Aaargh the AI!

[Hullu]

A little story to make you laugh, or cry. I had the most annoying AI annoyance ever yesterday in a SP game.

I was playing EA Ulm, had lucky to have got two heroes quite early in the game, the H3 shaman and the Son of steel. Then comes a big battle in an enemy capital. In one square, I had my prophet (a hero with nice gear and all), my main thug (Son of Steel with some nice gear) and one antlered shaman.

Prophet was scripted to cast divine blessing and fanaticism. The shaman was scripted to 'cast spells'. And the thuggie was scripted to hold thrice, then charge. I had around 150 other units around, melees 'hold and attack' and archers various fire orders. Included in the soup was a w9 bless.

Now, would you ever imagine what happens? Battle begins. My prophet casts divine blessing, yay, that went well.

Next comes the turn of the shaman... GUESS WHAT this brilliant guy comes up with? A N2 spell. Yep... nothing more, nothing less. BERSERK. Well, nothing wrong with that, it's an ok spell. Guess who he casts it on? Yep, you guessed right, on these same three commanders, who with the w9 bless can start running the very same turn!

Now imagine my horror when I see my two most valued commanders charging right through the lines of my sacred troops into countless of enemy light and heavy infantries. I also was lucky enough to NOT have any extra commanders aboard, since they had all died (I was deep inside enemy lines).

The end result? The son of steel thug actually gave up a nice performance, he being the only one geared up for melee. He probably cost the lives of a dozen or so enemy infantry and actually lived long enuogh that my steel warriors carved through the enemy army up to him. But, he fell, last of the three commanders. Sending my over 50 w9 blessed steel warriors routing - with no province to flee to. Also there were around 50-100 of those warrior maidens (or whatever those better EA archer types are).

... I was so pissed off I just had to quit that game

[Patriot]

Yes, I've noticed that too, where unscripted Nature mages start spamming Berserk on troops or more than likely himself and start charging. Unscripted mages also seem to spam self-protection spells and then do nothing since they are overly fatigued. Unscripted in this case, would mean like individual spells.

It's a bummer for your game though, but don't give up. I'm more than sure that you can beat the AI. But, maybe a new game would be better.

[Cainehill]

Heh. Whereas in Dom2, mages wouldn't cast Berserk on themselves, even when you scripted it explicitly for that (to send a solo SC over-the-top for melee).

[Ironhawk]

Moral of the Story:

Always have a retreat province, even when you think you are going to win.

[Arralen]

In Dominions, you normally get what you deserve:

" ... a big battle in an enemy capital. In one square, I had my prophet (a hero with nice gear and all), my main thug (Son of Steel with some nice gear) and one antlered shaman. ... my two most valued commanders ..."

This begs for punishment - and usually the RNG finds the most annoying way to hand it out, as you just noticed

- you're storming a castle: expect lots of slingshots, arrows or even ballista shots from the defending towers. Any missile landing in the commanders' square would have little choice but to hit them - with 3 size2 units all slots are filled.

- any area effect spell would be guaranteed to effect all of them. Thats true for berserkers, but also for some bolt spells (Fireball etc).

- any melee attack (flyers etc) into the square would be guaranteed to target one of your valuable commanders as well

- obviously, you hadn't given them even ONE lousy bodyguard. While 1 soldier wouldn't help much if the quickened commander charges into enemy ranks, they would keep the commanders from bunching up too much.

- there are not many N2 battle spells. Do not let a N2 mage sit in the back of an army without explicit orders what to do. His first spell should be "eagle eyes", btw. .. "berserkers" is only prec0 and range 1 .. therefore can only hit the neighbouring squares .. or the caster himself.


Maybe "berserkers" should be altered to have range of 2-3 to make it 'easier' for spellcasters not to accidently hit themselves when they try to boost their neighbouring soldiers battle morale

[Hullu]

I _KNOW_ I made fatal mistakes.

But still it doesn't remove the fact that the combat AI was surprisingly stupid I really didn't know whether to cry or laugh when I saw what happened

[PDF]

At least you've learnt some tricks :
- Never let mages "cast spells", script them !
- Never stack commanders on the same square, unless you really want AoE1 scripted effects (such as Body Ethereal)
- Never fight without "dummy" extra commanders to prevent routs
- Never fight with no retreat route

Better luck next time !