Gargantuan AI army stuck endlessly

[Vorpal+5]

And another major bug!

This bug is there since Kael did Fall From Heaven... The bug is that as soon as one unit in a stack has 0 move (spells reducing move exists since a long time), then the AI stack will not move at all.

Here in FF/Rife, we have this effect from the Haunted Lands, which can give a -1 move to living units...

See the screeny. 160 axemen from Mechanos (yes Mechanos is slightly overpowered, don't they pay upkeep or what? but that's not the problem...). Some have the effect (26 precisely), and so it has been since 20 turns that they are stuck.

The paradox is that the more numerous is an AI army, the more chance it has to be royally screwed, because the probabilities that at least one unit get the effect is higher.

So... the solution is either to find the bug in AI thinking, and you can then tell Kael where lie the problem, or alter all the effects by giving something else (like all terrain cost +1, etc.) but no 'paralyzing'.

 

[Valkrionn]

First off, please post bugs in the bug thread; No need for a new thread for every bug, it just clutters the forum. Particularly when you start two for the same thing.

Really, the AI is doing what it is supposed to. Splitting the stack gives more chances for an enemy to take you out. The problem is it has no idea how to handle units that can not move... I believe in RifE there is already code which removes Held units from the stack, but it's more problematic for those who get -:movement: promotions, as checking for the amount of movement a unit has is likely to end up with Mounted units leaving all the Melee, and so on. Not great, seeing as it will then be easier to wipe them up.

Until I find a way to do it without hardcoding (Could maybe add a new bool to units, which flips to one if they have no movement at the start of a turn... Seems like a nasty workaround to me though) I'll just move the effect to a high terrain cost.

 

[arcticnightwolf]

wow ... 170+ axemans ... D

 

[Vorpal+5]

Sorry about the thread. Don't hesitate to have a mod merge this one to the main bug thread.

Something must be done, and I'm happy you are considering the issue. About AI splitting or not its stack, there are circumstances where it can do that safely... But I understand that anything which touch upon AI logic is difficult code to grasp and improve.

So the work around of changing the effect to 'can't move more than one square per turn' is perfectly fine for me, at least the AI could have moved out of the Haunted Land... They were heading to my capital and my 10 archers would not have resisted the onslaught. Now my game is somehow screwed by this 'paralysis' effect, although I can perhaps toy with the editor and remove the haunted land feature from the square, now I think about it, but you understand it is not really an option for all players to do that in all their games

 

[Vorpal+5]

wow ... 170+ axemans ... D

I still don't understand how the Mechanos managed to produce and maintain this stack with only 3 cities (Deity level though). All others AI are powerful, but not too this extent, by far! I never played Mechanos, do they have something like 'don't pay upkeep'?

 

[(name here)]

Well, they do have refined mana, which gives them a boosted chance of finding new resources, but I don't really know what the deal is there.