Casting certain spells

[onomastikon]

I see some of my mages cast "death cloud" on a group of clockwork horrors and constructs -- does stuff like death cloud etc. also work on "lifeless" beings?

I also notice my bards casting "protection" long after my pretender cast "mass protection" -- do these effects stack?

What about "healing mists" and "soothing songs"?

(Or is this an AI problem?)

thank you

[Arryn]

AI problems. I have seen my pretender cast Body Ethereal six consecutive times, despite having a very nice choice of other spells that it could have cast instead.

[Strages Sanctus]

The spell casting AI really bothers me.

We need a longer spell casting command list. Or a spell grouping of:
CAST THESE --- DO NOT CAST THESE

It is ridiculous, I have a pretender that basically goes into battle alone and takes out 250+ armies without breaking a sweat. The only time she has died has been to her casting magma eruption at such a close range she hurts herself, this drops her mistform, which instead of casting again, she casts magma eruption again to kill 3 or 4 useless enemy militia standing next to her. This process basically means she commits suicide when she could instead be casting much better spells.

It actually turned me off the game when this happened and I have been enjoying it immensely.

[ January 20, 2004, 15:43: Message edited by: Strages Sanctus ]

[Windreaper]

I've been pestering the devs for this feature all the way back from Dom1. The devs however feel that it contributes to the unpredictability of the battles and thus don't want to give us _too_ much control (magic being powerful enough as it is). You can still get pretty good results by scripting the first 5 spells. Odds are that by the time 5 rounds have passed the spell AI won't be casting any silly spells since the enemy is rather close by then.

[Taqwus]

Protection does not stack; once Mass Protection has been cast, Barkskin / Protection are pointless unless additional units have been gained by summons, charm / enslavement etc.
I'd be happy if the spell AI would refrain from committing pointless fraticides, such as casting Breath of Winter when surrounded by hordes of non-cold-immune friendlies, or casting Protection on friendlies surrounded by heat-aura folks.

[Wauthan]

While I can respect the wish for "unpredictable battles" it should be somewhat realistic for a commander to ban certain spells from his mages.

"I don't care how cool it makes you look. You're not to, I repeat NOT TO, cast fireballs onto the oncoming infantery if our own troops are just about to engage in melee with them! Do you think those units grow on trees, mr fancypants!? You so you know it, this will be coming out of YOUR paycheck!"

"But go-od! All the other mages do it too!"

"Not when I'm in charge they don't! Don't make me throw you into the researchpit of doom!"

"I'll be good! I'll be good!"