Choosing the defender for overkill - extremely wrong with the AI

[Handel]

This is a post which I post at Warlords forum because I play Warlords, but then realised it is the problem for the whole civilization. So here goes the real post:
An example: Staline declared war and send against a single town zillions of chariots and swordsmen. I had in the town nor zillions but more then enough spearmen and crossbowmen... Only to see helplessly how the extremely stupid game AI put the crossbowmen against the lowly chariots and then tried to stop the swordsmen with the useless spearmen! No matter the spearmen had a chance 99.9% they obviously were not good enough defenders agains the chariots!
There must be an option - say you choose 95% or 99% or 75% or whatever percentage for the defence and the AI puts the most adequate defender for this percentage.

 

[frob2900]

Only to see helplessly how the extremely stupid game AI put the crossbowmen against the lowly chariots and then tried to stop the swordsmen with the useless spearmen! No matter the spearmen had a chance 99.9% they obviously were not good enough defenders agains the chariots!
There must be an option - say you choose 95% or 99% or 75% or whatever percentage for the defence and the AI puts the most adequate defender for this percentage.

The best defender is always chosen, i.e. the one with the highest probability of winning. If your crossbowmen were chosen (instead of spearmen) against chariots, then there must have been a reason for this, such as promotions, damage etc. so that the crossbowmen actually had a better chance of winning that spearmen.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

The best defender is always chosen, i.e. the one with the highest probability of winning.

In versions where the bug was fixed... I've not checked the behavior in the most recent vanilla patch, but crossbows used to get sent up against elephants while the pikes took a nap (not always, but when the conditions were right).

 

[Handel]

The best defender is always chosen, i.e. the one with the highest probability of winning. If your crossbowmen were chosen (instead of spearmen) against chariots, then there must have been a reason for this, such as promotions, damage etc. so that the crossbowmen actually had a better chance of winning that spearmen.

And which one is biggest? 99.9% or 99.9%? Thats is exactly what I wrote - it is quite simply to code. When several different defenders have the same chance to win the game to use the weakest, not the strongest defender.
The chance to win may be calculated up to whole percent or even to predetermined percentage (this may be a player option).

 

[Cabay Jet]

I wonder if this was fixed in BtS.

 

[Defiant47]

Please don't double-post the same topic in different forums. It causes people like me mild annoyance at having to post the same answer.

I wonder if this was fixed in BtS.

There's nothing to be fixed. It would be an add-on to be able to choose which defender defends.

As to the thread:

The game automatically picks the best defender at the time, no exception.

Explanation of what happened to you:

AI attacks with chariots first. The best defender is the crossbowmen since (6 Strength +CityBonuses) > (4 Strength +CityBonuses +100%of4strength) for you in this situation. Your crossbowmen are then all damaged, and the spearmen now become the better defenders. The swordsmen then attack. The rest is history.

I've always been a proponent of always being able to choose which unit in a city would defend against an attack.

No, I don't want to choose myself which one defender to use, but when both defenders has 99.9% chance to win why not use the weakest defender with this chance? It is extremely simple to code. And this can be a player option to choose (i.e. to choose 95% chance).

Both defenders have approximately 99.9% chance to win. The game is user-friendly and doesn't show hundreds of decimal places. But the game does take them into account, so it could just be that the Crossbowmen had 99.92% and the Spearmen had 99.91%.

 

[Percy]

His proposition of choosing the weakest of the stack that has X% to win (X being defined by the player) makes a lot of sense though. It would remain automatic, just according to different criteria than those existing presently.

 

[Defiant47]

His proposition of choosing the weakest of the stack that has X% to win (X being defined by the player) makes a lot of sense though. It would remain automatic, just according to different criteria than those existing presently.

If you're going to do that, you might as well just create some sort of optional mechanic where if you get attacked, you get a list of defenders along with their % chance to win, and you choose who is going to defend.

 

[Percy]

Why do you say that? The two are completely different, one being automatic and the other not.

It's a bit like the "emphasize" buttons in the city screen. Would you say "if you're going to use the emphasize buttons, you might as well not use the governor"? I believe they're very useful to starting players, and i would not be surprised if some of the best players actually used the governor as well (otherwise they would spend ages on playing a single turn...)

 

[Defiant47]

Why do you say that? The two are completely different, one being automatic and the other not.

It's a bit like the "emphasize" buttons in the city screen. Would you say "if you're going to use the emphasize buttons, you might as well not use the governor"? I believe they're very useful to starting players, and i would not be surprised if some of the best players actually used the governor as well (otherwise they would spend ages on playing a single turn...)

