player be able to save his unit?

All AIs get stuck on scouts equally. No one suffers unnecessarily. All these moments are balanced

AI would also be able to move a unit which is stuck in current rules. In fact, AI would benefit more from it, since it's more stupid on average than a human when it comes to control.

Finally, you can simply declare war and run away with your unit, making peace after 10 turns.

Yes, you can also simply declare war to kill the scout.

I'm still in the git gud camp I guess.

This wouldn't be a problem for people if they managed their units better, or invested in the embark/mountain movement promotions that allow them to get out of a scrape.

It's not just for people. AI would benefit more from it, because it's forced to auto-explore.

Also, imho this proposal makes the game more convenient than easier. It also help recon units to be more distinct than mounted units.

 

[azum4roll]

It also help recon units to be more distinct than mounted units.

Which reminds me that this could work during war times for the recon unit to get past a neutral civ's land to flank from behind enemies.

 

[CppMaster]

Which reminds me that this could work during war times for the recon unit to get past a neutral civ's land to flank from behind enemies.

Yeah! Cool!

 

[alchx]

No, it's not forced at all. It just cannot limit BBB that easily.

This is forcing AAA to do more micromanagement to prevent other empires from exploring the territory. The less your opponent knows, the easier it is to be a leader.

If you allow scouts to quietly run through foreign territory, then agreements on open borders and the purchase/sale of maps of the area will lose all meaning. Open border technology becomes available around turn 150-165. At this time, all empires already have a decent territory and the center of the empire cannot be seen from the outskirts. However, each empire's territory is not monolithic and has many holes where there are no borders - hills, deserts, mountains.

Plus, the player can simply exploit this proposal - he can place scouts in these holes in advance before war is declared and immediately plunder a decent part of the AI’s territory and all the caravans. Each caravan gives 4 victory points.

AI would also be able to move a unit which is stuck in current rules. In fact, AI would benefit more from it, since it's more stupid on average than a human when it comes to control.

The AI has absolutely no problem producing new units. AI produces dozens of them during wars. One unit has no meaning. In the early game, the AI often uses 4 or more pathfinders Which are often killed by barbarians or other AI.

Yes, you can also simply declare war to kill the scout.

And get a warmonger penalty for killing one scout. Quite a ridiculous reason.
With the current rules I can safely wait until this unit is removed or the AI buys open borders.

It's not just for people. AI would benefit more from it, because it's forced to auto-explore.

The AI will easily produce a new unit and send it to explore the territory.

Also, imho this proposal makes the game more convenient than easier. It also help recon units to be more distinct than mounted units.

Recon units are unusually strong if you select the right promotions for them.

A pair of recons with regeneration can constantly harass the enemy from the rear, preventing the active use of cannons or archers and drawing off infantry and cavalry. A recon in the forests is a very difficult obstacle to overcome, since with regeneration he does not need to stand still for healing - he can simply run through the forests or desert within a radius of 10 tiles and hit an enemy every 2-3 turns. Plus provides flanking attack bonuses by simply running up to the enemy and running away further on his business.

If it were not for the overabundance of AI units from the Renaissance, then a couple of recons would be able to almost completely paralyze and plunder the entire enemy territory.

The Conquistador (Explorer) unit with regeneration alone is capable of capturing almost any city before the Industrial Era, regardless of the type of garrison. I now remove this unit if I receive it as a gift. He's too strong.

Commandos are offensive units for war on another continent. More effective than the Foreign Legion, again thanks to regeneration and the absence of terrain penalties. Plus they are treated outside friendly territory for an additional +5/+10 HP.

 

[Tekamthi]

This is forcing AAA to do more micromanagement to prevent other empires from exploring the territory

What's with this "forcing" concern? Player doesn't have to do anything. Trapping units is neither an intended gameplay mechanic nor all that impactful the vast majority of the time. Purely anecdotal, but I don't think I've ever bought tiles to block a scout -- settler yes, but there's no proposed change there.

