So how about extending the depth of the casting queue?

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Demosthenes:
I will admit to never playing Arco past Turn 10 or so; But the 3 path Machakans seem to do alright. I do hate when they cast Fire Shield/Ironskin as soon as the script runs out even though the enemy is routing and they could get another kill or three.

That's not nearly as bad as when the mages either start : casting useless spells that use gems (summoning elementals after the enemy has routed); casting spells that start frying their own troops (Breath of Winter). Nothing like a mage killing of her own bodyguards.

[Huzurdaddi]

I have little desire to make SC's more powerful.

If the bottom list had "Continue Casting this spell" in addtion to "Cast spells" I would be a happy camper.

It would make things *much* easier on those of us who actually like using mages instead of SC's. But if I have to join the dark side I guess I must!

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

quote:

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Originally posted by Esben Mose Hansen:
All this is in thread with my "Micromanagement is bad theme".

(If I had my way, you would not be able to build armies except at your capital. At all That would also make light infantry more useful.)

Maybe you just need to rethink your playing style. I've found that I can greatly reduce the level of micromanagement I suffer through a few simple adaptations to my playstyle, and avoiding certain micromanagement-intensive nations. This allows me to easily complete even the late-game, massive-map turns in less than an hour easily. Going faster helps, too!

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I agree with you. I have learned this lesson as well. But I still would like to a) reduce micromangement futher and b) oppose suggestions that increase the same. So I prefer "cast this spell" to 10-deep queues (though in practice, it probably won't matter due to the ctrl-1-copy-commands-trick).

I still think that it would be cool to be forced to produce all troops at the capitol. At least as a mod... hmmm... that could be done. perhaps. Zap all independents; make all troops capital only?

[Wendigo]

I am perfectly happy with the spell AI, its choices (BoW aside) are not worse than those of the average Dominions player.

A longer script would only result in increased MM.
We are all playing under the same conditions after all: if you have 5 spell choices, so does your opponent.

If you are familiar with the AI's targetting scheme, and careful with battlefield placement & research priorities you will get much more out of the spell AI that someone who doesn't.

[vigabrand]

How bout adding the option Cast offensive spells. This would keep your mage from casting buffs, and if you don't care about that, just choose Cast Spells. The only thing that irritates me you can only cast four spells, if you want your caster to attack at all. If you don't choose attack as your Last command, he'll just stand there casting spells. Nothing like seeing your buffed out SC lobbing fire flies at the enemy for the entire combat.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by vigabrand:
The only thing that irritates me you can only cast four spells, if you want your caster to attack at all. If you don't choose attack as your Last command, he'll just stand there casting spells.

That gives you five spells, not four.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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Originally posted by vigabrand:
The only thing that irritates me you can only cast four spells, if you want your caster to attack at all. If you don't choose attack as your Last command, he'll just stand there casting spells.

That gives you five spells, not four.

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Perhaps Vigabrand has been playing shapechangers, in which case you usually only have 4, given the lack of "shapechange and attack" and "Shapechange and cast spells". Shapechange has to be the 5th scripted.

And the AI isn't even bright enough, lacking explicit instructions, to keep it from killing off melee monsters (like the CD) by having them casting spells, if they aren't explicitly instructed to attack.

[Norfleet]

The even more vexing thing about shapechanging is that it's a toggle, rather than "change to X".

This means that your pretender can go into a battle in his human form, and start casting his buffs. Midway through, he gets struck by a stray arrow and changes back....but he'll keep plugging away at his script, meaning as he reaches the end, even though he's already in his beefy form, he will then CHANGE BACK and CHARGE THE ENEMY WITH A SPOON.

This goes downhill from here.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
The even more vexing thing about shapechanging is that it's a toggle, rather than "change to X".

This means that your pretender can go into a battle in his human form, and start casting his buffs. Midway through, he gets struck by a stray arrow and changes back....but he'll keep plugging away at his script, meaning as he reaches the end, even though he's already in his beefy form, he will then CHANGE BACK and CHARGE THE ENEMY WITH A SPOON.

This goes downhill from here.

Dang! I hadn't seen that one.

What just slew me though was watching the brain dead AI illustrate perfectly why either the casting queue needs improvement, or the AI does.

One artillery pretender, 3 Tuathas, and 1 bard - laying waste to the enemy independent infantry. Something like 30 out of 40 infantry killed, when the first few make it up to where the mages are. No problem - Tuatha have great defense, mirror images intact, fatigue okay.

And the @#$@# pretender casts Immolation, killing about 3 light infantry. And killing the bard, and 2 out of 3 Tuathas. End of battle and retreat. The pretender had _lots_ of other short range offense spells to cast, but went with immolation. Actually - I think he damaged _himself_ with the spell too probably.