AI doesn't fight back against predators when harvesting food

Age of Mythology: Retold Report a Bug
1

  • Game Version: Premium

  • Build Number: v.100.18.56738.0 (581026R)

  • Platform: Steam

  • Operating System: Windows 11

This bug severely handicaps a bot. This happens when their villagers are actively gathering food within the range of a predator. The predator will walk over and kill their villagers over time, Normally, the villagers will defend themselves when attacked, but the bot will constantly issues commands to continue grabbing food faster than the villagers can react naturally, overriding and cancelling their self defense. As a result, the predator will go unharmed and continue to attack villagers. It can kill a villager each few seconds, and the bot will only react by sending more villagers to die as it sees it doesn’t have enough villagers on food anymore. This renders the bot basically harmless as it will have only 12-20 villagers in the mid-late game due to this bug.

In this case, predators are referring to natural animals that harm villagers such as bears, crocodiles, and wolves. I have also observed the same happening for shades, but that is a slightly different type of predator.

This bug was observed on several personalities such as balanced, defender, overwhelmer, and attacker.

Trigger Event: When a predator naturally spawns close to hunt

Repro Steps: Have an AI grab hunt next to a predator spawn

  1. Find a hunt spawn next to a predator spawn
  2. Wait for the AI to go grab the food from that hunt
  3. The AI will manually override the villager’s natural instinct to defend themselves and force them to continue harvesting food
  4. The predator will pick off their villagers
  5. The AI will send more villagers to replace the dying ones
  6. The AI will refuse to either kill the predator or give up the hunt location
  7. Several villagers die from this.
  8. The AI is severely handicapped, with a villager deficit of anywhere from 20-50 villagers compared to another bot that didn’t have any predators near their hunt.
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