Very disappointing news about AI combat spell use

[Arker]

BoW is a huge pain in Dom2, and it's NOT possible to keep it from being by playing with your troop placement in many cases. I can certainly think of better ways to deal with it than what this sounds like, but even so, it sounds like a huge improvement to me.

In the very few cases where you might conceivably *want* this spell to be cast, you can script it (and make the next command 'attack') anyway. It makes no sense to cast it after the enemy turns tail and starts running for the hills, which is when the AI normally pulls it out - if you're going to cast it, you want to cast it on a character that's then going to step forward into the melee - so that's well within the script.

[Kristoffer O]

Breath of winter is also nerfed. It was unreasonably powerful for a lvl 1 spell. It now causes fatigue instead of AN damage.

[DominionsFan]

Kristoffer O said:
Breath of winter is also nerfed. It was unreasonably powerful for a lvl 1 spell. It now causes fatigue instead of AN damage.

Oh nice, I was always wondering that why was that spell so powerful.

[Sindai]

As long as spellcasters will use damage spells instead of weak summons when they already have a horde of troops screening them I'll be happy.

[Arker]

Kristoffer O said:
Breath of winter is also nerfed. It was unreasonably powerful for a lvl 1 spell. It now causes fatigue instead of AN damage.

VERY glad to hear that.

That one spell has been my bane for far too long. I could count the number of times it's done me any good on one hand. I couldn't begin to count the number of times I've seen friendly fire casualties from it though.

Okin: Very good demonstration. Happy to say that hasn't happened to me, yet. However, other than BoW, yes I've had the experience with nature mages insistently casting protection all around when playing Abysia, and when fighting Abysia. It gets very frustrating.

PvK said:
Heh! I was wondering if the AI would ever creatively decide Vortex of Returning by itself.

Just marking Vortex of Returning as "AI never casts" would be a crude but simple solution. But I think there is a counter-argument, which is that, in an ideal world, there would be enough time to program the AI so that it sensed when its own troops were in grave danger of being wiped out, and the home province was safer, and only in those circumstances to cast that particular spell.

Here's my thinking on it, for whatever it's worth. Yes, it's *better* to have an AI that can read the situation intelligently and know when it makes sense to cast a spell like that, or not. But it's MUCH easier and quicker simply to disable the spell, and without making a number up, I'd say most of the time the two solutions have the same practical effect - the spell is not cast. So disable the problematic spells first, then later if the programmer has time to add them back in with appropriate logic, great! If not, just removing them is still great though. Don't let the best become the enemy of the good.

[Graeme Dice]

Arker said:
That one spell has been my bane for far too long. I could count the number of times it's done me any good on one hand. I couldn't begin to count the number of times I've seen friendly fire casualties from it though.

Then you just weren't using it correctly. I think that breath of winter has caused unreasonable friendly fire casualties to me twice, whereas it has damaged my opponents in almost every single game I've ever played.

[Arker]

I'm talking about the *AI* casting it.

Yes, when I script it, it often does very well. That's not the point. You can still script it.

[PDF]

Hmmm, I didn't have much problem with BoW (even if I agree it was overpowered). Either I had thugs or SCs and scripted them to use it, else petty water mages prone to have it cast by AI just had to be separated from the other units.
It occured to me that some units still get too close (routing or chasing enemies who had broken my lines) but it never cause much losses.
If Dom3 BoW is chill-damage only there won't be any problem anymore...