FE4 enemy AI

[Kiriane]

So I was doing a draft playthrough of FE4. And I sent Lex (level 24 promoted, 24 def) over to the Cross Knights...and they just plain wouldn't attack him. Never mind that he has 30% hit rate with his axes and they've got swords, no, they just swarm around him and do nothing. Oh, except Eltoshan, but he 1HKOs Lex anyway.

Why do they do that? Is it the def? I encountered a similar problem with Sigurd on forest tiles in C1, but restarting from Genoa and putting him on a regular tile solved it. So it might be some variant on "if I can actually hit him and deal damage, then attack, otherwise stand around blocking his way".

A bigger problem: What do?

While I'm here, I have a few other FE4 draft queries.

- how in the world do you get 11 turn Prologue, it's all I can do to make 14

- did you guys manage to keep Jungby in a Sigurd rush and how (the draft was before the Ardan and Midir rules showed up, it's a job and a half keeping Midir out of trouble entirely, can't even begin to imagine keeping the castle)

- C2 backtracking really sucks. what do

but the big problem is still Elto's cross knights. They're like flipping wubbas, can't do a thing with them around.

[Caliban of Sycorax]

So I was doing a draft playthrough of FE4. And I sent Lex (level 24 promoted, 24 def) over to the Cross Knights...and they just plain wouldn't attack him. Never mind that he has 30% hit rate with his axes and they've got swords, no, they just swarm around him and do nothing. Oh, except Eltoshan, but he 1HKOs Lex anyway.

Why do they do that? Is it the def? I encountered a similar problem with Sigurd on forest tiles in C1, but restarting from Genoa and putting him on a regular tile solved it. So it might be some variant on "if I can actually hit him and deal damage, then attack, otherwise stand around blocking his way".

A bigger problem: What do?

While I'm here, I have a few other FE4 draft queries.

- how in the world do you get 11 turn Prologue, it's all I can do to make 14

- did you guys manage to keep Jungby in a Sigurd rush and how (the draft was before the Ardan and Midir rules showed up, it's a job and a half keeping Midir out of trouble entirely, can't even begin to imagine keeping the castle)

- C2 backtracking really sucks. what do

but the big problem is still Elto's cross knights. They're like flipping wubbas, can't do a thing with them around.

Enemies don't attack when there's no chance of hitting the unit, or (this one I'm fuzzy on) if the defense is too high.

11-turning the Prologue requires Sigurd to proc STR twice before capturing Jungby, so that you can 5-turn it. Then the other six are for Evans. There's a way to move Midir to not be attacked at all, ask one of the better drafters how to.

I've never been able to keep Jungby, lol.

Warp people (Sigurd, Cuan, Fin, etc) to Heirhein. People who don't draft Lachesis usually kill her and recapture Nodion because it's closer to Mackily.

[Integrity]

Enemies won't attack with 0% hit, and they *sometimes* won't attack if the result is 1 damage. I haven't been able to piece it together, but that's what I've got.

Octavian already outlined the 11-turn Prologue clear. Roll STR, NEVER STOP GOING UP.

Jungby is boned, just accept it and roll on. If you have other horsies and are willing to blow an extra turn (it isn't worth it) you can garrison Jungby as Sigurd runs off but chances are no.

Yep, Warp.

[Shin]

A few answers from the mighty Shin!

• A 10-turn is possible, but that requires either Cuan or Ethlin! Two strength proc's are needed to 5 turn Jungby.
• It takes a bit of fiddling but there are some positions that Midale isn't safe in, but is ignored by the AI at.
• We all let Jungby explode, it's not worth saving!
• Warp! Dierdre can warp people in C2 if you don't have Edain.
• Cross Knights. Bait in the forest normally works well.

[Celice]

Enemies will attack so long as they will do even one damage--in the Genealogy of Neir hack, defense will now properly stop damage if it doesn't exceed its target defense, which in turn made the AI literally stand around the dude doing nothing (pretty annoying in terms of tactics).

[Integrity]

Enemies will attack so long as they will do even one damage--in the Genealogy of Neir hack, defense will now properly stop damage if it doesn't exceed its target defense, which in turn made the AI literally stand around the dude doing nothing (pretty annoying in terms of tactics).

Not necessarily true for vanilla FE4. I can't tell you how many runs have been screwed because - for example - the C4 Pegasus Corps decided to all rush TO Sigurd and not attack him. Or the Myrmidons in C2 against a Shield Ringed Sigurd.

