Fleeing villagers should head to safety points

Suggestions
#1

It’s always very, very silly to call a town alert for one villager under attack that’s fleeing into a corner rather than towards the town walls. Especially since the notifications are a lot slower to notify you when an enemy attacks a villager than attacking a fighter, frequently too late to actually mobilize your troops and save them. If villagers just headed for safety whenever they were in a flee state, life would be a lot easier, and a lot of really unfair villager deaths could be avoid.

(Honestly, I think it be pretty nice if fighters fled to safety too, but.)

7 Likes
#2

This seem to be logic, i would love to see this behaviour changed too. The fighters run in all directions, typically away from the cleric in battle… the little heartlings need to get a IQ upgrade.

3 Likes
#3

Not really fond of this one… Kind of takes a bit of personality away.

What I mean is, if all just flee towards banner it would seem… more robotic than a fleshy.

Flee state is pretty much panicky state. They are scared so they cower and aimlessly run.

I have not seen anyone that is panicking and having a sense at the same time very often. however I think they shouldn’t just keep to activity when gaining senses back; and then maybe something like going back to banner due to enemy spotted.

Maybe even have a bell implemented that will ring, but not change town defense mode that the hearthling can walk up to and chime when in danger. That way when the chime happens, if the enemy is still there; you can see to it.

I would be 50-50, since not every panicky person/hearthling would have the sense to b-line to flag. Otherwise, what would the courage stat be for then if they do not cower in fear. However I do have to say they aught to not have them run towards enemies… Only seen that happen a couple times, but not recently. One thing I agree on is AI tuning is a continuous thing. Not everyone is going to like the behavior or results. :slight_smile:

#4

By that logic, no one should ever use the safety points. They should all be panicking in random directions. I agree that the current behavior for running to safety points looks a bit robotic, but that’s waaaaaaay more to do with safety points being, well, a point, rather than an area.

And quite frankly, I’ll take a little robotic-looking behavior if it stops them from dying pointless deaths that by all rights should not have happened. = /

#5

Don’t see how what I said would equate to all doing so. Courage defines fear. That determines how much they will panic. Otherwise, what is the point of courage?

Like I said I am 50-50 on it. Improvements to AI can be sometimes touchy.

#6

What has your proposal to do with realism? If being endangered, people would normally want to run to safety, and to their families, not into the woods where they might find more dangers.

So yeah, I agree with OP is what I’m saying. This would be nice behavior.

1 Like
#7

What if to make them lifelike; to some extent like a living village… Reason to have at least some bit of realism, but not completely.

I think you missed what I meant. Unsure… I am not disagreeing or agreeing with this, as I am 50-50 on it.

If all just ran to banner, then why have the courage stat? There would be no apparent fear, just point A to B if enemy spotted. What I am saying is that it shouldn’t happen all the time absolute that they would go directly to banner. Have some use of the stat. Granted I personally don’t like when they run into corners and just stay there; I would assume they would still want to get away and not sit there being hit upon.

People normally when scared will do lots of different things in Life. I have seen it happen. They don’t always run to safety when scared. Only those with a clear head will do that every single time, usually; but that is going a bit too far into realism.

What I would like to see is an affect of the military units being nearby to instill a bit more courage to those around so they will not just stay put cowering. Although I haven’t seen them stay put in one place to be beat on often; it usually only happens when they get stuck on terrain or cornered with hardly anywhere to run.

One thing I do agree with is they shouldn’t head into corner to get themselves stuck.

Right now there is no military presence in the game, at least not in the sense I am thinking on a mechanical level. After all the hearthlings don’t seem to be affected much by military presence; not matter how much the score or power is. One thing they do have is enemy intimidation which is essentially military presence of the enemies influence to their enemies. So the other way around. The tougher the enemy dependent upon hearthling courage with no other factor to determine how scared they would be.

Maybe it should be a 1 or 2 stat that would only cower, while the rest will just run with sense.

All I am saying is it should still happen, but not with those with a good courage level. Someone panicked will usually act in the moment of first thing to mind; which in this case is just to get away from the enemy. If the safety is quite a long ways away; ie the banner, that wouldn’t make much sense; especially if the military is already taking care of the threat.

Guess my hearthlings I have been getting are above 1 & 2 mostly, but the enemies are getting stronger so only the ones at 3 seem to be frightful at the moment.

I am not saying I disagree with the OP, just that I do not fully agree. :slight_smile:

#8

I’d like to see them try to get to safety points, but perhaps not as directly as possible.

1 Like
#9

Problem is, that the normal heartlings never grow stronger, while late game goblin archers have high damage… when a hearthling decides to do anything BUT run straight to safety, he is going to die and there is little you can do about it.

4 Likes
#10

Ok i agree in the fun factor with low spirited heartlings panicking… runing into a wall with head first and falls down and so on… that would be awesome! But when my mastermind carpenter decide to go out into the woods alone to get some loot, i dont see the point of reality making any sense? Either it should be a footman that took that job, or at least the carpenter would go and say, hey can you escort me out into the woods?
Military units should never panick, since you wouldent pick a heartling with low courage to take that job…

#11

I know, right? I really want this option. There’s actually been times where I ticked Haul off for everyone but my fighters, just to make sure everyone else would stay someplace safe.