Best against that - new information in unit stats

[Stratego (dev)]

I start to feel that i myself can not deal whith some (especially in AOF) units that i am not sure which unit is good against it.

So i suggest a section in unit stat sheet that shows the best counter units/spells against the given unit

Actually in all unit jsons there is a "best aginst me" section where all units/caegories are listed that are worthy to build against it.
The AI uses that setting to determine what to build against another unit.

but i am afraid those are barely filled properly, so please
@Endru1241 @Alexander82 please try to make an assumption if these are set properly or not.

i ask because i plan to make that new unit stat section based on that setting.

[Endru1241]

In AoS it's total mess - no wonder AI feels stupid. First example - shielder/defender have best against me - anti infantry, which is partially correct, but unfortunately all archers are assigned anti-infantry, which is big lie.

I tried to not correct it as that could mess campaigns even more.
We first need different levels of "true" AI difficulty.
The best would be configurable by modders (as it is in buildlist, but with additional parameters and more importanlty few different configuration files - for different AI levels with the ability to set specific AI file to campaign/map/scenario I have put it in Needs, priorities - Which way would you like the roadmap?/Collecting ideas).

[Stratego (dev)]

actually we dont need AI difficulty before this.
that is a totally diffetent task.

so feel free to update the things so AI will not be stupid.

or you want to behave differently on "production" ? eg: easy AI will produce archers against a battering ram?
i dont thought making easy AI different at this, but if we want to we can make a new setcion in buildlist, or better in a new ai.json where you can set for AI the X unit best counter is Y,Z units (or categories)
and if that is set up than all unit level setting can be deleted.
(in transition time the rule can be : use ai.json if not set than use old bestagainsme setting)




thanks!

[Alexander82]

I think that sometimes certain category aren't good enough.

Taking the example given by @Endru1241 I think that, for example, AI would work better if we had anti infantry pierce damage and anti infantry normal damage in 2 different sub categories.

We talked sometimes of an inclusive category system to avoid having to create a ton of new category but if that change won't be possible (or simply too time consuming) we can't havoid having a ton of long and descriptive categories

[Stratego (dev)]

never forget: you can set individual units too.

also always avoid those long categories! thanks!

[Endru1241]

Using singular units is even worse - it's often too long and doesn't take into account the need to correct it later after adding some units.
I've seen it too many times in bonuses - missing 3rd or 2nd upgrade of unit.
It's much better to add new categories, just remove the ones that are redundand.
For example we could use the logical operators way for any other list creation (best against me, trnCategories in effects - which units to affect)
Then instead of "Anti building infantry" just "Anti-building" can be used

[Alexander82]

Yes but I guess it depends from the specific situation.

We might need to create more parent directories in some cases (e.g. Siege and burnig are both efficient against buildings and they might both be considered as U_ANTI_BUILDING (I don't know if they are already like that in AoS).

[Endru1241]

Right now they are not. AoS have only "U_ANTI_BUILDING_INFANTRY" category. I planned to revise categories, but there is still few units to jsonize left. It's better to do it all in the same time.

What I mean is - right now we are testing logical conditions to damage bonuses (AND, NOT) - we could remove huge number of categories in games if it's done for every use of categories.

Why use "Anti building infantry", when it could be AND("Anti-building", "infantry").
In AoF it's much more categories like that.

After potentially implementing this, total recategorization could be done (removing most categories and leaving only main - descripting base things needed - armor type, movement type, attack type + specialized anti categories).

[Alexander82]

I totally agree with you. I had asked Daniel for a similar function but I thought it wasn't going to be made.

For example I had to create specific categories for auras that needed to affect specific subraces categories (e.g. I had to make U_WARFELL_CAVALRY_MELEE to make only these affected by a specific aura).

If we'll be able to make an AND function I could have just made the effect only for a unit that has both U_MOUNTED_MELEE and U_WARFELL

[Stratego (dev)]

yes if this new thing works (Endru still testing it) than in some place we can simplify these categories too!


Enru came up with a simpler solution and i was happy as earlier Alex wanted it too and guess what! he made the coding himself, hail to him!

(he said took him some time, but he made it! )

[Alexander82]

It is great to have anther coder here! Hail to @Endru1241!