Some time ago you were asking for the AI to randomly make bad moves and now you are asking for them to plan ahead several turns at once.
I'm actually tempted now to remove the random-mistakes-feature again and instead look into planning ahead. I actually have an idea for something like that. Right now the "communication" of the AI-units is limited to sharing vision. What they lack is the ability to plan a coordianted push.
Hi, Xilmi!
Yep. I forgetting that some moves are random. Please forgive me not counting this while making suggestions. Actually, what you have done with weighted randomization and "mistakes" should be considered as fun feature and difficulty reduction. Not to be confused with overall strategy. Please don't disable this feature, it's so cool and fun, and makes game beatable again, yet still very intriguing.
The following text is total mess of thoughts:
- I brought you the save of Church of Dagon HQ assault (jungle castle), which spawned super-lucky.
It's sort of open terrain mission vs 100 enemies.
During a XCF campaign this mission appears again and again, until you terminate the fraction overall. HQ assaults always appear at the beginning of the month, in case you want to test different layouts.
I assaulted Church of Dagon HQ's three times already this campaign, and 2/3 times craft spawned next to castle, making fight more dense. A line of snipers covered under Osprey and reaction-fire+shots turn by turn is usual strategy for this mission.
- I didn't bring you yet the different mission: Black Lotus HQ, which has underground & many doors layout with same 100 enemies. All different from that CoD castle mission. It's is fairly tough with same-armor agents even if 60% bad moves enabled, because enemy always spawns close and good at melee. This type of missions also the reason why players were against option "AI avoids proximity grenades". Because it was tough even with vanilla AI. This time I wait till some better armors will be available to do it.
- Not pleading for balancing these, because it's BAI feature! What was easy -becomes harder. It's cool.
But when: what was hard - becomes easier - it should be considered for tuning.
- So this all about particular usefulness of
smart melee units on
open terrain. While
ranged units can perform either basic defense and offense, melee units lack defense opportunity. So they are kind of pointless there while running around from cover to cover, except being sort of "distraction" targets, until they approach to attack positions. I noticed that on static Aggro2 they tend to keep same distance. Same time, - I didn't test inherited aggressiveness option with 7.12.1 yet. So it may be that whole thing I write here is pointless. But also, I don't know if aggressiveness levels in VAI and BAI are comparable. In particular it may be that Aggro4 of VAI should be compared to Aggro2 of BAI, not 4. I don't know. Yet, one more thing keeps me from enabling this option: if some bosses will rush for me, while major of troops will cover - it will disbalance the game (make it easier and abusier). So, static aggressiveness right now.
- Other issue with current state of players suggestions, is that AI will behave different on different options enabled. So each report will be different. And there would be no similarity, until everyone plays on same Aggressiveness and with similar options. Which are most preferred? Somehow believe, that lvl 0 and 1 are not as popular as 2 & 3.
- One thing, though IMHO, still lacks: a feature to roll for aggressiveness prior a mission. +/- 1 to taken option will lead to even more random experience, which would be amazing. Like, you take Aggro2 and some missions can be Aggro1, or Aggro3. Also, randomization roll can be also cool: by default, you set 20% deviation. Yet' sometimes you get 40 and sometimes 0 (but personally I would prefer 20-40%). Or different mechanism. Please consider it.
- Now I'm curious, how a
coordinated push (if ever to be implemented) will interfere with aggressiveness options?
- And if 20% and 40% randomization can still be in place while coordinated push takes place?
- And: can coordinated push be random feature, like 40% for mostly ranged units and 60% for mostly melee units ? Because if this strategy means "smart gather" and then implement Aggro4 - is also the strategy player can adapt to and make counter-measures.