Beast handlers and/or masters

[Arexack_heretic]

How to do these?

At first I thought doing it the 'special-cargo way' like the WE-birds was the way to go.
Giving tamed beasts a movement of 0 will prevent them roaming around unescorted.
But then I realised, that this could be problematic when attacking.
-A unit with movement 0 cannot attack.
-Does a unit carried by another fight if it is better at fighting than that carrier unit?
It will defend when attacked.

A better way of doing beastmasters might be to produce them as a single unit.
This takes away some flexibility, (for instance controlling captured monsters will be more problematic) but it does do away with alot of unneeded complexity.

I propose doing beastmasters like the great generals: a single leader/packmaster figure encouraging his pack of fightingbeasts from the rear.
Destruction of the beasts would mean the destruction of the animalhandler too. (Unless they have a high chance of fleeing when low on strength.)

 

[El Loco Mono]

Or we code do a bit of python to say a monster must be X squares from a master unit (defined by a new XML tag)?

That way you can do something like, if you kill the master (because it is a seperate unit), the next turn if the monster has no master in X squares, cause an event like 'go nuts, don't move, etc.

If we make it one unit, you can't take out the pack master

 

[Arexack_heretic]

yes I know.

That is one of the interesting strategic complexities (that AIs would probably ignore) that we would lose using option B.
AI's would be able to employ beastmasters more easilly as single-entity-units though. (and it could be done without much scripting)

Your sceme sounds a bit like what would be needed to make undead automaton-instability working...

 

[Olleus]

The way I understand it works in tabletop WFB, is that the master is on top of/very near (like in the case of squids) the monster. It is impossible to kill the master without the monster. WHy shouldn't they just be one unit?

 

[Arexack_heretic]

Because there is a 1/5 chance (in case of a beastmaster with 4 beasts) that you kill the beastmaster (at least when shooting at the unit, in melee things depend on the angle of attack). Once the master is dead, the beasts become stupid. Usually beastmasters congregate into groups, sharing the burden. But just as often they act as skirmishing units flanking the enemy and preventing the enemy from flank-attacking friendly regiments.

This flexibility of 'rescueing' masterless animals is what we will lose if we go the single unit way.

As civ is rather more like warmaster in scale, I personally prefer the less complex way of the single unit.

And the AI will be able to use the units effectively without much trouble.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

i like ELM's sugestion of making beast masters like Great Generals.

 

[Arexack_heretic]

I like that too, but the generals don't fight along... do they?
Which may be weird in some cases, but will prevent the handler getting himself killed and the unit existing on (and functioning normally) without him.

Anyway... what is the deal with specialUnitInfo.xml?
It was used for the WE-birds, so I thought to use it for other 'carried' units, but Civ will throw up errors about invalid unitstypes...?

Also. I'm using beastmen and such as placeholder models.
How to use 'placeholder' buildings? There seems to be no art-files associated with the entries.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

i actually hate the WE birds as scouts. they're crap. they need to be able to move on their own, otherwise whats the point of having a scout at all??? (sorry,thats my random gripe for now)

 

[Arexack_heretic]

Maybe.
I rather liked it, but still was fairly useless.
Maybe if the range of it's recon was increased.
Maybe even increase normal line of sight of the carrying unit by one square.
(I find they are usefull for reconning in enemy territory or behind mountains etc.)