.com.unity Forums - Dissapointed

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Re: Dissapointed

Quote:

Originally posted by Zen:
The more prevelant and exploitive way of using the AI is against indeps (for early expansion). Their Archers/xbows/missile units are all set to fire closest. Thus you can leave a single unit with a shield in front of a mass line of archers. Most of the time if you have a decent archer brigade, the lone shield bearing lamb will surive due to the spread of arrowfire, while you incure no losses and most indeps break before they get to your line.

Another is that all normal fighting troops are on attack closest (as far as I can tell, I've never had anyone attack a flank that didn't engage them first). So you can exploit it in that fashion with spells, retreating options, etc.

I haven�t really noticed that yet. But if it is so, perhaps the Indies could be added some tactical scripting?

Re: Dissapointed

The spellbook idea, or any sort of implementation that would allow control of what spells are allowed to be cast would be great.

Also just a chime in on what Jonas said earlier. Every forum I visit is full of people that submit bugs which are really just mistakes or misunderstanding on the their part. In almost all cases I am aware of, in order to fix a bug the developer must be able to replicate it.

Just my 2 cents.

This game could be so good, and it really had me intruiged for the 2-3 weeks I have had the demo. It is so intricate and clever. But I think two things are keeping me from buying it (well besides the price). What do you think?

First, they put so much effort into developing this amazing magic system (and item system), but when it comes to battles where they are implemented, the automated AI just ruins it. Sure you can say "cast specific spell" up to five times, and although that is not always a good idea (since you dont know exactly what will be going on), it helps -- but then the computer takes over and you get your super duper pretender casting the same ridiculous (non-stacking!) spells on himself over and over until he drops from fatigue instead of doing anything different. It's a shame, because the magic system just looks so good.

And maybe this is different in the full Version, but I have had a number of bizarre bugs where my commanders will just dissapear. I don't mean die, or get discovered, or unable to retreat to a friendly province -- they are just gone without a message.

I dont see any clues about upcoming patches or even indicating that there are things that need addressing on illwinter.com or here -- that is too bad also. Or is the full Version so different?

Re: Dissapointed

Overall, the AI is very impressive, considering the huge amount of complexity in the game!

Suggested improvement for blood mages: Don't be so eager to kill all the blood slaves without a good reason. I have a Mictlani Prophet who is scripted to cast Smite five times. If we have blood slaves, though, he kills off all the slaves during the battle casting things which may be helpful, but I'd rather keep the blood slaves, especially when Smite is available for zero cost.

Similarly, conserving gems should be a factor.

I have seen multi-casting self-defense spells, but only rarely. One cause of stupid spellcasting is when the caster doesn't have many choices (low research). I'd suggest the AI should value resting higher than casting ineffective spells.

I think the body count for fire flies and stone shards is extremely low, and mostly friendly casualties rather than enemies. Missile & spell fire should be a bit less dispersed, and of course, the friendly fire risk needs to be weighed about 100 times more important than it currently is - killing your own men should be very very rare, rather than currently very common.

Probably the spellcasting AI should consider desperation - that is, compare the strength of both sides, and whether the spellcaster himself is currently at risk, and above all, whether the spell would risk own casualties, and then decide whether it makes sense to risk own units, or use gems or blood slaves, or even fatigue. (When the enemy is running away, it's probably a really bad time to massacre blood slaves to fling a badly-aimed magma bolt, etc.)

PvK

Re: Dissapointed

Quote:

Originally posted by tinkthank:
This game could be so good, and it really had me intruiged for the 2-3 weeks I have had the demo. It is so intricate and clever. But I think two things are keeping me from buying it (well besides the price). What do you think?

First, they put so much effort into developing this amazing magic system (and item system), but when it comes to battles where they are implemented, the automated AI just ruins it. Sure you can say "cast specific spell" up to five times, and although that is not always a good idea (since you dont know exactly what will be going on), it helps -- but then the computer takes over and you get your super duper pretender casting the same ridiculous (non-stacking!) spells on himself over and over until he drops from fatigue instead of doing anything different. It's a shame, because the magic system just looks so good.

And maybe this is different in the full Version, but I have had a number of bizarre bugs where my commanders will just dissapear. I don't mean die, or get discovered, or unable to retreat to a friendly province -- they are just gone without a message.

I dont see any clues about upcoming patches or even indicating that there are things that need addressing on illwinter.com or here -- that is too bad also. Or is the full Version so different?

As far as I know you are the first person complaining about the computer casting the same non stackable spell on himself over and over again, so I am a little curious what spell he was casting.

