AI spell casting priorities

[ologm]

Having played MA ulm in single player recently, I can confirm that flying shards gets cast too much.

Summon earth power has too low a priority as my smiths would almost never cast it without scripting. While it is quite useful.

Another thing is that the smiths really prefer casting legions of steel and weapons of sharpness on my independent archers instead of my heavy infantry marching toward the enemy.

[Endoperez]

Comments, please. Would this rule work like I think it would?

Gems won't be spent after round 5.

Scripted mages will follow their script, and not spend games after their script ends. Non-scripted mages and mages of AI nations can use their gems to cast gem-expensive spells.


About buff spells:

Banned buffs:

Only when scripted (because these are personal buffs more suitable for thug/sc units):

Astral Shield
Fire Shield
Personal Quickness
Blink
Flight (caster-only)
Breath of Winter
Water Shield
Charge Body
Soul Vortex
Barkskin (for poor Abysia)
Stoneskin (there are units with chill aura and Earth)
Invulnerability (Ironskin should be enough for mages, and there might be earth mages with poison aura)

Preferred buffs:
Buffs mages SHOULD cast, if they can:

Summon Water Power
Summon Storm Power
Phoenix Power
Summon Earthpower
Strength of Gaia
Air Shield
Personal Luck
Ironskin
Mistform

Spells I'm not sure about:
Mirror Image
Resist Magic
Iron Will
Personal Regeneration



Combat spells
Preferably, any buff spells/gem-expensive spells would have higher priority in the beginning, and would drop below direct damage spells of the same priority level in few turns. Thus, mages start by casting Luck/Body Ethereal, then quickly change into mind burn/paralyze or better spells.

Astral:
never unless scripted: Blink, Returning, Vortex of Returning, Solar Brilliance, Astral Healing, Soul Drain, Unraveling,

Priority classes, from lowest to highest. The spells in the same priority should be cast over spells of lower priority, but should be pretty much interchangeable against different armies.

Star Fires, Healing Light, Horror Mark
< Mind Burn, Body Ethereal, Luck, Nether Bolt, Arcane Bolt,
< Paralyze, Solar Rays, Stellar Cascades, Battle Fortune,
Astral Geyser
< Soul Slay, Enslave Mind, Light of the Northern Star, Nether Darts, Astral Fires, Control, Opposition

AI nations should give these high priority, otherwise low priority/never cast. If my suggestion in the beginning would happen to be integrated, these would have fairly high priority.
Doom, Battle Fortune, Will of the Fates, Antimagic, Arcane Domination, Master Enslave, Astral Tempest.



I did this list by going through the manual's list of Astral spells. I'm not that experienced in competitive multiplayer, so please correct me if I'm wrong. If someone would like to help in making similar lists for the rest of the paths, I'd be very grateful.

[Jazzepi]

If you're going to include barkskin, you might as well include Protection, Wooden Warriors, and Mass Protection.

Jazzepi

[Endoperez]

Jazzepi said:
If you're going to include barkskin, you might as well include Protection, Wooden Warriors, and Mass Protection.

Jazzepi

I didn't go through Nature spells yet. Protection could be included, perhaps, but Abysia shouldn't have enough nature to cast Wooden Warriors or Mass Protection any way. Also, if Protection has lower priority than other spells the mage might cast (if it's just N1 random on an abysian mage), it probably won't be cast any way.

[Aezeal]

for astral you have light of the northern star quite high.. it cost a gem right? and it's not like that gem will be worth it most of the time (if it only gives +1 astral magic). IMHO light of the northern star should be one of the never cast unless scripted for powerfull casters that benefit from it in multiple paths)

[Endoperez]

Aezeal said:
for astral you have light of the northern star quite high.. it cost a gem right? and it's not like that gem will be worth it most of the time (if it only gives +1 astral magic). IMHO light of the northern star should be one of the never cast unless scripted for powerfull casters that benefit from it in multiple paths)

Power of the Spheres and Light of the Northern Star are different. I think I didn't have PotS at all. Light of the Northern Star gives +1 Astral to everyone on the battlefield, and because it's battlefield enchantment it can only be cast once per battle, so even in the worst case a lone S3 mage wastes 1 gem to become an S4 mage.

[Jazzepi]

Endoperez said:

I didn't go through Nature spells yet. Protection could be included, perhaps, but Abysia shouldn't have enough nature to cast Wooden Warriors or Mass Protection any way. Also, if Protection has lower priority than other spells the mage might cast (if it's just N1 random on an abysian mage), it probably won't be cast any way.

Ahhaahahhahaa

Try telling that to sandman. His random nature mage there to cast relief for his abysian army cast mass protection out of nowhere. I don't think I should have to tell you what happened afterwards. Most of his mages had also cast the fire spell that makes them explode when they die, and he lost like 23 mages in one round of combat.

Jazzepi

[Zeldor]

That Barkskin is mostly the case when fighting against Abysia, especially with Fire Storm up.

[Dedas]

Just for that particular reason I never include ANY nature mages in my Abysian armies. So if anything should get fixed it is this.

Oh, also ironskin casting Eagle Kings...

[Wrana]

Agreed, Flare should have lower priority than Fireball.