C2C Combat Mod Option: Hide and Seek

[Nevets_]

I've had animal teleporting turned on in this game, my problem has been with using workers outside my cultural borders, building roads across neutral territory and setting up mines/quarries near cities before the cultural borders expand. I just worry that the AI is going to build defensive units to protect stacks, and plop them on high defense yet camouflaging terrain like a forested hilltop.

Is there a way to make a hidden unit come to the defense of friendly units on the same tile when it's attacked? This would solve the problem, and be a pretty cool tactic since you could invite an attack by leaving a weak unit obviously exposed but have a high defense unit hidden in the same tile. Probably would need some combat engine re-work since you would have to be able to change the defending unit after the attacking unit has committed to the attack.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I've had animal teleporting turned on in this game, my problem has been with using workers outside my cultural borders, building roads across neutral territory and setting up mines/quarries near cities before the cultural borders expand. I just worry that the AI is going to build defensive units to protect stacks, and plop them on high defense yet camouflaging terrain like a forested hilltop.

Is there a way to make a hidden unit come to the defense of friendly units on the same tile when it's attacked? This would solve the problem, and be a pretty cool tactic since you could invite an attack by leaving a weak unit obviously exposed but have a high defense unit hidden in the same tile. Probably would need some combat engine re-work since you would have to be able to change the defending unit after the attacking unit has committed to the attack.

To address this in the design consideration I've done the following:
1) All combatants have the ability to See Camouflage at one rank.

2) No combatant has natural camouflage ability.

3) No plot should offer more than 1 camouflage at most.

Therefore, even if they were defending a forested hill, for example, they would be visible to almost all units from a tile away, making them perfectly valid as defenders.

It's also not a bad idea to strategically use standout on units in concealing territory that you want seen.

I'll try to address units that are escorting other units and units intended for defense and always have them standout so that they negate their invisibility if that is their purpose.

Hunters are the tricky thing.

Another thing I'd like to do before the cycle is complete here is to start using some small visibility and invisibility icons and icons for the differing types of invisibility so that the text expressions to explain the unit's visibility and invisibility capabilities don't come across as quite so bewildering. The simple fact that INvisibility is hard on the eye to distinguish from the term VISibility is making it tough to want to read and decipher the unit's capabilities, not to mention the volume of variables. I'm not surprised anyone would find it a little hard to navigate.

 

[Toffer90]

After you removed the update every turn thingy, I sometimes experience that stuff is invisible when it shouldn't be, forcing me to do recalcs very often.
And in some very rare occasions I get attacked by someone who should not have seen my unit at all; this might have been due to an invisible animal with sufficient camouflage visibility spotted me so the barb stone thrower could attack my wanderer.

I haven't noticed any particular pattern to it this time, sorry, it's starting to get difficult to notice when something is wrong since what is wrong is usually invisible to the player.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Did you notice any turn time difference when it was turned off?

I HAD a theory but it wouldn't explain stuff being INvisible when it shouldn't be.

 

[Toffer90]

Did you notice any turn time difference when it was turned off?

Not really but I've only played in prehistoric since it was turned off; 1-3 seconds turn times, and I've not really paid attention to the time neither.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Yeah, until I can severely playtest the situation I'll need to turn it back on apparently.

 

[colonelflag]

Hi Thundrbrd,

Not sure if this is WAD, but on 8930 i have some units(Snakes and Pigeons) ignoring my Stone Thrower or my Wanderer and attacking my Great General directly even though he is on the same hex.

Cheers
Colonelflag

 

[Thunderbrd]

If the units you have protecting vulnerable units aren't seen, they cannot defend. Use the standout promotion to ensure their visibility.

 

[Toffer90]

I might be wrong, but it seems like Visibility on same tile modifier is not working. I've yet to see proof that it works but have seen many situations where I believe it should have made stuff visible but did not.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Interesting. I'll look into that to ensure it's working properly.

 

[Harrier]

Hi Thundrbrd,
Not sure if this is WAD, but on 8930 i have some units(Snakes and Pigeons) ignoring my Stone Thrower or my Wanderer and attacking my Great General directly even though he is on the same hex.
Cheers
Colonelflag

If the units you have protecting vulnerable units aren't seen, they cannot defend. Use the standout promotion to ensure their visibility.

OK - not tried this yet. But why would a stone thrower etc. not be seen by a pigeon or snake - if it can see other units.

I thought hidden units would be like spys etc.

 

[Thunderbrd]

OK - not tried this yet. But why would a stone thrower etc. not be seen by a pigeon or snake - if it can see other units.

