I've only gotten the game recently, and have been testing out different factions, and I've noticed a strange oddity in the Proliferator's behaviour. By default, despite it only having an offensive attack, it will try to target friendly units! An example: I select an enemy target to be attacked by both my Necrodrones and my Proliferator. Say the Necrodrone goes first, and gets a lucky crit, killing the enemy. The Proliferator, instead of attacking another enemy, will try to target the wounded Necrodrone, resulting in a strange half-animation as if it were trying to attack but gets cut off half way through, with the end result being the Proliferator does absolutely nothing. This will often continue for the entire battle.



The issue here I can only assume is that, being classified as a 'support', the AI assumes it has a buff or healing ability like every other support unit in the game, and as such will try to 'cast' it on every friendly unit it can reach. This issue could be solved multiple ways:



a) The Proliferator is reclassified as a Ranged unit. Not ideal, as it would be confusing to players expecting something on the level of a Marine or Dekari Ranger; not to mention a new-found vulnerability to axes.



b) The Proliferator stays a Support but is given the AI of a Ranged unit, which is the simplest solution on the surface but could be difficult from a programmer's point of view. I have little knowledge of code so I wouldn't know.



c) The most out there solution: What if the Proliferator was given a friendly "buff" attack? Nothing deviating too far from the units original purpose, perhaps just simply a form of the parasite attack that can affect even disease-immune units, so you can use the Proliferator to 'recycle' your own Foragers and Necrodrones - which seems rather fitting to the faction. After all, one source of flesh is as good as another, I'm sure the Hive does not discriminate.....



Those are my thoughts on this issue at least. I do have two more questions but they're relatively minor ones:



1) Why do Necrophage militia not have the "Disease Immune" trait? I can understand them not being disease spreading themselves, as to not make them too strong, but it still seems strange that my own units would poison my own militia by mere proximity. It also seems to me that other faction's militias still benefit from their faction bonuses - Ardent Mage militia for example do have the "Ardent Fire" trait.



2) In a similar vein: When playing as the Broken Lords, it seems to me that your starting region is always a desert full of tiles rich in Dust, even when the surrounding regions are of a completely different climate; perhaps I have been merely very lucky when playing them so far. If this indeed a feature and not circumstance, it should stand to reason that Necrophages should always start in a region with plentiful forests, grasslands etc. Several times I had to restart because my starting region was a barren tundra or desert that stalls my growth/production from turn 1 and makes the particular game a frustrating slog.



Anyway, those two are minor quibbles, at best; the Proliferator issue seems the most pressing especially given how vital they can be to the Necrophage economy; and how often I read people complaining about how useless they are! Thanks for reading, and I hope my suggestions help to ake an already great game even a tiny bit better

The Proliferator does actually have a "buff" to apply to allies. Namely, a version of the parasite. However, as you have rightly noted, our poor bugs are bugged. The "BattleActionUnitAbilityParasiteAlly" ability listed for the Proliferators in the xml files for some reason does not work on targets with Disease Immunity... which makes it useless on pretty much all Necrophage units except the militia.

I will try if this ability works on an assimilated minor faction unit if I find the time. If so, this bug would be easily fixed by removing the Disease Immunity check from the ability, so that they can hatch new Foragers from your dead troops.

Ive actually had issues with the proliferator where it will target my own units (or target the AI own units) and the opponent gets units at the end of battle. See post here: /#/endless-legend/forum/22-gameplay-and-ai-issues/thread/6149-ai-and-proliferators





SO I agree with you. Something needs to be done.

Another possible solution: split the "Disease Immunity" capacity into "Disease Immunity" and "Parasite Immunity". Necrophage units should have the former, but not the latter. Parasite immune units would be things like Harmonites, Ended, ie. obviously inorganic beings. I believe this would also make Necro vs. Necro wars a bit more interesting.

The problem with Proliferators is that they are categorized as "Support" units when they should really be "Ranged" units...

Yes Propbudhha but if they become Ranger they will became vulnerables to anti ranged weapons, which is not fair because their firepower is as a support unit, not a ranged.



A guy proposed to put on them the AI of ranged units, but let them in the category "support". It looks like a good idea.

That was me, I believe! Although I'm not a 'guy'.



Anyway, that WOULD have been a solution had the issue been the fact that it has a "support AI" but as it turns out, that is not the case. The Proliferator does in fact have a friendly parasite buff it can cast on allies, but it currently does not affect disease immune units, aka. everything the Necrophage have except for militia (which is still really weird). So the reason it targets friendlies is because it is trying to cast this buff, but it can't.

Ladygolem wrote:
That was me, I believe! Although I'm not a 'guy'.



Anyway, that WOULD have been a solution had the issue been the fact that it has a "support AI" but as it turns out, that is not the case. The Proliferator does in fact have a friendly parasite buff it can cast on allies, but it currently does not affect disease immune units, aka. everything the Necrophage have except for militia (which is still really weird). So the reason it targets friendlies is because it is trying to cast this buff, but it can't.

