Reply To: Frozen Time

[ManaSeed]

>> Sure, you can beat a group in front of a base. They just won’t get help from their comrades because you’re probably too strong for them to come out. They’ll come out if they think they can take you and reinforce the fight. They’re basically chickening out, so to speak.
About fear theory, I’m “away” and they are “home”, not to mention they have far larger numbers than me. If I’m fighting the enemy elsewhere, another flees due to spinelessness I can understand. But this is their home and their last stand. I basically doing something like putting a knife at their throats, there’s no way they’re not motivated to fight back. I believe they would fight with extremely furious spirit, like nothing you’ve seen before.

Ahem, back to the game system. There are several times I raid multiple enemy units near their base. There is a time I raid 3 enemy units one by one outside their base. Their distances with each other is like, if they take several more steps they can touch other. But they just walk here and there, around the same location, while I slaughter their comrade. Each of them is just slightly weaker than me. If two of them join hands against me, I might take more trouble to win. If three of them join hands, I would have a hard time or an unexpected casualty. If their base deploys men too, I’m very likely to be wiped out. Of course, what happens in reality is that I take them out one by one, which I think is very strange.

So I suggest to slightly modify the AI if possible, which is more viable.

Enemy should have the ability to communicate within each other’s detection radius. Maybe by blowing whistle and rising signal flag or something, they should have something to signal each other within detection/visible radius, right? While enemy within communication accesses your strength, they will compare their total strength against yours.

Now let’s assume the detection radius of enemy is same as us. So we saw them when they saw us.

Scenario 1: you saw 2 enemy, both of them can defeat you without the help of another, they will simply chase after you.
Scenario 2: you saw 2 enemy, both of them can’t defeat you without the help of another, they will immediately rush towards each other. After they stick close enough, they will chase you.
Scenario 2b: an alternative to scenario 2, if you think enemy is smarter than they look, they will rush towards the interception point (somewhere between you and the two enemies) so they can engage you with less time. After they rendezvous at interception point, they will begin the pursuit immediately if you’re running away.

Also, increase the detection of radius of enemy when he’s in his own territory. You might ask why. I can give reasons like they have better grasp of terrain so spotting enemy without getting spotted is like a piece of cake, but I will tell you honestly this is because of…….. fun.

And about base chickening issue. Come on… o(-`д´- ｡) even if their genius tactician is so paranoid about falling into a trap, they should send at least half their men if you’re pretty close when you bully their buddies.

>> These fights won’t be over in 80 seconds, but 10-15 minutes for a medium sized battle (12-12) with good armor on both sides sounds realistic. The largest battles would probably take 30 minutes at most, including hunting down routing units (i.e. finding that last archer).
This is EXACTLY what I think. That’s why I keep thinking that a 10~20 minutes battle has some chance for reinforcements or enemy scouts to join battle, depending on the battle location. Even if we put aside all these random encounters about being discovered by another enemy unit amidst battle, at least the enemy base and enemy should reinforce their friend if you bash him right in front of their eyes (or visible range), where the distance is 20 minutes walk or less.

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EDIT
It might be particularly fun when you chase a slightly weaker enemy into the woods, just to see two enemy units coming out of the woods :D