Combat

[Ashrem]

If the point of the animations is to make battle so tedious that I'd rather lose five times as many units on autofight as I would spend five minutes with my treants laboriously crossing the map to get to the frogs, then congratulations, the developers have succeeded. There is nothing so fascinating about the animations that they need to take several seconds to move two hexes. Manual combat involving treants is sickeningly slow and offers nothing in return except that auto-combat is so scathingly awful as to defy credulity.

 

[DeletedUser2959]

Funny how computers can beat a grandmaster at chess but Inno's can't figure out how to optimize 15 unit types.

 

[Mykan]

Funny how computers can beat a grandmaster at chess but Inno's can't figure out how to optimize 15 unit types.

Its because we don't want them to. They use the same AI for our units and the monsters, if they create an AI that can beat a chess grandmaster then the manual battles will become as hard as a chess grandmaster. We have already experienced this last time they tweaked the AI based on feedback, it made the manual fights a little harder.

While they could use different AI's likely that would be a major overhaul and we have had varying experiences when it comes to that over the years.

 

[Ashrem]

Its because we don't want them to.

Is that the royal "we?"

I'd happily take 10% harder but more engaging over watching chickens walk around with no heads and get in each others' way.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

[QUOTE="Mykan, post: 160265, member: 3334" We have already experienced this last time they tweaked the AI based on feedback, it made the manual fights a little harder.[/QUOTE]

This happened maybe a year and a half ago, maybe longer? This was also when I stopped doing any manual fighting at all because whatever they changed also made the manual fights begin taking far longer to play out than before and I just did not have the time for that.

 

[mucksterme]

I agree
Manual fighting with Ents is terrible

This was also when I stopped doing any manual fighting at all because whatever they changed also made the manual fights begin taking far longer to play out than before and I just did not have the time for that.

Generally, if I use manual it is because the enemy has a couple units in the mix that I think will cause trouble for the army I want to field.
Say for instance he has two dogs i'm worried about.
I'll go in on manual, take care of the dogs, then let the AI finish the fight.
Makes it a bit less burdensome

 

[qaccy]

Yeah manual fighting simply takes way too long. It's not as bad in the spire because of how few encounters there are, but when it comes to tournaments especially...it'd take something like 10-15 minutes just for a single province to be cleared. I regularly clear 30+ provinces per round. I don't have 5 hours to spend on one round of the tournament, sorry!

I get that they wanted to make the battles seem detailed/animated and that's why they're so slow, but...come on, sometimes it's okay to make some concessions in the appearance department for the sake of gameplay. Forge of Empires does this (I know, yet another FoE comparison) and the result is that the battle system is so much snappier that even a manual fight can be finished in under a minute including loading time!

 

[Black watch]

Its because we don't want them to. They use the same AI for our units and the monsters, if they create an AI that can beat a chess grandmaster then the manual battles will become as hard as a chess grandmaster. We have already experienced this last time they tweaked the AI based on feedback, it made the manual fights a little harder.

While they could use different AI's likely that would be a major overhaul and we have had varying experiences when it comes to that over the years.

I just want them to fix it so my units, like the Ranger, doesn't commit suicide by moving farther than it needs to and stopping right in front of a light ranged unit with a sign over its butt that says "kick my azz". It's bad and now getting worse...
Why is it, any time we need something fixed or tweeked a little, INNO over compensates and goes crazy, while STILL not addressing the issue in question.

 

[qaccy]

I just want them to fix it so my units, like the Ranger, doesn't commit suicide by moving farther than it needs to and stopping right in front of a light ranged unit with a sign over its butt that says "kick my azz"

I've watched a few auto-battles when I'm unsure of how my units might act against certain troop makeups, but I can say that of those few I haven't really observed what you're talking about. Ranged units (both mine and the enemy's) almost always prefer to move to max range before attacking if possible. However, it's worth pointing out that a light ranged unit can never attack from a safe distance when facing melee units (I assume you actually meant melee and not light ranged), with the exception of Orc Generals/Warriors and Swamp Monsters. Anything else is able to close the distance and attack on their turn unless something is in their way, even if the Ranger is at max distance.