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Civilians... those little buggers.

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BigBonsai:
Now, I thought we could talk about those civilian nuts in a separate thread (kind of a continuation from here).

If the statement that was made in an earlier thread - that only those civ casualties count which occurred in abandoned or ignored missions - is correct, then why bother having civilians at all? Everybody who completes the missions can ignore the civilians, because they won't be counted anyways. The only thing that would make me want to save them is my morality. But after restarting a mission for the 10th time, morality gets lost...

With the current stupidity of these guys I hope the "civ body count policy" doesn't change, because saving them is nigh impossible. While I like a bit of naive stupidity in the world, these folks are a bit extreme - they run toward the gut-sucking aliens, hoping they will get a hug. But, of course - BOOM! ;D

As suggested in another thread, could some mechanic be implemented to make them at least run from the enemy instead of walking toward him? Or better - get close to one and give the civilian a command to exit to the dropship or or or...

Any ideas?

If the civs are supposed to be retarded, I'm fine with that. But it would be so much more fun if their IQ would exceed that of a bucket of sand. ;)

This game's fun! :) The characters tell their story without a word.


BiB

Sectoid:

--- Quote from: BigBonsai on January 16, 2008, 10:53:03 pm ---
As suggested in another thread, could some mechanic be implemented to make them at least run from the enemy instead of walking toward him? Or better - get close to one and give the civilian a command to exit to the dropship or or or...
--- End quote ---

Yeah. I know writing AI is tricky, but the civis should be smart enough to at least be able to run away from aliens and toward soldiers in their line of sight. Maybe they should also run away from gunfire/explosions.

BTAxis:
Let's get one thing straight, though. Civilians should NOT be able to get themselves to safety, as seems to be what these comments seem to be trying to accomplish. Saving civilians is PHALANX' job, and it's not going to be possible for them to save all civilians on every mission almost per definition.

BigBonsai:

--- Quote from: BTAxis on January 18, 2008, 07:43:12 pm ---Let's get one thing straight, though. Civilians should NOT be able to get themselves to safety, as seems to be what these comments seem to be trying to accomplish. Saving civilians is PHALANX' job, and it's not going to be possible for them to save all civilians on every mission almost per definition.
--- End quote ---
I agree in parts. A civilian should be able to flee for instance to the dropship and wait there. How/If the dropshop is protected is the players choice. PHALANX should be able to tell the civs where to go to. That's also part of the mission.

And why shouldn't a civilian be able to get himself to safety? To a certain extent he should be. At least, as already mentioned before, they should run into a safer direction and not aimlessly proving the total absence of their brains. When there is a safe spot - who wouldn't head there?


BiB

BTAxis:
My point is that you kind of destroy the premise of a terror attack when you provide the civilians with the AI to evade the aliens. Of course, you could compensate that by making civilians slower than aliens, but even then if a civilian is smart enough to retreat inside PHALANX' area of control from the get-go, then the aliens will almost never be able to get that civilian. In other words, it'll be too easy to save him/her. Extrapolate this to all civilians on the map, and all PHALANX needs to do to save the civilians is stand around and wait for them to show up.

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