[CT075]

i vaguely remember it being like

if (attacker.mt < defender.def) do_nothing;
else attack;

i could be wrong, though; i hate the snes debugger's ui and i haven't touched it in a while.

[sunshineYON]

I had instances, especially in the chapter where you recruit Altenna, where I would be swarmed up the arse with enemies around my main castle. Whenever Shanan was guarding it with Balmung or whatever its called, they just sat there like morons, allowing me to canto abuse the castle entry way to get a lot of cheap kills, even with my nonmounted units. I always wondered why they didn't attack like they are programmed in the other FEs I've played, which are 6,7,8,9,10,11.

[The_Purple_Knight]

Not is bad as fe5. playing around with stats I've discovered that If enemies can't damage or hit anyone on the map they will all escape the map .

[sunshineYON]

Not is bad as fe5. playing around with stats I've discovered that If enemies can't damage or hit anyone on the map they will all escape the map .

That's kind of hilarious and makes... sense.

My nonFE playing friends would always comment on how retarded the AI was for charging into meat grinders like Ike, etc.

[Celice]

i could be wrong, though; i hate the snes debugger's ui and i haven't touched it in a while.

what?

The SNES has no on-board debugger. So if you're complaining about an emulator's, you can choose another, as there's a few forks of the SNES9X debug version and there's also a more robust BSNES (that is preferable out of accuracy).

[Kiriane]

I'd guessed that it was the hit% on Sigurd and the def on Lex. Lex got pretty useless after C2 Mackily because nobody wanted to attack him, ever. So that left me with Sigurd to kill crossknights and Lex to be a big wall of doom who kills one enemy per player phase, same as Brigid. Bait in the forest is one thing. Bait in the forest that the crossknights refuse to touch is quite another. Dang wubbas. >.> /rant

Regarding kill Lachesis and recapture Nodion: I assume that means we don't get the Knight ring? And if said ring shows up in gen 1 but is not passed down, it just vanishes, right? But I usually manage to blaze past Nodion, including the Lachesis recruitment conversation, and I'm slow. I even hang around for half a turn extra to make Sigurd give Deirdre money for Warp. (Which I suspect is not the optimal way of doing it.) So how do you get Nodion captured to begin with?

And it's the 6 turn Evans that I have trouble with, more so than the 5 turn Jungby...they seem to like blocking up the bridge...more experimentation needed, I guess. One of the threads suggests that it's possible to prevent that army from even appearing?

Other things:

- As far as I can tell, Genoa on turn 5 and Ayra recruited on 6 is the absolute best that can be done, yes?

- I saw someone saying once about sending Brigid back towards Sigurd's people instead. Is this even possible, is Fury required to come in and help out?

- I assume y'all skip the Wind sword. DANG WUBBAS in C3, too - they just didn't attack Lex at all, AGAIN, at the BRIDGE. At a guess, the Wind sword would still be inefficient anyway, but getting the Ichival MIGHT not be. Considering that I'm slow and wow Sylvia can reduce a lot of turns.

- the C4 wait for Silesia to be captured is just annoying but Sigurd can go full speed ahead after that, any way to reduce wait time?

- why do the C5 bow knight AIs attack Brigid over Holyn? >.> (variant on "why are the AIs so stupid")

- I don't have Holsety and Sigurd doesn't dodgetank enough of the minions to get to Reptor with enough HP to take the hit before killing him. what do

- Claude is perpetually starved for money even after clearing the arena and with Fury giving him everything she has. It's annoying.

And the big one: what all do you give Celice to take into C6? I figure on the SSS, Knight, Leg and Elite rings. But what else? All the draft logs seem to show the Hero sword, though.

Yeah, the question was answered. I think. I'm just complaining about wubbas now and asking less-relevant questions.

[Caliban of Sycorax]

SSS, Hero Sword, Magic Sword, Knight Ring, Leg Ring, Elite Rings, usually some other rings in Storage.

[CT075]

what?

The SNES has no on-board debugger. So if you're complaining about an emulator's, you can choose another, as there's a few forks of the SNES9X debug version and there's also a more robust BSNES (that is preferable out of accuracy).

there's a tool that i'm using that is called (i quote) "snes debugger" much like "no$gba debugger" is the name of my gba debugger of choice - it's the only one i could find that supports break-on-read and break-on-write with a memory viewer as well as basic code breakpoints.

either way i'm not particularly interested in hacking the snes games; the arm architecture it uses just irritates me