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Influencing Civilians


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*getting flashbacks to a skyrim mod called "move it dammit"* ^---^

Anyway, if their future ai makes them run away from combat, maybe it also makes them try to find cover and hide. Who hides in a doorway?

Damn, I wanna start a petition to add the ability to check under beds and in closets!

regards

Davoren

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Assuming that this organisation is on the news and common knowledge.

Quite a lot of the globe has little or no access to electricity, never mind a 24 hour news channel.

Right. Particularly the US, Europe and Russia, which cover a large percentage of the map, have little electricity and poor TV coverage. And of course, civilians will always have trouble identifying friend-or-foe, given a human soldier and an alien monster to choose between...

Seriously people... The organization was not very public prior to alien invasion, but afterwards it was nothing but, according to the game story. It got funding from various nations; and don't you think building bases, operating aircraft, conducting ground missions in countries around the world would require certain coordination with local governments, which assumes informing the military, law enforcement, etc about "those nice people in blue uniforms who ride in chinooks? Any reason for secrecy and preventing this knowledge from spreading by word of mouth even in places with no mass media (and you'd be surprised how few such places exist; dissemination of news may not be instantaneous as in developed countries, but it goes pretty fast even without TV)?

People in california? Isn't that SOP for earthquakes?

The SOP for quakes is to get outside of the building and as far away from anything that can fall on top of you as possible. Not in the doorway, by no means.

And yes, sure, the first place a civilian hides from aliens and nasty human soldiers (who are so much more frightening) is doorways, windows, open ground. A civilian will never do such a dishonorable thing as run AWAY from the aliens and shooting in the direction where the soldiers came from - it would just make too much sense, and civilians don't have brains, just like the sergeant told us in basic.

Edited by s300pmu1
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You assume the Xenonauts are well known and publicly viewed as saviours to the point where the average man in the street, as well as the average tribesman on the African plains, will recognise them, understand them and act according to their instructions.

I just don't see how that would be the case.

Take a look at a night time image of the world as an example of how much of the globe is NOT covered by high population and good communication networks.

Sure Europe and the US do, they are not the whole world though.

The alien monsters you refer to are in the main basically humanoid, the human soldiers (after the starting armour) are wearing outlandish and completely unknown armour and weaponry, their faces are also normally covered.

Some of them will also be able to fly (well jump huge distances).

I don't think it is too far fetched that people may regard both with suspicion and avoid them.

Compare some of the higher tier armours with what you would expect a cold war soldier to be wearing and you would probably admit they are not going to be recognised easily by the average civilian.

This is all beside the point for me though really.

I just don't think commanding the civilians has much gameplay value.

As long as they have enough AI to get out of the way then I don't really feel a need to have to order them around.

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I've got to agree with Gauddlike here. It could start out as a fun mechanic, but it might turn quite tedious. And what happens if you order one to move out of line of sight? Or if someone start using them as shields for their troops? Something a civilian just wouldn't do. As long as their AI is ok, I think it'll be good.

What would be cool was some different behaviours, like following your troops around, or trying to surrender to aliens. Not all the time, but some would be too shocked and naive to do anything else. People are stupid after all. So you might have to use stun batons to protect them from themselves. Again, this would get tedious on every map, but would be a nice wrench in your plans every now and again.

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I've got to agree with Gauddlike here. It could start out as a fun mechanic, but it might turn quite tedious. And what happens if you order one to move out of line of sight? Or if someone start using them as shields for their troops? Something a civilian just wouldn't do. As long as their AI is ok, I think it'll be good.

What would be cool was some different behaviours, like following your troops around, or trying to surrender to aliens. Not all the time, but some would be too shocked and naive to do anything else. People are stupid after all. So you might have to use stun batons to protect them from themselves. Again, this would get tedious on every map, but would be a nice wrench in your plans every now and again.

I agree if the civilian behaviour is automatic, i.e. it does not require the player interaction. In my opinion stunning a civilian that gets in the way should be the only interaction between soldier and civilians.

In the original XCOM civilians sometimes stopped in the line of fire or just next to a door.

My usual reaction was:

1) not to fire on them

2) if I needed to get into the house, I usually opened a new door in the wall. Plasma weapons ruled...

I think there should not be a penalty for stunning civilians in Xenonauts.

Civilians following a soldier would be a interesting nuisance every now and then.

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