Sermon of Courage instead of Fanatacism?

[archaeolept]

as I understand it, if only a few units are suffering morale penalties, sermon of courage could cover them all, and so the AI will preferentially cast the weaker spell. Hopefully there's no difference in these cases.

[tinkthank]

ok.
but why? What is he "conserving" if the cost is identical? (If I can only drive 55 mph, why get the Ferrari when you can get a second-hand Ford LTD? However, if the Ferarri is the same price...)

[Molog]

Is there any benefit to multiple priests chain casting fanatacism?

[Karacan]

Each casting of Sermon of Courage or Fanaticism reliefs some of the negative morale modifiers of the units, like having had to watch half their squad eliminated or being subject to missile fire, etc.

So chaincasting Fanaticism makes sense, yes.

I admit I've never seen my level 4 or 5 priests casting Sermon. Are you certain it wasn't some level 3 priest included?

[Nagot Gick Fel]

I remember someone from IW once said SoC _might_ be more effective than Fanaticism wrt morale failure, although he wasn't 100% sure of this. If this is true, there would be a good reason to pick SoC over Fanaticism in special cases.

[tinkthank]

Ah right - it could relieve more moral loss albeit over a smaller area? OK.

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
I remember someone from IW once said SoC _might_ be more effective than Fanaticism wrt morale failure, although he wasn't 100% sure of this. If this is true, there would be a good reason to pick SoC over Fanaticism in special cases.

There may be a valid reason, or there may not be one, but does the spell AI know the truth?

Actually, that's a question of how the battle AI chooses actions - does it "know" the rules, and base its decisions on them, or does it have more or less fixed appreciations of each spells?

If one were to mod a spell's effects (I don't think that is possible right now), would that change the battle AI's use of it?

I believe the same question can be asked of modding spell costs/levels, and the strat AI's "liking" of research options. If, say, all Conjuration spells were to have their costs and path requirements increased, would the AI still research Conjuration as much?

(hard to test without access to the source code, since it isn't easy to decide what the AI has already researched)