[1.291beta]Dragon ignores AI unit standing next to it for several turns

I do recognize this. 2 Weeks ago i played a game where i decided to not found a city at the good spot due to a dragon standing 2 spaces away from the spot. It was early in the game and i didnt want to loose settler at that spot yet. The AI however came soon thereafter with a settler and founded a city, for 30+ turns the dragon didnt move at all. Then the turns after i conquered that city the dragon decided to move towards the city and destroyed it.

Vivas

On higher levels the AI hardly ever gets attacked by monsters, and that's a fine cheat.

I do agree however, i dont recall how it is at lower difficulthy then expert, but its not a bad way to enhance the AI.

I disagree. The AI already get's plenty of bonus cheats to it's stats. It shouldn't get immunity from dragon attacks as well.

I don't like the AI having monster immunity.  A few economic cheats are ok, but not this.

It's not a cheat. It's a different set of rules, and follows on the point you made: on higher levels. You want to take on a greater challenge, you're handicapped. You want to take on less challenge, you handicap your opponent. Different levels of difficulty: different challenges. What I think we need to see, however, is a list of changes that occur at each difficulty level above and below the standard. This hasn't been offered. For reasons that have never been stated.

As to dragons not attacking a unit on the next square, that's part of the monster AI. It's set to roam, attack, return to lair, etc, seemingly at random. Been a lot of discussion about this. Many posters don't like it, and many do.

Monsters should attack the AI, and the AI should beware of monsters that would kill it.

As mentioned, it's fair on Normal and Challenging, above that monsters attack AI less and below that they attack the human less.

I just wanted to note that settling two tiles away from any lair is safe as long as you do not build any improvements on the lair's side of the village, do not let the village become a town, do not build a monument, i.e. don't let the border expand over the lair. Small lairs periodically produce an extra roaming unit though so aren't completely safe but major lairs seem to be completely safe (or I'm ludicrously lucky).

I think having Monster behavior be so RNG driven just inevitably results in "XCOM cheating accuracy rage syndrome". The higher the stakes are (in this case instant city deletion) the less tolerance players will have for randomness. If monsters always insta gibbed any nearby city without fail the mechanic probably wouldn't upset hardly anyone.

"XCOM cheating accuracy rage syndrome"

Jesus.

Thats the reason I cant play this game until someone fixes it. Also teleporting aliens.

Honestly, there are some "cheats" I don't think the AI should have.
In XCOM I think the accuracy bonuses gets too high on the hardest difficulty, but only because it feels like cover sucks , that did not bother me much, only thing that bothered me on higher difficulties in XCOM was that they also had improved crit rate, so my troopers would due to a roll of the dice rather than a strategic failure.

In FE I think the AI getting a break from monsters is a bad thing, but that's a personal preference, I want the wilds to be equally dangerous to both AI and Human players, mostly because the Dragons and Slags that doesn't attack the AI usually bee-lines after my own cities, making it difficult in a defense-ish way that I don't like, unlucky monster placements not only close to my own cities, but also close to AI cities causes me to lose.

Then again, I am happy I can just chuck down the difficulty to the pace that I have fun playing against... When FE stops crashing that is
Would be nice to be able to mod monster behaviour though.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. That soldiers in XCOM are actually more likely to die to a single shot than to shots over time gives the feeling of randomness over skill even though it's no less strategically/tactically valid. There we're managing the odds; you can minimize the chances of casualties but nothing you do can ever eliminate the chance of a soldier getting killed. It's our faulty expectations of zero casualties that makes it feel wrong. I know it yet I still can't 100% get over it and still feel wronged when one of my soldiers dies, but ultimately a person dying from getting shot once is something I accept.

In Fallen Enchantress insta gibbed cities is just wrong. I know how to manage things so that my cities are rarely exposed to the risk but the mere fact that a roaming monster can instantly delete one of my cities as though it never existed in no way leaves me happy or understanding. The stakes are large enough that I think many of us will be annoyed by significant randomness in any event but coupled with the immersion breaking implementation of instantaneous city deletion it's just too much.

