White_Knight
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2004
- Messages
- 26
There's been an ongoing discussion in a couple of threads about the properties of King units. I thought I'd run some simple tests to determine what's going on. The following is a description of my testing scenario (so it can be reproduced, if desired) and the results of the testing.
The player, America, is in a locked war with Germany, set to max aggression to ensure they will attack. The Germans get several cities, a Bismarck in their capital (which will be necessary when testing the Regicide modes), spearmen for defense, and a pile of archers with which to attack. They have no horses or iron, so the worst we'll see is archers and spears. They are 30 tiles away across a land bridge so we'll know where they're coming from, and so we'll have a chance to prepare before they arrive.
We get two cities: Warriorville and Horsopolis. Warriorville begins with 2 warriors, Horsopolis has 2 horses. Warriors upgrade to swords (we start with Iron Working) and horses to knights (these now require Masonry, which we also start with). There is a source of horses near Horsopolis, and we don't have iron hooked up yet but there is one close to Warriorville that can be hooked up in 10 turns or so. This will give us a chance to build a few units that we can upgrade, just in case things go obsolete when we have the right resource (as Finn said he observed). Warriorville contains our King, Lincoln, and both cities have a spearman for defense.
Swordsmen have the King flag (but not the King AI strategy), while Knights have both the King AI strategy and the King flag. In addition to the units we will be building, there is a modified Statue of Zeus in Warriorville that will spawn a Swordsman every 3 turns, and a modified Knights Templar in Horsopolis that spawns Knights every 3 turns. Both of these require iron, so there shouldn't be any units coming out of them until we're ready. I'll be renaming units appropriately to keep track of who is who (i.e. upgraded Swords vs. spawned Swords vs. enslaved Swords).
Speaking of which, enslavement is on, with Swords generating Swords, and Knights generating Knights. From previous testing I have a fairly good idea of how enslavement with Kings works, but I'm including it to be comprehensive. Also, in the spirit of covering all the bases, Finn mentioned that he had his King unit set as the "Flag unit" under general settings, and I did the same with my Knight to see if that had any effect. The difficulty is set at Regent, not that this really matters much (all it does is affect how fast the AI builds units). Upgrade costs are 1 gold per shield, to make things easier.
I ran the scenario four times: once with neither Regicide flag turned on, once with Mass Regicide on, once with Regicide on, and once with both on. In all cases my game play was the same, both in terms of build orders and unit actions.
The following results were obtained, regardless of the presence of Regicide mode flags:
- The player cannot build Knights or Swordsmen.
- The player can upgrade Horseman to Knight.
- The player can upgrade Warrior to Swordsman.
- A spawned Knight does not defend first when stacked with a Horseman.
- An upgraded Knight does not defend first when stacked with a Horseman.
- An enslaved Knight does not defend first when stacked with a Horseman.
- A spawned Sword does not defend first when stacked with a Warrior.
- An upgraded Sword does not defend first when stacked with a Warrior.
- An enslaved Sword does not defend first when stacked with a Warrior.
In no case were any differences observed in the behaviour of the Knight or Horseman, so setting one of them as the "Flag unit" appears to do nothing. The AI is also not preferentially targetting Kings in battle; it's just as likely to attack a Warrior on a Mountain as a Swordsman on plains even though their apparent defense values should be quite similar.
I am not sure at this time how to prevent units from being automatically named "President Lincoln" (or whatever the ruler's name is) when they are created. In C3C you can rename them so it isn't that much of a problem. If anyone knows how to alter this behaviour I would really like to know.
When Mass Regicide alone is turned on, when the initial King unit is killed, the game continues. Though not unexpected, this is confirmation that to eliminate an opponent in Mass Regicide, all of their kings must be eliminated - not just those that they started with.
From the player's viewpoint, having the King AI strategy flagged on appears to make no difference in the abilities of the Kings, nor does having the "disband" flag toggled. However, to make the AI protect their Kings when either of the Regicide modes are enabled, the AI strategy flag should probably be on, and this means the unit cannot be disbandable. When both Regicide modes are turned off, having the AI strategy flag turned on will likely make the AI keep their Kings in their cities. Whether or not this is the desired behaviour will dictate what the status of the AI strategy flag should be.
Thoughts? Comments? Questions?
Edit:
As FinnMcCool has just reported, King units can still be attacked first when stacked with other units, if the attacker has the "Stealth Attack" ability. I have still not been able to reproduce his result of a King unit appearing in the build queue after an appropriate upgradable unit is built, but I will keep trying.
