Unofficialcrusaderpatch: AIs and digging up enemy moats

[PitchNeeded]

Firstly, it would be great if Sultan could finally dig up a moat, sending slaves which would be covered by his Arabian archer force.

Also with moat digging and AIs there can be other issues, AIs that use European archers to dig up moats such as Marshall, Frederick, Abbot and Emir can sometimes get more interested in firing at enemy units on the way than heading straight to the enemy moat to dig it up and also Wazir's slaves in his siege force can sometimes set fire to surrounding buildings instead of heading straight to dig up a moat.

[Sh0wdown]

If somebody could create digging animations for all the units I might look into implementing them.

[Monsterfisch]

probably a good idea to make a test if its technically possible before someone spends the time making a whole lot of animation frames

unless you are okay with a simple static one of a knight holding a shovel in the beginning ;)

[Sh0wdown]

unless you are okay with a simple static one of a knight holding a shovel in the beginning ;)

I would be okay with that for testing purposes.

[PitchNeeded]

Well before we can have all units digging up moats (which may take a while before we can add it to the patch), it would at least be good to see, in the next patch if possible, Sultan creating slaves for his siege force if he is attacking an enemy with a moat. Sultan can't dig up moats at all at the minute :(

If all units can be made to dig up moats, European swordsmen and knights of course should be slowest to dig up moats, and Arabian swordsmen should be a bit faster but still very slow in doing so too.

[ByBurton]

Well before we can have all units digging up moats (which may take a while before we can add it to the patch), it would at least be good to see, in the next patch if possible, Sultan creating slaves for his siege force if he is attacking an enemy with a moat. Sultan can't dig up moats at all at the minute :(

Same with Emir.

I totally disagree with the option to let all units dig moat..

[Monsterfisch]

not all units would dig up moats only those ai lords use that otherwise wouldn't be able to beat any castle that has a full moat+drawbridge. i would also highly encourage if possible to add shields to the units that dig up the moat as they otherwise are without cover and easily picked off

[Panbutt]

I also do not agree with allowing all units to dig moats. All it will do is make specialist units less unique and helpful and it would not look good from an aesthetic point of view.

[PitchNeeded]

Well before we can have all units digging up moats (which may take a while before we can add it to the patch), it would at least be good to see, in the next patch if possible, Sultan creating slaves for his siege force if he is attacking an enemy with a moat. Sultan can't dig up moats at all at the minute :(

Same with Emir.

I totally disagree with the option to let all units dig moat..

Emir can have the ability to dig up moats though with his European archers, but like Abbot, Marshall and Frederick who also rely just on European archers to dig up enemy moats it isn't often that effective as the archers sometimes just fire at enemies on the way rather than heading straight for the moat.

Emir could be made to train slaves as well as European archers for sieges against moat AIs though, or just use slaves for enemy moat digging and keep his European archers just for defence. But I do rather like the fact Emir sends European archers on sieges against enemies with a moat as it makes him different from other Arabian AIs who just send slaves for that purpose.

Sultan though definitively needs some slaves to dig up an enemy moat though, running alongside the Arabian archers. At the minute Sultan has absolutely no ability to dig up an enemy moat, even a fully moated Nizar with 0 troops he wouldn't be able to do anything about!

[PitchNeeded]

OK after watching Udwin's latest video which had Emir and Saladin struggling to besiege Frederick effectively even with big armies, because of his moat, I definitely think Emir, if he is attacking an enemy with a moat and has a big enough army (if he has a total army size of over 300) should recruit and send about 10-15 more European archers to dig up a moat than he currently does. And Saladin, Wazir and Caliph need to recruit and send more slaves too, if they have a big enough army, to dig up an enemy moat.

Also it should be made so that the AI moat digging units always go for the nearest bit of the moat to them rather than going all around Frederick or Nizar's castle to get to a far part of a moat to dig and getting killed in the process.

Also I noticed that moat digging archers sometimes stand on the edge of the enemy moat and fire up at wall archers instead of digging. This needs to be fixed.

[PitchNeeded]

I have worked out the problem with Emir and moat digging, after watching a match between him and Frederick.

