Gothic 3 Anyone tried this? - An AI experiment

I was playing last night, roaming the Cape Dun area (I'm still not very far into the game) and I had the Orc Mercenary Cyrus by my side. (Or rather, he was trailing significantly behind seeing as how my running skills are par none)... Now we all know that the Orcs and their Mercenaries want nothing more than to find the Rebel hideout and dispose of them post-haste. So I was wondering....

What would happen if I led Cyrus the merc straight into the confines of Reddock? Would the rebels attack and kill him? Would he crap himself with excitement and run back to tell the Orcs? Or would nothing seem amiss, the nameless hero saying something to the effect of "He's with me, he's cool," with no further adieu?

Anyway, don't get excited, I didn't actually try this, just because re-loading times are excruciatingly slow. I'm sure it would have turned out in a way I didn't like and would have to re-load. But has anyone else tried this or something like it? What happened?.....

Well, I would think you should have tried it. It would be nice to see what actually happens.

Danicek said:

Well, I would think you should have tried it. It would be nice to see what actually happens.

Click to expand...

It happens NOTHING...one point that G3 lacks in comparison to G1+2....if poeple are in your group, they are assisting you and are only attacked if the NPCs hate YOU. And they help you whatever will come...if you attack an orc mercenary they will help you, if you attack an orc while an orc is running with you he will help you. And the worst I discovered is that you can wear all armors you want...run with a rebels armor into a horde of orcs or through the orc-captured citys...no one cares
I'm really missing this...was a good idea with armor = faction.

Greetings


Edit: But NEVER think about telling (for example a rebel) to >go back now< while you are in a town full of orks - unless you want to see him die very quickly

if the person 'trusts' you enough to go with you they maybe they 'trust' your actions as well. its not like you can just do this with anyone, unless you count the master dominate spell. also i'm not sure if the orc mercenaries want to see all the rebels dead afterall they are still human, they are aligning themselves with the orcs because they want power, or money, or not to be a slave. im sure in many regards they sympathize with the rebels. i mean if the mercenaries really wanted the rebel hideouts wiped out they would probably be able to find them since it is their homeland afterall. thats why it takes a 'hero' to do the exterminating. i think they are simply trying to 'milk' the situation for as long as possible and not finishing off the rebels would accomplish this. the rebels are a nuisance for the most part to them and if they encounter them they would probably kill them, but the benifits of risking there own necks against a whole base of rebels is not very mercenary like. have you tried taking a rebel into an orc camp, or a nomad into a hashishin city? that would seem more realistic for them to attack since they are occupying their homes and harbor much hatred towards the occupiers. but again if they don't, maybe its because they don't want to 'blow your cover' and are waiting for your signal, a mechanic that is somewhat realistic throughout the game.

Thank you Curious. Once again you have used your creative reasoning power to find perfectly logical explanations for badly designed AI and make it compatible with the game world. I like your style!

The armour thing actually makes sense to some extent, or the orcs would have slaughtered a certain paladin in Trelis long ago. All kind of rabble run about in old royalist outfits in the wake of the fall of Myrtana... Some of the non-rebel armours that require a high reputation could reasonably trigger bad reactions (a druid-lover is very unlikely to ever defect to the orcs, and an elite hashishin might be unlikely to collaborate with the nomads), but it would be very unbalancing, particularly as the paladin armour already is the strongest in the game in some sense.

Some thoughts that unfortunately are very unlikely to get into the game:

Maybe a lower tolerance to theft, murder, and the like when dealing people walking around in suspect armour could be introduced? It could make sense along the lines of "that dirty rebel lover probably stole those cups from my warehouse, but the respectable elite mercenary would be unlikely to do so"...

Bringing strange NPCs into an opposing factions settlements should at the very least trigger odd comments, and depending on the guile of the NPC possibly trigger hostility.

With the Rebell from Reddok (don't know his name) I have been in Cape Dun, with the Orc from Silden I went to Okara and the Rebells outside Silden...maybe I had some others in "wrong" cities too...up to level 60 i had all the time an npc in my group....loved to let them get attacked and shoot with my bow or attack from side/behind
Hmm yes maybe there could have been problems with the armors, but as far as I know no one who's not a Rebel would take a Rebelsarmor into an Orctown
And with Hashishinarmors running into a Nomads or Rebell camp...tzz

About Paladin/Firemage armors: I thought they should be "neutral", because they both have no powers left and most of them are no danger for anyone..

Yeah, that's one thing I didn't get about this game. It seems like the autonomy section of an NPC's brain shuts off when they join you in a quest, alliance and self preservation fly out the window. Orcs fighting Orcs and weak NPCs running right into the middle of a pack of animals are a few good examples. To contrast with that take the fact that an Orc I never met half way across the map will stop me on sight if I have liberated the requisite amount of towns. Some Orcs are dumb enough to help me stomp some of their own whereas other telepathic Orcs are clairvoyant and can tell that I just liberated a town or stole something. The lemming like AI didn't bother me so much as the clairvoyant AI did. The Gotha thief issue was a capital offender in this regard.

Do you remember city people comments in Fallout when you pass by in Power Armor? After Fallout I've never seen so detailed world... With dozens of reactions to you, your opponents and so on...
Anyway, I love Gothic - it has its own brilliancies.

But! When the NPC companion cannot pass some "invisible line" in the world and begins to circumvent the mountain to get to you or he is just lost in the wilderness and I have to search for him! This really makes me angry. NPC companions are more like fun, not like real help and such bugs destroy the fun. It is more easy to move the world alone, because you can run away from horde of monsters, and NPC ompanion is not smart enough to see that you are running for your life and accompany you.