Fix the woeful cannon AI.

[Master Contrail Program]

If cannons are defenseless there needs to be an AI tweek that reflects that. I'm tired of rallying to heal then having every other unit stop to play pattycake with defenders while these oblivious morons rush to their dooms. For the time it takes to train them they need to scan for targets far more frequently. Not lock onto what they consider ''closest'' and trundle off to get wasted by an obviously closer defensive building.

In fact all units should prioritize the things that are actively shooting them and not some goldbag.

Why does a cannon take three times as long to build as a tank anyway? What is a tank besides an armored cannon?

The fact that I have yet to see a mod ever respond to an AI post tells me I'm just pissing in the wind here, but I may as well go through the motions.

 

[LordJestix]

All AI is pretty bad. so yes it all needs to be improved. I especially love it when they get stuck at walls with an open gap just a space away or when your defensive seeking troops ignore active buildings and go for an upgrading defense.

 

[Master Contrail Program]

I think the AI needs to calculate walls as 2 spaces in its pathfinding. May help with the archers/machineguns shoot at walls all battle phenomenon. Would definitely help with cannons getting a hardon for a mill behind a wall and maddeningly driving past 3 towers to attempt to shoot it.

Cannons need to have the same target priority as tanks so they actually work in tandem. Seeing the cannons go for libraries or mills when there are things actively killing them the same distance away is ridiculous.

Or just reduce their training time if they're going to be stupid. This goes double for fighters.

 

[Motaz Tarek]

the way that AI calculates the distance is f**ked up, they can target a buildings and go all the way around passing infront of many defensive buildings to reach their shooting range
i agree they should prioritize what shoots at them just, won't be helpful if the shooters is an anti tank cannon but maybe good for the other types of buildings, though it would be so complex as prioritizing a mortar would make them cross a long distance to reach it

the safe way is to remake the way they calculate their closest target and reduce the shooters target detection range to be more dedicated to protection of vulnerable units as howitzers and healers
same for bazookas and machine guns who suicide to make it to a far defender on the other sode of the map

 

[LordJestix]

I just had my set of tanks work on 3 different wall sections for the last defense. Some tanks continued to work on 2 wall sections once another section was opened. Those 2 segments were 1 space waway from each other.

 

[Master Contrail Program]

Admittedly, shooter detect range seems to have gotten a silent tweek a few months ago. It was really bad last year at this time with shooters beelining to the other side of the map. Now it's merely bad instead. Shooters, more than any other unit, need to scan for targets at a higher frequency. So much fun to see them whittle away at a vault while a solitary command post archer shoots them to pieces.

 

[Master Contrail Program]

Perhaps mortars, stronghold and sniper towers should be exempt from target priorities. I'm thinking of things that cannons are already in range of like towers, redoubts, antitanks.

 

[Motaz Tarek]

agreed with the scan frequency, am very dissatisfied with the shooters protection job, my howitzers are so frequently moving alone or beside shooters who ignore defenders killing my howitzers

 

[Motaz Tarek]

tanks and generals are extremely awful at walls, like a 100% chance they will get stuck at it, problem is howies and shooters don't get stuck too so tanks or general left alone against a high lvl wall brick could take the whole battle time stuck at it

 

[British Coffee]

I love how healingcarts always run into towers for no reason like its brakes aren't working and then do a weird U-turn even though it still stays in tower range so it gets killed

 

[LordJestix]

I just had a battle last night that my plane deployed near the edge of the map, with nothing in the area that could shoot it, kill its target and then proceed to fly over 3 towers and the on its way back fly over 2 of the same towers and die....

 

[Manifesto]

The fact that I have yet to see a mod ever respond to an AI post tells me I'm just pissing in the wind here, but I may as well go through the motions.

By all means go through the motions, but make sure of the direction you face first!

 

[TinSoldier]

I do think posts like this are important, Master Contrail Program. It helps bubble it up to designers by calling out specific units and situations where pathfinding goes wonky.

 

[Manifesto]

Can the troops be tweaked in such a way that we can assign eg: a squad of archers to protect a particular troop?
The archers would stay with the assigned troop throughout the battle.

 

[TinSoldier]

I know squads have been suggested in a few places, and is one that the devs have discussed themselves.