Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

I have a mage scripted to cast Wind ride on an enemy capitol. I have two Skrattis, one blood 2 and one blood 3, each with 3 blood slaves on patrol in the same province, and one has a Spell focus on him. Whatever I do, I cannot get them to cast Hellbind heart on the commander that arrives. I've tried this at least 20 times now, with various combinations such as attack/attack/HH, attack/HH/HH, attack/attack/hold/HH, etc., but they just don't want to cast the damn spell and cast idiocies such as body ethereal, BoW and similar instead. Not even once have they cast HH in all those trials, even though they were almost next to the enemy commander. So, what gives?

How I sometimes wish that we have direct control over battles... Or at the very least that the AI doesn't abandon script if we haven't. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

On a related note, do blood slaves have to be in an immediate vicinity of the caster for him to be able to cast combat blood magic, or can they be anywhere in the battlefield for him to use them? That's why I had casters on hold in some combinations, so that they can catch up with the Skrattis.

Thanks for the info that will end this frustration.

Cheers,

[ June 22, 2004, 03:33: Message edited by: HJ ]

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

This should have worked...you had enough Blood Slaves, and Hellbind Heart is range-30, easily enough to reach most enemies if you're kissing the front wall in your battle setup.

What kind of commanders were you pulling in?

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

Thanks for the reply. Yes, the Skrattis are in the front row. I tried with 5 slaves now, and they still won't do it. I'm pulling in regular commanders, astrologers, mystics and Orokestes the Arco hero.

The only other thing I can think of is that I have a drain 3 dominion. But even so, the guy with blood 3 and 5 slaves should be able to cast it without problems.

Really annoying.

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

Are they holding the blood slaves personally, or are you using mules in the back? Are there any "stray" mages consuming the blood slaves before your Skrattis can use them? It seems like you have a reasonable setup that SHOULD work....unless.....aha!

I see the problem.

The problem is that the mages are being too smart for their own good: They're not casting because Hellbind Heart requires gems to cast....and a lone enemy commander is, apparently, unworthy of having gems wasted on him. So your mages refuse to cast the spell.

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

They have all the slaves in their gembox, and the only thing that's consuming them is their Breath of Winter... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">So, in order for it to ever work, I would have to have pure blood mages? I mean, all battle blood magic requires "gems", and if they know any other path they'll always have something else to cast.

As I said, if we cannot have full control over battles, at least the AI shouldn't pretend to be smart and abandon scripts when they are doable.

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

I think they'd still abandon the script if they think it's too excessive. They'd probably end up casting Bleed or Agony or something stupid like that...

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

This topic sounds like another reason for gamers to have a way of disabling spells for commanders. Hopefully we'll see this added into dominions_3.

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">So, in order for it to ever work, I would have to have pure blood mages? I mean, all battle blood magic requires "gems", and if they know any other path they'll always have something else to cast.

As I said, if we cannot have full control over battles, at least the AI shouldn't pretend to be smart and abandon scripts when they are doable. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">People used to complain when AI didn't abandon scripts and wasted gems in underwhelming forces. Before the script override you could teleport in a single commander before you walked in a separeate army, thus depleting all the gems of the spellcasters before the main force arrive. This was a complaint from dom 1 that was remedied for dom 2.

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

My favorite tactic (WindRide and HellBind Heart). Although I havent tried it since the patch.

I tend to use it with Pangaea. So is this where giants might consider it more effective to just smash, and Pans might consider it better to cast?

Maybe if the giants were given restricting items. A weapon which does 2 damage. Or one that does sleep.

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">With Pangaea you can still use Charm, since it doesn't cost gems. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Does this mean that _no_ lone commander, including SCs - pretenders, ice devils, etc - will be attacked with spells that require gems?

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What province are you operating from? Your capital? Could it be that PD (if capital and still in original shape, 25 or more) were considered an army big enough backing up your mages not to warrant them casting slave-using spells? If so, would the outcome be different in a province with little or no PD?

