[Release] Ordos's Tactics

[Cm_blast]

I am here again to bring a new campaign to the table. This time is one base on the Ordos where Atreides and Harkonnen are going to be the main enemies, combining with a different type of maps and tactics which the Ordos need to use to win the scenarios.

In general every map has an unique type of battle. From giving protection to a Mercenary convoy, giving money to the mercs so they don't die, a couple of 2 vs 2 battles where the composition of the map makes those two levels be played differently, and even a mission using the deviators to steal the enemy harversters so the player can get money quickly, and then using those deviators to... secret.

Also, Atreides and Harkonnen are mortal enemies, so I wanted to make a final level with a triple threat. Atreides Vs Harkonnen Vs Ordos. Of course the AI tends to focus the player the most, but is possible to see both attacking each other, some of what the player can take advantage of to attack a weakened enemy.

Here some screens:

File:
Ordos Tactics.rar

HOW TO INSTALL:
Unzip the file and copy every folder into the root of the game.
Any folders included will go to the path that it is suppose to go.
Do not copy any pgn (screenshots) nor the readme.txt (instructions).

Edited January 13, 2022 by Cm_blast

[Szwagier]

hello its me again :]

 

played 2 mission allready, there where few messages in spanish? lanugage.

and we got error ^^ in few mission. SIDE.CPP  "myversionofbulding didnt find a bulid side 0 at_high_tech_factory

[Cm_blast]

1 hour ago, Szwagier said:

hello its me again :]

 

played 2 mission allready, there where few messages in spanish? lanugage.

and we got error ^^ in few mission. SIDE.CPP  "myversionofbulding didnt find a bulid side 0 at_high_tech_factory

Thanks, I missed to translate those lines. now is updated with that change.

About the other error, happens because the game is trying to load a building/unit that can't do the original game. in this case is because that building, but also happens with some special units like Devastators, Sonic Tanks, Raiders...

Copy and paste the file "tiledata.bin" included in the zip files and overwrite the original. this don't affect the vanilla game at all, and the errors should be gone. You just need to copy this file once. All my mods have it included but is just the same file.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Cm_blast

[Feda]

Nice, as you've probably noticed from my missions I am a big fan of free for all battles in campaign missions, as it adds an element of randomness to the mission: it's no longer the old team vs team or 1 vs team that we are already used to so much, but it's a dynamic battle, which can end in a different way every time you play the mission. So I really like the idea of the last mission, also the other missions sound pretty cool, who doesn't like to have the mercs as allies?  I'll play them as soon as I get some free time this weekend.

[Cm_blast]

4 hours ago, FedaYkin said:

Nice, as you've probably noticed from my missions I am a big fan of free for all battles in campaign missions, as it adds an element of randomness to the mission: it's no longer the old team vs team or 1 vs team that we are already used to so much, but it's a dynamic battle, which can end in a different way every time you play the mission. So I really like the idea of the last mission, also the other missions sound pretty cool, who doesn't like to have the mercs as allies?  I'll play them as soon as I get some free time this weekend.

There is a game called "majesty the fantasy kingdom sim". In a specific quest there are gobling and Ratmen figting each other, sending groups of goblings/ratmen to destroy/damage gobling's turrets or ratmen's nest. The player have a settlement in the middle of the war, being in the crossfire of both sides, which sometimes turns on you.

My last mission is totally based on that idea. Atreides y Harkonnen fighting each other, but the player receives attacks as well. You can encounter concrete around a turret because was previously destroyed during a fight.

By the way, mission 7 have a lots of flags and checks. let me know if something goes wrong.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Cm_blast

[Gruntlord6]

Awaiting your submission to d2k+

[Szwagier]

yes i was right i copied that file to folder, maybe if i reinstall again dune it will be work since i am not doing backup orginal dune

[Cm_blast]

1 hour ago, Szwagier said:

yes i was right i copied that file to folder, maybe if i reinstall again dune it will be work since i am not doing backup orginal dune

Remember to also have the last dune2000.exe if you don't dowload it previosly. I'm not include this file because do not feel I should be spreading an ".exe" all over the place, but the readme have the link to this forum which contain it.