If trapping units is truly a fun mechanism that promotes skilled play, why don't we turn off early naval ability to cross oceans? Get your boats stuck as borders close behind em? Git gud.

The AI periodically deletes units that cannot move

Though everything's "working" -- we might as well call this a bug in the case of recon. Super recon figures prominently in the human arsenal every other game or so... and AI just deletes them? You never see super scouts from AI cuz it DELETES units with like 500+ XP. That's not good.

 

[alchx]

What's with this "forcing" concern? Player doesn't have to do anything. Trapping units is neither an intended gameplay mechanic nor all that impactful the vast majority of the time. Purely anecdotal, but I don't think I've ever bought tiles to block a scout -- settler yes, but there's no proposed change there.

If trapping units is truly a fun mechanism that promotes skilled play, why don't we turn off early naval ability to cross oceans? Get your boats stuck as borders close behind em? Git gud.

There are two mechanics when a unit can be blocked. Both are allowed.

1) Spontaneous growth of border
2) Buying a tile

I don’t understand why there are any complaints about buying a tile. The AI also buys tiles when seeking a resource. In one game, the USA bought a tile with iron, which was already part of my borders. It was unpleasant, but it is unique to the United States.

By the way, you can slightly control the growth of your borders and those of others.
Road on the tile, deforestation adds priority to growth. You can place your unit on a tile near your border and the border is slightly more likely to expand onto that tile.

Similarly, you can also build a road near someone else’s border or cut down a forest and provoke the growth of borders, pulling them away from some resource for several turns.
You can place your unit on a tile with a resource near someone else’s borders and the likelihood of border growth will decrease.

---- This may be the reason why units remain blocked inside borders for a very long time. The very presence of a unit on this tile reduces the likelihood of expanding the borders to this particular tile.

Though everything's "working" -- we might as well call this a bug in the case of recon. Super recon figures prominently in the human arsenal every other game or so... and AI just deletes them? You never see super scouts from AI cuz it DELETES units with like 500+ XP. That's not good.

This is probably when playing at Marathon speed, units with 500xp are possible.

I have horses that exist from turn 45 to 200 and have 250 experience with fairly frequent wars.

The AI, of course, loses units much more often, so it's no surprise that it's almost impossible to see a unit with 500 xp. If I see a high-level unit covered in promotions like a Christmas tree (and that's 150-200 xp) - this unit will become my priority target.

But there should not be units with extremely high experience, this is an imbalance. The recruit is helpless against such a unit. Units must be updated regularly, because building buildings and producing units is a normal mechanic of the game. The game even provides that at some points in time, cities have absolutely nothing to do and can grow more food or do more research. These moments in time could well be filled with the production of units.

 

[Rekk]

Clarification: The destination tile must be visible

The entire path must be visible.

 

[CppMaster]

I don’t understand why there are any complaints about buying a tile.

Buying tiles is not a problem here.

The entire path must be visible.

Yep!

The AI, of course, loses units much more often, so it's no surprise that it's almost impossible to see a unit with 500 xp.

500 xp could be a hyperbole here.

 

[Tekamthi]

why there are any complaints about buying a tile.

I am not against this mechanism but there's just not much value to it.. I've always understood it to be a gamey byproduct of having a board with plots as abstract representation of land and geopolitics. The devs certainly didn't design the game to have this stuck gameplay, requiring deletion of units if player is too low "skill"

Thematically, the observation of borders as barriers that cannot be crossed really only took hold within the grotian tradition of international law, and de Groot was only born in 1580s iirc, so we've got 5000 years of ahistorical gameyness... Borders just weren't really a barrier as they're represented here, and the concept of "buying" a large swath of land to overnight exclude foreigners from passing by... It's a great abstraction and not what I'd call core gameplay

probably when playing at Marathon speed, units with 500xp are possible.

