Annoying death magic

[SurvivalistMerc]

Originally posted by Arryn:

They can still use their own words in existing threads. And using existing threads avoids much confusion.

Arryn, would you tell me what confusion this thread has created? I see no confusion here...merely intelligent discussion of what some see as an issue. And discussion from a somewhat different perspective that would likely have occurred if an old thread were for some reason resurrected.

I agree with graeme dice on the "body ethereal" issue. Especially if you have your core commanders and other potentially non-astral magi back with your astral mage, such as a shaman. It's wonderful that your shaman is etherealizing your other magi and commanders to prevent them from being slain by stray crossbow bolts. In fact, I will often script shamen with this.

I actually wouldn't mind mages moving up a bit to target the scripted spells if they're not moving into enemy melee troops and have some sort of missile protection. Most of my problems with what I consider inappropriate spells occur when the mages are at the back (where I put them--my fault) and the enemy's troops are at the back of their line firing missiles.

It would also be nice to know what range 100 means...can it affect the entire battlefield? Because I often script stellar cascades with Ry'leh (?sp) and find that the spell AI disagrees with my choice and casts something else even though there is a group of massed defenders nearby. (I'm not thinking mind burn is a better decision for a group of astral 4 and astral 3 magi (base) in the setting where a commander is holding a banner of the northern star.)

I agree that it would be a bad idea to have the magi rush into melee. But what do you need to check for to prevent that? Just check...on turn 3 or subsequently due to hold and attack orders...to see whether there is a group of melee units rushing forward. I have no idea how hard that would be to code.

I have not used 2.08 yet (using 2.06) due to the fact that it creates bugs (utgard) and supposedly increases the disparity between battle reports and battle replays in SP. (I find that particular bug more annoying that I reasonably should because I still watch most of the battle replays.)

I have seen the AI use ghost grip, too. And seeing that is very pleasant because it's such an awesome spell.

[Arryn]

Range 100 can reach anywhere on battlefield. But do not confuse range (distance) with area of effect.

Spells that affect the entire battlefield say so, under Area of Effect.

[ March 02, 2004, 14:40: Message edited by: Arryn ]

[Wendigo]

To the original poster:

You will likely do not know this as a new player, but back in Dom I the battle summons were considered to be overpowered (it was pretty simple to destroy big armies with just a force of summoners, while suffering _no_ loses), thus most of those battle summons were downed to require gems, with 2 exceptions: phantasmal critters, and raise the dead/skeletons spells.

Rejoice that you can still use battle summons as a Death magic user!

If you really do not want to get those you should deploy your mages forward in the battlefield, so that they are in range for their evocations (*) or not deploy them at all and keep them at your labs. Obviously, you should also get some research in alternate battle magics (Evocation, Thaumaturgy, Alteration...) so that you know other spells.

Do not dismiss Decay as a useless spell. The AI switches to it when faced with a high HP critter, and it's a spell that can potentially kill a Pretender. Back in a DomI MP game, a single dusk elder of mine killed 3(!) Iron Dragons on his own using this spell. That's 75 gems worth of Const9 critters killed with a thau1 spell. This spell shines vs big boys with low MR (like Crushers, Spiders, Krakens...)

I generally concur with Graeme regarding the ret of the thread, 90% of the complaints about the spell AI from new players are due to bad battlefield placement or lack of research. There are indeed previous threads about this.

(*) range of spells/missiles is meassured in squares (you can turn on the grid with a key command to see it), the battlefield is around 54 squares long IIRC, so a mage in the back will barely be able to hit the middle with a 30some range spell.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Wendigo:
you can turn on the grid with a key command to see it

What key command is this? This is the first I've heard of one ...

[Saber Cherry]

"w"

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
"w"

Thanks, Cherry! This is *SO* cool. I wish I'd known this weeks ago! It'll make my AAR write-ups a bit faster to do.

Too bad the grid makes the terrain disappear. I was expecting bright red/yellow/blue lines or some such overlaying the ground, instead of the an entirely different battle map.

[NTJedi]

Originally posted by Kryx:
I think we all agree that a commander-per-commander DON'T CAST/DO X would be nice. That seems like a temperate enough suggestion that I also would agree.

This feature is definitely needed... hopefully available in one of the upcoming patches.