1 hour ago, Gruntlord6 said:

Awaiting your submission to d2k+

Sure, since Feda is going to play it, if he confirms that everything works fine I'll upload it.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Cm_blast

[Szwagier]

and it work after reinstall, nice camp, i think in mission 4 when i am sending moeny merc should also attack if they got too big army

[Cm_blast]

1 hour ago, Szwagier said:

and it work after reinstall, nice camp, i think in mission 4 when i am sending moeny merc should also attack if they got too big army

I didn't want because the Atreides are too near. The Mercs could enter in a state of "danger" and send every single unit he has to attack, making all the money given wasted and likely to die to a counter attack (or win by themselves).

Edited November 26, 2016 by Cm_blast

[Szwagier]

so u should make bigger map :P, and u could easy counter it by new  delivery for artredies if merc got to many delivers

[Cm_blast]

1 hour ago, Szwagier said:

so u should make bigger map :P, and u could easy counter it by new  delivery for artredies if merc got to many delivers

And then the extra reinforcements Atreides attacks goes against the player :P. The only solutions could be.
a) the drop being ally with you.
b) placing the drop almost at the entrance of the mercs base.
But I wanted to make feel like the Atreides are really "building forces and attacking the mercs" (the carryall drops out of the area revealed).
And in case of being ally, those units will reveal the map to the player (part of the Atreides base), something I didn't want either.

And no, is impossible to measure the strength from a player. You can't create any condition like "If mercs have 20 tanks, then drop a new reinforcements for Atreides".

Edited November 26, 2016 by Cm_blast

[djbaskan60]

Hi friend,

 

Mission 1

A different beginning of the mission (due to attacks) 

Mission 2-3

Nice idea for scenario

Mission 4-5-6

i like with play mercanaries. 
I helped

Mis 7 

very bad for me lol i saw aborting mission. wrong starport Surprise For me

mis 8

I think it was the easiest part of the game

mis 9

very very hard for me.everybody enemy !!! i was very attacked 

Generally:

I enjoyed it very much. I like your games. I will wait another campaign. See yaa!

[Cm_blast]

16 hours ago, djbaskan60 said:

Generally:

I enjoyed it very much. I like your games. I will wait another campaign. See yaa!

Thanks for playing!

[Feda]

Ok I played the missions and I liked them a lot. Last mission was very very difficult tbh. The idea is that there are 4, sometimes even 5 sides from where enemies are coming, oh, and they do come! There are so many attacks, coming from all over the place, it may be ffa but you really feel it as 1v6. Also, after a while in one try i managed to consolidate a strong defence but ran out of money cuz after some time spice around your base is gone. More than 3/4 of the map is under enemy control, so your harvs will have a bad time. Also about the reinforcements, i was so happy to kill one of those bases for reinf and when i saw the carryal dropping 5 infantry i was like "omg this is all?" I know it gives tanks once you blow the others too, but first reinf should be bigger tbh. It was hell on medium, I don't even want to try it on hard, too frustrating anyway the mission is challenging and good, it's just the difficulty that is too high if you ask me (its kinda hard on easy too, don't think the average dune player who doesnt have that much experience can do it on easy). And yes, i did use turrets lol.

 

To sum it up, really good campaign, last mission could be made a little easier if u ask me, but anyway good job overall! Didn't spot any crashes or bugs.

