Slitherine

Here's another example of pathing (evade / rout) that really needs addressing. In this example it's an evade, but it's the same problem as the rout I posted a couple of weeks ago!

Before: An enemy Cataphract is charging my cavalry along the red line. Question: Does the cavalry evade along one of the blue lines or the yellow line?


..... yes, you know what's coming....

After: The cavalry evades 11 hexes, through another cavalry unit and 6 pike units which are in combat with 5 enemy pike units


Yet again the evading, like routing unit, can suddenly move huge distances and can pass through heavily congested units without any consequence.

It wouldn't be so bad if it was directly away from the point of impact!

Of course, having Fragged the first couple of pikes, and disrupted the rest, when the pike attacks come the house of cards come tumbling down!

The 1st unit routs, fragging the unit behind and to the side. The side unit is then routed in the next attack and the unit behind routs.... and so on.

So a game I was ahead in is ruined by one dumb evade path

Please tell me that the routing and evade logic is going to be addressed in the next update!

Units cannot pick paths which are going to take them over twice their normal moves and through so many units!

Hey, I thought it was a great rout path! (Of course, I am Morbio's opponent in the game and it may have saved me from a losing position.)

This is addressed in the 1.2.3 beta update earlier this week so should be in the update released with Storm of Arrows along with a number of other fixes/changes.

Chris

Ah OK. I didn't realise that you have seen the beta version. I looked any official reply to my post re. the crazy rout path and I saw nothing.

That's really good to know

Now, to somehow salvage something from the mess.....

Isn't this just part of the blind luck that makes this game so exciting for some of you? Heaven forbid we change that!

I don't mind luck, or a unit burst through...but when a path is open and instead something goes down an entire line x# of times its possible move, that just ruins the game.

76mm wrote:Isn't this just part of the blind luck that makes this game so exciting for some of you? Heaven forbid we change that!

I wouldn't want to remove all elements of luck from the game, it is merely a question of what is reasonable. e.g.

Reasonable: A unit routs/evades directly away from the attacker and goes through 1 or 2 units disrupting them. The distance covered is similar to what it would normally move - i.e. no more than 50% more hexes than it could normally move.

Reasonable: A unit occasionally routs/evades at an oblique angle away from the attacker, but travels a similar (see above) distance to normal. It may disrupt units in its path.

Unreasonable: A unit can travel multiple times its normal movement rate, it passes through lots of densely packed units that are in combat themselves.

The key thing is that what happen should be practically possible and believable. Given the assumption that routing/evading units are trying to get away from some threat as quickly as possible, then it is unlikely, maybe unreasonable, that they will force their way through dense troops already in combat (thus giving more risk to themseleves), when a clear path directly away from the attacker is available. Given the hard work in pushing through any unit (never mind the densely packed ones) then it seems impossible that that they could travel multiple times their normal movement. Given these constraints then evading units should have to fight and routing units should be destroyed.

Routs & evades will be much more predicatable in the next patch. They will only burst through troops adjacent at the start of the turn and bunch up against troops they meet, and burst through if no gap is prepared by their next rout move. Directions should also be much more logical.

They cannot pass through hexes adjacent to enemy units other than LH & LF.

Morbio wrote:The key thing is that what happen should be practically possible and believable.

hahaha, I don't think that many of the things I see in combat resolution are practically possible or believable, and yet many passionately defend the combat resolution mechanism because luck plays such a large role.

Actually, I agree with you, but I think you are being too literal about routing units going THROUGH units engaged in combat. I presume that routing units are routing just behind your friendly units which are engaged in combat, throughly demoralizing them with their shrieks of terror in the process. Evading units could have a similar effect because your units think they might be routing...