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Topic: Getting soldiers to behave!

mxb2001
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Joined: 2019-05-20, 18:49
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Location: The land of the thirsty spider
Posted at: 2019-05-30, 16:03

OK, just finished an epic comeback battle vs AI on Twin Lagoons (great map!) but something was driving me to distraction. When you're low on soldiers you empty the training sites, lower the rear area garrisons to 1 but still don't have any to spare so when you're trying to build a military building quickly on the border where the enemy has been thrown back so that only civilian building are in your attack range the thing that happens is that for some reason once the building is built and has 0 soldiers it seems to have the LOWEST priority for new troops. I kick them out of the training, I lower a nearby garrison and what do they do? Go ANYWHERE EXCEPT the new building that is the only place I want soldiers like RIGHT NOW.

So if someone could teach me just how these soldiers think it would be much appreciated, because I sure as hell don't understand them.


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BoeseKaiser
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Joined: 2019-02-21, 11:03
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Pry about Widelands
Posted at: 2019-05-30, 16:46

preparing for our match? :p

I see a couple of possibilities :

  • the soldiers are already comming, but from further, thus new soldiers don't get affected there

  • other bildings have higher priority because they have been waiting for longer

  • the soldiers that you kicked out of military buildings have to go to a werehouse first (I don't think it's the case, can someone confirm/contradict?)

those are just guesses though.


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2019-05-30, 16:50

i can contradict that soldiers have to go to a warehouse. they go directly to a military site.

the first two options are still on the table, though. you may want to lower the number of soldiers in military buildings you already have full in that case.


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mxb2001
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Posted at: 2019-05-31, 01:00

Yes I too have seen them go straight from one garrison to a nearby one when kicked out. That is exactly what I want them to do but strangely most of the time they head away from the front even though it's desperately lacking troops. I emptied a slightly rear castle (not far from front so desperate!) once and of say 6 5 went back and 1 went to one of the 10 half empty (with +1 +2 +5 etc) front line buildings! Bizzarre! They have gone mad! Cowards! Running away!


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2019-05-31, 03:44

generally, it's a bad strategy to make more military buildings than you can man. it causes your soldiers to misbehave. And it's not like you have more troops at the front. I suggest adjusting the number of soldiers so that you'll have some spares in a warehouse. Also, as your training sites are not manned at the moment, you are losing up on a lot of valuable training. Ensuring that your soldiers keep training alone is worth reducing the number of soldiers in military sites until you have a couple in a warehouse.


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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2019-05-31, 07:56

You can also dismantle any military building deep inside your territory without loosing territory. So the soldiers get available for training or at the border. Additionally you get some space for other buildings back.


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mxb2001
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Posted at: 2019-05-31, 21:00

king_of_nowhere wrote:

generally, it's a bad strategy to make more military buildings than you can man. it causes your soldiers to misbehave. And it's not like you have more troops at the front. I suggest adjusting the number of soldiers so that you'll have some spares in a warehouse. Also, as your training sites are not manned at the moment, you are losing up on a lot of valuable training. Ensuring that your soldiers keep training alone is worth reducing the number of soldiers in military sites until you have a couple in a warehouse.

Absolutely, I knew that as I was dealing with the problem. I like to expand as fast as possible though and it always leaves me stretched out too thin. The solution, to limit expansion, does not appeal to me though and I was hoping there was a way to get the 1 or 2 surplus soldiers I might be lucky enough to have to get to the front or the empty building sooner. I've played games where you give general orders to troops before and I realize one must not be a control freak, yet I was hoping to learn some trick that lets me manipulate the soldiers better.


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