The AI and skirmishing units

[Agent Smith]

No doesn't work like that, the firing animations for all units are based on the unit being static, but with cavalry the units are mounted so whilst the soldier is still, the mount moves.

Then all you need to do is make from the wait up a "rider" and from the waist down a "mount" for animation purposes

Could you imagine a skirmisher running in one direction while his torso is turned around 180 degrees the other way, all while throwing a javelin?

[sunsmountain]

Hi all, just wanted to pop by and say that I stopped playing this game because of the lacking AI (and other time constraints, but i still play games). Hopefully the next incarnation of the TW genre will be better...

kind regards,

suns

[Jambo]

It appears adding the "start_not_skirmish" attribute doesn't really work for the AI. The AI will simply re-enable this during a battle!

So, I decided to take a closer look at the battle_config file and in particular this series of entries for gunpowder infantry units:

				<gunpowder>
					<!-- ignore targets at a distance greater than the maximum range times this scale factor -->
					<max-range-scale>1.5</max-range-scale>
					
					<!-- must skirmish if within this range -->
					<min-range>40</min-range>
					
					<!-- stop at this distance if the enemy is blocking the path -->
					<min-stopping-range>50</min-stopping-range>
					
					<!-- time to react to being intercepted -->
					<collision-reaction-time>12</collision-reaction-time>
					
					<!-- retreat buffer time -->
					<retreat-time>14</retreat-time>
					
					<!-- don't skirmish until attackers are within this fraction of the missile range -->
					<range-factor>
						<moving>1.1</moving>
						
						<shooting>0.80</shooting>
					</range-factor>
				</gunpowder>

Take a look at the "moving" entry under "don't skirmish until attacks are within this fraction of the missle range." It has a value of 1.1 which to me doesn't make much sense and may be the cause of the seesawing action. As I udnerstand it, this entry means that a moving skirmishing unit shouldn't skirmish until an enemy unit is within 1.1 x its missile range. If true, this explains why a moving skirmish unit with a low missile range weapon (e.g. hand gunners) can never reach a suitable distance which will allow them to stop and fire again after skirmishing.

Anyway, I modded this to 0.8 and this seems to make them work much better. After skirmishing a value lower than 1.0 will then allow them to return to their missile range distance or the distance mentioned in "stop at this distance if the enemy is blocking the path."