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I understand, but blood is specific in that it (almost) always requires "gems" to cast it. This kind of puts it at a disadvantage, since something like HH is not exactly Army of Lead to be considered a waste of gems. I don't know how plausible it would be to make the AI consider low level blood spells just like any other that don't require gems (something like low path requirement or the ones that only require 1 slave to be cast with respect to caster's level), but it would alleviate the problem in this case.

Yes, it was the capitol, so I guess the 25 PD is considered an overwhelming force. I might try it later with a single Skratti somwhere without any PD, but it might be that a regular commander still won't look too impressive in comparison to him.

Thanks to all for the replies.

Cheers,

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

Yes I usually setup a lab with no defense away from my capital for that tactic. A Garnet Amazon province works well. Whats fun is collecting mutliple prophets from everyone.

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I understand, but blood is specific in that it (almost) always requires "gems" to cast it. This kind of puts it at a disadvantage, since something like HH is not exactly Army of Lead to be considered a waste of gems. I don't know how plausible it would be to make the AI consider low level blood spells just like any other that don't require gems (something like low path requirement or the ones that only require 1 slave to be cast with respect to caster's level), but it would alleviate the problem in this case.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Seems like _something_ like that needs to be done, since there's only about ... one(?) blood spell that doesn't require slaves for casting.

I'm still curious about whether or not _all_ spells that require gems won't be cast, if it's only a commander coming in. If so, then things are (imo) rather screwed, because you can't use your heavy artillery spells against super combatants if they come in alone.

For instance - no casting Storm to keep a VQ or other SC from flying about, which means no casting Summon Storm Power. No casting Wind Guide to help your crossbowmen hit the SC, etc.

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think that most SCs are actually sufficiently heavyweight by themselves to trip the gem usage switch. I've seen gem-usage spells being used against single SCs.

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

I don't think it's necessarily a problem with the "is this a serious threat?" evaluation, or with blood spells needing to be more liberal with blood (they already seem very eager to kill all their blood slaves, and I don't want that to happen when an enemy sends one silly unit against my army).

The real issue would seem to be that Hellbind Heart should be an exception to the gem use override, because you don't just want to win - you want to capture.

PvK

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

A "spell casting AI override on/off" switch in the orders menu would be nice, though I have no idea how much work something like that would entail.

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

Bump.

I'm wondering if this was remedied in 2.13, or if it will be in 2.14? Hellbind Heart (and a very few other spells) the AI shouldn't override just because it's "smarter".

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

What would happen if a mage inside a castle used Wind Ride on an enemy? Would the enemy end up fighting the PD and patrollers or would he be storming the castle?

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

I've done it in my current game... the enemy shows up outside the castle, so you better have your welcoming committee on patrol.

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

That's an inefficient way of doing things. Efficient way is to wait until enemy A sieges you and then cast Wind Ride on enemy B's VQ http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

oooo, nasty! I like. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

...other than Wind Ride generally not working on ethereals such as VQs.

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

I like the AI abandoning stupid scripts. I recently had a large number of troops and mages, with the mages scripted to cast nether darts, expecting to go up against a large tien chi army of national troops. Instead, a Machaka Arch Devil shows up. So, instead of annihilating my own troops with nether darts, my wonderfull mages decided to cast decay instead, while the undead slaughtered him http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

Is it a low probability or is it never working?

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

It seems to be impossible: I cast fifteen Wind Rides on an Ethereal Friar, and all the wind rides "failed to get any hold on the Ethereal commander".

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

It has worked on prophets though. Thats fun. But I think I would only do the "throw B's commanders at player A's seiging army" only if B had a large army coming at me also. Especially fun if they are allies. MUHAHAHahhahahahahaha! Damaging 2 armys with one spell!

Thats an interesting use of Wind Ride. I would still prefer the Hellbind Heart (or some other binding/charming) aspect of my tactic because I love the "gifts" feel of it. I rush to check each turn and see what I got. What useful commander, what gems or equipment did he have on him, how can I use him in my armies. And its a great way to break up enemy armies into smaller scattered ones.

Re: Wind ride & Hellbind heart
 

Wind ride is my favorite weapon for taking out enemy pretenders who qualify. Virtues are particularly vulnerable *waves at Cohen*, as well as liches. But then again, what are liches not particularly vulnerable to?