I love the new range upgrades added to the Heavy Gunner, but in order to get him in my tavern he is a bit too cumbersome. Taking up 5 spots is a bit drastic for a troop. What if a tavern limit was placed on him, but in turn his tavern space was reduced to 4 spots instead? I think this would serve as an effective and practical change.
He is also quite dumb, mine spends a lot of time trying to break walls while there is a wall opening two spot over!
I used them even without the Academy lvl 6 upgrades and love to implement them when I want a change. And certainly with the new upgrades: a range of 7(!!) and even more damage I think 5 tavern spots is just right for him.
I haven't maxed him yet, but there are a few things that make him a liability. Retains targeting of already destroyed buildings: he will continue to advance and attack the ruins until he finally reaches his intended attack range. Not a wall breaker, but wants to be: this bugger chooses to attack walls instead of just walking around them with the rest of the army. Even juggs would walk around, but this fella thinks he is faster blasting through lvl 9 walls. (He isn't) often resulting in him being left behind mid-battle or early battle.
Is it possible he does this because he is slower then juggernauts? (Haven't checked the stats) And so he chooses to be lazy and shoot walls instead of walking to the already made breach?
Agreed about the awkward AI of heavy gunners. I love how he is able to shoot at his target long before actually reaching his intended range (up to 8 grids away unlike gunners, even when their ranges were both +5) but he annoys me when he keeps shooting at the ruins I can't wait to try him out with his new maxed +7 range and see how early he would start shooting while approaching his target, but would also prefer him taking up less tavern slots and a better AI
I want to bring these points back up. The HG AI is very debilitating because despite its long range, it also moves and shoots towards already destroyed buildings, meaning it leaves itself very vulnerable. Secondly, he keeps trying to break walls instead of strafing around a building to destroy something. When he is trying to break a lvl 11 wall, he's pretty much out of the fight at that point. As a general AI change, can you have the unit recalculate what its best target is periodically when hitting walls? Ie. At the outset of a fight, when you are breaking into main walls, bomber sees target X on the other side of a wall so it attacks the wall. Target X is destroyed by other units, and bomber does a recalculation. If there are more targets on the other side, it continues its wall breaking. However, if there are no more targets on the other side, then it breaks off its attack on the wall to find other targets. (This comes up more when you've half destroyed a base and there are targets getting picked off on the outside of a base while you are on the inside)