The player, America, is in a locked war with Germany, set to max aggression to ensure they will attack. The Germans get several cities, a Bismarck in their capital (which will be necessary when testing the Regicide modes), spearmen for defense, and a pile of archers with which to attack. They have no horses or iron, so the worst we'll see is archers and spears. They are 30 tiles away across a land bridge so we'll know where they're coming from, and so we'll have a chance to prepare before they arrive.
We get two cities: Warriorville and Horsopolis. Warriorville begins with 2 warriors, Horsopolis has 2 horses. Warriors upgrade to swords (we start with Iron Working) and horses to knights (these now require Masonry, which we also start with). There is a source of horses near Horsopolis, and we don't have iron hooked up yet but there is one close to Warriorville that can be hooked up in 10 turns or so. This will give us a chance to build a few units that we can upgrade, just in case things go obsolete when we have the right resource (as Finn said he observed). Warriorville contains our King, Lincoln, and both cities have a spearman for defense.
Swordsmen have the King flag (but not the King AI strategy), while Knights have both the King AI strategy and the King flag. In addition to the units we will be building, there is a modified Statue of Zeus in Warriorville that will spawn a Swordsman every 3 turns, and a modified Knights Templar in Horsopolis that spawns Knights every 3 turns. Both of these require iron, so there shouldn't be any units coming out of them until we're ready. I'll be renaming units appropriately to keep track of who is who (i.e. upgraded Swords vs. spawned Swords vs. enslaved Swords).
Speaking of which, enslavement is on, with Swords generating Swords, and Knights generating Knights. From previous testing I have a fairly good idea of how enslavement with Kings works, but I'm including it to be comprehensive. Also, in the spirit of covering all the bases, Finn mentioned that he had his King unit set as the "Flag unit" under general settings, and I did the same with my Knight to see if that had any effect. The difficulty is set at Regent, not that this really matters much (all it does is affect how fast the AI builds units). Upgrade costs are 1 gold per shield, to make things easier.
I ran the scenario four times: once with neither Regicide flag turned on, once with Mass Regicide on, once with Regicide on, and once with both on. In all cases my game play was the same, both in terms of build orders and unit actions.
The following results were obtained, regardless of the presence of Regicide mode flags:
- The player cannot build Knights or Swordsmen.
- The player can upgrade Horseman to Knight.
- The player can upgrade Warrior to Swordsman.
- A spawned Knight does not defend first when stacked with a Horseman.
- An upgraded Knight does not defend first when stacked with a Horseman.
- An enslaved Knight does not defend first when stacked with a Horseman.
- A spawned Sword does not defend first when stacked with a Warrior.
- An upgraded Sword does not defend first when stacked with a Warrior.
- An enslaved Sword does not defend first when stacked with a Warrior.
In no case were any differences observed in the behaviour of the Knight or Horseman, so setting one of them as the "Flag unit" appears to do nothing. The AI is also not preferentially targetting Kings in battle; it's just as likely to attack a Warrior on a Mountain as a Swordsman on plains even though their apparent defense values should be quite similar.
I am not sure at this time how to prevent units from being automatically named "President Lincoln" (or whatever the ruler's name is) when they are created. In C3C you can rename them so it isn't that much of a problem. If anyone knows how to alter this behaviour I would really like to know.
When Mass Regicide alone is turned on, when the initial King unit is killed, the game continues. Though not unexpected, this is confirmation that to eliminate an opponent in Mass Regicide, all of their kings must be eliminated - not just those that they started with.
From the player's viewpoint, having the King AI strategy flagged on appears to make no difference in the abilities of the Kings, nor does having the "disband" flag toggled. However, to make the AI protect their Kings when either of the Regicide modes are enabled, the AI strategy flag should probably be on, and this means the unit cannot be disbandable. When both Regicide modes are turned off, having the AI strategy flag turned on will likely make the AI keep their Kings in their cities. Whether or not this is the desired behaviour will dictate what the status of the AI strategy flag should be.
Thoughts? Comments? Questions?
Edit:
As FinnMcCool has just reported, King units can still be attacked first when stacked with other units, if the attacker has the "Stealth Attack" ability. I have still not been able to reproduce his result of a King unit appearing in the build queue after an appropriate upgradable unit is built, but I will keep trying.
