Patrols and Patrolling

[TheViper]

some cant do both, just watch sletten games

+1

 

[Marathon]

I have my own experience with patrolling.
I certainly use it a lot, even though my micro otherwise sucks.

When you send a group on patrol, there is a ~10" of idle time. Thus, you can't start patrolling when already in range of the enemy. You have to start at least 10-15 tiles behind the battlefront (most infantry/archery move at ~1 tile per second).
I sometimes manage to make my units react faster and bypass this 10" limitation, but I can't reproduce the tricks I used. Maybe it was luck.

I am an AI scripter, and I know a lot about how the AI handles units in the battle. AIs can simulate aggressive patrolling (with "Horde formation", if you know what I mean). When they do so, lag in multiplayer is increased, but so does performance, because hundreds of data packs are transferred from/to the host.
BTW, doesn't patrol add to lag?

When a computer player has his soldiers in defend mode, they are actually in aggressive stance, and they will chase forever any unit that attacks them. Also, they will have at least 1" of idle time after the target is killed before they switch to another. Finally, the units won't change targets very easily, unless when the AI script is doing some tricks.
In short, soldiers are stubborn and vulnerable to luring, and can't switch targets quickly. Also, it is harder to get them overlap on the same tile.
I think that this very similar to the behavior of human-controlled units, at aggressive stance and no patrol.

Now, when the computer player has its soldiers in attack mode, things are different. Units target the closest enemies, and the scripter can even influence them to target specific units of the enemy (example: knights prefer chasing down enemy archers, while archers hit pikes).
Units tend to overlap, making pure melee battles better (and feeding enemy scorpions/onagers).
And lag increases. I have tested AIs in multiplayer with the use of some tools, and I can verify it.

I personally prefer defensive patrolling. When our army is slow, it is best to keep units closer. Especially when we have a group with a mix of archers/scorpions and infantry (stand ground patrolling tends to isolate infantry, who keep proceeding, from archers, who may delay because of an enemy building or ram; aggressive patrolling just feeds an enemy who uses runners and decreases the firepower of our archers).
When we have cavalry, aggressive patrolling is the best idea.

I also number my groups, because they tend to lose their formation after some time. Especially when they are after runners, or in the case of a bug well known to AI scripters:
When a unit that belongs in a patrol group decides to kill a villager, but this villager gets garrisoned in the mean time, then this unit will idle for quite some time, often for more than a whole minute!
This happens with both human-controlled patrol groups and computer-controlled attack groups.


Regarding the bug that a non-grouped unit in aggressive stance always gets pissed off by any unit that attacks him, even if this unit is a skirmisher while there are dozens of knights closer, this is a bug that was added intentionally by ES in order to make units at least react. Constant retasking and retargeting is too computationally heavy, so ES tried to make things simpler, sacrificing some skill in favor of reliability.
As I said, there are tricks that can make AIs switch targets better, without launching attack groups and without "throwing lag bombs". I tried to reproduce these tricks as human player, but I failed...


I was glad to test a new unofficial patch that makes AIs patrol. I mean, real patrol: go there, and patrol in the mean time. Unfortunately, the creator of this patch only managed to make stand-ground patrol. It was fun watching units in aggressive stance perform a stand-ground patrol while maintaining the ability of ranged units to perform hit and run.
It doesn't work that well so far. As this patch is getting better and better, maybe some of the bugs regarding patrolling and reaction of ungrouped units will be arranged.
One thing that is already arranged is the unwillingness of patrol units to target unpacked trebuchets.

Really? Cause when i patrol rams they start atacking units , not buildings..

Never seen that. On my computer, rams always target buildings.
When AIs send attack groups, rams target enemy siege and unpacked trebuchets, sometimes even soldiers but mostly buildings and siege. This would have been really great for patrol rams.

I sometimes send patrol rams, and I fill them en route. However, ram patrolling has issues, since they get idle at some point and they require frequent stop and re-patrolling. As mentioned by Ares.
I agree with Omega that ram patrolling is better when at aggressive stance.

strong AIs like AllianceThundaEmpire or Diablo send a lot of sparse units toward you, no 20-30-40 units compact armies, and patrolling has no power against sparse units

Have you ever tried patrolling with massed scorpions and many spears/swords? And some skirms? This combination kills AllianceThundaEmpire, because it sends some medium groups in the middle of the battle, which die to masses of scorpions, and because it has the bad habit to go after weak units, like skirms.
Scorpions in patrol mode are uber powerful against ATE.
You can't win against 4-5 ATEs, unless if you use cheap tricks like castles and walls, or a non-cheap trick, like patrol.
Patrol is a very powerful tactic, that can make the difference when used right. When used right.

 

[John_Mendl]

Patrol acquisition time is much much less in online games than in offline. The more the lag, lesser the acquisition time.

 

[_Ares_]

great record featuring patrols, i'd like it added as the main one:
download/file.php?id=68818&gid=10

 

[Funito]

Micro is my best skill but i never get much how patrolling works, i hope ares teach me when i came back :$

 

[_Ares_]

only if you teach me your drush skills!

 

[SCNElite_Paladin]

really awesome article Ares ))
loved it.
at first I didn't understand much, then I saw some records, played some games and read it again it
it was all clear to me, hahahahha ;D

but I'd love if you have an archer civ 1v1 game too, I want to see archer runners in action.
also do you have any any more cool WCL training games ;D

 

[SCNElite_Paladin]

 

[colin]

very good tyyy

 

[f1reboy]

Very interesting. I'll try to patrolling on next plays