Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Why would you expect them to in Australia?
Quick Questions , Quick Answers
- Thread starter TaylorItaly
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Yudishtira
Spiritual/Creative
Are you kidding? I said from Australia to southern Europe. So much of Africa and Asia should be in there.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
It sounds like there would be a very thin margin for them if the continent comes through the Mid-East region to a European one.
All the animals have their own lat/long zones blocked out in the spawn definitions. I think I recall DH saying this was maybe too specific, particularly when considering oceanic regions, but I'm not sure if he ever tried to repair that.
I'd like to do a flood fill system of various biomes instead so those biomes could be randomized better and it's not directly representative of Earth but would feel more organic to the world it's in. We'd need a way to establish those zones on scenario maps more specifically of course - for those intentional Earth maps.
One of those millions of projects to undertake someday
Sorry I only caught the mention of australia in your quote - guess I was reading hastily and didn't realize I needed to slow down some. I juggle a lot of thoughts during the day and sometimes I forget how much I am and how much it affects my ability to absorb what I'm reading.
Ultimate_Waffle
The soul devourer.
Do troops "hold on" to territory that does not belong to them? My troops are stuck on a single tile deep in a friendly empire (open borders is not an available option yet). I can't get them out. My only hope is that tile flips to that empire and my troops get kicked out to another valid area. But that tile just will not flip. Is it because my troops exert an influence over it? Also, when does open borders become available through diplomacy?
The unit would only exert influence over the plot if there's a fort or similar defensive improvement there which has that kind of territorial mechanic (manned fort/watchtower/etc).
Playing 40.1 release version, with Size Matters and Hide and Seek for the first time.
How do I merge units? I'm in the Ancient era, and I split an obsidian axeman using the tri-color pie button, but I don't see a button to merge them back together.
How do I merge units? I'm in the Ancient era, and I split an obsidian axeman using the tri-color pie button, but I don't see a button to merge them back together.
JosEPh_II
TBS WarLord
Iirc they all have to be at full health before they can be merged. And for the merge button to appear.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Units cannot be part of an existing selection group. To merge, you must select only the one of the three that will initiate the merge and the other two must be present on the plot but not part of a selection group. This is in addition to what Joseph said, full health, haven't moved at all this round, all the same type of unit at the same quality ranking on the same plot.
Most of the time the problem is the selection group, which is mostly a matter of a weakness I had in trying to sort out a bug in the mechanism. When you select a unit, if it is part of a selection group, it will initially be selected along with other units in that group. You can click on a unit in a selection group to select just that unit without removing it from it's selection group. If you move that unit, it will then remove it from the selection group its in but that's not necessary if you just want to eliminate its affiliation with that selection group. When you have a selection group or a unit IN a selection group selected, you will get an icon that looks like 3 green dots that come from 1 green dot (with arrows from the larger green dot to the 3 smaller green dots). Click on that to break up the selection group.
If you've ever selected more than one unit at once, a stack for example, you have placed all those units in a selection group. For units to be valid to merge, they must not be a part of a selection group and its common for players to initially think they need to group the 3 units they want to merge into a selection group to be able to merge them when it's actually the opposite.
Ultimate_Waffle
The soul devourer.
Hm, okay. I also have another question. Early game, there seems to be three different spot/veil choices. I understand the green one is camouflage and the purple one is disguise, but what does the black one represent? I tried looking in the pedia, but couldn't find anything about what it's called.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Ultimate_Waffle
The soul devourer.
Thanks!
Thanks! I did, in fact, assume that I needed to have all 3 selected together. I was able to merge my axemen back together.
Follow-up: It seems Trained Dogs (Canines?), Guides (Explorers?), and Hunters are not able to be split/merged. I think I read in one of your information posts that this would also apply to units such as Strike Teams, Criminals, War Cats (Felines?), and units that produce property effects. Are Ruffians, Tamed Animals, or any other groups also included? Just looking for general rules-of-thumb for what to expect going forward.
What does the Surprise status do (+1 stealth defense)? So far, I've been toggling it on for all my units, since it doesn't seem to have a downside... but I feel I may be missing something, since it isn't toggled on by default (at least for most units). For my Hunter/Guide groups, I remove Standout and toggle that on, but when I automate hunt, the Guides turn Standout back on automatically. My hope was that I would be able to hunt while invisible (in forests) to the combat-barbarian units (spears/axes/slingers), but this doesn't seem possible (maybe it isn't practical anyway... I'm still not very familiar with how the combat mods work).
