The fatal flaws of scripting mages...

Meglobob · #1 April 25th, 2007, 06:23 AM

Currently playing in a game where R'lyeh Mind Lords & Aboleths are teleporting into my Atlantian provinces, scripted with, Body Etheral, Personal Luck, Quicken Self, Astral Shield, Breath of Winter, Attack Closet.

With this a single Aboleth or Mind Lord can defeat 25 - 30 Atlantian PD, 9 times out of ten.

Okay, fair enough, so I send out a few mages to boost the PD a little and hopefully kill a few more of the MInd Lords & Aboleths. I equip a lvl 5 water mage with 3W gems and script Summon Water, Winter Ward, Water Ward, Friendly Currents, Water Strike, cast spells.

My mage absolutely refuses to follow his script, resulting in the battle being lost. Obviously the AI is classing the single Mind Lord/Aboleth as no threat, when of course it is.

Isn't this a clear case of scripting being fatally flawed?

I believe in the future perhaps Dom 4, you should have a option of switching the AI scripting off/on. So when off it follows your spell script exactly, when on works as it presently does.

I know this as been discussed many times, but as its so annoying I thought it deserved a rehash...grrrrr....gives all the new players a chance to growl at the AI scripting as well.

Nick_K · #2 April 25th, 2007, 06:56 AM

The other side of the coin here, is that if you selected 'AI scripting off' for a big army, the enemy could drop 'call of the winds' on you and your mages would waste tons of gems. Then if the army is attacked in the same turn, it might be left vulnerable - I believe that's what used to happen in Doms2.

Meglobob · #3 April 25th, 2007, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Nick_K said:
The other side of the coin here, is that if you selected 'AI scripting off' for a big army, the enemy could drop 'call of the winds' on you and your mages would waste tons of gems. Then if the army is attacked in the same turn, it might be left vulnerable - I believe that's what used to happen in Doms2.

At least you would have a choice by being able to switch it on or off and the enemy would not know wether it was on or off.

Dedas · #4 April 25th, 2007, 09:03 AM

That seems like a nice choice to have. And with the possibility that you might screw up I think it just adds to the game.

Gandalf Parker · #5 April 25th, 2007, 11:58 AM

It sounds like a good idea but I dont know if Kristoffer would go for it.

"Your god tells you to do xxxx, xxxxx, xxxxx, xxxxx, xxxxx but in battle you decide to do it abit differently"
makes more sense thematically than
"Your god tells you to do absolutely nothing in combat"

You could make a stronger case for
"Your god tells you to do xxxx, xxxxx, xxxxx, xxxxx, xxxxx and even though it seems stupid during the battle you do it anyway because you are more afraid of angering your god than the idea of dying".

Actually, the strongest case of all would be to examine the game log and see where you feel the logic failed. The mage goes thru a huge list of spells rating them. Maybe the rating could be tweaked in a way that will work (for all nations)

Sombre · #6 April 25th, 2007, 12:19 PM

Why does it have to be god telling them what to do? Why can't the scripting just represent the mage deciding something?

This is a gameplay deal, not much to do with 'realism' or 'thematics'.

thejeff · #7 April 25th, 2007, 12:21 PM

And what does it mean to follow the script exactly. Should the mage cast attack spells with nothing in range? Blessings when everyone is already blessed (or no sacred units present)? Mind duel with no enemy astral mages? Etc, etc.

Better (though more developer work) would be to improve the "Is this enemy force worth wasting gems on?" logic. That seems to be where most of the problems lie.

Sombre · #8 April 25th, 2007, 12:25 PM

I don't think people have a problem with the casting AI deviating if the scripted stuff isn't possible (they might, but it's certainly a lesser problem). It's more that the AI has spells scripted that are possible and entirely sensible, but decides to do its own thing anyway and gets killed.

thejeff · #9 April 25th, 2007, 12:57 PM

The only cases of the AI deviating that I know of come down to either not possible or gem use.
Not possible is usually not in range.

The gem use is a real problem, but I still think the better solution is to improve the "enemy strength" algorithm.

I don't like the AI scripting on/off idea.
In the original example, you could just teleport in a cheap mage with hold/hold/retreat to burn his gems if he has scripting off, followed by the Mind Lord who will slaughter them because they have no gems left. If he leaves scripting on, they don't follow the script for the cheap mage or the Aboleth and die anyway.

It just means you have to work a little hard to exploit the problem. It doesn't fix it.

Baalz · #10 April 25th, 2007, 01:02 PM

Yeah, another example I ran afoul of in another game was the AI deciding not to "waste" blood slaves casting hell bind heart as I had scripted...after all it's just one guy they were fighting! >:/

What's especially messed up in the fight Bob's talking about is after disregarding his orders to cast friendly currents, the AI decided to go ahead and spend the gems summoning sharks. Talk about adding insult to injury. Well, at least there was a funny stalemate where the Mage of the Deep kept my frost immune (from breath of winter) aboleth permanently encased in ice while the breath of winter caused him to be surrounded by passed out militia and the only damage being dealt was "holy avenger" being triggered on the (passed out) mother of the deep by breath of winter.