So I Edited the Freeplay Config Files and Had to Disperse Massive Demonstrations, Twas Epic

[RaftermanNZ]

The video has two attempts at dispersing the demonstrations. The first failed because of a misclick, however the second attempt was a wild success and lately I've learned the trick to arresting the guy with the sign without agitating the crowd. After that, the crowd was easy to disperse! Cool stuff! Who knew EM4 could have a reasonable depiction of crowd physics?

 

 

 

Edited July 2, 2020 by RaftermanNZ
clarification

[itchboy]

This is how I've handled protests in the game for about a decade now.

I wish more people caught onto the idea that you could sneakily do this, throw a flashbang to distract the AI, and then arrest the sign person while still keeping the crowd back.

I have recently made "flowcharts" or plans to simulate more realistic protests, where instead of arresting people, the aim is to push them out of a specific area and arrests are optional. I have no idea how this can be accomplished though.

[RaftermanNZ]

1 hour ago, itchboy said:

This is how I've handled protests in the game for about a decade now.

I wish more people caught onto the idea that you could sneakily do this, throw a flashbang to distract the AI, and then arrest the sign person while still keeping the crowd back.

I have recently made "flowcharts" or plans to simulate more realistic protests, where instead of arresting people, the aim is to push them out of a specific area and arrests are optional. I have no idea how this can be accomplished though.

Certainly! 

The flashbangs would work too, I just wish they were a tad more effective, but I found that if you overwhelm the man with the sign and quickly deal with him somewhat isolated from the crowd using 6-10 officers, it apparently doesn't trigger the aggressiveness in the other AI. Only when it turns into a drawn out struggle does the crowd go nuts.

 

Which I think it's to the credit of the devs on the vanilla side, the AI behavior is actually pretty interesting. 

 

I guess the main bummer here is after you arrest the man with the sign, the crowd lingers. I'm not sure if it expects you to arrest everyone marked as a demonstrator or not because after arresting the man with the sign, the callout is cleared successful. Some are just bystander AI at that point so as long as you get them off the street, it's all good. I'm certain it might clean itself up if you focus on another area of the map, but this I haven't tried since during the sessions as I only enable the one callout. I have arrested multiple protesters using the surround and overwhelm method and still managed to keep the crowd from going agro. 

Super fun to do, I might do another video and let the crowd grow as big as they can get. Though, the danger there is that I recall that years ago I hit a limit where the AI just completely freezes and stops responding, not sure where that limit is or if it's related to computer power since the last time I did this I had a quarter of the power I do now.

[Irv962]

What did you change in the program setting to get all of the AI got to the demonstration scene? Looks supper awesome and would love to add to my own game!!! 

 

<EFPRowdy>
            <Enabled value = "1" />
            <!-- AverageFrequency: average number of events per 10 minutes -->
            <AverageFrequency value = "1.0" />
            <!-- Resistance against energy -->
            <Resistance value = "1000.0" />
            <!-- MaxDistance: in meter (max. distance between committer and victim) -->
            <MaxDistance value = "25.0" />
            <Worth value = "10.0" />
            <SupervisorStart value = "ID_SUPERV_EVENT10" />
            <SupervisorFinish value = "" />
        </EFPRowdy>

[RaftermanNZ]

Here's my settings. I also just copy them over from the specs from mod to mod.

I think Rowdy is different from demonstration, so you'll need to change demonstration instead. Rowdy I think is pretty limited.

Do note that I set the max molotov cocktail time super high, that's that's because they go nuts with the firebombs and ends up messing things up. In the future I might try shorter intervals. Depending on your computer power, I would recommend changing the attract radius, max distance, and max demonstrants. If you try to block off demonstrators within that radius from the center of the demonstration, they'll pool around your cordon too. After a while it gets quite messy and I don't know if the pedestrians ever truly go away after resolving the protest.

Finally, I disabled all the rest of the callouts, except for fall victim. For whatever reason even if I've disabled that one, it seems to always want a second callout in the lineup. Not sure why. I also give myself crazy amounts of money because manpower is expensive. lol

<!-- DG -->
        <EFPDemonstration>
            <Enabled value = "1" />
            <!-- AverageFrequency: average number of events per 10 minutes -->
            <AverageFrequency value = "3.0" />
            <!-- MaxDistance: in meter (max. distance between committer and victim) -->
            <MaxDistance value = "400.0" />
            <MaxAttractRadius value = "350.0" />
            <MaxDemonstrants value = "1000" />
            <MaxMolCockTime value = "300000.0" />
            <CalmDownTime value = "60.0" />
            <Worth value = "10.0" />
            <SupervisorStart value = "ID_SUPERV_EVENT11" />
            <SupervisorFinish value = "" />
        </EFPDemonstration>

[Irv962]

1 hour ago, RaftermanNZ said:

Here's my settings. I also just copy them over from the specs from mod to mod.

I think Rowdy is different from demonstration, so you'll need to change demonstration instead. Rowdy I think is pretty limited.

Do note that I set the max molotov cocktail time super high, that's that's because they go nuts with the firebombs and ends up messing things up. In the future I might try shorter intervals. Depending on your computer power, I would recommend changing the attract radius, max distance, and max demonstrants. If you try to block off demonstrators within that radius from the center of the demonstration, they'll pool around your cordon too. After a while it gets quite messy and I don't know if the pedestrians ever truly go away after resolving the protest.

Finally, I disabled all the rest of the callouts, except for fall victim. For whatever reason even if I've disabled that one, it seems to always want a second callout in the lineup. Not sure why. I also give myself crazy amounts of money because manpower is expensive. lol

<!-- DG -->
        <EFPDemonstration>
            <Enabled value = "1" />
            <!-- AverageFrequency: average number of events per 10 minutes -->
            <AverageFrequency value = "3.0" />
            <!-- MaxDistance: in meter (max. distance between committer and victim) -->
            <MaxDistance value = "400.0" />
            <MaxAttractRadius value = "350.0" />
            <MaxDemonstrants value = "1000" />
            <MaxMolCockTime value = "300000.0" />
            <CalmDownTime value = "60.0" />
            <Worth value = "10.0" />
            <SupervisorStart value = "ID_SUPERV_EVENT11" />
            <SupervisorFinish value = "" />
        </EFPDemonstration>

Thank you for sharing!! Your video looked awesome and I really wanted to add this to my game. Sorry I copy the wrong file, I meant to put demonstration not rowdy lol. I'll play around with it and see what fun I can have. Thank you again for sharing!!!   

[RaftermanNZ]

On 7/7/2020 at 3:19 PM, Irv962 said:

Thank you for sharing!! Your video looked awesome and I really wanted to add this to my game. Sorry I copy the wrong file, I meant to put demonstration not rowdy lol. I'll play around with it and see what fun I can have. Thank you again for sharing!!!   

Have fun!

[maxxmike1234]

May I ask what mod was used during the first attempt? 
( The one in the thumbnail )

[Irv962]

15 hours ago, maxxmike1234 said:

May I ask what mod was used during the first attempt? 
( The one in the thumbnail )

I think LA Mod was used

[CanadianFrog]

17 hours ago, maxxmike1234 said:

May I ask what mod was used during the first attempt? 
( The one in the thumbnail )

The mod is Northview South County