Yes you're right, 500+ tends to require large map and slow speed... But some form of super scout potential still exists on the smaller maps and faster speeds regardless, even if not quite as super, and there just isn't parity in their availability to human vs AI. A portion of this is due to how AI handles units as you point out, but I speculate with some observational confidence that their tendency to delete when stuck is a larger factor on this point in particular. We'd probably need some dev input to understand exactly when and how often ai end up deleting recon, I infer it's very common, but maybe I'm wrong

 

[alchx]

Actually doesn't delete it very often. Probably has something to do with the unit limit.
Or donation when completing CSs quests. But in VP you cannot give reconnaissance from earlier eras (Commandos+, it seems, is allowed).

From the latest observations - the same AI once lost a blocked trireme, but the blocked scout floating in the ocean and blocking the growth of my borders on the tile with fish did not disappear.

Again, I don’t understand why you don’t like the fact that the AI can delete units?

The interface has a button for deleting a unit; this was originally intended by the creators of the game to also remove stuck units if you don’t want to return them from another continent or declare war. Either if units are significantly outdated or recruits will have more experience due to military academies, new Wonders or Tenets.

For example, after building a military academy, it may be more profitable to remove ranged units and rebuild them to gain more experience if there were no active wars, since ranged units gain experience very slowly.

In addition, the AI initially has bonus experience for recruited units compared to the player.

 

[Tekamthi]

We're only discussing recon here. I don't believe recon can be gifted to CS? Either way recon get xp from moving around the map. Human can frequently manage this into a great asset on the battlefield. Whether AI gets stuck and deletes or gets stuck and just sits there, the difference is completely negligible to this concern -- either way they're not in play. Do you speak from the basis of some data set of deleted recon when you say they don't do this very often? I don't have one, but I've often observed "stuck" recon while maneuvering around the map, that somehow are no longer there some turns later, despite no apparent escape route having opened up. In any case perhaps I over stated the deletion factor, it's really stuck that matters

Deleting units is just not a common human play, is it? Sure it's AI accessible, but even when I get a recon stuck it's rare that I'll delete it... Units getting trapped after war etc., That's another concern I think, but again I'd argue that deleting shouldn't be the only solution there

 

[CppMaster]

Again, I don’t understand why you don’t like the fact that the AI can delete units?

You're missing the point again. It's fine that AI can delete units. Yet it'd be better if scout units weren't blocked so easily, so high level scouts still could be used instead of deleting them.

 

[Rekk]

Clarification: The destination tile must be visible.

Yep!

Please update the OP.

 

[CppMaster]

Ok

 

[alchx]

You're missing the point again. It's fine that AI can delete units. Yet it'd be better if scout units weren't blocked so easily, so high level scouts still could be used instead of deleting them.

There will always be blocking by borders.
If a unit runs between two cities into unknown territory, which turns out to be the outskirts of the mainland, and the city borders grow before he returns, then he will remain isolated.

But, you want to remove the basic mechanics that allow you to limit competition, simply because you want to explore all the interesting places on the map early without building relationships or starting wars. To do this, you can simply press "~" and select 'Reveal All' to show the entire map.

If I have two neighbors - above AA and below BB, who do not know about each other, then I want their caravans to go to my cities, bringing me gold and science. If they know about each other, they will become friends, trade with each other bypassing my cities and conclude a defensive pact. In the game, it is more common to be friends with a more distant empire than with a neighbor, since border friction imposes a penalty on relationships.

 

[CppMaster]

To do this, you can simply press "~" and select 'Reveal All' to show the entire map.

Sure, and you can open map editor and remove enemy scouts that bothers you, but it's not the point of this discussion and you know it.

 

[Tekamthi]

This kind of thing is a valid concern... It's somewhat of a subtle effect but it will be impactful in some cases. Good reason to get some counter proposals in I think... I'll try to get one in before it closes, just for sake of choice on the ballot

have two neighbors - above AA and below BB, who do not know about each other, then I want their caravans to go to my cities

 

[Recursive]

Timestamp post to arrange all the threads in a neat order.