His moat digging archers don't advance until just after his Arabian swordsmen do. His horse archers (assuming they aren't uselessly held back out of range of the enemy castle by a pathfinding bug) have already advanced before and are usually dead by that stage if he is attacking a strong enemy. Faced with Emir's Arabian swordsmen and moat digging archers advancing at the same time, Frederick's defence archers and crossbowmen aim at the Emir's archers first rather than the Arabian swordsmen as AI missile troops always prioritize killing enemy missile troops first (which is often a good strategy). This means that Emir's moat digging archers are usually killed before they reach the moat.

If Emir's European archers advanced to dig up the moat at the same time as his horse archers advanced, this would be a much better strategy as the horse archers could distract the enemy from firing upon the moat digging archers. It would be good if this could be changed.

[Wolfram92]

One interesting aspect is the fact that some of the European troops where seemingly supposed to be capable of digging moats, although Firefly decided otherwise later on.

For example the lines of Crossbowmen and Monks clearly state that they will dig, but they don't (you get those lines if you select a group of moat digging Units like spearmen with a bigger group of Monks or Crossbowmen).

For some reason though Firefly made only slaves capable of digging modes, which is also confirmed by Arab Units lines, which puts Arab troops at a disadvantage in my opinion. Makes it harder for all Arab AIs or the Player if he wants to play as a 'pure' Arab (not using European troops).

[PitchNeeded]

And the AIs that use European archers are poor too at digging up moats because a. the European archers sometimes stop and fire at defenders rather than digging the moat and end up getting killed and b. if enemy archers and melee troops are advancing at the same time, tower defending missile units almost always seem to prioritize firing at the enemy archers first (even if these enemy archers are not firing at them and just going to the moat to dig).

It is a good strategy though that tower archers and crossbowmen prioritize aiming for enemy missile troops over enemy melee troops (as enemy missile troops can of course fire up at towers and kill missile unit defenders) and I am not suggesting this should be changed. However it should be changed so that all the AI archers that dig moats go straight to the moat to dig rather than stopping to fire at enemy archers.

Emir's moat digging archers should advance at the same time as the horse archers so the horse archers can distract enemy missile troops from firing on the moat diggers. Same with Saladin, Wazir and Caliph's moat digging slaves, advancing with the horse archers to try and distract enemy missile defenders makes sense.

[Heroesflorian]

I want to point out that the AI does _REALLY_ suck at digging up moats. And also at recognizing when a castle is NOT open when drawbridges are involved.

Attack like the one shown here with well beyond 500 attack troops in total, including dozens of archers, are most often not sufficient for the Abbot to get into a castle that has 5-10 defending archers on the keep, a few drawbridges and a 1-tile-thick moat.

Why? Because most often, only 1-5 archers will be sent to dig the moat (if being "lucky"), and those will most often end up stopping on the way in order to shoot, and then get shot to death in exchange, before even reaching the moat.
And often enough, no archers are sent to dig up at all, if there is still some open gatehouse with drawbridge somewhere, ~as the AI seems to think it can enter there (even if there's a gate and walls and moat and even an open drawbridge would not allow access to the castle without capturing the gate first).~ as the AI now also try to attack gatehouses, not just walls.

This also causes waves of monks to run around a fully-moated castle towards some still-open drawbridge on the backside, which closes once they approach. They will then just stand in front of the closed drawbridge, getting picked off one by one (slowly, but surely) by even just a handful of defending archers on the inside.
Once a wave of monks is dead, the drawbridge re-opens, and another wave thinks they can enter there, walk over there, then wait in place and gets shot.
Eventually, all monks will be gone and the attack will be aborted.

If all archers of that attack went digging, always, without stopping to shoot, then that 1 tile moat would be breached somewhere within seconds, and the monkish hordes could swarm in (or at least attack walls behind the moat or whatever). And even if only some % of all archers would consistently dig, that would still be a massive improvement!
~And if the monks would not constantly try to enter the castle...~ (I just realized they probably just try to attack the gatehouse, not enter the castle behind it, thanks to improved attacking AI)
And if the monks would not constantly try to attack gatehouses behind drawbridges that will close anyway, they would certainly avoid lots of useless losses.

That issue is not limited to the Abbot, of course, but he is a particularly good example for showing it, I would say.