Unit Self-Preservation and Common Sense

Against all odds, there have been no bug reports so far, so either the headaches weren't totally in vain and I actually made a somewhat competent debugging job or even less people than expected actually played the latest release. Be that as it may, it is time to move on to the next release now.

The first step will be making the decisions of units somewhat more rational and consistent, though this is a choice I take with something of a heavy heart. One of the few types of comments people usually made  spontaneously about their runs was seeing things like lawyers picking fights with destroyers. On the one hand I found this amusing, but it clearly broke the immersion, so now most units will be reasonable and decide against things like this when acting on their own, either when attacking you or following an allied lobby's orders.

Each unit will now be classified as either Elusive, Aggressive or Berserk. 

Civilians and the like will fall into the Elusive category and generally avoid conflict unless this would be the equivalent of little more than swatting a fly to them. Most military units and monsters will be Aggressive and regularly take on enemies their own size or slightly bigger if they feel the odds are in their favour. Lastly, there will be a tiny minority of incomprehensible entities and hopeless idiots that will be Berserk and still face any enemy regardless of their own capabilities.

Other considerations units will now take into account are Terror and Size differences, strategic advantages, and whether they are fighting in familiar territory with favourable visibility and daylight conditions. If an unit decides to back off after these considerations rather than attack, we'll also get a small drop in Local Tension, which should also add some more value to larger, more terrifying units as policing and dissuasive forces.

 

Also, since I was in the mood for more common sense, you won't be able to put captured monsters on trial anymore when playing as stalwart, now you'll send them for containment and research instead. The effect will be exactly the same but you'll feel a little bit less silly.