Infernal Prison
 

Hello,

on my of my game, using LA Mictlan and the blood fountain as a pretender.
I have the upper hand on the game (Silent Seas), and so after getting enough army and province defense to prevent the last remaining AI to expand out of its last 6 provinces.
This is now just me testing all those spells i can never research due to usually games being already over.

As i wanted to test my best mages and commanders with their very good items against the horrors, i decided to cast Astral Corruption, according to the manual once the enchantment is created, any non-Blood spell has a chance to have a Horror attacking the caster (depending on the amount of gems used by such spell).

So as my immobile but "maxed out" Blood Fontain that was just teleported in an empty province with a lab and its demons guards were wanting a challenge, i decided to get the fountain to cast a big non-Blood enchantment.

And it attracted the Slave of Unreason, at first i was impressed by its stats as i never saw it ingame yet.
But in the 1st turn of the battle, my pretender (just scripted to "Cast Spell" , nothing specific) used Infernal Prison and sent this monster in inferno.

Ok, after looking at the spell description in the manual, i understood that it was really something powerfull as the target can't defend itself from this spell.

Good to know, as few turns after this, the Slave of Unreason decided to appear again (i suppose it used the "small chance" the manual say the infernal prisonner have to escape the prison http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) in my home province and besieged by castle.

Unfortunately, after i teleported back the Blood Fountain to this castle, i noticed that the pretender was unable to use the "Break Siege" option, of course as it is an immobile pretender.
But the Slave of Unreason was totally unable to harm my walls, so i empowered my tartarian titan that was far way (it was my current prophet) in blood magic enough to be able to cast this Infernal Prison impressive spell, and as it had already some unique powerfull items already it was certainly the second most powerfull unit from my nation after the fountain.

To be sure the titan would not decide to waste the blood slaves i assigned to it in casting useless spell, i scripted it to cast a specific spell "Infernal Prison" , then "cast spells".

So after sending this prophet to attack the Slave of Unreason, i noticed the turn calculation creating a battle of 70 turns ( !!!!)
And as a result the Slave of Unreason was always besieging the castle ( ? )

So i viewed the battle, all the 70 turns , and noticed that the 1st spell the titan launched was a Fire Shield, then he decided to cast all the spells he could that would NOT damage the Slave of Unreason, avoiding the (i think) good other spells he could have launched against this horror.

The Slave of Unreason was unable to get any serious hits (good items really help) too , and the battle finished by my Titan actually running away despite no side was really in position to do anything to each other (the Slave of Unreason is immobile).

Next turn, as my titan was totally healed his small chest affliction (Calice is nice) that i did not noticed during th battle, i gave it more blood slaves and went to the home province again.

This time, after a 56 turns battle, the titan again NEVER using the Infernal Prison or any usefull spells ran away despite the Slave of Unreason never hit my propeht either, this time he died as he certainly ran away in water province.

So anyone has an idea abut what exactly i was doing wrong in that case , as i really don't understand why the Titan ignored the script everytime ?

Re: Infernal Prison
 

You weren't doing anything wrong, as long as you gave the Titan blood slaves. The AI just decided that it was smarter than your script.

Re: Infernal Prison
 

Did the titan have B3F1? Were you under water? Plenty of blood slaves?

Re: Infernal Prison
 

oh yeah... how'd he flee to a water province? That's wierd in itself.

Re: Infernal Prison
 

Are you sure you was in range? The 2 Prison spells have both a range of 30. If both commanders are set in the center the range is a little more than 30. I would assume the horror attacked you directly (so he was in range) but maybe he didn't.

Re: Infernal Prison
 

Is there a way to force a script over those AI think it is smater situations ?

As my pretender that used Infernal Prison to get easily rid of the Slave of Unreason was scripted just to "Cast Spell" , i wonder why, despite the Titan ignored the scripted "Infernal Prison", he never used the "Infernal Prison" by itself, as the second order in its script was to "Cast Spell".

I just notice in the manual that the range is 30 , i begin to wonder if it is possible the distance between the Titan and the Horror was just a bit more than 30.

I don't remember exactly where i placed the Titan on the army setup though.
I think it was to the bottom, as before i used this prophet to trample "rearmost" enemy, adding more distance i guess, but as i never played with the grid, is "30" a long or average range ?

My besieged castle was on the coast.
As in the end of the 59 turns battle he was running away, without any damage, and despite i was owning every nearby province, he was nowhere to be seen, so i "think" he decided to run away in one of the nearby water province.
As i don't see how it could have died otherwise ?

EDIT
Thanks , so that must be the explanation , as i began to wonder.

Re: Infernal Prison
 

Just look at the battle display and press P for pause and G for grid, then you can count how many squares are in-between. If you are distracted by the terrain then you can press W instead of G, too.

Re: Infernal Prison
 

A land based unit should never flee into water. I hope.

Re: Infernal Prison
 

the water thing is weird.

but yeah, script him to attack one turn a couple of times to get him in range, then throw the infernal prison.

Re: Infernal Prison
 

The tartarian creatures are all poor amphibians so they can enter the sea and thus also retreat into sea provinces.