Any tips for automating Hunters in the Ancient era? In prehistoric, I paired hunters up with my explorer units to do some hunting while exploring and to protect them from animal attacks. Once done exploring, I left them with my hunters (on auto-hunt) to help with Spot promotions and so they could take the hits from animal ambushes/barb attacks and then withdraw. Once barbarians started killing my explorers (at least their deaths saved my hunter promotions), I added stone axemen to the mix, but it seemed to really slow down my hunting due to the lowered movespeed. Now that I have Trained Dogs, I was thinking of using them instead of Axemen and Guides, but they neither have the power of Axemen nor the withdrawal of Guides (another unit for +Spot to Camo is nice, though). It seems the dogs automatically apply Standout when auto-hunting with hunters, though. Will the Guides be targeted first by combat-barbarians automatically, or will I have to go for Goad promotions? I might go that route and just focus the Training Dogs on Keen Ears for the +Spot to Camo.
I guess I had more questions than I thought
PS - Despite the complexity, these combat mods seem pretty intuitive and interesting (especially after reading the design descriptions I found here-and-there). I'm having fun figuring out how everything works together, and I'm glad I decided to try them out for my new campaign!
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Correct. Vision, stealth and property management factors are the main reasons to deny units the ability to merge or split.
Aside from noting that the combat mods are designed with anti-automation in mind (making you WANT to not automate and get into the feel of role-playing each unit being the goal) the reason that the guides (recon) are doing this is because they figure their role is to be a decoy defender - to get the attention of anything that would attack and draw them away while they try to escape. They assume that you may end up escorting subdued animals, captured workers or captives, or may even have a Great General out with your hunting party, and something defensive needs to be visible to draw off anything that would attack those things being escorted. You CAN hunt with total stealth, but probably not while automated with scouts to defend your hunters.
The downside of Surprise Status is that you won't have a choice but to ambush when something crosses your path that didn't see you. If this is an enemy war stack, for example, and you leap out and ambush that stack, sure you might take down the lead unit (might), but then they can see you during the rest of their turn and probably easily dispatch your unit with something else in the stack. In some cases, it CAN be best to just let those who don't see your unit just move through your plot without being attacked if they're going to wander your way.
lol... see previous note. Honestly though there are some issues with automation still where super easy fights, which is a lot of what you want with hunters if you can get it, are completely ignored as possible battles to engage in by the AI. It's a known bug. Perhaps down the road, fixing this and designing some BUG settings for what escorting units should do would be helpful. At the moment, there are going to be issues if you try to automate. Hunters are best when the human player is playing as a human player. The complexity of hunt strategies is still not yet fully something the AI copes with quite as well as a good human player would. We've done a lot of work there and more needs yet to be done.
If you aren't trying to automate so much, this is an excellent strategy to the point the AI is generally told to do this as well. Scouts make great hunter defenders and I'm hoping to make them a little better at spotting than hunters as well, making them better for escorting hunters in that regard too. They CAN go just as stealthy as the hunter if they wish - but again, the automation on that is very rudimentary at the moment.
I tend to do that too and I'm fine with it. I send the hunters out as invisible as possible to kill things nearby so use the added speed for lunge attacks and surround benefits to support the axemen (I often start doing this around clubs myself and if the animals are REALLY tough in the area, I'll use merged spears in the stack too.) I often then include a few hunters with a good melee killer so they can use the melee unit as a home base to return to for protection and sometimes even send a wise woman with the party - particularly if I got one from a goody hut. Mostly it's just to get added XP for helping with healing when she can. By this time I don't mind the slowdown because I'm usually sending out enough hunting parties that they need to give areas time to recover animal spawns anyhow. I'm often sending them in waves through various regions on the map in cycles to help me keep every area about as equally covered with enough time to recover after being swept up as I can.
Yep, I usually add a good doggo or two to the mix with hunting parties. One for speed and surround and the other for spot.
It's cool to see you're figuring out so much of the strategic blends already! Once the unit review is complete, there should be a few more considerations I'm sure you'll quickly pick up on for more military applicable unit role interactions.
I appreciate the insight!
