[Arker]

Graeme Dice said:
If you decided to believe us, then you wouldn't have just told me that you didn't believe us, and that there was still unexplained behaviour.

Like I said, learn to read. I didn't say the former, and the unexplained behaviour was explained long ago. It's still stupid but it's not unexplained.

"I don't see how you could say that with a straight face, knowing that there are several final orders that can be given, yet as discussed in this thread the AI always uses 'stay behind troops' even when it's not the order given?"

You are simply wrong when you claim that the AI uses stay behind troops when not ordered to. If you think that's what the people who understand the game are telling you, then you need to go back and re-read their posts.

Both you and Arralen have explained in detail exactly the conditions under which the AI ignores other orders and goes to 'stay behind troops' as the "default order" whether it's given or not. And your explanations, as I've said already, match my observations. Perhaps you should do some re-reading, or chug a pot of coffee, or something?

If you actually agreed that heroic quickness caused the AI glitch (which it obviously did), then you wouldn't have just told me that the AI randomly picks different orders from what you tell it to do. If you want to be believed, then perhaps you should provide a battle replay where a mage that doesn't have heroic quickness disobeys your final order.

The heroic quickness glitch explains the one instance I observed where the commander, with final order 'cast spells,' moved behind the rearmost troops and *then* cast BoW. Without it, he would cast, then move. The end result is the same. The basic problem exists with or without quickness. If you think Quickness explains more than that you certainly haven't explained what. Why on earth you're on about me needing to provide a replay to show behaviour you already explained I don't know.

The AI suffers from a chronic need to 'do something' every turn, and if there's nothing useful for it to do it will cast useless or harmful spells, and when it can't even do that it will 'stay behind troops' - exactly as you've explained, exactly as I've observed many times, exactly as anyone that's played this game very much will have seen.

A spell as common as blade wind can cause more damage to your troops than breath of winter.

Blade wind will also, in the course of a game, do tons of damage to the enemy. It's cast at the enemy, and occasionally hits friendly troops by accident. That's part of the design of the game. I don't think anyone minds that, although of course IF you go into battle with a horde of low AC troops, against heavily armoured opponents, it could become a very stupid spell to cast. And yes, it would be nice if the AI was smart enough to know that. And, in fact, the AI seems to be *almost* that smart, in that it seems to pick other, more suitable spells instead of blade wind when facing heavily armoured troops - the only obvious improvement there would be if it were smart enough to recognise the cases where it's better off casting nothing at all. In the course of a game blade wind will do a lot more damage to the enemy than your own troops, despite the occasional friendly fire casualty.

This bears only the slightest resemblance to the BoW situation, which is likely to cause friendly fire casualties AND very unlikely to cause any damage to the enemy, when cast by the AI.