Line of Sight

[Taefin]

Okay, I’ve resisted making a thread about this because the strictures of LoS seem like they might be important to keep gunpowder warfare interesting, distinct and balanced. But my fist game as Olmecs was too much.

First of all, why Olmec javelins would need LoS when archers don’t (they already have reduced range and the projectile would require more arcing than an arrow), but then throw in some of the more outlandish LoS rules and a very cool culture becomes worthless in all but the most peaceful games. Among these:

1. Firing from open ground across a river into a city on the same elevation, no LoS. Move one tile over into a river, firing across a river and suddenly LoS restored.
2. Partial cover is complete cover. Units and trees block LoS on paths that are not perfectly straight hex lines seemingly if any shortest distance path to the target has occluded LoS. This means tons of shots lack LoS even when a straight line between centers of hexes doesn’t encounter a barrier.
3. Shooting across valleys often blocks LoS even when no obstacles are in the way. (Trees and units are 2 high, but this is true even when all features in the value are 2+ elevation below).

Some of the more questionable rules:
4. Units are 2 tall. I get why forests might be considered 2 tall, some trees are very tall, but units shouldn’t block LoS of units one elevation above them, you should be able to take a position minimally far uphill of another position and still be able to shoot over them. I’d say woodlands and units should only be 1 tall.
5. Walls don’t give any LoS benefits, to shoot from inside of a wall would physically mean you are on top of the wall. Units firing from inside wall should be treated as at 1 elevation higher.
6. I think tall units like elephants should be subject to LoS as if they were 2 tall, so easier to shoot from, but also easier to shoot.
7. Lacking LoS due to partial cover should not make shooting impossible, but should reduce damage. I think the damage system bottoms out at too low a strength delta, but I might give -8 for a LoS needing unit if firing with partial LoS (e.g. a unit blocking half of the path between targets 2 tiles away).

Seems like the rules need to be rethought, but also the rules as is need to be programmed correctly. Seems they are taking shortcuts that have edge cases that are handled incorrectly.

 

[Siptah]

Has anyone ever tried if invisible units (Saboteur for example) block enemy LoS? I haven't, as the AI never builds them. I just think that any way to handle this is wrong

 

[Krajzen]

Line of sight is a perfect example of stuff which would really, really benefit from some actual documentation, tooltips, tutorials and interface existing in a game

 

[Taefin]

It’s possible the new beta is messing with LoS, I had some times this game where I could shoot 2 distance corner-corner targets with a unit blocking half the the view. Normally this doesn’t give LoS, but a few times this game it did, interestingly when that blocking unit was 1 elevation higher than shooter or target.

 

[PSG]

Archers firing over a mountain range is a problem.

 

[Taefin]

Archers firing over a mountain range is a problem.

No one hides from the ancient horrors from beyond the mountains!

But seriously, I think LoS fix would be relatively simple to implement. I’d suggest the devs actually define the parabolic shape of each ranged unit, and define LoS as simply checking if anything in the way? And for arrows and other indirect fire weapons (plz include javelins) define a second higher arching parabola that is used if the LoS parabola is blocked, but impose the -4 damage since firing in an arching shot will be less accurate or less powerful than in a direct shot (i.e., you can arch an arrow either by aiming very high, or using a shorter draw).

Here's just a draft (no ones bored over here ;p) of what they could do to really open up. Especially with LoS artillery (looking at you Ming rockets) it is absurd that someone at ground level in the middle of an 8-distance shot can block LoS, since you'd have to put such an arch on the shot. I'd even put a small arch on 4 distance shots, but that's probably most controversial.

Then make woodland and units 1 tall, forests and elephants 2 tall. And mountains could just be infinitely tall. Treat the first tile inside a wall as 1 higher than it is. I'd remove rivers from consideration of LoS, unless the goal is that river banks can be deep, then treat units on a river as one elevation lower than they are for LoS purposes, so you can use move in rivers like a trench. I'd just remove the river penalty for units that are dug in on river, and give rivers no special treatment for LoS.

NOTE: NONE OF THIS IS ABOUT HOW HK WORKS, THIS IS AN IDEA FOR CHANGING IT.