Yeah, the slider that goes from 1 to 100, that one. It's my opinion that this a sub-optimal way of dealing with...er, whatever it deals with. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure what unit 'attitudes' this knob controls, although I'm pretty sure it controls at least two:
Independant Decision Making
Self Preservation
I'm willing to bet there are more, due to the way the slider was designed. I think it's trying to bring a lot of similar concepts under the same roof, so to speak. It's an elegant solution, but I wonder if it really works. The examples:
Independant Decision Making
Since it's a slider, it has 2 poles:
Do nothing unless instructed ------------ Free will unless instructed
The problem with this is that the interim commands are not much use. For example, 'don't stray too far' might be a value of 20, but what does 'don't stray too far' mean in game terms? I don't know exactly. All I know is, it's on 20. 'Go for it but not completely' might have a value of 80. What does this mean? That the unit will 'kinda' attack and react? But I don't want it to 'kinda' do anything! Either it takes care of buisness with the best efficiency it can muster, or it shuts up and lets me handle it.
Self Preservation
Again a slider:
Run at the first shot ------------- Fight to the death.
Same problem. I never want my units to 'kinda' fight to the death. If I choose that option, it's because I'm desperate. And I never want to give my attacking units, tanks and stuff, 'you be real careful out there' orders either. I know you can change that individually, but it's such a pain to do so for dozens or even hundreds of units.
I think a good solution would be to make the AI's unit specific. Supply trucks would have 'retreat 2 hexes at the first shot, wait 1 day, then try to rejoin original hex to resupply survivors' logic as default. Artillery would have 'retreat to nearest base if close attacked' logic. Bombers would never have 'engage random targets' as default, while fighters would.
Finally, 2 things. First, what's the difference between 88 and 90? Do we really need all these choices? Won't 'Low' 'Medium' and 'High' do? Second, the slider as actually used has about 2 settings: 0 for the control freaks, and 10-25 for the guys who want their units to retreat when almost dead. Yes, it's a generalization, but I think it's a good one. And if you play SR2010 with the slider set to 100, raise your hand.
DeanCo--
Military Aggression slider Discussion
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- deanco
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