[Cm_blast]

9 hours ago, FedaYkin said:

Ok I played the missions and I liked them a lot. Last mission was very very difficult tbh. The idea is that there are 4, sometimes even 5 sides from where enemies are coming, oh, and they do come! There are so many attacks, coming from all over the place, it may be ffa but you really feel it as 1v6. Also, after a while in one try i managed to consolidate a strong defence but ran out of money cuz after some time spice around your base is gone. More than 3/4 of the map is under enemy control, so your harvs will have a bad time. Also about the reinforcements, i was so happy to kill one of those bases for reinf and when i saw the carryal dropping 5 infantry i was like "omg this is all?" I know it gives tanks once you blow the others too, but first reinf should be bigger tbh. It was hell on medium, I don't even want to try it on hard, too frustrating anyway the mission is challenging and good, it's just the difficulty that is too high if you ask me (its kinda hard on easy too, don't think the average dune player who doesnt have that much experience can do it on easy). And yes, i did use turrets lol.

 

To sum it up, really good campaign, last mission could be made a little easier if u ask me, but anyway good job overall! Didn't spot any crashes or bugs.

At the end I feel is totally impossible to do a Free for all. If you look the editor, the Harkonnen and Atreides base are really near. There are 18 squares from tower to tower in a straight line (less distance if you count the walls), while there are over 28 squares (with a bit diagonal) to the player, and still the AI keeps focusing you, so At least I create a very big map the AI seems to refuse to fight each other directly (and they have the attacking building priority set equal to the player and the AI they are suppose to attack; I could do a test to reduce the priority to the player to cero and seem what happens).

For that reason I create the intervals drops, every 2.5 minutes a carryall from 1 of the 4 bases land and send units against the other, so every 2.5 minutes one of them attack another of them, weakening the base attacked.

The regular attacks for them are set to 2,6 --- 4 minutes each one, so the AI barely have enough time to group a big force (except for the main Atreides/Harkonnen base due the starports). So although is a 1 vs 6, they attacks are usually weak.

The spice running out was to avoid the player to defend too much. Once you beat at least one of them you have access to new spot of spice. Keep in mind that sometimes you can attack and enemy which barely have defenses. Once you send 1 saboteur and 3 troopers to destroy the only 2 turrets they have, then you only need to fight like 4-5 more units because he lost the rest against the last enemy Atr/Har drop.

Also, Just a small question. Are You playing at high speed Right? Because I always play at normal speed and maybe that's because it don't seem so hard to me. I mean, is "last mission should be hard", but from you words sounds like almost impossible to win.

The reinforcements, yes, maybe I should give a bit more of power, like a infantry, a trooper, a quad and a combat tank the first wave, and then adding more units to the second wave, until at the end you recieve the full reinforcement.

In the other hand I could reduce the intervals of the enemy drops, so they attack much more each other. Although as I said they are already sending a drop every 2:30 minutes (1:15 if you play at high speed), so at least they are constatly fighting.

If I can (I already used the 64 spots for events :$) will add 4 reveal maps, one at every entrance of the Atr/Hark attacked (when the attack is done the first time), so the player can see the fight with their own eyes, and furthermore giving information like "The Atreides barely hold the Harkonnen's attack, now is my opportunity to send a small/average force to defeat the base". 

Revealing the map will be my first step, since you said you didn't feel at all they are fighting each other.

Edited November 28, 2016 by Cm_blast

[Feda]

Yea it's on fstest. Well i don't see myself winning it on hard, maybe others could do it but i certainly dont think i can. Did you win it on hard?

 

The map reveals are a pretty good idea i always filled the map with them in ffa missions. The reason the AI attacks the player every time is because the AI always targets the human, even if its 10000 miles away. It sends all units to human base, but if attacked or after a while it retaliates and goes for the closest enemy. Pretty stupid system they made for the AI, it's probably related to why the AI always targets the player with superweapons.

[Cm_blast]

On 29/11/2016 at 8:34 AM, FedaYkin said:

Yea it's on fstest. Well i don't see myself winning it on hard, maybe others could do it but i certainly dont think i can. Did you win it on hard?

 

The map reveals are a pretty good idea i always filled the map with them in ffa missions. The reason the AI attacks the player every time is because the AI always targets the human, even if its 10000 miles away. It sends all units to human base, but if attacked or after a while it retaliates and goes for the closest enemy. Pretty stupid system they made for the AI, it's probably related to why the AI always targets the player with superweapons.

