How are enemy targets chosen?

[SAUS]

In my map, there are zombies and humans. Normally, you just fight zombies and everything is fine (all units have equal priorty). However, there is quite a bit of reanimation happening (rise of the dead ability, but the units are not invulnerable) so you often end up fighting the human forces as well.

Now here's the problem. For no reason that I can tell, your hero will ALWAYS attack an undead unit before a human unit. Even if your hero is walled out by reanimated human units, it will just run around trying to get to the zombie in the back.


Here's some things that might cause it, but I don't really know what's up. Hopefully someone has better knowledge about it than me:

Undead unit classification.
No idea if this would change anything in the AI.

Armour type.
All the units in question take the same damage from heroes.

Armour type again.
The humans use fortified armour type (though it is modified to be complete different from it). Maybe there's still some AI attached to this armour type?

Unit level.
Some of the humans are higher level, but there are times where all the units are the same level and, still, the hero goes for the zombies first.

Armour / health value.
The zombies are definitely more squishy overall (less health and armour), so maybe that has something to do with it?

Thanks for any insight anyone provides.

 

[Ceday]

Did you use "Animate Dead" ability for reanimate?

 

[SAUS]

Animate Dead. Sorry, I was going from memory forgot exactly what the ability was called.

 

[Ceday]

I hope you unchecked the field about invulnerable thing in ability settings.

 

[SAUS]

Yes I did that. I mean even when the only units there are zombies and humans that are reanimated from animate dead, the zombies are still targeted first.

 

[Daffa]

Check manually ingame if it's not invulnerable.
Logically, units tend to attack first in attack line, unless ordered manually by players or AI. Iirc.

 

[SAUS]

They are definitely attackable. My map has been like this for multiple years haha. It's always been a problem, but it's not like it ruins it or anything, just makes it annoying. I figured I would ask about it to see if anyone knows what's happening.

The issue is just how the AI targets units. If you attack move into them, your hero will ALWAYS 100% of the time attack the zombies, even if they are in the back.

 

[Ceday]

I am trying to reproduce your result in a test map but it doesn't work for me, is it possible to upload your map?

 

[SAUS]

Hmm I will have to make my own test map for it and see if I can reproduce it as well. It would be a pain to wait for it to happen in my map since it could take 15ish minutes before it happens lol.

I don't have access to my editor right now, so it'll have to wait until tonight. I will bump this thread with my test map when I make it. Thanks for looking into this for me! +rep

EDIT:
Honestly, I think the best candidate for the bug is the fortified armour type. Try making two non-building units, 1 with fortified armour and the other with normal or something. Use chaos attack type and then attack move them from different angles. I will try that out in my map if no one else does before me.

 

[SAUS]

Solved! It's the fortified armour causing it. Seems like fortified armour type is what the AI uses to determine if it's a building (I think they get attacked after units).

 

[Daffa]

I thought AI loves buildings?
Well, that's some nice finding