On your second part, under what circmustances did this transpire? Was it commanders dissappearing after a battle? Or when they were home researching?

Re: Dissapointed

One thing I would like to see is that if a blood mage has slaves, and is near 100 fatigue, that they would be more likely to cast reinvigoration. This should be made even more likely if the mage is a sabbath master/slave and the slaves/masters have high fatigue levels. Of course, this might make the spell too useful, but as it stands, the mages seem to ignore it if not scripted, and fatigue themselves casting an extra summon imp instead of imp/reinvig/imp/reinvig, etc.

Re: Dissapointed

Quote:

Originally posted by PvK:

Similarly, conserving gems should be a factor.

Agree. The Mages should think twice before they waste my valuable gems.

Quote:

Originally posted by PvK:

Missile & spell fire should be a bit less dispersed, and of course, the friendly fire risk needs to be weighed about 100 times more important than it currently is - killing your own men should be very very rare, rather than currently very common.

Disagree. Heavy losses due to friendly fire are rare in my games, and in the few cases when they do happen, they are plausible.

Re: Dissapointed

A cast (no gems) command would be nice also, although the spell list elimination option other people suggested would probably fix that too.

It's a big annoyance for me when I have a weak fire mage with a huge bunch of archers, script him to cast flaming arrows and then a few other spells and during long battles he runs over his script finds he has an inventory full of fire gems and begins gleefully using them all on spells that have little or no impact. Then of course next fight starts, he has none left and the army power is halved immediately.

Re: Dissapointed

Well, the concept behind the battles (besides making PbEM games possible) is that you really do have no control over what an army or a commander does while "in the field". Sure, you can tell him ahead of time what you'd like him to do, as well as his troops, but when the chaos ensues, all hell breaks loose and things don't always go as planned. Think of it this way...in a real war, the Commander-in-Chief (U.S. President) doesn't micromanage the commanders and troops on the battlefield.

I do agree with one thing though:

Quote:

but then the computer takes over and you get your super duper pretender casting the same ridiculous (non-stacking!) spells on himself over and over until he drops from fatigue instead of doing anything different

There's nothing more annoying than fielding a powerful spellcaster with your army, only to see him sit way behind the troops casting things like "flame shield", "air shield", "bark skin", etc... on himself rather than casting offensive spells. I once saw a caster cast "flame shield" on himself throughout the entire battle. This could definitely use some work, IMO.

Re: Dissapointed

Quote:

quote:
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Originally posted by Pillin:
Top of my head request would be a way to disable available spells for combat. So that if you dont want your mage to cast the panic spell, you disable that one
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THIS WOULD BE GREAT !
I hate watching my mages cast etheral shield or fire shield when all enemy units are retreating off the field.

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AI: better usage of spells (e.g. not casting Iron Warrios on *yourself* after casting Invulnerability; not casting Barkskin four times in a row; not casting precision-boosting spells on melee friends, etc. etc.)

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- better control over spellcasting (such as dividing spells into offensive, defensive, etc., or even individual ones, and being able to exclude ones you don't want to be cast; or a longer script list, e.g.)to lessen friendly fire and unnecessary protective spell casting

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AI problems. I have seen my pretender cast Body Ethereal six consecutive times, despite having a very nice choice of other spells that it could have cast instead.

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It is ridiculous, I have a pretender that basically goes into battle alone and takes out 250+ armies without breaking a sweat. The only time she has died has been to her casting magma eruption at such a close range she hurts herself, this drops her mistform, which instead of casting again, she casts magma eruption again to kill 3 or 4 useless enemy militia standing next to her. This process basically means she commits suicide when she could instead be casting much better spells.

It actually turned me off the game when this happened and I have been enjoying it immensely.

[ January 20, 2004, 15:43: Message edited by: Strages Sanctus ]

Quote:

Protection does not stack; once Mass Protection has been cast, Barkskin / Protection are pointless unless additional units have been gained by summons, charm / enslavement etc.
I'd be happy if the spell AI would refrain from committing pointless fraticides, such as casting Breath of Winter when surrounded by hordes of non-cold-immune friendlies, or casting Protection on friendlies surrounded by heat-aura folks.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

These are just a few of what some others had written, so I cant be the first one.

I remember "Barksking" "Strength of Gaia" "Blessing" and a few other being cast over and over on myself despite lots of other nice choices.

And my commanders dissapeared after a battle -- watched the battle, waiting for them to die, but no, they survived nicely.