How do I get rid of a locust swarm that is on a lake next to my city and refuses to move on? Am I forced to wait until Ancient Era when my archers can range bombard it? That's an intolerably long time to put up with "The Enemy has been spotted near Babylon..."
Locust Swarm on a Lake next to my city (Prehistoric)
- Thread starter jatkinson
- Start date
Noriad2
Emperor
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2014
- Messages
- 1,153
Swarms have a tendency to stay at the outer border of your city. Once your borders expand enough the swarm will probably move.
A general note: if you want to kill a swarm but it has too many defensive bonuses from its location, you can move a swarm by moving a non-combat unit (like a subdued animal) on the same square, and the swarm will move away a square for as long as the non-combat unit stays there.
A general note: if you want to kill a swarm but it has too many defensive bonuses from its location, you can move a swarm by moving a non-combat unit (like a subdued animal) on the same square, and the swarm will move away a square for as long as the non-combat unit stays there.
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Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
This is a problem with many units, especially animals. I have reported it as a bug.
Locust Swarms don't seem to be working correctly at the moment. They are supposed to be using barbarian AI with pillage as their main aim. They are not supposed to animals as far as everything is concerned. They are supposed to enter your borders and pillage your crops or improvements. They are not doing this at the moment. This is one reason I have not changed it so that you get bigger and bigger swarms as time progresses like it was originally intended.
Locust Swarms don't seem to be working correctly at the moment. They are supposed to be using barbarian AI with pillage as their main aim. They are not supposed to animals as far as everything is concerned. They are supposed to enter your borders and pillage your crops or improvements. They are not doing this at the moment. This is one reason I have not changed it so that you get bigger and bigger swarms as time progresses like it was originally intended.
JosEPh_II
TBS WarLord
Have you used Reckless Animals Option being On?
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
What unitAI have they been given?
UNITAI_PILLAGE
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
Code:
<DefaultUnitAI>UNITAI_PILLAGE</DefaultUnitAI>
<UnitAIs>
<UnitAI>
<UnitAIType>UNITAI_PILLAGE</UnitAIType>
<bUnitAI>1</bUnitAI>
</UnitAI>
</UnitAIs>
<NotUnitAIs>
<UnitAI>
<UnitAIType>UNITAI_ATTACK_CITY</UnitAIType>
<bUnitAI>1</bUnitAI>
</UnitAI>
</NotUnitAIs>
<bOnlyDefensive>1</bOnlyDefensive>
<bPillage>1</bPillage>JosEPh_II
TBS WarLord
If they are defensive only then no need to fear them unless you want to work the tile they are on. Just speed bumps.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
They are on the right settings then. They are not going to be stupid about it though, which is sort of detrimental to what you want from them. They would be trying to stay out of reach of anything that can kill them easily and will know very well what can. This can make them a little shy of going in without being part of a larger group of them.
Joseph also makes a good point. Without being able to attack, can they even raze? I'm not sure on that rule...
They do have <bPillage>1</bPillage>
I would think <bPillage> set to 1 means more than <bDefensiveOnly> set to 1, when it comes to being able to pillage.
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
I don't remember why the defensive only was turned on. Probably to stop them attacking units, which is not their aim. Their strength was set to just above the strength of the earliest units in the era but that has not changed in a long time. They are one of the things that should be getting stronger over time so that they always provide a threat.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
That's right... I had a scout pillage me in an MP game when assuming it couldn't because it couldn't attack. I had thought there was a rule that a pillage counts as an attack, which as an action, I think it does, but yeah that's right, you can pillage even if the unit can't attack as long as bPillage is set to 1.
I don't think I'd take it as an intentional attack so much as the unit gets caught in the swarm, which would be rather damaging and potentially lethal wouldn't it?
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
Depends but mostly no. You aren't green or leafy or a seed so they will leave you alone mostly.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
hmm... yeah, defense only sounds fairly appropriate then. Would be nice to make them able to be completely inert to units that aren't using fire weaponry or some kind of poison gas or something. I always find it odd that spears and hunters and axemen can even conflict with them.
Would, need to implement some physical damage resistance concepts. We do have armor/piercing system, but that wouldn't make sense to use here since spears are typical piercing weapons.
Glyptodon is the perfect animal to get 60% armor or something along that line, locust swarms not so much. ^^
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JosEPh_II
TBS WarLord
You regular mil units don't use their weapons to fight the locusts. I envision the Units sent out to torch the fields/areas the locusts are in. Burn out the bugs. And the smoke disables the locusts as well making them easier to squash/burn/ stomp/ swat/ etc.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
The problem is if you make them basically inert to some units then the battle can be an infinite loop. Which is what would happen if a person with an axe actually tried to attack a swarm of locusts in RL. They need to be able to occupy the same space because they cannot damage each other.
I don't envision axemen as having access to weaponry they don't actually have.
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