Realistically speaking, it seems like it would never get done.

What you're suggesting is a bit out of the way for a kind of random add-on that would also take a while to explain to newer players. My opinion is that it would be more likely for the developers to say "aw, screw it" and create an all-out mechanism for this type of stuff similar to what I suggested.

 

[Percy]

Well, my point in the post above was that it wasn't much different than the "emphasize" buttons.
You could have a couple of options, including "defend with the strongest", "defend with the weakest down to X%", "defend with the specific counter", etc.
Of course it would be more complicted, but well, that's the point, since the simple way currently used seems to pose a problem, according to the OP.
Anyway, i'm not saying it's game-breaking, but after all, not all improvements made in a game have to be. Some are just for convenience's sake.

 

[Handel]

Actually the "emphasize" buttons are extremely usefull. With the game lacking so many messages the least which is risked without "emphasize" button is starving, escpecially of the conqured cities. Another example - some times I need a city to grow as quickly as possible. It is no use to build a library for 87 turns with 2 citizens; much better is the city to grow for 70 turns to 12 citizens and to build the library for 17 turns (marathon speed).

 

[Mango]

The problem though is he wants the spears to take out the mounted units even if they have less of a chance to win because spears still own mounted units whereas they suck against melee. Crossbows can be great against both, but their biggest advantage is against melee. Hence you would rather see them defend against the ones they have their bonuses against. It makes sense that the AI chooses the best defender, but I wish there were options for this since anyone with half a brain would pit spears vs. mounted units even if they have a 20%+ less chance of winning compared to crossbows.

 

[frob2900]

And which one is biggest? 99.9% or 99.9%? Thats is exactly what I wrote - it is quite simply to code. When several different defenders have the same chance to win the game to use the weakest, not the strongest defender.

?? Sorry, but like was stated above, the game probably calculates probabilities to higher than one or two decimal places, so the best defender is almost always unique. It seems like you would prefer some kind of modified mechanics to suit your own taste, which doesn't mean there is something "extremely wrong with the AI".

 

[ShunNakamura]

The problem though is he wants the spears to take out the mounted units even if they have less of a chance to win because spears still own mounted units whereas they suck against melee. Crossbows can be great against both, but their biggest advantage is against melee. Hence you would rather see them defend against the ones they have their bonuses against. It makes sense that the AI chooses the best defender, but I wish there were options for this since anyone with half a brain would pit spears vs. mounted units even if they have a 20%+ less chance of winning compared to crossbows.

I would concur, I would want the spears to go first as well. This way the crossbows would likely have less damage when they end up having to go against the melee.

 

[Handel]

Actually in the my example the spears had a modified strength of 11.8 vs the 4.4 strength of the chariots. This is not even 20% less, this is better then 99.9% chance to win.
The game simply has to cut off the numbers after the decimal point and then use the lesser defender. Instead of it it calculates: the spears have 99.92653091632092101 % chance to win, but the crossbows have 99.94430922153839225 % chance to win, so lets use the crossbow. Who the hell needs those 0.0184372510392 % difference? And now much more is 99.94430922153839225 vs just 99.92653091632092101?

 

[Bjorn190]

As the attacker, I would like the crossbows to go first, then the spearmen, because that way I get fewer losses when I raze those silly cities I say it's working fine. You should have had longbows instead of crossbows and spearmen

Thanks for the advice of bringing chariots lol.. thats acutually a good strategy. Could it be that the AI outsmarted you?

 

[Handel]

This definitely creates an exploit for the human player.

 

[Florian]

Handel,

The problem has nothing to do with small decimal places. How do you want the computer to determine "the lesser defender"? That's situational. It depends what other units are in the attacking stack. The reason you wanted your spears to handle the chariots instead of your crossbowmen wasn't that the spears have a lower strength rating, but that you wanted the crossbowmen to be held in reserve to deal with the swordsmen. If it were up to you, you would have chosen the spearmen to defend against the first attacker even if they had only a 50% chance of winning, so you could save your crossbows for the swords. And it would be easy to imagine a situation in which you would want the unit with the _lower_ strength rating to be saved for a later defensive action, because it has some special advantage over one of the other unit types the enemy has brought along.

Maybe this phenomenon simply balances out the very large advantage the defender gets from the fact that the attacker has to declare his unit first, allowing the defender to maximize his odds.

 

[TheAmerican]

I wish I could use my horsehockey units as cannon fodder, that way my best defenders can fight last.