Talking to sanna about Towards the Mountains of Haag, the second scenario of SotBE, it became apparent that the run-for-the-flag strategy I've often used actually doesn't work if the AI recruits at least one fast Thunderer on turn 1. If this happens, this unit ends up capturing one village and then being sent by the AI to block the passage through the ice. Trying to fix this for Easy by disallowing it from recruiting archers, we realised the AI was recruiting Thunderers as if they were usage=fighter and in fact that is the case: Dwarvish Thunderers have usage=fighter. Looking more carefully at this, it turns out that the mage line (including plain mages, with 5-1 melee vs 7-3 ranged) are classified as mixed fighters, while the Bowman is an archer (6-2 melee vs 6-3 ranged). Other units also have questionable classifications.
The usage= tags are used in the recruitment_pattern= keys of [ai] tags, to control the AI's behaviour. Should we modify some of the glaring discrepancies? Or is there a deep reason for the way units are currently classified? -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