I play always in normal, but I use concrete and 80% of the time I kill the troopers by shooting them with infantry, raiders or siege tanks. So if there is 2 troopers attacking my tanks, I retire them and train a couple of infantry to fight them.

At least the drops seems to goes against the closest enemy, or at least if another enemy is close enough.

I think I will try to separate the 2 aerial attack a bit (I mean the missil and airstrike). Right now they are being launcher almost at the same time. will make it so between one and the other the player have enough time to repair/rebuild before the new aerial/missil attack appears.

Edit:
I already did a couple of changes. First, the Death hand now will wait 3 more minutes before launching it, so both Airstrike and Death Hand attacks at different intervals. 
With the new reinforcements in the first wave the player already recieve 1 combat tank, and another one in the second wave.
All the AIs build a bit slower except the main Atr/Hark.
And of course, a new reveal map pop-up the first time the Atreides-Harkonnen attack one of the other bases, so the player can see how the Atr-Hark attack is doing. <-- Maybe I change my mind to just reveal those areas from the beggining.

Tomorrow will play though the level, since I set the Death Hand timer doing math, and need to see if I didn't mess up and see if making the AI building a bit slower will help a bit.

New edit:
The Death hand and airstrike gives time to recover. The areas now are revealed from the start. The briefing will said something about it so the player have the knowledge of that.
I was playing withouth placing a single turret. I survived.
The left part still have a good amount of spice, the right part Scarce but I already have every single building.
Right now I had over 50 heavy vehicles (over 10-15 are siege tanks and 5-6 deviators) and 35 light vehicles.

On the other hand I realized that the attacks from the bottom side were less Efficient due the configuration of the terrain (the top side have a clean way to go); so I stopped playing and move the 4 reinforcements and place them at the entry of each base (but outside the area revealed). I expect the four sides to make attacks that matters now.

This means I need to restart from the beggining, just to make sure that those reinforcements goes against the Atr/Har base and not the player. Good think I post the map here before uploading to the webpage :P.

Edited November 30, 2016 by Cm_blast
adding new content

[Cm_blast]

Ok guys, I¡m going to tell the experience, because I have a tough time during this last mission.

Summarize the situation: I didn't build turrets. I was doing fine and surviving well without them.
I wasted the saboteurs sending at random players instead focusing one base.
My first attack was at the same time the Harkonnen went in against an Atreides Base.

However, both Atreides and Harkonnen main bases attacked me at the same time. That make me split my attention and the result was a failure attack, loosing 2 refs, 2 windtraps, the high tech factory (plus the Death Hand took my light factory).

At this point I should just reload a previous save, building a good amount of turrets and from there attacking again, but decide to continue to see if was possible to recover from that, and I could recover.

Of course, placing turrets (even when I lost a good amount of them, I barely have units, money of time to do things), sending the saboteurs all at one enemy and attacking the weaker base (the one being attacked recently by another base and sabotaged by me) I manage to destroy 1 base and from there winning the game.

Right now with the new reveal maps is easy to track who is figthing who, and which base lost both front turrets, making that base an easy target. In general, the player now can see, even withouth exploring at all, how the Atreides and Harkonnen are constatly fighting each other, giving a much better impresion of a "Free for all" type of mission.
I think even sometimes they were fighting by their own (not programed event).

First post updated with the changes to mission 9, if someone want to give a test. If there isn't anything wrong (I copy or uploaded here the wrong file) I can consider this campaign finished.

Edited December 1, 2016 by Cm_blast

[Fey]

Are you still having trouble with getting the AI to focus on each-other? I may have a suggestion.

In my O3V1, there are Atreides and Harkonnen attacking each-other, and they start out as neutral towards the Ordos. There are Unit In Tile / Diplomacy triggers for if the player gets way too close to their base, and eventually, first Harkonnen and then Atreides become hostile to Ordos just from time passed.

