I ran into a number of situations where the automa behaved oddly. So here is an attempt to patch them a bit with minimal rules tweaks or clarifications. I’ll update this post as I evolve the automa changes. Hope you like them!
Last updated: Sep 1, 2024
General
- Goals: for each automa, one of the goals must match its dominant unit type (barbarian = nomad, cultist = monetary, pirate = ship, climber = mountaineer). E.g. playing a five trophy game against barbarians and cultists, the goals are nomad & momentary. Playing a five trophy game against the barbarian one is nomad and one is at random as shown on the goal card.
- Moving towards “largest region not dominated”: the automa will first figure out which is the largest region of the type it doesn’t dominate yet but still could (e.g. ignore regions with so many buildings on it that the automa can’t gain at least a tie, even if it attacks/converts some other units in the region). Only then will it check if it can reach it via a valid path (e.g. respecting cliffs, pieces in the way, land units not over water) and if so moves towards it. If not, skips the action and tries the next one. This is so the automa a) won’t waste time on regions it can’t win anymore and b) not walk toward regions that are blocked and it can’t reach.
- Dominance: A unit does not move out of a region if the region is 3+ in size and the automa would lose dominance or tie for dominance by moving the unit. In that case, skip the action and try the next action.
Barbarian (Yellow)
- Nomad/Mountaineers: a unit only considers unit types it could attack for choosing a “closest piece”. So it must be a nomad, mountaineer or merchant and there must be a valid path (not through pieces it can’t move through) to a neighboring hex that it can attack from. For nomads this means also cliffs have to be respected both for the path as well as for choosing the target hex so it can attack. This is so the unit does not just park outside an enemy city/monastery and can’t do anything there.
- Nomad’s don’t go for the largest sea region but the one with the most cities on it. If tie larger one. This is so it chooses valuable regions for building ships instead of a large region with no cities on it.
Climber (green)
- When the climber places his third mountaineer, do not award it the trophy immediately. Instead put three stones on it. After each of your moves, remove one. If the last one is removed, award it to the mountaineer as normal. If you manage to get all your three mountaineers on the board before it, remove the trophy from the game instead of awarding it to the climber. In both cases, put a card in decline as normal. This is to give the human player a chance to compete for the trophy.
Pirate (blue)
No changes needed.
Playing with Multiple Automa
- Movement through occupied hexes: other automa’s units are considered the same colour as the active automa that is moving. This is to prevent two automa accidentally blocking each other.