I thought hidden units would be like spys etc.

They only would not be seen if you were also playing size matters and it would be due to a low group size not being spotted by a very low quality on the attacking unit.

 

[Toffer90]

Does this one mean anything to you?

Getting it on the debugger with my modmod tweaks, not sure what's wrong?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Does this one mean anything to you?

Getting it on the debugger with my modmod tweaks, not sure what's wrong?

Yeah, and I've seen it before. But I need to somehow find when it's actually happening and what its coming from. I think it has to do with an ambiguity between different types of reasons for establishing visibility but I've yet to be able to catch it to track it taking place.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Does this one mean anything to you?

Getting it on the debugger with my modmod tweaks, not sure what's wrong?

I discovered last night that after I put back in the recalculation on visibility, this is NOT going to work properly so while that recalculation is on round by round, this assert needs to be disabled. Will be fixed in the next commit. I use this to track the times that units have added and removed their visibility values from the map. It should never be added more than once and never subtracted to the point that it becomes negative. But when recalculating it just adds and adds because the values are completely cleaned from the map then the unit values are added afterwards. If that makes any sense.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I might be wrong, but it seems like Visibility on same tile modifier is not working. I've yet to see proof that it works but have seen many situations where I believe it should have made stuff visible but did not.

I haven't tested in game but reviewing the code it looks straight. Then again, it can look straight and BE wrong. But it really should be working. Mind you, it is not setup for use with promotions... could that be causing the dilemma?

It SHOULD be giving its modifier in the unit hover text in-game though so check there. If its working there it really should be working overall. If not... something is odd about the way I'm going about establishing the modifier in use. Again... it LOOKS right but sometimes that doesn't mean anything at all.

 

[Toffer90]

I haven't tested in game but reviewing the code it looks straight. Then again, it can look straight and BE wrong. But it really should be working. Mind you, it is not setup for use with promotions... could that be causing the dilemma?

It SHOULD be giving its modifier in the unit hover text in-game though so check there. If its working there it really should be working overall. If not... something is odd about the way I'm going about establishing the modifier in use. Again... it LOOKS right but sometimes that doesn't mean anything at all.

Well , it was just a feeling I had, Might have been wrong about it. I didn't set up a proper test scenario for it.

I'm still looking for odd stuff and if I can properly identify whats wrong (if anything anymore) I will holler at you.

 

[Toffer90]

OK I can now report one detailed oddity:
When a unit withdraws from a combat it often turn invisible when it should not.
I just attacked a bird in a jungle and it withdrew into the neighboring coast tile and became invisible; recalc made it visible again.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Ah... interesting. That could well be part of the problem. Perhaps there are other movement sources that are missing the normal visibility removal then replacement at the new location. I'll look for those. This could lead to solving ultimate 'problem'.

 

[WimpyTheWarrior]

I have a save file that might be helpful as it has some of the odd conditions mentioned in this thread. Played on SVN rev 8943, just tested again on 8947 and the same results apply.

SAME TILE VISIBILITY
Toffer90 has some suspicions regarding visibility on the same tile. I may have an example of this condition. If you look at Atapuerca, I have two Spiked Clubmen on Standout Status. I also have a Tracker on Standout Status, with Build Up (Observation) III.

In the city screen, I am unable to get any resources from the city tile itself. By switching Civs to Mao Zedong (the original city owner), it turns out there are two Neanderthal Trackers with Build Up (Concealment) III. They are not visible to me.

I actually noticed this condition (no city tile resources) much later in this game. I built dogs, ambushers, took promotions to improve visibility, but I was never able to reveal the 2 Neanderthal trackers, trying from the same tile or adjacent tiles. I could not get any promotions or build-ups to reveal the Neanderthal trackers and recover the city's resources.

TRIBAL GUARDIAN NOT SET TO STANDOUT DOES NOT DEFEND THE CAPITAL
I saw some earlier comments regarding Tribal Guardians losing their visibility and therefore no longer defend the city. When you load the file you'll see Bangkok has a Tribal Guardian and a Great General. When you hit 'Next turn', the Tribal Guardian dissapears and no longer defends the city. Performing a Recalculation does NOT reveal the Tribal Guardian; the Guardian only appears by saving and reloading the game. In 21750bc I am able to walk into Bangkok with my Wooden Spearman, overrunning the Great General.

CITY MILITIA DID NOT PREVENT THE CITY CAPTURE
City Militia appeared as I marched into Bangkok, but only after I entered and took over the city. I liked it better when the City Militia prevented the capture; has the intent of City Militia changed or is this an unanticipated effect of Hide and Seek?