Perhaps you could have multiple AIs for both the Harkonnen and Atreides, some hostile to Ordos and some neutral to Ordos, so the Atreides and Harkonnen seem to focus more on each-other? And if the player gets really close to the enemy base, takes out an expansion somewhere, or something else, the rest of the AIs for the faction they're attacking becomes hostile? I would avoid making any enemies allied, since that would reveal their locations on the map. And, should your units strike, they won't retaliate.

What do you think?

[Feda]

On 12/5/2016 at 10:43 PM, Fey said:

Are you still having trouble with getting the AI to focus on each-other? I may have a suggestion.

In my O3V1, there are Atreides and Harkonnen attacking each-other, and they start out as neutral towards the Ordos. There are Unit In Tile / Diplomacy triggers for if the player gets way too close to their base, and eventually, first Harkonnen and then Atreides become hostile to Ordos just from time passed.

Perhaps you could have multiple AIs for both the Harkonnen and Atreides, some hostile to Ordos and some neutral to Ordos, so the Atreides and Harkonnen seem to focus more on each-other? And if the player gets really close to the enemy base, takes out an expansion somewhere, or something else, the rest of the AIs for the faction they're attacking becomes hostile? I would avoid making any enemies allied, since that would reveal their locations on the map. And, should your units strike, they won't retaliate.

What do you think?

Yea I have used that method in my War of Assassins missions a lot. All thanks to the neutral diplomacy status that only exists in Dune 2000 from all older C&C games. You can do a lot of things with that, missions can become quite dynamic and random, instead of the same events happening every time you replay it. However that way those factions will never attack you unless provoked or the event (whether unit in tile/timer) fires, and this might not be cm_blast's intended behavior for the mission. Unfortunately the AttackSidePriority AI segment does not seem to work, or at least we can't figure out how it should work, that one would be pretty helpful.

 

Btw, if you want to somehow mask this little neutral trick, you can set the player diplomacy towards them to enemy and their diplomacy towards player to neutral, that way when you hover over their stuff it will say "enemy unit" but they won't attack you until you attack them. Some players might not even realize the trick, so it could look natural.

[Fey]

3 hours ago, FedaYkin said:

Yea I have used that method in my War of Assassins missions a lot. All thanks to the neutral diplomacy status that only exists in Dune 2000 from all older C&C games. You can do a lot of things with that, missions can become quite dynamic and random, instead of the same events happening every time you replay it. However that way those factions will never attack you unless provoked or the event (whether unit in tile/timer) fires, and this might not be cm_blast's intended behavior for the mission. Unfortunately the AttackSidePriority AI segment does not seem to work, or at least we can't figure out how it should work, that one would be pretty helpful.

 

Btw, if you want to somehow mask this little neutral trick, you can set the player diplomacy towards them to enemy and their diplomacy towards player to neutral, that way when you hover over their stuff it will say "enemy unit" but they won't attack you until you attack them. Some players might not even realize the trick, so it could look natural.

Aye. It took me a few to figure out that trick, myself lol

That's a totally fair point, but what do you suppose wouldn't look good about having two (or more) AIs - one neutral, one hostile - where you're likely to run into the hostile one first, and you have a few conditions in place to make sure the neutral one wakes up at a reasonable moment? I mean, it'll take up space with a few conditions and events, but surely it would help to keep the player from getting slaughtered instantly by vastly superior forces, while disguising their functionality, right?

[Cm_blast]

On 5/12/2016 at 9:43 PM, Fey said:

Are you still having trouble with getting the AI to focus on each-other? I may have a suggestion.

In my O3V1, there are Atreides and Harkonnen attacking each-other, and they start out as neutral towards the Ordos. There are Unit In Tile / Diplomacy triggers for if the player gets way too close to their base, and eventually, first Harkonnen and then Atreides become hostile to Ordos just from time passed.

