Spell casting routine is seriously screwed?

[thejeff]

Lightning Orb is short range. If no targets were in range it would have to ignore the script.

[autumnalcentaur]

I've had this same problem, but have generally been able to get around it by scripting one buffing spell for the mage first, and then scripting whatever I want. It seems that the mages _always_ try to cast a buffing spell if they can as the first thing they do in combat.

[Edi]

If they don't have anything with the range to hit the enemy, that is.

[Hadrian_II]

I think the worst with the spellcasting routine is, that she always burns all the gems a mage has, so if you are seiging a castle and the enemy makes a breakout on the turn you storm the castle your mages will waste all games to defeat the breakout, and you will have to storm the castle without real spell support.

Also fun is when a pan is supposed to cast weapons of sharpness, then he will always cast it on the maenads behind him and not on the centaurs that are fighting on the frontline.

Why mages love to spam ethereal wolves is a second riddle that would need some atention.

[PyroStock]

I've also seen the AI cast Legions of Steel on groups of units without any armor, which is useless.

Nothing is perfect, but the most "seriously screwed" thing with the AI spell selection is Touch of Madness. That should be script-only, like what was done with Breath of Winter.

[K]

My games have shown that the AI doesn't want to cast spells with a final fatigue over 200. Even with spells with a final fatigue between 100-200 are sometimes not cast.

Communions, gem boosting, and just having enough levels in a Path to reduce the fatigue down are needed to get the AI to do what you want.

Also, the AI wants to cast self-buffs on turn 1, and get progressively more sketchy on turn 3 and after. Cast your big spells on Turn 0 or Turn 2 if possible.

[thejeff]

That might actually be a bug. I don't think the AI realizes that Legions of Steel doesn't work on units without armor.

In Dom2 it did, right? I know Earth bless did. And some of the other armor handling changed. Maybe the spell-casting AI didn't keep up with the changes?