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From: Tony Schroeder <tony.schroeder@netmanage.com>
Subject: Re: Evolving a flock/army
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Date: Wed, 24 Apr 96 09:43:10 PDT
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In Article<317C1C3C.3819@parallax.co.uk>, <rjg@parallax.co.uk> writes:
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> From: Richard Gemmell <rjg@parallax.co.uk>
> Newsgroups: comp.ai.games
> Subject: Re: Evolving a flock/army
> Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 16:54:36 -0700
> Organization: Parallax Solutions Ltd, UK
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> Tony Schroeder wrote:
> > 
> > In Article<31759942.4E95@parallax.co.uk>, <rjg@parallax.co.uk> writes:
> > > I've been thinking about Warcraft II lately.  The game's AI is very poor 
at
> > > delivering a group of units to a certain spot.  This shows up as 
follows:-
> > >
> > > If you select a bunch of units and move them, they very rapidly break 
up. This
> > > causes the following problems.  Units get left behind, your group 
arrives out of
> > > formation and the group arrives in dribs and drabs, not all together.
> > >
> > > Perhaps flocking behaviour could resolve these problems.  The only real
> > > difference is that the "flock" now consists of different sorts of 
"birds". You
> > > would have rather different rules of course.
> 
> > The problem is simply that all the characters move at a different speed, 
the
> > advanage of Ogres or Palidans besides strength is speed. If you were to 
have
> > them move as a group then you would have to slow the faster troops to go 
as
> > slow as the slowest one in the group. I actually like the fact that they 
all
> > move at different rates. What I normally do is send one axe thrower/archer 
or
> > grunt/footman with a larger group of Ogres/Palidans, and the reason is if 
I
> > run into a force that I would lost to I would retreat my forces, then as 
the
> > enemy follows the first one they would catch would be the slowest, same 
with
> > towers, then when they are busy on him they would ignore my troops when I 
send
> > them back in, losing the no body, and getting some good hits in with the
> > stronger guys. Why lose or have a damaged unit that costs you more?
> 
> I was thinking of the effects of movement on the AI player.  It seems that 
the AI is 
> smart enough to build up a team of different units before sending them to 
assault 
> your base.  Unfortunately, they don't arrive as a coherent team.  This makes 
it very 
> easy for the player to destroy them unit by unit.  The knights arrive first, 
some 
> time later the archers arrive and about 1 minute later the catapult turns 
up.  A 
> catapult with no protection is easy meat!
> 
> Richard
> -- 
> _________________________________________________________________
>  Richard Gemmell,         E-Mail: rjg@parallax.co.uk
>  Phone: +44 1203 514448,  Fax: +44 1203 514401
>  Parallax Solutions, Stonecourt, Siskin Drive, Coventry, CV3 4FJ
> 
> 
Your right, it is easy to kill them. That is why I like to use the tag and let 
follow method, it works. What would be nice is if you had a sepperate move 
command that would make them move in a tighter group. That way you would be 
able to choose the way your troops would interact with each other while 
moving. I like to send a peasant off with nights while exploring so they can 
settle as soon as they see a mine, so in that particular way I like the 
peasant to drag.


