Automatic Unit Movement

[Vaktus]

Hello,

I was wondering if it were possible to make units move and do things automatically, similar to the Explore function.

If it's not possible traditionally, is there any sort of modification that could help me?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Delnar_Ersike]

The way automation works is that at the beginning of every game, all players are assigned AI subsystems, even human players. The only difference between AI players and human players is that AI players are 100% controlled by those subsystems, while human players are not. The subsystems are present and churn away in the background even if their powers are limited; advisor and plot recommendations are often these subsystems' outputs to human players. One of those AI subsystems, HomelandAI, controls, among other things, AI scouts and AI workers. If you automate a worker or set a unit to automatically explore (effectively making it an automated scout), HomelandAI will simply take control of the unit until a special condition is reached (eg. no more tiles to explore for scouts, nearby enemy unit for workers).

In the unmodded game, no other automation is possible (well, there's citizen automation, but that doesn't really count). However, there are plenty of mods that allow you to let the AI subsystems take control of things like research and production in cities (the only one I can think of off the top of my head is the CPP, or Community Patch Project, and I'm not completely certain). Automating more types of units is a lot trickier, since a lot of the AI's functionality revolves around unit "batches"/armies that get created based on pre-defined recipes call "operations", but I wouldn't see why, say, missionaries couldn't be automated.

 

[Primacide]

Oh man, not that this is a mod wish list thread, but automated missionaries would be great.

You know they would just traipse across territory that would cost them -250 though. I see the AI do it all the time.

I would use this on ridiculous faith starts where you spam thirty missionaries before the Renaissance.

To OP: is there a specific class of unit you are trying to automate? Workers and scouts are already available and I can't imagine you'd want the AI to control your army. I don't mean to make you sound newbish, but you do know that you can right click on a distant tile and the AI will move the unit there for you over multiple turns (as best it can - high level players never use this).

 

[BlackWizard]

To OP: is there a specific class of unit you are trying to automate? Workers and scouts are already available and I can't imagine you'd want the AI to control your army. I don't mean to make you sound newbish, but you do know that you can right click on a distant tile and the AI will move the unit there for you over multiple turns (as best it can - high level players never use this).

Yes but it stops automove if it cannot go to that particular tile. If there is unit in designated tile it just stops

 

[Walter R]

Oh man, not that this is a mod wish list thread, but automated missionaries would be great.

You know they would just traipse across territory that would cost them -250 though. I see the AI do it all the time.

Wouldn't work - they'd just make a beeline for my capital like all the others do!

 

[beetle]

Yes but it stops automove if it cannot go to that particular tile. If there is unit in designated tile it just stops

Agreed, this is quite frustrating. I don't even mind that I can't use waypoints or put units on patrol. This lack of alternative path finding is a frustration every game.

 

[LeeS]

Yes but it stops automove if it cannot go to that particular tile. If there is unit in designated tile it just stops

Agreed, this is quite frustrating. I don't even mind that I can't use waypoints or put units on patrol. This lack of alternative path finding is a frustration every game.

Yeah. Even if it is going to take another four or five turns for your unit to reach the selected spot, it quits moving. Wish they would just have written the code to have the unit keep moving toward the target tile because it is quite likely the tile will be unoccupied by the time your unit gets there.

I stopped doing automoves in CIV3 because of the irksome step-off-the-road, step-back-on-the-road, step-off-the-road behavior. Plus whenever I seemed to "stickie" any group of units to move together to target-tile-X, if that group contained a settler, it seemed there was a really high chance that by the time that stack reached the destination tile, there'd be a warrior from another civ occupying the tile: happened way too often for me to accept that was all random chance.