Perhaps you could have multiple AIs for both the Harkonnen and Atreides, some hostile to Ordos and some neutral to Ordos, so the Atreides and Harkonnen seem to focus more on each-other? And if the player gets really close to the enemy base, takes out an expansion somewhere, or something else, the rest of the AIs for the faction they're attacking becomes hostile? I would avoid making any enemies allied, since that would reveal their locations on the map. And, should your units strike, they won't retaliate.

What do you think?

Right now the AI is behaving the way I want. The main problem was to give the player the impresion of the fight between them, something that Feda didn't feel. Right now with the reveals map the feeling is there. The last time I played (even when I did very bad, because testing) I could see both of them fighting each others, even without any programmed event.

There are a couple of problesm with neutral+unit in tile.
Imagine I build a ref, the ref bringht a harverster, one enemy missile launcher attack the plane at the same place at the unit in tile: voilá, they are enemy with you for no reason.

Also, that means if I want to explore by sending Trikes/Raiders, they will turn on me. Well, that's a heavy punishment just for exploring a bit, like searching for more spice fields or just because I wanted a bit extra of vision. 

In the other hand, the enemy harversters sooner or later will going to go to a new spice field, one maybe out any "unit in tile". Attack that harverster and "Atreides now are hostile"; the player will said "What? They already were attacking me the whole time!".

I mean, is a good idea and in other type of map can work, but in this case is not what I wanted.
Anyway, just because my reveal map the player will see they fighting each other, is just the feeling I wanted to give, not only they attack you, but fighting each other as well as the archenemies they are.

 

7 hours ago, FedaYkin said:

Unfortunately the AttackSidePriority AI segment does not seem to work, or at least we can't figure out how it should work, that one would be pretty helpful

I think there is a value over that could be used. I mean, If you place reinforcement for an enemy, they are going against the closest enemy. For example, in mission 4 (Mercs being attacked, you get money = they get units) as a test I placed lots of tanks at the entrance of the Atreides base and drop some reinforcements. They still went against the mercs because they were nearest.

And like you said, the AI in a regular attack goes against you, but in halfway they can change and went against others. Maybe there is a value in the AI tab or somewhere to make the AI do that early, so even before the first trike left the base they already are changing their focus on the nearest enemy. (This is only a guess).

I'm still want to try if setting the building priority very low to players buildings and high to other_enemy buildings could help. Not in this map because in general I like how the mission is played, but at least doing a test or so.

 

3 hours ago, Fey said:

That's a totally fair point, but what do you suppose wouldn't look good about having two (or more) AIs - one neutral, one hostile - where you're likely to run into the hostile one first, and you have a few conditions in place to make sure the neutral one wakes up at a reasonable moment? I mean, it'll take up space with a few conditions and events, but surely it would help to keep the player from getting slaughtered instantly by vastly superior forces, while disguising their functionality, right?

Could be done, although I would need to re-evaluate what events I remove. I fill the 64 events possible because the way I created the reinforcements.

But the problem is if the player attack those neutrals before the time trigger. the "X is now hostile" when they been hostile from the beggining is weird and confusing, and seeing 2 times if I set 2 Atreides AI to neutral is worst.

Just want to said that isn't really neccesary to result to this:
Simply by giving the "first attack building dealy" a high number. So that AI/base start his first attack at 20-25-30 minutes; then use a couple of reinforcements to force early attacks on the Atr/Hark base, but only when the time is near 20 minutes is when that AI/base start the official attack of you. Combine it with "unit build rate" set to 2000 at the beggining (or even more), and after 20 minutes change it to a 500 so he can build better attacks.

<-- just an example. My Butlerian Yihad mission 5. There are An Atreides base attacking the player, but in the fog of war there is another enemy. In this case he can't get money (the harversters are trapped behind walls), so only when the right time comes (more than 22 minutes) they recieve carryalls, they can harverst, and they can start to building against you. But until that time the player don't even know that there are someone there, you don't saw him.
This could be a good example of using your idea. Making this guy neutral and when the time comes he officially start the fight. And because the player need to go through the Atreides base Before you can find that other enemy, there is no way to attack them by accident before the time reach.