I noticed that hunters act strangely when automated, but it didn't seem to matter too much by the time I do it... once I have a few cities and several worker groups going, I spend my time on doing those and removing nearby barbarians menacing them. I also start at low difficulty and let flexible difficulty ramp it up over time, so I usually have a decent lead by then. That was without the combat mods (and before the prehistoric revamp), so I'll try out manual control again =)
Is there someplace I can find more in-depth information about Surround & Destroy? The Pedia says more units surrounding the target yields greater bonuses, but the Pedia entry for Trained Dogs explains:
Unnerve: Unit counts as +5% strength when surrounding
Enclose: Adds +5% to the maximum possible Surround and Destroy bonus when Surrounding
Lunge: Gets +5% Surround and Destroy Bonus when attacking
Dynamic Defense: Denies 5% Surround and Destroy Penalty when defending
Is the Surround and Destroy bonus based on the -strength- of the surrounding units, and not just the number of surrounding units? Do 2 units on the same tile (but on a different tile than the attacker) count towards Surround and Destroy bonus for the attacker?
Does Enclose work only for the unit with Enclose, or all friendly units that attack the target unit? What else affects the max bonus (e.g. era, tech, etc)?
Lunge and Dynamic Defense seem self-explanatory.
Thanks again!
EDIT: Oh, wait, I think I get it.
Unnerve - Modifier to this unit's base strength if others are surrounding.
Enclose - Modifier to this unit's max possible bonus from Surround and Destroy
Lunge - Modifier to this unit's Surround and Destroy bonus when attacking
Dynamic Defense - Modifier to opposing unit's Surround and Destroy bonus when this unit is defending
I noticed that hunters act strangely when automated, but it didn't seem to matter too much by the time I do it... once I have a few cities and several worker groups going, I spend my time on doing those and removing nearby barbarians menacing them. I also start at low difficulty and let flexible difficulty ramp it up over time, so I usually have a decent lead by then. That was without the combat mods (and before the prehistoric revamp), so I'll try out manual control again =)
Is there someplace I can find more in-depth information about Surround & Destroy? The Pedia says more units surrounding the target yields greater bonuses, but the Pedia entry for Trained Dogs explains:
Unnerve: Unit counts as +5% strength when surrounding
Enclose: Adds +5% to the maximum possible Surround and Destroy bonus when Surrounding
Lunge: Gets +5% Surround and Destroy Bonus when attacking
Dynamic Defense: Denies 5% Surround and Destroy Penalty when defending
Is the Surround and Destroy bonus based on the -strength- of the surrounding units, and not just the number of surrounding units? Do 2 units on the same tile (but on a different tile than the attacker) count towards Surround and Destroy bonus for the attacker?
Does Enclose work only for the unit with Enclose, or all friendly units that attack the target unit? What else affects the max bonus (e.g. era, tech, etc)?
Lunge and Dynamic Defense seem self-explanatory.
Thanks again!
EDIT: Oh, wait, I think I get it.
Unnerve - Modifier to this unit's base strength if others are surrounding.
Enclose - Modifier to this unit's max possible bonus from Surround and Destroy
Lunge - Modifier to this unit's Surround and Destroy bonus when attacking
Dynamic Defense - Modifier to opposing unit's Surround and Destroy bonus when this unit is defending
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Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Surrounding units give bonus combat modifier to the attacking unit based on how strong they are against the defender and how well positioned they are as closely to the opposite side of the defender's tile. They only give benefit to the attacker if they are on another adjacent tile to the defender. Only the strongest (by combat comparison) unit in an adjacent tile to the defender that is NOT in the same tile as the attacker will give any benefit to the attacker from that tile location.
Normally there is a 60% maximum bonus that an attacker can get.
Unnerve makes the unit seem stronger when being compared to the defender for the sake of determining how much bonus is given to the attacker. - yes the bonus is based on the strength of the surrounding unit(s) and this makes the surrounding unit this much % stronger in this evaluation.
Enclose adds to the % maximum bonus if that unit is chosen as a unit adding to the surround support value. Your statement is almost true - it adjusts the maximum 60% value of the attacker's accumulated surround benefit IF its on the unit selected to help from that tile location.
Lunge helps the attacker to modify the overall accumulated combat modifier bonus they are getting from surrounding units.
Dynamic Defense helps the defender to reduce the overall accumulated combat modifier bonus an attacker may be getting against the defender.
Normally there is a 60% maximum bonus that an attacker can get.
Unnerve makes the unit seem stronger when being compared to the defender for the sake of determining how much bonus is given to the attacker. - yes the bonus is based on the strength of the surrounding unit(s) and this makes the surrounding unit this much % stronger in this evaluation.
