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Author Topic: Auto-Battle  (Read 11135 times)

Online Yankes

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Re: Auto-Battle
« Reply #15 on: January 11, 2021, 10:50:06 pm »
Let's be honest... nobody would ever accept any auto-result, if they lost even a single soldier.

Everyone will ask for a feature that if auto-result loses even one soldier, they should get a chance to replay the whole battle manually.
(or even worse, they will bad-mouth me, that I am not capable of creating even a "simple" auto-result algorithm and that I have to "fix it" or else they come and kill my dog)

And we're back to an auto-win cheat button... no, thank you.
When I hear  auto-result I always recall some video review of (probably) TotalWar where when you auto-battle you always loose canons even they should be on back of your wining army :>
But on other hand what if "losing solder" was part of this mechanic? you sacrifice you soldier on altar of RngGod for best outcome, more hard enemy you need sacrifice soldier with more stats :D

Offline WaldoTheRanger

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Re: Auto-Battle
« Reply #16 on: January 11, 2021, 11:01:15 pm »
Bonakva calls this sterile, because it doesn't give experience.

He doesn't want to remove the tedium, he wants to keep and automate the tedium, i.e. let the game play itself...

Well I don't care.
It would solve the issue for me, and I imagine most people.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Auto-Battle
« Reply #17 on: January 12, 2021, 12:35:34 pm »
Watching the AI play again itself would be fun. Once.

Except it wouldn't really work, because the X-Com AI is unable to put together a simplest tactical plan. It would devolve into random movements and occasional chance shots, which in my opinion is 0% accurate in simulating a human player, even a really bad one. It wouldn't even be entertaining to watch.

Offline The Reaver of Darkness

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Re: Auto-Battle
« Reply #18 on: January 21, 2021, 02:40:59 pm »
I think it would be nice to simply let the computer play while you watch, with the ability to shut it off at any time and reassume control. The computer would almost invariably play worse than the human player, but if your squad has the deck stacked well enough in your favor you could get it done with sufficiently low casualties. It would really help remove some of the slog of running too many missions, and may also lead to equipment strategies related to getting the AI to do a better job when playing for you. For example never put blaster bombs into the hands of the AI because as you've probably seen the aliens do, they kill themselves more often than they kill their opponents.

One thing you'd definitely not be accused of doing is cheating, as even at its best, the AI is brazenly stupid.

Offline spawi

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Re: Auto-Battle
« Reply #19 on: May 14, 2021, 01:51:19 am »
+1 for automating tedious battles. The more the outcomes resemble actual battlescape session, the better. However, some very simplified abstract formulas would also work; at least at first. As to soldier loses in such battles: I expect some tweaking / configuration would solve this. Plus self-imposed half-ironman, i.e. only for automated battles. I really, really don't want to spend time equipping 12 of my soldiers only to arrive, search, find, shoot and kill 1 zombie that was hiding in the closet on the opposite end of the map. 1 zombie vs 12 soldiers should (almost?) never result in a soldier being lost (wounded is fine). But 12 soldiers vs 30 zombies is a different story.

There are so many cool things one could do with such a feature. E.g.:
- allow to decide if the player wants to do auto-battle upon arrival, when enemy type and count is better known.
- allow the player to order retreat, if the auto-battle is not going well. This might still incur loses, but possibly less.
- decide how careful the soldiers should be, willing to risk their life to capture a live specimen. More risky mission orders could result in bigger payoffs (more enemies captured, less destruction, less civilian deaths) but also result in possibly bigger loses, due to the ordered restraint.
- limit the amount of missions player can command manually; e.g. one per week max. The rest has to be auto-resolved.
- make the ability to auto-resolve a mission be unlocked as a reward, if the player previously won 5+ of missions of given type, or against given enemy type, or both.
- allow to auto-resolve given mission only if the player has crushing advantage, given some formula. Like at least 2 to 1.
- decide which soldiers are on the front-line (rookies, naturally) and which are hanging out in the back and thus at lesser risk.

I think this has huge potential to make the game more streamlined and enjoyable.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2021, 02:14:28 am by spawarotti »

Offline WaldoTheRanger

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Re: Auto-Battle
« Reply #20 on: May 14, 2021, 11:51:24 pm »
That's a fuckton of work though. Like a whole new sub-game.

I'd still just advocate for modders to implement more aggressive surrender conditions if they find simple missions too tedious.

Offline spawi

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Re: Auto-Battle
« Reply #21 on: May 16, 2021, 07:02:38 am »
Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, I know it is a lot of work. But this can be developed iteratively. My goal was to brainstorm some ideas, to maybe make Meridian et al. see more potential in this line of thinking. But of course, just an idea :)

Offline Skullar

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Re: Auto-Battle
« Reply #22 on: July 25, 2021, 05:56:37 am »
On one side I feel like it would be fun to watch the AI handling my soldiers just for giggles, but on the other hand it would drive me nuts the moment it makes a single wrong move, and there is room for too many wrong steps, I would like to try it out to just enjoy the pleasure of watching my units display autonomy for once, sounds fun, but yeah, it would be really hard to make it work in a successful way I guess