Are you sure this is correct? Anytime I have a proliferator target a unit without "disease immunity" on my side, the opponent gets a forager. IE: It acts like my units are the enemy because it gives the same "parasite" trait to any unit it targets that isnt immune.

I'm going by what people have responded, in this very thread. It must count as a 'buff' seeing as it can be cast on allies and units can't attack friendlies; in addition, if you select a friendly unit as a Proliferator's target the arrow is green, not red. It's most likely a hastily copy/pasted action from the regular attack, but with the targetting changed so it's now a 'buff' not an 'attack', which would explain why it gives the enemy free units. There is definitely work needed on this as, assuming they work correctly, they're a major strategic aspect of Necrophage play and part of what makes them unique.

Ladygolem wrote:
I'm going by what people have responded, in this very thread. It must count as a 'buff' seeing as it can be cast on allies and units can't attack friendlies; in addition, if you select a friendly unit as a Proliferator's target the arrow is green, not red. It's most likely a hastily copy/pasted action from the regular attack, but with the targetting changed so it's now a 'buff' not an 'attack', which would explain why it gives the enemy free units. There is definitely work needed on this as, assuming they work correctly, they're a major strategic aspect of Necrophage play and part of what makes them unique.

It would make sense it that was the case.

You should load the saved game here, and see if you get the same results as i do.

/#/endless-legend/forum/22-gameplay-and-ai-issues/thread/6149-ai-and-proliferators

I had another weird thing happen when my Profilerator created a lot of Foragers and went above my current army size limit. I had two of them going, and I noticed that one of them was costing me an upkeep of 150+ dust! On both, in the cost breakdown, there was an entry for -DUST FOR GARRISONED UNITS which I assumed was an added cost for the additional units. One of them had -10 something, and the other -150! I broke up the unit and the cost went away but clearly something went wrong there.

- Yes, the cost of these larges foragers armies is prohibitive. If you use proliferators you need to grab few foragers then immediately attack the an ennemy.



- It's really not a good system. But it's complicated because if the cost begin too slow, proliferators will be too strong.



- I think a correct solution would be to give Zero upkeep for these necromanced foragers, but make them die in 5 turns. Or to decrease the upkeep but to limit the army size at +4 foragers.

Jojo_Fr wrote:


- I think a correct solution would be to give Zero upkeep for these necromanced foragers, but make them die in 5 turns. Or to decrease the upkeep but to limit the army size at +4 foragers.

I agree with this



In fact, it would be appropriate to give them normal upkeep like other units even when they go over maximum army, and then they expire in a few turns (5 or so).



Another idea is to make the Proliferator ability to raise Militia-like units with small or zero upkeep instead of Foragers. So they are less powerful than Foragers, but still useful as basic meat-shields.



This would be well-balanced with the idea of Ladygolem:

Ladygolem wrote:
What if the Proliferator was given a friendly "buff" attack? Nothing deviating too far from the units original purpose, perhaps just simply a form of the parasite attack that can affect even disease-immune units, so you can use the Proliferator to 'recycle' your own Foragers and Necrodrones

So that the "recycled" units are just militia-like units. Less powerful than your original units, but still useful. And it still fits with the Necrophage theme of "necromancy" and raising the dead etc...



Of course, this means that they probably need to buff the Foragers a little bit after this.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
- Yes, the cost of these larges foragers armies is prohibitive. If you use proliferators you need to grab few foragers then immediately attack the an ennemy.



- It's really not a good system. But it's complicated because if the cost begin too slow, proliferators will be too strong.



- I think a correct solution would be to give Zero upkeep for these necromanced foragers, but make them die in 5 turns. Or to decrease the upkeep but to limit the army size at +4 foragers.

Just get a hero that does -100% upkeep cost. I have ~20 foragers for little to no upkeep cost.

Propbuddha wrote:
The problem with Proliferators is that they are categorized as "Support" units when they should really be "Ranged" units...

The support function has to change for the proliferators. As ranged units, they are rather weak, and as support units, they are very one dimensional.

The designation "Support", "Ranged", "Infantry", "Flyer" or "Cavalry" means four things in game:



1. How the AI controls the units, including when the AI takes over for a unit of yours that could not complete its orders.



2. Vulnerability to "Slayer" abilities on weapons.



3. Support units can target friendly units during the Orders Phase.



4. Flyers can pass through occupied hexes during Resolution.



Everything else is cosmetic. Infantry, Cavalry and Ranged units are effectively the same thing except for #1 and #2. If you gave an Infantry unit a bow and the Ranged ability, it could shoot, but the AI how handle it differently.



The problem with Proliferators is related to #1 and #3. Regardless of how much damage they do, you typically wants the Proliferators to infect enemy units. However, the Support AI behavior will target friendly units, even though the Proliferator's ability is not too friendly.