Misfit_travel
Emperor
When we put together the American Civil War Conquests version scenario (ACWC3C) we ran into a number of game deficiencies. I've seen similar problems in other scenarios and epic games I've played. I hope the designers of CIV4 will give them some development consideration.
1) AI behaviour when attacking with artillery units
The AI does not implement offensive bombardment in any intelligent capacity. I'd like to see the AI be made smart enough to bring artillery units forward and prebombard entrenched positions before its ground units swarm attack. This is a common human tactic (and a rather basic military strategy) that should be implementable into AI behaviour.
2) AI behaviour when being bombarded
Since the AI commonly uses swarm tactics with massive unit numbers in a single tile a common human tactic is to mass artillery bombard the stack, since the AI will automatically retreat any unit that has even 1 hp of damage. Thus the AI splits its stack of units retreating the damaged ones back to its own line.
What I'd like the AI to recognize is the overall strength of its stack of units and continuing advancing in a stack toward the original objective. The AI needs to be more intelligent in recognizing massive stacks of units (even if some of them are damaged) can achieve their objective if they stay intact.
3) AI learn attrition tactics
I like the AI to learn how to attrition attacking stacks of opponent units. This factors into the more intelligent use of artillery. Rather than have the AI mindlessly throw stacks of under powered units against human attacking forces, I'd rather see it sit still and bombard the human to death, attritioning the force down. This is particularly true when the human player is using ARMY type units as a bludgeoning type force to penetrate into AI territory.
3) Army units and the AI
The principle of the ARMY unit in which you can stack a series of units together to form a single large unit is excellent - for a human player. After extensive playtesting in the ACWC3C scenario we continue to have a great deal of difficulty in getting the AI to: a) assemble these units intelligently or b) use the assembled units in an appropriate offensive manner.
I'd like to see improved AI offensive combat behaviour with ARMY units. Perhaps a preference setting in the editor for the "types" of units which would be formed into ARMY units. This would allow a modder to "teach" the AI to assemble a unit type and transport it within an army. (Much like we have a stealth attack preference setting now, why not add a ARMY assembly preference setting?)
4) Editor enabled settings for ARMY units
I'd like to see in the Editor the ability to modify or disable the following settings for ARMY units.
- quick healing (relative to other non-army units)
- movement bonus (user adjustable)
Adding this functionality to the editor would allow modders a great deal more control over how ARMY type units could be implemented in scenarios. For example, in ACWC3C it would allow us to build "Corps" sized that are just larger versions of brigade or division sized units, but have them act the same way from a healing perspective.
I hope I've been clear enough in my comments. If I can elaborate further, please let me know.
Misfit
1) AI behaviour when attacking with artillery units
The AI does not implement offensive bombardment in any intelligent capacity. I'd like to see the AI be made smart enough to bring artillery units forward and prebombard entrenched positions before its ground units swarm attack. This is a common human tactic (and a rather basic military strategy) that should be implementable into AI behaviour.
2) AI behaviour when being bombarded
Since the AI commonly uses swarm tactics with massive unit numbers in a single tile a common human tactic is to mass artillery bombard the stack, since the AI will automatically retreat any unit that has even 1 hp of damage. Thus the AI splits its stack of units retreating the damaged ones back to its own line.
What I'd like the AI to recognize is the overall strength of its stack of units and continuing advancing in a stack toward the original objective. The AI needs to be more intelligent in recognizing massive stacks of units (even if some of them are damaged) can achieve their objective if they stay intact.
3) AI learn attrition tactics
I like the AI to learn how to attrition attacking stacks of opponent units. This factors into the more intelligent use of artillery. Rather than have the AI mindlessly throw stacks of under powered units against human attacking forces, I'd rather see it sit still and bombard the human to death, attritioning the force down. This is particularly true when the human player is using ARMY type units as a bludgeoning type force to penetrate into AI territory.
3) Army units and the AI
The principle of the ARMY unit in which you can stack a series of units together to form a single large unit is excellent - for a human player. After extensive playtesting in the ACWC3C scenario we continue to have a great deal of difficulty in getting the AI to: a) assemble these units intelligently or b) use the assembled units in an appropriate offensive manner.
I'd like to see improved AI offensive combat behaviour with ARMY units. Perhaps a preference setting in the editor for the "types" of units which would be formed into ARMY units. This would allow a modder to "teach" the AI to assemble a unit type and transport it within an army. (Much like we have a stealth attack preference setting now, why not add a ARMY assembly preference setting?)
4) Editor enabled settings for ARMY units
I'd like to see in the Editor the ability to modify or disable the following settings for ARMY units.
- quick healing (relative to other non-army units)
- movement bonus (user adjustable)
Adding this functionality to the editor would allow modders a great deal more control over how ARMY type units could be implemented in scenarios. For example, in ACWC3C it would allow us to build "Corps" sized that are just larger versions of brigade or division sized units, but have them act the same way from a healing perspective.
I hope I've been clear enough in my comments. If I can elaborate further, please let me know.
Misfit