In this specific map (I am talking about this Ordos campaign) the AI have a very low "time bewteen attacks". I rarely gives that when I create missions, and here I wanted to be sure that they attacks are weak, so if even all of them focus you the player can still survive.

I want to remember that in my last test/post I wrote I almost loose because I didn't build turrets. You are suppose to build turrets, and even when I almost died (losing 95% of my units, 2 refs destroyed which means the income is slowed by a lot, and almost I had no money to recover) I'm still could survive, so their attacks are not that Overwhelmed as it looks.

I'm still think that my mission 8 of my spacing guild map is much harder and much Overwhelming that this map; Without turrets I will loose even where all the enemies attacks from the same direction; But in this particular mission the player should be winning by using the death hands, not regular terrain attacks. So here the enemy attacks are so strong that without turrets is impossible to survive.

In Ordos Tacticks, I survive without them (but they are necessary to lose fewer units and protect from airstrikes).
So, in short: Right now the map is like I wanted. Even messing around without turrets and wasting my saboteurs (sending them at random) I could survive. Took me a while, but any other map from any other modder/campaign and I don't think is possible to recover for that.

It's just that if you see the Harkonnen marching against the Atreides, and they manage to destroy the two turrets AND still attacking is when you should send 2-3 saboteurs, taking the other turrets and attacking, because at that moment the debris from destroying the buildings are more dangerous than the units defending the base (because that base barely will have if they can't withstand the Harkonnen attack). Not winning by strength, but by tactics. <-- If you don't have saboteurs at that time then you can assault from the same spot the Harkonnen attacked, since you know there isn't any Atreides there to protect the base.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Cm_blast

[Fey]

Ah, I see what you mean.

Yeah, I don't like that message popup either - it just exposes the mechanic. That's why I was using timers and unit-in-tile triggers to make the enemies hostile in the mission I used this tactic on - if you get in firing range of the enemy base, it's very likely that the trigger will go off and change the diplomacy before you even get the chance to actually strike. It also helps that the enemy turrets on the perimeter of the base, and their border guards, are of a side without production structures that's hostile to you. But, if you bring your Raider through the middle of the field and get caught in a skirmish between Atreides and Harkonnen, their forces will not have a single care about your Raider because the sides that do have production are neutral to you. That presents a nice battle scene going on. And, if you go attacking their forces that fight each-other, it then, in my opinion, makes more sense that that message pops up.

There are also timers that will change the diplomacy of enemies to hostile, regardless of whether or not you approach them, anyway. They're not too long into the battle, you'd most likely be organizing more troops by the time the Harkonnen become hostile.

On the subject of Carryalls and Harvesters, like I said, where I placed the unit-in-tile was pretty much right inside the enemy base entrance, behind the hostile gun turrets and border guards. They're far enough in that if you're paying attention to your scout unit and don't go straight in to the enemy base, you'll be able to see the turrets on the edge and pull away before you get too close to the trigger locations. Perhaps, in a hypothetical situation, if you were to use unit-in-tile, and were concerned about harvesters wandering around, you could relocate the spice to specific regions that would make it unlikely for harvesters to wander near unit-in-tile triggers, or place the triggers in specific, enemy-occupied locations that lead deeper into enemy territory.

But, do pardon my rambling; exploring different AI structures certainly makes for engaging and intriguing discussion, does it not?

[Cm_blast]

9 hours ago, Fey said:

Ah, I see what you mean.

