Choke point control

[PapaMonkey]

Choke points seem to have an odd side effect: if you control the all the choak points and an barb unit does not have a path to one of your cities, it won't try to attack the choke point.

This may be my play style, but it seems to play out in a few games. On the Eberus map, there are often starting locations with limited access due to mountains and water. If you find the choke points your starting area and station a warior there, the barbs that spawn outside your starting area that would need to move through the defended choke point don't bother.

Is there something to this, or is it just me.
(Emporer level play)

 

[francois]

I think it's thanks to Kael's high-to-low post that I tried "Erebus" type of map ...

And I am addicted !

My last two games before were Immortal and Deity pangeas, both easily wined beelining too bronze weapons ...

They could have been great, but ennemy's resitance was too light to make interesting games.

The last two games were on Erebus map-type and it is just great !

but I confirm this odd thing: I got rushed by hordes of barbarians till I got control of the choke point ... It is as if they did not come anymore if they can't trace a clear moving path to one of your city ...

I do not know if it is such a problem ... You can somehow choose the barbarian flux !

My present game is addictive - it turned out to be a largest-possible-city-challenge ... my capital did nothing but workers-settlers for the first 100 turns but it is now (turn 266 - Immortal) a double-radius + 30 5-food tiles, sacrifice the weak + tower of complacency city ... I hope to get to size 150-200 to feed instant vampires to turn them to vampire lords !

We should do this kind of contest:

- Build the largest city (at turn, let's say 300)

Kuriotate ?
Sacrifice the weak ?
Tower of complacency ?
Order priests ?
I think Infernal + apocalypse should win it, but it would be interesting to see how much can be done with the different civs ...

A little long and out of the main topic - but it's a confirmation - and a love-for-Erebus-maps declaration !

 

[Fafnir13]

I've noticed that effect as well. I don't know how the barb runs its AI these days, but it seems to prefer attacking towns then units stationed out and about. That and pillaging. If you've got all your access points blocked, it probably ends up seeing your viable targets as none accessible.
Just a theory.

 

[odalrick]

I'd say it's part of the general path finding issues. Rather than assigning a cost to moving through occupied tiles, it is just blocked, like a peak or ocean. On regular maps, that is a non-issue, since it's practically impossible to block even one tile from access.

 

[dot]

I won't check this in WorldBuilder ... But wouldn't that mean, that if you station a warrior on each of the adjacent tiles of your capital the barbs wouldn't haunt you, even on raging barbs pangaea, and would haunt the other Civs instead?

 

[Sarisin]

I've found that what you say is true for most barbs - that they would not attack a unit holding a choke point.

However, I have seen mounted barb units (maybe because they have that withdrawal possibility) like Wolf Riders and Goblin Chariots attack choke points. Also, I think maybe a Lizardman on occasion.

For the most part, though, I agree with you that blocking a choke point usually sends barbs off in another direction even though with numbers they could kill the unit holding the position.

 

[odalrick]

I don't think it's that AI units won't attack a choke point; rather if they are more than one move away from the choke, they won't find it.

Something along the lines of:

Is there an unit enemy unit within strike distance?
If so: Attack!
If not: Go to an enemy city using a path that is currently clear.

So if a unit happens to wander near a choke point, they will attack. High move units, like hunters and horsemen have a larger striking distance, and so have a greater chance to accidentally wander near your unit.

 

[Mailbox]

It would be a terrible idea to force the AI to attack heavily defended points unless forts themselves caused more damage to invaders.

I was going to post this in the FF forum as some though stuff, especially since I've mentioned some of it before but I'll spoiler it.

Spoiler :

Ideas for Forts:

- Develop an "OnMove" Python hook that forces all enemy units to stop whenever in the radius around a fort. Fort must be occupied.
- Fort only radius of 1 (9 tiles)
- Castle only radius of 1 (9 tiles)
- Citadel radius of 2 (20 tiles)

- Each fort gives culture based on garrison (perhaps 1 culture per 2 str up to 3 culture/turn for a fort, 4 culture/turn for a castle, and 5 culture/turn for a citadel)
- Fort only 1 tile
- Castle only 9 tiles
- Citadel only 20 tiles

- Each level of fort gives an automatic promotion, one that gives some attack strength as well as on the defense.
- Fort Defender: +2 FS chances
- Castle Defender: +2 FS chances, + 1 FS
- Citadel Defender: + 2 FS chances, + 2 FS's

- Perhaps less support for units in forts, up to a certain point?

- AI then is told to build forts on contested borders, especially those on borders with hostile enemies

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

nice suggestions for forts, Mailbox. well I've never noticed this problem about choke points and barbarians, but it does need addressing otherwise Erebus mapscript ends up acting weird

 

[Kyroshill]

In my current game, I had a nice valley behind me that only I could access unless I gave OB, which I didn't. Of course it spawned barbs like crazy. I stationed a skeleton at the chokepoint, and the barbs did attack him time and again. Interestingly, they only seemed to attack when they could attack in numbers.

