Post 13 Aug 2012, 07:15 by Jeronimo
I have been thinking around an idea to improve melee troops efficacy.
With current code, a soldier will hit any enemy unit around its square (8 tiles). And as far a unit from your squad is in touch with an enemy squad, your men will move towards that conflict point (while engaged).
My idea is about increasing melee troops aggresivity +1 tile to all directions. This way 1 soldier will hit anyone in range 1-2 will have 24 tiles action (as when ranged troops hit are allowed to hit any enemy inside 4-10 tiles range).
This way, melee will immediatly jump into next closer target when they finish killing the one they were "touching".
I notice melee troops engaged have [Task: Idle], so if they kill a unit, you have control of it before engages with next target (while automatically moves, you have like 2-3 seconds to move him away, and interrupt the "pursuit").
This code would bring some benefits also to the engaging system, since troops instead of moving towards 1 conflict point (range 1), they will move immediatly to the enemy in front, thus for keeping formation while killing forward (range 2).
REFERENCES
0 enemy troop
X conflict point (touching)
8 your troop
_/|\: march direction (accomodation)
Range 1 (8 tiles action)
0 0 0 0 0
X \ \
8 8 8 8 8
____/_/
Range 1-2 (8+16= 24 tiles action)
0 0 0 0 0
X | | | |
8 8 8 8 8
Cavalry will be more useful, specially when chasing crossbowmen (not having to click repeatdly to make another kill).
Charge will be more useful, if unit doesnt hit a troop in first contact, but it's enough close to 1 enemy unit (range 2), you can say he has also engaged enemy (with more efficient reaccomodation).
You save mental energies with less silly micros (moving forward continously). But still these chases/pursuits arent 100% something to rely... if enemy manages to scape to 3 tiles distance from your troops, then you have to manually advance again.
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I know Lewin said something about refactoring warrior's code so the melee will "chase till completly destroy" a selected enemy squad (as in most strategy games), basing the change in making your troop remember previous order to engage.
I still present my idea as another possibility... and perhaps easier to program.