Smarmellows
Regular
After reading this thread and trying out your siege pack, being desperate for one to improve vanilla sieges, I found many things I was unsatisfied with, (sorry ), so I took it upon myself to edit every scene you did in the game, and revert several back to the originals and edit those. I took that link provided to the lords and realms siege pack and learned, over the past 4-5 days and many long hours, learned how and fixed many of the scenes.
I deleted/adjusted scene props that were changed by polished landscapes that appeared odd or out of place in your scenes, changed or removed ladders in several scenes (when those ladders proved to be more of a hindrance to the AI than an asset), adjusted the spawn point for the attackers (point 0) and, as that guide suggested, moved it so that the AI approached the ladders in a more even distribution. More or less they try to use all three ladders, they have to approach them all with an even distance between them, not just coming from one side, or they'll only use the closest ladder. I added ai limiters on certain sieges where the AI appeared be getting stuck and going brainless. (They'd fall off a ladder and just stop attacking, acting like a zombie while everyone else died, eventually standing there until the battle was over and either someone killed them or the player is forced to quit. Not compatible with battle continuation if they don't finish the siege on their own.)
As I said I also converted back to the default scenes on several cities because they seemed unfinished, Dhirim and one of the Sarranid cities for example, the latter of which having a huge ugly dirt wall out front, in addition to being bugged horribly for the AI. Suno I also reverted back to default on, as I disagreed with the design decision. You had a gatehouse leading into a courtyard with NO OTHER GATEHOUSE inside. The only way into the city through that gate house was the ladders that an enemy supposedly put up. If the city wasn't at siege WHAT PURPOSE would that gatehouse possible have? I also adjusted the spawn points for all defenders on just about every scene, moving archers, the defense point, where reinforcement waves spawn, etc. Several scenes didn't make much sense to me in this so I adjusted them to my taste.
Basically, I did a huge but testing sweep for the AI and polished landscapes. I've finished all the castles and I'm halfway done with the cities, I'm certain I didn't fix 100% of the AI's problems but many of the gross errors that they'd encounter have been dealt with. I couldn't stand the AI just breaking on the walls after I get knocked out and being forced to alt-f4 to get out of the siege because they're just standing there not doing anything, you can't retreat in battle continuation when you're knocked out. I lastly edited the AI mesh, when of course necessary for new or removing ladders, and on the ground when AI traffic clogged in strange patterns.
So after these many hours my advice to you for your scene editing is to test test and test again, the AI has to be nudged and guided in a certain direction with the AI mesh and ai limiters.
Getting the AI to use more than one ladder is tricky, adjusting the spawn point 0 so they approach it evenly helps drastically, though it gets even harder if you're dealing with one of those interior walls you designed with yet more ladders. At that point you'd have to change the AI mesh so that the path the AI follows (the shortest one) has them spread out across the ladders. The path to no one ladder should be shorter than the others or they will ALWAYS go for that ladder. The physical distance between the men and two ladders may differ but if you increase or decrease the number of faces in between them and a ladder you can guide them in the right direction.
(I also realize this is a bit of a late post, but the forum is a bit of a backwater to your main mod forum, hope you're still reading here.)
I deleted/adjusted scene props that were changed by polished landscapes that appeared odd or out of place in your scenes, changed or removed ladders in several scenes (when those ladders proved to be more of a hindrance to the AI than an asset), adjusted the spawn point for the attackers (point 0) and, as that guide suggested, moved it so that the AI approached the ladders in a more even distribution. More or less they try to use all three ladders, they have to approach them all with an even distance between them, not just coming from one side, or they'll only use the closest ladder. I added ai limiters on certain sieges where the AI appeared be getting stuck and going brainless. (They'd fall off a ladder and just stop attacking, acting like a zombie while everyone else died, eventually standing there until the battle was over and either someone killed them or the player is forced to quit. Not compatible with battle continuation if they don't finish the siege on their own.)
As I said I also converted back to the default scenes on several cities because they seemed unfinished, Dhirim and one of the Sarranid cities for example, the latter of which having a huge ugly dirt wall out front, in addition to being bugged horribly for the AI. Suno I also reverted back to default on, as I disagreed with the design decision. You had a gatehouse leading into a courtyard with NO OTHER GATEHOUSE inside. The only way into the city through that gate house was the ladders that an enemy supposedly put up. If the city wasn't at siege WHAT PURPOSE would that gatehouse possible have? I also adjusted the spawn points for all defenders on just about every scene, moving archers, the defense point, where reinforcement waves spawn, etc. Several scenes didn't make much sense to me in this so I adjusted them to my taste.
Basically, I did a huge but testing sweep for the AI and polished landscapes. I've finished all the castles and I'm halfway done with the cities, I'm certain I didn't fix 100% of the AI's problems but many of the gross errors that they'd encounter have been dealt with. I couldn't stand the AI just breaking on the walls after I get knocked out and being forced to alt-f4 to get out of the siege because they're just standing there not doing anything, you can't retreat in battle continuation when you're knocked out. I lastly edited the AI mesh, when of course necessary for new or removing ladders, and on the ground when AI traffic clogged in strange patterns.
So after these many hours my advice to you for your scene editing is to test test and test again, the AI has to be nudged and guided in a certain direction with the AI mesh and ai limiters.
Getting the AI to use more than one ladder is tricky, adjusting the spawn point 0 so they approach it evenly helps drastically, though it gets even harder if you're dealing with one of those interior walls you designed with yet more ladders. At that point you'd have to change the AI mesh so that the path the AI follows (the shortest one) has them spread out across the ladders. The path to no one ladder should be shorter than the others or they will ALWAYS go for that ladder. The physical distance between the men and two ladders may differ but if you increase or decrease the number of faces in between them and a ladder you can guide them in the right direction.
(I also realize this is a bit of a late post, but the forum is a bit of a backwater to your main mod forum, hope you're still reading here.)