Enclose adds to the % maximum bonus if that unit is chosen as a unit adding to the surround support value. Your statement is almost true - it adjusts the maximum 60% value of the attacker's accumulated surround benefit IF its on the unit selected to help from that tile location.
Lunge helps the attacker to modify the overall accumulated combat modifier bonus they are getting from surrounding units.
Dynamic Defense helps the defender to reduce the overall accumulated combat modifier bonus an attacker may be getting against the defender.
Ah, it's a bit more complex than I imagined. The system is living up to the intent to move from (nearly) uniform stacks of doom to actual tactical gameplay, very cool!
I noticed that there are promotions that increase Spot range. Does this mean that promotions that give +1 visibility do not apply any Spot to those additional tiles? (So the additional visibility can only see units without any form of invisibility)
Before using Hide and Seek, I would place a Trained Dog in each of my cities with the +1 visibility so I could see criminals before they made it into my city. I'm thinking I may have to put dogs on patrol with additional movement for greater chance of finding the criminals moving through my territory, instead.
I noticed that there are promotions that increase Spot range. Does this mean that promotions that give +1 visibility do not apply any Spot to those additional tiles? (So the additional visibility can only see units without any form of invisibility)
Before using Hide and Seek, I would place a Trained Dog in each of my cities with the +1 visibility so I could see criminals before they made it into my city. I'm thinking I may have to put dogs on patrol with additional movement for greater chance of finding the criminals moving through my territory, instead.
ecawilson
Warlord
No. Diving into the code, and testing it in game are the best sources right now.
It isn't just based upon strength, it is more based upon ability of a unit to defeat the target unit (regular attack combat). If I have a unit with 'odds' (the odds display is a *little* off *sometimes*, different topic) of 90% exerting surrounding influence, there will be higher effect of the surrounding influence [higher percent bonus] than if the unit exerting surrounding influence only had 'odds' of 40%. Basically what I am saying is that promotions, not just strength, have an impact here.
In addition, if the same surrounding unit is in a different location relative to the unit being attacked, the attacking bonus will change. A chart, for your enjoyment:
O O O
O D O
O A O
Here, our noble attacker is South of the defender. If the surrounding unit replaces the O Southwest of the attacker, there will be some surrounding influence... but not as much as if that same unit were North of the attacker, the optimal location. That is because the defender would actually be surrounded... kind of. On the other hand, if we have two units 'surrounding' the defender from the Southwest and the Southeast respectively, each one may not exert the maximum influence, but their influence will still be additive. If you can have units surrounding from all 7 O's, even if the bonuses are small, it will add up, and get you closer to your max 60%... maybe closer to 60% than if you merged them into larger units each with higher 'odds' and individual surrounding bonuses.
With that in mind, you may want to examine your surrounding bonuses and make strategic decisions on how to surround... Putting the two 'strongest' (by odds, not pure strength) units next to each other is the least efficient option (but may be the safest or quickest.
Notice my chart does not take into account a stealth unit on the same tile as the defender. Such a unit does not exert any surrounding influence.
Nope. The game picks one, and uses just that unit's 'odds'. So far, I have not noticed it picking the 'wrong' unit, but I would never count on the game actually picking the correct one each time.
ecawilson
Warlord
Can you comment on what the area size and the time are? I realize that map size leads to variation in 'area' size.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Visibility range overall is your limit of spotting anything as you have no chance of spotting anything with a veil outside of the ultimate tile visibility range you have.
Spot intensity decreases by one every tile out from your unit beyond the first.
Spot Range (a 3rd thing entirely) expands how far out you see at your strongest spot intensity before it begins to decline further.
Thus, as above, a chart:
With 3 visibility range and 3 spot camo intensity, you would see through camo of x or lower at the following ranges:
11111111
1222221
1233321
123x321
1233321
1222221
11111111
with x being 3 as well but at the same tile you're on.
With 3 visibility range, 3 spot camo and +1 spot range for camo:
2222222
2333332
2333332
233x332
2333332
2333332
2222222
You wouldn't see past the 3rd tile because that's your overall visibility limit anyhow.
Not really. I have to get a feel for it on every map with every game. Spawn rates are usually adjusted between games I play and it's pretty well impossible to suggest what's ideal though on a fairly sizeable continent I usually have a few hunting parties and a couple great hunters out hunting on their own.
Unless the unit is in a watchtower type improvement, that's when spot range improvements are truly useful.
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