Respect for the general (you) .... no cutting your general off

[kazuma]

When riding a horse, there is nothing worse than being cut off by your meandering soldiers getting in your way.  It makes for a very clumbsy battle sometimes.  I'll be feet away from running into my prey, when all of the sudden, I get cut off by another fellow horseman who had no reason to wander in my direction.  I can understand that sometimes in the heat of battle your men do get in the way, but there are other times when there is no reason for someone to just run in front of me to cut me off.  This happens lots at the beginning of the battle where the calvary is galloping side to side, cutting me off.  Often times, getting cut off by my own men is a recipe for my death. 

Would it be to hard to program some friendly AI to take note of your position, and if possible and feasible, avoid cutting you off?  I can understand when they are already chasing someone, but at other times, they just cut you off for no good reason.  It's really really hard to joust anything when you have calvary running into you. 

 

[Ingolifs]

I agree.

I think in general, horsemen should avoid getting too close to other friendly horsemen when travelling at speed.

I can't count the times playing TLD when I'd have a large line of rohan knights charging at a group of orcs, looking set to overrun them all, when all of a sudden they simultaneously decide to head towards the nearest orc, and cut each other off in a big pileup. So in the end, you get this big morass of hindered knights getting surrounded by enemy infantry.

 

[SAITCHO]

There are wayyyyyy more imortants upgrade the ai need. This one is a good one but only minor compared to others.

 

[Incaa]

This is a good point but I'm afraid It might be too much of an ask, I don't know how hard this would be but It's not going to be a simple code change, So its a maybe, a good maybe but a maybe nonetheless.

 

[kuenta666temporal]

For do your troops avoid you, I suggest an order command to be used like a horn in a car. When you uses your "Cry War" friendly troops try to avoid your course and long range troops avoid shoot near you, too.
I think that is necesary a better menu before the battles; more detailed forces status (earlier versions like .751 was better at this point), assign orders before battle (with map to put waypoints) or choose tactic:
- SOFT. Troops usually try to get the less damage; infantry and long ranged stays united, cavalry try to round enemies.
- MEDIUM. Your forces will analyze every situation; if they charge, they will distribute their attacks. And they distribute the enemies, too (no more fifteen friendly troops engaging one enemy).
- HARD. The goal is do damage; the actual AI. Every soldier simply will attack the nearest enemy.

 

[Raz]

Solution: Make your horsemen line up, or make them not target the first troop, or not zig-zag all the time.

 

[Cirdan]

Probably the easyest solution: formations. If they stick to their formation with couched lance and just skewer/ride down anything getting in their way without much by way of individual initiative, then they won't cut you off--unless you're the worst cavalry commander since Lords Lucan and Cardigan.

 

[Cirdan]

I was thinking more of "form wedge!" for cavalry, but basically, if you can get your troops to stick to any formation, that pretty much eliminates all instances of them getting in front of you unbidden--thus bringing cries of joy from everyone, but especially lancers and archers.

 

[Róisín]

Simple solution:  Get rid of the fudging rearing that the horses do.  It's ridiculous for low-speed impacts because the horse should have the sense to just push-through or go around that tree, and it's ridiculous for high-speed impacts because of physics.

Also, give horses basic collision detection/avoidance and let THEM keep themselves from running into each other.  You shouldn't need to manually steer your horse to get it to travel in a herd.

 

[Hellequin]

Even simpler: give the AI a "my target!" hidden variable.  (For bonus points make this accessible from the module system, as a command on the agent.  But that's an aside.)  So when they're choosing targets, an enemy who is the target of someone else on your team is less likely to be chosen than one who is not.  (IMO this wouldn't be an absolute, it would count toward a figure-of-merit calculation which included distance, relative power level, power of the friendly troop who has "dibsed" that target, etc.)

Then the horsemen will do more fanning out automatically, without requiring anything as complex as formations.

Similarly, consider the terrain immediately in front of any other horse (say 0.1 seconds away) as "blocked" and have the pathfinding algorithm try to go around it like it would any other obstacle.  This will only work well once the pathfinding algorithm's worth a can of beans, though.  Done right, even against a single enemy this would naturally cause them to fan out and converge rather than all riding in a line.

 

[maw]

ah... i think the "my target" direction is prolly lend itself to less realism than "collision avoidance plus formation"

maybe a random initial "my target" within a 30 degree field of view plus formation and avoidence? i'd think the training to attack in line/in formation fell apart over long distances anyway, or when there was less targets... or maybe... when you charge seta charge point target beyond the enemy, so your boys actually charge through the enemy in relative formation without regard to target selection beyond striking in passing...?

i think if you set an "friendly finds his unique target" it'd be less of a melee and chaos, which is what i really like about these battles.

anyhow... maw

 

[calandale]

Ah hell, just shoot them if they get in your way. They won't do it again.

 

[BlindArcher]

This is why I usually tell everyone to hold position at the start.  I guess that zigzag motion is to make it harder for them to get hit by projectiles but in practice they just get in each other's way.  Once I even sent a javelin into a hired blade's head when he chose to run in front of me at exactly the wrong time.

 

[bryce777]

Well, if you are charging WITH your horsemen then you are not playing in a very good way. 

 

[Merentha]

Well, if you are charging WITH your horsemen then you are not playing in a very good way. 

Eh?  Ideally, this should be the proper use of horsemen, not the milling about we have now.

 

[Cirdan]

  Once I even sent a javelin into a hired blade's head when he chose to run in front of me at exactly the wrong time.

Only once ? i've accidentally killed dozens of troopers that way.