It's also not valid for FE imo because while I can manage monster behavior the AI clearly cannot. It will settle near a lair and then do nothing about it. Eventually the lair is removed and the monster begins roaming and the AI is just oblivious. Late in my games it seems I always discover somewhere in AI territory at least one city with a grid of roads around it. This is the obvious tell tale remnant of a city being settled, then razed, a new city settled adjacent, then razed, and repeated over and over till the monster finally kills itself on the AI units or it wanders into my territory.

I think the easiest solution is to make monsters invariably destroy cities within a certain range of their lair and never leave that area. The AI then faces a simpler scenario: it can't settle till it is able to clear the monster and has done so. Lairs should not be lootable until the monster is dead as well.

this doesn't feel like an acceptable kind of ai cheating to me.  Games are supposed to have mechanics; giving ai advantages is one thing; letting the ai ignore mechanics that are supposed to exist in the game, like monstsers being a threat, violates that.  Unless it's absolutely necessary to let an ai ignore something to be functional it shoudln't be done.

It depends on how much effort you put into your soldier or city in question.

Cities, you have to put effort into, and therefore 1 shotting cities to random encounters feels wrong/terrible, especially when there is little you can do. You cannot have your Sovereign stand guard in all your cities all the time, and even if you did he wouldn't have levelled and would be defenseless against Dragons and whatever else comes roaming.

I for the same reason didn't like random deaths to my soldiers due to the random crit through superior cover halfway across the map, because I spend a lot of time and effort to get these soldiers levelled, and 30 minutes of playtime caring and nurturing a squad of soldiers destroyed in a single random rolls just wrecks the mood and feeling of the gameflow.

In turn, if the Soldiers were named "Soldier 1", "Soldier 2", "Soldier 3" and so on, and had no progress whatsoever, I would happily throw them at the fire.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

An even simpler solution than my first suggestion is just making monsters unable to raze cities (just damage them or take x turns to raze them?). This solution would probably be easier to implement but I think the AI would still suffer the same inherent disadvantage. Either way the AI needs to be more proactive with monster lairs.

Kongdej, I'm with you. One shots on something you get attached to feels terrible no matter what (which was my only reason for the XCOM reference). On top of that in FE I think it's not even good as a strategic element.

I think the easiest solution is to make monsters invariably destroy cities within a certain range of their lair and never leave that area. The AI then faces a simpler scenario: it can't settle till it is able to clear the monster and has done so. Lairs should not be lootable until the monster is dead as well.

An even simpler solution than my first suggestion is just making monsters unable to raze cities (just damage them or take x turns to raze them?). This solution would probably be easier to implement but I think the AI would still suffer the same inherent disadvantage. Either way the AI needs to be more proactive with monster lairs.

I like these ideas! 

I also agree with you. If it's "designed" to work that way to favor the AI on HIGHER difficulties (when does it start?) then I'm all for it. Too many players think they should still be able to stomp the AI at higher levels and that's just wrong thinking. At higher levels the players much THINK of NEW WAYS to beat the AI with all the perks and handicaps the AI starts to get. Higher difficulty doesn't mean SMARTER AI PLAY it just means the AI gets more stuff and less worries from the wilds while you get more worries and more stuff from the wilds that will come and EAT you. I like it.

If it were possible, I would prefer smarter AI play... "favored" or "perked" (ie cheating) AI is only the next best thing

This behaviour is one i really loathe. The AI frees camps, and the player gets punished for it.

I don't care so much if they don't get attacked, but they should still avoid the places with settlements and outposts. It's just game-breaking for me  if someone sends some shit roaming and it destroys my favorite cities early in the game. Thats not a challenge, its an annoyance.

The AI is such a sucker you should be taking advantage of it rather than the opposite