I've listed suggested behaviors of independents which are moving on the world map. These behaviors can also be placed for AI players by any gamers which are creating a map. Frogboy might like these suggestions for allowing gamers more options on creating challenging maps. Hope Stardock likes these ideas:
1) Guard: Unit(s) does not move on the map and always stands its ground.
2) Guard Area: Unit(s) normally does not move on the map, but will attack any player units within its movement reach.
3) Wise Guard: Unit(s) does not move, but will attack any player units within movement reach which are overall weaker.
4) Patrol: Unit(s) randomly travel within 15 squares of original position and will attack any enemy player units it sees.
5) Wise Patrol: Unit(s) randomly travel within 15 squares of original position and will attack any enemy player units it sees which are overall weaker.
6) Thief: Unit(s) randomly travels into areas on the map and will take unguarded resources, items, and structures, but will not attack any player units. Unit(s) will return to a friendly town for dropping off any items or resources collected.
7) Raid: Unit(s) randomly travel the map attacking, burning and looting any structures. Unit(s) do not attack any player units unless they are protecting a targeted structure.
8) Wander: Unit(s) randomly travel the map peacefully.
9) Skill Actor: Unit(s) travel the map using their special skill. Thus a healer type will travel towards wounded units, a dryad would increase nature growth on a tile, a trader would transport goods, etc., etc., .
10) Scout: Unit(s) randomly travels the unexplored map areas with a second focus of avoiding units from enemy players.
11) Conqueror: Unit(s) randomly travels the unexplored map areas seeking to attack any enemy units or structures. These units will attack any enemy units after moving 5 turns.
12) Reinforcement: Unit(s) move and wait inside the nearest friendly town until a friendly group of units loses units matching its type at which point it will attempt to join the weakened group of units.
13) Assassinate: Unit(s) move toward and then attack known enemy units on the map which are overall weaker. These units will always try to end their turn on a terrain tile which allows them to use their stealth ability. (Rangers have stealth in trees, Water elementals have stealth in water, etc., etc.,)
14) Avenger: Unit(s) travels between friendly structures attacking any enemy units which are overall weaker. Anytime a friendly structure has been captured/stolen the nearest Avenger group will move towards trying to recapture the structure.
15) Front Line: Unit(s) move toward and then attack the nearest enemy town known on the map which is overall weaker. These units will attack any enemy units within its movement reach.
16) Siege: Unit(s) move toward the nearest enemy town known on the map and attack any enemy units near the enemy town, but will not attack the town itself or nearby structures.
17) Random: Unit(s) randomly travel the map peacefully 50% of the time. The other 50% of the time unit(s) randomly select one of the above behaviors.
This is starting to sound like "Magesty", which is another fun game. Everything in that game is about trying to influence independents moving around the map.
I like most of those ideas, but in my opinion there's way too much randomness, especially in the patrols. I want to be able to set troops to patrol between any two points, maybe even along a specific path of my choosing; being able to order troops to randomly wanter around a 15-tile radius circle wouldn't nearly satisfy me.
I will also say that I liked Majesty and it's rather unique method of controlling your forces, I do not want to see anything like that in Elemental. For one, I think such a system is much better suited to an RTS, where actions and everything are fluid. In TBS games, each individual action is important because it's the sum of discrete, rather large steps, that matter.
Eh, the OP's suggestion is for this to apply to non player-owned forces, specifically independants not belonging to a Channeler. (i.e. not a player's units, AI or human)
Seems like a good idea to liven up the barbarians/wandering monsters/independant villages.
Oh... Apparently I need to learn to read . In that context, then, great post! I like your ideas NTJedi
Bump for awesomeness. Please devs take a look over this
Agreed, NTJ posts a lot of interesting stuff.
Excellent ideas, NTJedi. It looks like it also keeps the calculations necessary to define independant roving monsters and such low, so that the game isn't slowed down.
It has been mentioned Python scripts will be available in the game. So I hope it will be possible to define the basic behavior of the unit types, or at least the AI of the units spawned by a quest. If so, it may increase the behavior list for: attack ranged units, attack magical units, attack channelers, seek enemies or stay where you are and attack on sight, attack cities....
You need to define the enemy too - a moving dragon may kill all NPC units in the area if the the enemy is not chosen well (nothing is left to the player).
Just a different point of view on this one, I like having to command all my troops to some degree because it adds the human error into the game. If I am not wise enought to manage all of my troops it should be something other players can exploit. Just a different oppinion.
These suggestions are for AI opponents and map independents, not human players. Don't worry, you weren't the first to make this mistake.
Alright... where's Brad?? Why do Independents only have one behavior type called wandering??
oh yeah, more AI faction, or group AI mentality types would be nice. makes the world a bit more alive.
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