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[Gameplay] War elephant more effective against units.
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Authored by borg- on Jun 5 2020, 2:36 AM.

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Summary

Elephants look dumb in relation to any type of unit.

They are only focused on destroying buildings and avoiding any kind of unity in your vision range. If the enemy has a house and 20 soldiers in front of that house, the elephant will try to pass the soldiers anyway, without causing any damage, will die without causing any damage on soldiers or house.

Elephants were used as war machines against infantry and mainly against cavalry. They were not machines for destroying buildings. It makes no historical sense.

The patch proposes that elephants give priority to attacking human (soldier and women) and then siege units, last buildings (defensive structures first).

I chose Human and Siege than Unit because I don’t want to chase war ships.

I change the attack range, 8 seems a bad number, it is too far from its target.

@Stan. There appears to be a bug in the elephant attack animation. After killing a unit, the elephant try attacks the same dead unit again, as a "half attack".

Also a complement to the D2575.

Test Plan

I have already done the initial tests and the priorities work well.

It is necessary to test if all elephants (champions and herões) are working correctly.

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Event Timeline

borg- updated this revision to Diff 12136.Jun 5 2020, 2:36 AM
borg- created this revision.
borg- edited the summary of this revision. (Show Details)
borg- edited the summary of this revision. (Show Details)Jun 5 2020, 2:38 AM
borg- edited the summary of this revision. (Show Details)

They are meant to be the primary siege weapon for some civs (e.g. Kushites). This is just a heads up, I agree that elephants ought to be more man-killers than head-into-structure bumpers.

Wouldn't it be better to remove the <PreferredClasses> line entirely?
<MaxRange> reduction is fine, could be reduced even further.

borg- added a comment.EditedJun 5 2020, 1:50 PM

They are meant to be the primary siege weapon for some civs (e.g. Kushites). This is just a heads up, I agree that elephants ought to be more man-killers than head-into-structure bumpers.

You still need a micro if you want to use it against buildings. Any suggestion?

borg- added a comment.EditedJun 5 2020, 1:52 PM

Wouldn't it be better to remove the <PreferredClasses> line entirely?
<MaxRange> reduction is fine, could be reduced even further.

I think you are right. removing <PreferredClasses> seems to work better. Giving the same priority to buildings and units seems to be the best way. This avoids future problems with civilizations that are dependent of elephants for siege. Good tip @Nescio.

I think can be max range 5, i will test. tnx feedback
I will up new patch at night.

@Stan about bug, look pls!! thank you.

Stan added a comment.EditedJun 5 2020, 4:23 PM

Well I just looked at it and saw the bug
It's just the code that reacts too slowly on unit death. Patches like D2129 could fix that.

With D2129

borg- added a comment.EditedJun 5 2020, 11:43 PM

Up new patch.
Idea of @Nescio is good, and it seems to work best removing <PreferredClasses>.
That way elephant can attack buildings or units equally.
Reduces the max range to 5.

Seems better @Freagarach @Nescio @ValihrAnt?

borg- updated this revision to Diff 12158.Jun 5 2020, 11:44 PM
In D2786#118537, @Stan wrote:

Well I just looked at it and saw the bug
It's just the code that reacts too slowly on unit death. Patches like D2129 could fix that.

With D2129

Ok, thank you @Stan

Nescio accepted this revision.Jun 6 2020, 10:26 AM

It's correct and complete, seems to be an improvement, and is done for the right reasons.

This revision is now accepted and ready to land.Jun 6 2020, 10:26 AM
wraitii accepted this revision.Jun 7 2020, 3:11 PM
wraitii added a subscriber: wraitii.

LGTM

elexis added a subscriber: elexis.Jun 7 2020, 6:59 PM

The preferred class was added in rP18765; I guess since elephants play the role of siege engines.

Notice that this patch requires more effort by the player with elephants to wipe out cities.

The typical use case of elephants has been to come with 50+ soldiers and some elephants, let the elephants tear down the buildings and the soldiers attack the other soldiers.

With this patch, the elephants will focus on the opposing soldiers in sight unless the player micromanages them.
After the first building is destroyed, the player will have to task the next building to be destroyed, unless all soldiers in range of the elephant have been destroyed (or if the elephant was hit by an arrow by the building I guess).

The unit role of elephants destroying cities is not so historic / realistic, I guess the way to equilibrate that was to give more siege weapons to civs that only have elephants etc. and do something like this patch does to make elepehants focus more on humans than up to now (I don't know where svn is on that roadmap).

Nescio added a comment.Jun 7 2020, 9:12 PM

Indeed, without the PreferredClasses elephants ignore structures if there are enemy units closer by, but the current situation is problematic too, as pointed out in the summary:

If the enemy has a house and 20 soldiers in front of that house, the elephant will try to pass the soldiers anyway, without causing any damage, will die without causing any damage on soldiers or house.

(I don't know where svn is on that roadmap).

Although not all civs have rams (maybe something for a future patch), every civ can construct at least one siege engine.

borg- added a comment.Jun 8 2020, 4:19 AM

Are better use shirt+click for some building than 10/20 soldiers. You need a micro anyway. Patch gives to elephant same chance vs building or units.