Must Vent about Breath of Winter

[tinkthank]

I just played a turn in which my superior force attacked an independent province and routed the enemies fairly quickly. These, however, were somewhat slow, and thus on the battlefield for about 3 rounds before the battle ended with the stragglers leaving the field.
On the first of these rounds one of my mages cast Breath of Winter, even though *NO* enemy units (which were routed anyhow) were even close. He thereby killed my prophet, who happened to be standing nearby, on the Last round before the battle ended.
Otherwise, none of my units were killed at all.
On a crowded battlefield, it will be hard to place all of my mages away from each other and their bodyguards so that they dont kill each other, but I would greatly appreciate not having to do so.
Please, stop the madness. Mages Against Drunk Casting.

[Wauthan]

Ah the minty smell of the breath of winter. Seven out of ten mages prefer this spell over the more traditional dagger in the back.

Since you can't work against the AI here you'll need to work with it. In the situations where I face the problem of a "Breather" I give cold immunity gear to all the mages and put them in one group, guarded by summoned cold immune critters.

[tinkthank]

Ah ok Im not the only one.

Still, cold gear cant be the answer. It just cant be. This is such a great game.

A slider. Me wants a slider.

Slider all the way to the left: AI value attributed to this spell x 0%. Never cast this spell, ever.
Slider somewhat to the left: AI value attributed to this spell x 20%. Only cast this spell if there are no other alternatives
Slider in the middle: AI value attributed to this spell x 100%. Assign normal value to this spell.
Slider to the right: AI value attributed to this spell x 150%. Give this spell more consideration than normal.
Slider all the way to the right: AI value attributed to this spell x 500%. Cast this spell always, unless no valid targets in range.

[Pocus]

you will never have a priority list of the castable spells... it has been said (not like that) by IW.

[Gandalf Parker]

Its a computer. Nothing is impossible. However there are things that are more trouble than they are worth.

The wish list is pretty big and everyone has personal preferences for what they think should be high on the list. We do know that the devs read and remember our wishes but as far as I can tell the patches are going to include things they feel are important and quick little things they can fix and things that they consider fun to put in. Not necessarily in that order.

[Taqwus]

Water mages should be kept separate, for now. Death mages present a similar risk, although in practice I've seen less Soul Vortex casting and more summoning from them when unscripted so the risk is probably much less in practice.
And never, ever take a nature mage into battle alongside your Abysian army, lest he cast Protection on one of your Abysian commanders lowering his fire resistance by 25%.

[Argitoth]

well, I vote for a "DO NOT CAST THIS SPELL" system within the game. Shouldn't that be easy? I mean it could be primitive as in a list which all mages go by and not an individual mage. It would help some.

[Taqwus]

Well, you could presumably block all mages in the game from casting Breath of Winter by modding it to have ludicrous or impossible requirements such as 3100 fatigue, which also imposes 31 gem cost and thus more than a caster can carry. This wouldn't be terribly fair unless none of the nations in the game could make use of it, however, e.g. Niefelheim. You might also be able to make a spell unresearchable, don't recall.

[SurvivalistMerc]

Argitoth,

I like your solution better than Taqwus's, which would effectively deny all AIs access to this relatively low-level spell that might help their SCs.

A relatively simple solution would be not to cast this spell when it will harm nearby friends or when it's unnecessary in that the entire enemy army is routing.

But I still like your notion that we should be able to tell all mages in the nation what spells they are never to cast. Using a little check box that can be unchecked during the course of the game.

Druids...don't cast berserkers on my other commanders. Don't cast protection on any Abyssians.

I think the problem here is the same as in the case of archers at times...the AI isn't considering damage to nearby friendly units when deciding on a course of action.

[vanedor]

Just as your archers don't mind killing a whole regiment of your troops to kill a single weak enemy. sigh