don't know what's wrong with monsters moving first? i mean - the player practically moves last anyway, so from the human POV nothing really changes. you could perhaps implement it in an opt-in beta or one of your frogboy special builds and let players try it out. if it doesn't work, you can still go for a more complicated solution.

Have your AI actively update a table that contains ALL units' pathing coordinates, and pass this to MoveUnitsforPlayer(): checking for combat interceptions before enacting.  The amount of the table that needs to be passed/checked could be limited by adding a relative location threshold equivalent to the highest possible movement range, and/or by organizing the table cartographically.

However, I don't know what parts of your AI are actively computed during the player's turn, and which are relegated to the clicking of the Turn button, so consequentially I'm not sure how processor/time-consuming or feasible this notion is.

Edit:

If the monsters and denizens of the wildlands are the only "faction" that determine combat scenarios by a sort of collision detection, then just have them go first.  That is.. assuming all the other AI factions compute proximities and plan out combat scenarios.  If so, my notion above is null and void; monsters first.

Thank you Frogboy!!! One of our number one gripes! Monsters moving first is a great start to fixing this!

older

still

Just for the sake of argument; the monsters and the ai need a plan before the turn ends.  If their turn ends in the same square 'presto'.  it's al' dente'

That's pretty good idea cardinal, that would force me to stop lots of my chessy tactics cuz I exploited that the monsters only can move one tile a turn. Definitely will make me lose few armies

Even that wolf army is a threat is I get wounded decently by darklings early in the game.

Cuz i do this alot, burn all movement next to monster. Then Pass to next turn so that i have all movement again, and proceed to attack that monster lair and then retreat. Monsters cannot retaliate anymore. Especially if the trolls was next to darklings.

And the problem about AI getting all the powerful monsters at their starting places.. is quite actually easy to solve problem.

Just make the map bigger. That's all. Atm, Huge map of FE:LH is like 1/10th the size of Huge maps for Civ5 by default..

Then you can finally give AI starting places weaker monsters too with powerful monsters deeper in and they'll get mulched less by monsters at the start.

I know what the AI felt like once, My starting place was nesting ground for Forest drakes. Seriously. I had to go everywhere with fullblown army just to ensure that forest drakes won't try to murder me until I was ready to kill them. And there was tons of pack drakes running around in my lands because of those forest drakes spawning them. My first village was just six tiles away from a forest drake's nest, or was it 12.. ach, been like a month since i finished that map. But it was the map where I learned that Boar spears is good weapon.

As it is at the moment.. you're waging a war for the ownership of islands, a island that somehow have lot of varied terrain, magic ftw.

I've complained about, er, commented on the simultaneous move system on and off over the years. I know it's not possible to change (heck, probably hasn't been since WoM was even a month into development), but I'm really not sure the late-game turn-time trade-off was worth it (putting aside multiplayer) (this is said having spent a decent chunk of my life waiting for Civ5 turns to end). I also find it sometimes produces a confusing results when three (let alone four+) players are all acting around the same area.

I am somewhat curious what Frogboy/Kael/etc think about it, in retrospect. I'd guess that the turn-time savings are significant and my complaints are relatively minor. I wonder what GalCiv 3 will use?

Monsters move first solves the most obvious problem of monsters missing the AI, but the underlying problem still exists and will be visible with the AI struggling to target each others armies.

It would still be a worthwhile improvement though.