Can units be given a trait that allows them to refuse orders?

[Comrade Alexeo]

I was thinking about the big four-wheeled "chariots" that were drawn by onagers used by the Sumerians for possible use in Antiquity: Total War and I had this thought:

Donkeys, onagers, asses, etc. are all extremely stubborn animals. For the Sumerian's carts, however, they had to use them because they had no other option; horses were at this point in history were very comparable to onagers, and only grew into what we're familiar with today because you can selectively breed them, which you can't do with donkeys and onagers.

Naturally, the use of these animals was hardly ideal for the Sumerians. Donkeys are very tolerant to whipping, and when asked to move will usually either start sprinting away and become hardly controllable... or they'll just keep standing there.



Since I think this idea of your chariots simply refusing to budge when you ask them to is important not only for historical authenticity but also for balance, I'm wondering if there's a way to do that.

Could, perhaps, there be a way for these units to go "berserk" in game terms (so that you can select them, but they'll ignore you) - but only for a short while, and only about 50% of the time you give them an order?

[Sundjata Keita]

Surely if that were to be the case then only some of the chariots would not move. Making them work only 50% of the time would mean somebody could just issue the order twice and most times get them to work, only with a bit of annoyance.

A more realistic way would surely be for them to have an "ability" like beserkers to go beserk, which would stop them doing what you wanted. However this would mean you have no control over your units and not be fully realistic. Also this type of thing is hardcoded anyway.

Unfortunately it doesnt look feasible, sorry.

[Comrade Alexeo]

Gar...

Well, keep in mind the Laws of Probability 101 - all results are independent from each other. So, while over an extended period you'd get your onagers obeying you 50% of the time, on the local level they might refuse to budge for a whole minute... and then love you for another 3. You're right though - 75% of the time they ignore you would probably be better...

Are the triggers to make a unit unselectable separate from the berserker and routing triggers? Because if they ARE different coding, then is there a way you somehow cause it to activate so that your chariots are no longer selectable, and thus can't be controlled? They wouldn't be routing or going berserk - they'd just be inert for some time because there's no outside input, or maybe they'll continue doing their previous order of walk to X and you'll have to wait until they do so.

BTW Sundjata, ZTW still looks friggen awesome! Great work!

[Epistolary Richard]

No, unit attributes are all controlled out of export_descr_unit and we have no way of defining more. The closest you'll come to what you describe is the run_amok attribute that elephants have.