MoveTo Wit's End

[Boco]

Okay, I'm stumped. Not a rare occurrence, but....

How do you get the camel unit (aka Turkey, in red below) to attack the settler SW of Kantara? A competent human player will stack a good defensive unit with the Settler, making the attack suicidal. Even so, I'd like the Turkey to attack (on turn 2). He seems determined to run away(and survive). Btw, it's ToT.

Things I've tried:

1. Created the Turkey at start, but used up its move.
Then, wrote MoveUnit* actions to either and both of these triggers:
- Turn=Every
- ReceivedTechnology (that's what created the Settler)

2. Created the Turkey at start. Used up all but one road movement factor (it's alpine), manually set up a goto command, and then saved the scenario.

3. Made the Settler real expensive, and the Turkey cheap.

Best I've ever gotten is 2-3 of 8 Turkeys will attack.

*maprect
64,50,80,50,80,62,64,62
moveto
62,50 (the Settler's square)

[DarthVeda]

what is this scenario?

[ravagon]

Does the camel always move in a straight line towards the settler with your moveunit command? It doesn't actually have to as it can move on the diagonal with the same cost and hence gets into the ZOC of the other city.

One other thing I've often found is that given the choice of attacking a unit or a city, the city gets it much more often unless its a barb unit attacking. If you want the settler taken out you might try moving it SE one square so the camel doesn't have the choice?

[Boco]

Ravagnon, the Turkeys go in one of three directions: due south to a special resource square within the city limits of a port held by the Settlers civ (Allies), due east like a bat out of hell, or dutifully to attack the Settler's stack. They never attack Port Suez or Kantara.

Create them adjacent to the settler (due S of Kantara), and it's the Charge of the Light Brigade every time. Only against the settler, never against Kantara.

DV, it's a WW1 campaign, but I'm not setting any records for speed of development.

Case led me to an old thread (1999) initiated by Captain Nemo, http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...&threadid=9383. In it some guy, 3 years prior to his utterly ignored 21st birthday , had this bit:

The units that are
1) not fortified
2) not on sentry duty
3) not already headed for a destination
4) no building fortfications
5) not nuclear weapons
6) not human units
can move with MoveUnit

Unfortunately, for the AI, that is a very precise list, considering that many AI units are always on the move (but obviously going nowhere) or on sentry or fortified.. I think this event works best with freshly created units.

Anything to add after 3 years, DV? I'll try combining creating and moving into the same @THEN statement.

[DarthVeda]

sometimes if a unit comes across a city while its moving it will fortify there but thats all I noticed with moveunit

I'm more interested with what you've done with the health bar... can I see that portion of the units.bmp?

[Boco]

Take a look over at this ToT thread for the UnitKey graphics.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Boco
I'll try combining creating and moving into the same @THEN statement.

My apologies. From your first post I thought that was what you were doing.
Nemo's point 3 is generally the critical one IIRC. If the AI has units it likes to move them, wisely or not, and thats the thing that usually seems to mess things up.

I must say I'm surprised that a new unit next to the settler and the city only goes for the settler though.

[DarthVeda]

Sadly it still remains up to the computer... which is why to effectively orchestrate a battle you need to move hordes of units. Unfortunately this can lead to pile ups. For instance, one city I was attacking in China (in Kyokujitsu) had something on the order of 60-100 units in it, just sitting around doing nothing.

The best way to get a unit to move using moveunit is to make sure the computer does not have a turn before the moveunit command is issued.

For example, if a unit is created but moveunit is not used before the computer has its turn, moveunit will never work on the unit.

One way to avoid this is to create a unit and then immediately issue it orders in the events. For example, if you kill a Red Army unit, it will spawn three German panzers, and another event that has a prereq of a dead red army issues a moveunit command to the location(s) that the panzers will be created in.

[DarthVeda]

Oh I should also add that the if the unit comes across a an enemy city or unit on its way, it will either:

a) Attack it OR
b) stop and wait to be issued new orders (this is rare)

Depending on what the computer 'thinks' the outcome will be. Usually it attacks reguardless.

What nemo recommended is that you target a moveunit command not to a specific square on the front lines, but behind the lines on a city (this way you could order all the units in the city to move on, in theory). That works pretty well because the units attack everything in their path. I tested this out in Kyokujitsu by not putting up a fight, and sure enough, the Chinese overran me and all of Manchuria in three to five turns.