Yeah, I don't like that message popup either - it just exposes the mechanic. That's why I was using timers and unit-in-tile triggers to make the enemies hostile in the mission I used this tactic on - if you get in firing range of the enemy base, it's very likely that the trigger will go off and change the diplomacy before you even get the chance to actually strike. It also helps that the enemy turrets on the perimeter of the base, and their border guards, are of a side without production structures that's hostile to you. But, if you bring your Raider through the middle of the field and get caught in a skirmish between Atreides and Harkonnen, their forces will not have a single care about your Raider because the sides that do have production are neutral to you. That presents a nice battle scene going on. And, if you go attacking their forces that fight each-other, it then, in my opinion, makes more sense that that message pops up.

 

9 hours ago, Fey said:

On the subject of Carryalls and Harvesters, like I said, where I placed the unit-in-tile was pretty much right inside the enemy base entrance, behind the hostile gun turrets and border guards. They're far enough in that if you're paying attention to your scout unit and don't go straight in to the enemy base, you'll be able to see the turrets on the edge and pull away before you get too close to the trigger locations. Perhaps, in a hypothetical situation, if you were to use unit-in-tile, and were concerned about harvesters wandering around, you could relocate the spice to specific regions that would make it unlikely for harvesters to wander near unit-in-tile triggers, or place the triggers in specific, enemy-occupied locations that lead deeper into enemy territory.

I understand what you do mean.

Just want to say that right now the map is like I wanted. I already slowed a bit the pace from all the small bases. And from my last test (where I almost died and wasted saboteurs for no reason, but I could survive and recover) proves that the mission is not that hard as it seems; Although I always play at normal speed (real time).

It did not even occur to me that "neutral-enemy" state as you said, so my approach was to force the fight trough reinforcements. They are set as intervals, so every 2.5 minutes (real time) one of them is attacking another of them.

So when the time to attack from one of the small Atreides bases comes this can happen:
1) Enough forces and all clear = attack the player
2) Enough forces, Harkonnen attacking my base = defend myself/goes against the Harkonnen.
4) Enough forces and all clear, but encounter Harkonnen units doing the same = stopping their advance to fight each other; from there he may attack the player or the Harkonnen, the one nearest.
3) Insufficient forces = Not attacking at all

In general I am happy with this result. I always expect the AI going against the player, even when I placed them near each other. So the terrain, the events....... were created with that in mind. When I found out that sometimes they were fighting on their own that makes me happy.

The problem was the lack of vision to give the impression of that continuous fighting. Right now with the new reveal maps at the entrance of the four combat front is enough to give the player the feeling that the fight is real, not only "because the briefing said so".

Not only that, but as the briefring said, they are wasting resources fighting each other; that happens. The main bases attack with full strenght, while the small bases attacks are much smallers.

But anyway. I don't discard using the "neutral-enemy" idea in another campaign or mission (I already talk about my Butlerian Yihad mission, a neutral-enemy state would be better option that blocking the harversters with walls like I did, so is something to considered in the future).
 

9 hours ago, Fey said:

On the subject of Carryalls and Harvesters, like I said, where I placed the unit-in-tile was pretty much right inside the enemy base entrance, behind the hostile gun turrets and border guards.

I need to clarify something. The old editor use the "unit in tile" name. Sometimes I still use that name by habit. But that's not how the event works. The event don't trigger because the player have a unit in that square, but because that square is revealed in the map. 

Any reveal map over that area or any missile tank shooting your carryall while he is on top of that square is enough to trigger the event.

Knowing this will save you some headaches  (I had mine until I found out).

In the lastest editor the event is rename to "Tile revealed".

9 hours ago, Fey said:

But, do pardon my rambling; exploring different AI structures certainly makes for engaging and intriguing discussion, does it not?

Sure, also diversity on campaigns/missions

Is like comparing Feda maps and mine. He does the very long briefings with tons of plot/story, very wide open areas of rock/sand/spice meanwhile my maps usually are more narrows and use overcomplicated (And often unnecessary xD) events that contemplate any possibility.

If the map have big areas and less that 20 events. is from Feda.
If the map is more filled with things and have more than 50 events, is mine XD.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Cm_blast