Formations_ai and Elephants

[Red Spot]

Have made a (crude) line of cavalry formations, currently they are untweaked and rather weak but they work just fine ....
Untill I deploy elephants, if I remove only the cavalry formations the game loads just fine but when I deploy elephants when the cavalty-formations are present the game "freezes" (I once have been able to force the game to load wich made the camera deploy outside the battle-map and cause and immediate CTD ...

I cant seem to get my head around it, removing all but one cavalry formation and use that to test things out still presents the same problem though I cant spot any mistake in the actual formation (expect for that its not "AI-tweaked")

anyway the first defend, and currently only, cavalry defend formation is the following;

;******* Cavalry 14-20 units ****************************************
;*******************************************************************************
begin_formation ai_large_cavalry_defend
defend
ai_priority 3.0

begin_dummy_block 0
spacer 0.0 0.0 120 30
end_dummy_block

;; Lead Cavalry
begin_block 1
min_units 6
max_units 8
unit_type heavy cavalry 1.0
unit_type light cavalry 0.9
unit_density close
min_unit_width 20
max_unit_width 20
block_formation line
block_relative_pos 0 0.0 -18.0
inter_unit_spacing 6.0
priority 1.0
end_block

;; Cavalry left
begin_block 2
min_units 3
max_units 4
unit_type heavy cavalry 1.0
unit_type light cavalry 1.0
unit_density close
min_unit_width 20
max_unit_width 20
block_formation line
block_relative_pos 1 -18.0 -6.0
inter_unit_spacing 6.0
priority 1.0
end_block

;; Cavalry right
begin_block 3
min_units 3
max_units 4
unit_type heavy cavalry 1.0
unit_type light cavalry 1.0
unit_density close
min_unit_width 20
max_unit_width 20
block_formation line
block_relative_pos 1 18.0 -6.0
inter_unit_spacing 6.0
priority 1.0
end_block

;; Cavalry back
begin_block 4
min_units 2
max_units 4
unit_type heavy cavalry 1.0
unit_type light cavalry 0.8
unit_density close
min_unit_width 20
max_unit_width 20
block_formation line
block_relative_pos 1 0.0 -12.0
inter_unit_spacing 6.0
priority 1.0
end_block

;; Family back
begin_block 5
unit_type skirmish cavalry 1.0
unit_type any 0.1
unit_density close
min_unit_width 16
max_unit_width 22
block_formation line
block_relative_pos 4 0.0 -12.0
inter_unit_spacing 0.2
priority 1.0
end_block

;; Siege behind the army left
begin_block 6
unit_type siege 1.0
unit_type any 0.1
default_melee_state fire_at_will
unit_density close
min_unit_width 20
max_unit_width 20
block_formation line
block_relative_pos 5 -12.0 -6.0
inter_unit_spacing 6.0
priority 1.0
end_block

;; Siege behind the army right
begin_block 7
unit_type siege 1.0
unit_type any 0.1
default_melee_state fire_at_will
unit_density close
min_unit_width 20
max_unit_width 20
block_formation line
block_relative_pos 5 12.0 -6.0
inter_unit_spacing 6.0
priority 1.0
end_block

;; Elephants left
begin_block 8
unit_type elephants 1.0
default_melee_state fire_at_will
unit_density close
block_formation line
block_relative_pos 6 -18.0 -12.0
inter_unit_spacing 12.0
priority 1.0
end_block

;; Elephants right
begin_block 9
unit_type elephants 1.0
default_melee_state fire_at_will
unit_density close
block_formation line
block_relative_pos 7 18.0 -12.0
inter_unit_spacing 12.0
priority 1.0
end_block

end_formation

skirmish cavalry are family-members (they always deploy in their own battle-group at the rear of the formation)

it seems that in an other infantry formation that doesnt have any elephants the elephants just deploy in the group for heavy cavalry(wich they are classed as)

going to try and see what happens if I make elephants missile cavalry and give them a group of their own (in such way they can no longer be assigned a position for heavy cavalry), but its kind of just "trying stuff" ... :(

has anyone perhaps have a clue whats going on or similair experiances they managed to work around? This joke already has costed me a day ....

Edit;
Forgat to mention that I did try the formation with and without unit_density and default_melee_state, wich makes no diff.


G

[Red Spot]

Interesting beasts ...

Seems that why I couldnt figure out what was going on because I stumbled upon several issues at once ...

When you over-deploy an army (eg; the formation is big for the deployment square) it doesnt seem to be of an issue for at least loading the battle ...
It is when it comes to elephants, when I deploy 2 lines of 6 elephants (1 on each side of the general) I get a freeze or CTD on the odd chance it actually loads, deploy 2*5 and no problem at all where the outer units barelly stay within the deployment zone.

An other thing is that the game doesnt seem to discriminate between regular heavy cavalry and elephants, at least not without mentioning the elephants with high prio. towards mentioning heavy cavalry (wich makes playing with cav. deployment all the harder)

Anyway I've taken the easy way out and made elephants missile cav. that arent used in my formations so they always default to their elephant position, and am going to come up with some other system to prevent elephant overflow ...


G

[Patrizius]

Same poblem.elphants in Formation_ai seems to cause CDT also in campaign map battles,when you siege a city and try to fight a battle...

[Red Spot]

change the entry of your elephants to like skirmish or missile cavalry in EDU, see if they may get assigned diff. positions ... unlikelly but it may work ...

else you could try adding a square of elephants behind every formation with very high prio. so any elephants get assigned to a square behind the rest of army, hopefully staying within the deployment borders

I'm currently redoing the entire way elephants deploy as even though its unlikelly to find an army with lots of elephants it can happen ....


G

[Aradan]

AFAIK the same issue can happen with chariots. Sometimes they can overflow the deployment zone and that can cause some ugly things to happen, like camera frezes or CTDs.
Best to set a large block behind everybody else and assign only elephants there with very high priority. Or you could try taking the beasties to the sides and set "block formation = square/column" and see if that saves you enough space.

[Red Spot]

Funny thing ..

I more or less overcame the problem to afterwards remove elephants from my game .... (already had no chariots)

still nice to know :)


G