 

[Niveras]

Units in choke points can still get attacked, but only when a barb just happened to wander near it to begin with and decided to attack rather than move somewhere else. If the unit also has heavy defensive bonuses, barbs do like to stack up several units so they can all attack at the same turn. You can see this with cities, but it's a bit rarer to happen with choke points, since several barbs need to wander there on their own before the AI will decide to attack en mass.

 

[Fafnir13]

Interestingly, they only seemed to attack when they could attack in numbers.

I noticed that effect a few patches back. Seems that they will try to group with nearby barbs, but will attack solo if they are the only ones nearby. This means low move units tend to group together more as it takes them longer to reach their goal (more time for more to spawn). Also means that wolf riders and chariots tend to attack solo. Just what I've noticed.

 

[orangelex44]

Have you ever had an Rampaging Orthus Stack of Doom, where he gathers about a dozen buddies and tries to slaughter everyone in his way? In one of my games, he went through 3 AI's before getting to me with 7 Lizardmen, a half-dozen Axemen, a couple Skeletons, countless Warriers... I died.

 

[Brokenbone]

Good thread, and interesting observations.

Playing an Erebus map game at the moment where I'm controlling a big chunk of the map, and there's one valley full of barbs from which there's no escape except a tiny one tile bottleneck, which is culturally controlled by me, through which all sorts of barbs used to pour. Built a little fort, stuck on a couple defenders, the barbs lost interest.

HOWEVER, I then built Nox Noctis, and the party was back on. That is, the barbs I guess can't "see" any of my non-city units, so they start rushing through the bottleneck again, at times, sharing the fort with me. Wander in, pillage any improvements I don't actively stop them (through attacking) from doing so, then dying helplessly against the walls.

Nox Noctis is great for basically ensuring your workers never die again within your cultural bounds, but yeah, this was a sort of odd side effect. "Hey, there's an unguared chokepoint!" (though it's just got a half dozen invisible and useless defenders sitting there). Defense at that point requires actual offense, i.e., forget archers or other good defenders, you're going to need someone (high offense) to strike the baddies who are wandering your turf.

 

[Blackmantle]

Yea thats a small weakness of the AI unless you have the Esus-shrine (which i often do so at least from midgame on its not much an issue for me at least.).

But it whouldn't sound! all that hard to fix. Simply add in another goal with attacking chokepoints if no unit to attack in range / city near.

@ francois: Sidar usually win the biggest city contest easily (but are very micromanagement-intensive at that). They have a rather more or less unlimited supply of shades and thus food (from settled shades turned greath merchants), so only the number of turns and intent / real-time is a real hard-cap. Basically if you take away that limit, their city-size is more or less only limited by processor power / software limits.
But Hyborem might come close or even surpass in a rare very stuffed huge-map game full of evil civs.

 

[Sarisin]

Have you ever had an Rampaging Orthus Stack of Doom, where he gathers about a dozen buddies and tries to slaughter everyone in his way? In one of my games, he went through 3 AI's before getting to me with 7 Lizardmen, a half-dozen Axemen, a couple Skeletons, countless Warriers... I died.

No, not in .33.

I used to see this a lot in earlier versions of FFH, but find in the more recent versions that Orthus does one of two things:

1. Attacks solo...and dies in short order.

2. Holes up in a city, often Acheron's city.

I haven't seen him come with a stack in a long time, but remember that used to always be the case when he first made his appearance in FFH.

 

[orangelex44]

No, not in .33.

I used to see this a lot in earlier versions of FFH, but find in the more recent versions that Orthus does one of two things:

1. Attacks solo...and dies in short order.

2. Holes up in a city, often Acheron's city.

I haven't seen him come with a stack in a long time, but remember that used to always be the case when he first made his appearance in FFH.

Now that you mention it, my last game where Orthus was a major factor was in .30 or .31 - I wasn't able to update over the summer. Since then, he's either been lost somewhere or I've rapidly killed him if he's anywhere close to me.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Have you ever had an Rampaging Orthus Stack of Doom, where he gathers about a dozen buddies and tries to slaughter everyone in his way? In one of my games, he went through 3 AI's before getting to me with 7 Lizardmen, a half-dozen Axemen, a couple Skeletons, countless Warriers... I died.

yes, but it was FF, not FFH. still, based on 0.33. he came with a lot of lizardmen, warriors and skellies. luckily I had built a city right in the chokepoint that led to my valley ( erebus mapscript ) , with palisades and walls, and I was hippus so I was building lots of units to rush my neighbours. had it been my usual builder-style game, I would have got slaughtered but that was a day, and Orthus got what he deserved

 

[vivictius]

I had a similar game to Brokenbone, I had my area fortified then I built the Nox Noctis and suddenly a stack of 12 barbarian warriors charged one of my fortified choke points. It would be nice if Nox Noctis would also not work on units in forts.