Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

I'm playing with the Dragons mod, it's got some F3 dragons. I had a group of them scripted for Phoenix Power, Fire Shield, Cast Spells.

This had been working quite well. They would spend a couple of rounds buffing themselves and then start dropping various nastiness on the enemy.

I had deliberately left them in a group so the attackers wouldn't spread out. They're tough enough arrow fire wasn't a big deal.

Anyway, this battle several of them cast Phoenix Pyre. I was facing an enemy pretender, he managed to nail one of those with a spell.

Given the amount of damage they had rained on the enemy (2/3 of the enemy units were already dead) my guys were of course at pretty high fatigue. The pretender's spell got through--kablooie, 80% of my army goes up in a big blast of fire!


I think this spell needs to be scripted-only! Had they done what they were supposed to I would have lost only a couple.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

Ouch, that's too bad. What nation were you playing?

There are currently no scripted-only spells AFAIK, but the alternative is modding the spell to cost a gem. I like Phoenix Pyre on my thugs too much to mod that in, though.

-Max

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

He mentioned he was playing the Dragons mod. Is Phoenix Pyre still dealing non-fire damage? I guess some of the dragons would have resisted the damage if it could be resisted.

I'm sure I've read about scripted-only spells. I'm not sure what they are right now, but I think at least Returning and Vortex of Returning are never casted randomly.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

Endoperez:

You are wrong. I had one of my mages ignore the script and cast Vortex of Returning when enemy was already routing.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

I see. It shouldn't be cast, any way, and perhaps that is what I remember reading about. I'm sure there are few other spells that the AI shouldn't cast on its own. Hell Power is another one that comes to mind.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

IMHO the self buffs should be "scripted only". Your mages losing valuable turns casting on themselves all those totally situational spells (holy avenger and fire shield in primis) useful to thugs only, are a real waste.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

Yeah, but the path booster buffs, especially earth power, should be much higher rated than they are.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

Some of the self buffs are quite good. Invulnerability, for instance. Summon Earthpower, as thejeff mentioned, is another. Depending on the nation I may even like Phoenix Pyre--it's a useful form of insurance against stray arrows.

-Max

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

Invulnerability is great, unless your enemy is using poison. And unless you could be slaughtering the enemy with blade wind instead of protecting yourself, when you're at the back of the field far from danger.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

Urg. I hate unscripted Blade Wind more than almost any other spell. An E2H2 leader of a small band of holies can be scripted to e.g. [Blessing, Blessing, Summon Earthpower, Ironskin, Hold, attack closest]. Usually 2 Blessings gets everybody, but every once in a while the first Blessing will do the job and then he casts something like: [Blessing, Ironskin, Summon Earthpower, BLADEWIND, Hold, attack closest]. "Nooooo!" I scream as he charges into battle with 90+ fatigue. Leader dies, sacreds route.

So, thugs that think they're arty mages are as frustrating as arty mages that think they're thugs. You just have to learn to work around this. (In this case, that often means scripting Invulnerability instead of Ironskin on Round 3. It gets the same job done at slightly higher fatigue cost, but the disaster scenario above can't happen.)

-Max

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

Phoenix pyre can be a very useful spell for thugs. Unfortunately the dragons aren't really the best race for using phoenix pyre as their slots are quite limited. Maybe with an earth blessed magma dragon with reinvigoration items in all slots and summon earth power.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

Reinvgoration items stack?


Besides, these guys had nothing in any slot. They (and others like them elsewhere on the map) are my primary army (I have *NO* troops whatsoever), there's no way I could be equipping each of them.

After the scripted buffs and a few rounds of attacks they're just about unconscious anyway. They're tough, though, and I scripted fire shield so anyone trying to bash them gets burnt. Most of the time a couple of rounds of falling fire causes a rout anyway.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

Reinvigoration items stack if you use multiple types of item. For example, amulet of resilience + girdle of strength will stack, amulet of resilience + amulet of resilience will not. Again, I wouldn't try it with a flame tongue, they're too vulnerable and not enough reinvigoration. But if you're going to summon a magma dragon, you could do worse than giving it an amulet of resilience + girdle of strength, script it to cast summon earthpower, phoenix pyre and fire shield.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

Your best insurance is to script what you want casted for the first five rounds. It won't guarantee the spells you don't like won't get casted, but it will decrease the chances dramatically. Most of your fatigue from spell casting is generated in those rounds. Afterword the castings become sparser.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

Watching the battles I don't see how I can script them very well--what they want to throw depends on the range to the enemy.

Had I scripted falling fires in that battle it wouldn't have worked anyway--everything close enough to be hit was dead in round 4. All his remaining units were staying around his pretender and required longer-range spells to hit.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

Fireball is an ideal long range fire spell and will carry you through until you get pillar of fire. Without seeing your battle I couldn't give you any more advice. It might be feasible to place your mages further up. A range of 25 will surprisingly cover quite a distance if your already up most of the field.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

Also fireball has an undocumented AoE-6 effect, with fatigue damage 10 + (2 x caster level), which can set units on fire.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

At long range, yes--but by the time the buffing is done there will be units closer that can be hit by the shorter-range but harder-hitting stuff.

In general, watching the battles it's falling fire the AI uses against most stuff. It only switches to fireball if everything nearby is already fried.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

Flame Eruption is also good to script. If no one is in range it will cast Falling Fires or Conflagration or something, but Flame Eruption is too good not to at least attempt. :)

-Max

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

Regardless of the fact, you shuld get into that habbit of scripting all five spells for important battles. It might not have mattered in this fight, but it might matter in the future in avoiding spells you don't like.

Re: Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!
 

I don't think they would have followed the script anyway--I couldn't have anticipated the large mass of enemies that just sat there.

Besides, going into it it looked just like many other battles. His pretender merely managed to get something through hard enough to kill instead of rout, that wasn't the only time I lost a dragon. It's just the only time my guys decided to commit mass suicide.