Artificial stupidity

[Arker]

Graeme Dice said:
I'm telling you that because you are wrong when you claim that the AI always uses stay behind troops. You are also wrong when you claim that the AI sometimes chooses to use stay behind troops when you haven't selected it.

Actually, that wasn't my claim. Several people, YOU INCLUDED, claimed that, and I concluded it fit what I was seeing and decided to believe you.

I'm also not sure why you continue to ignore the fact that the behavious has been completely explained to you. I suppose it's because you can't be bothered to realize that when somebody tells you that heroic quickness can cause buggy behaviour when stacked with spell quickness, and you have a unit that has both heroic quickness and spell quickness, that it's obviously something else that must be causing the strange behaviour and you should continue to claim that some other bug is causing the problem.

You know, I ignored your last crack about this for a reason. You're out of your freakin skull. Learn to read.

The poster that mentioned heroic quickness got a reply back from me saying that YES the particular character in the particular incidence I mentioned had heroic quickness, and I AGREED that explained that particular bit of strangeness I had reported. And you want to rant and rave for two posts now about me denying what I actually confirmed? You're just making yourself look like an idiot.

So you propose that such a list be made for every single spell? Let's look at the other situations where it would be useful. Caelum, for example, or the undead Ermor themes, or miasma C'Tis.

First, what other spells are causing problems? This is the only one that seems to give me much grief, although I imagine there are one or two others that would have the potential, I don't know what they are offhand. As I said already, if the programmers were motivated they could make some very sophisticated logic for this, but that's not necessary, a very simple fix (such as the one I understand has been implemented for Dom3) is also possible, so one shouldn't use the difficulty of implementing a very sophisticated fix as an excuse not to implement any fix at all. The simple one should still be a huge improvement.

I don't play Caelum that much, but it's my understanding that human players normally use lots of non-national troops, so it would probably be as big a problem for them as for anyone else. C'tis, again, I only played once, but I remember it being a *mixture* of troops, so again it's not safe to cast. Even Jotunheim, in 2 of 3 themes, is likely to have troops that are vulnerable to it, in fact.

Ashen Empire and Soul Gate could probably get away with it though. So sure, s/Jotunheim/"Jotunheim, AE, or SG" that's fine. Or even simpler, just don't cast the thing unbidden. A human player is going to script it when he wants it, casting it otherwise is almost never going to be any advantage, and very often will be a problem. And for AI players, the same thing really applies, they aren't smart enough to use it, it's far more likely to harm them than to help them.

[Gandalf Parker]

If the programmers were motivated? You might have meant that casually but Ive seen rants on that which grated me.
There is one programmer and he has kept up a steady stream of improvments.

Also he has said in the past that he would look at flowcharts if someone wanted to psuedo-code something. That doesnt seem uninterested.

[Arker]

One? I had the impression it was two, but I assume you're in a much better position to know than I.

Either way, the game is a monumental accomplishment, and if you read anything I've written as a slight to that work or those who did it, I've been misunderstood.

All I meant by that is that, while I'd be happy to write out pseudocode for a much more sophisticated chain of logic there, it seems pointless to do so. It's my impression it would require considerably more work than is realistically going to be put into it to actually implement (as it would require the AI to have access to a lot of information it apparently does not currently have access to, and probably logic it wasn't designed to cope with at all.) Particularly considering it's not really necessary, as the much simpler solution should have almost exactly the same effect.

[Gandalf Parker]

Arker said:
One? I had the impression it was two, but I assume you're in a much better position to know than I.

In a way there are. There are two developers. Johan is a programmer by trade and he makes it all work. Kristoffer teaches religion and mythology. He comes up with the nations, units, spells, equipment. He designs the stuff that Johan has to make work. They probably overlap abit.

Those are my own impressions of what Ive read and I sincerely hope Im not insulting either of them.

[Graeme Dice]

Arker said:
Actually, that wasn't my claim. Several people, YOU INCLUDED, claimed that, and I concluded it fit what I was seeing and decided to believe you.

If you decided to believe us, then you wouldn't have just told me that you didn't believe us, and that there was still unexplained behaviour.

"I don't see how you could say that with a straight face, knowing that there are several final orders that can be given, yet as discussed in this thread the AI always uses 'stay behind troops' even when it's not the order given?"

You are simply wrong when you claim that the AI uses stay behind troops when not ordered to. If you think that's what the people who understand the game are telling you, then you need to go back and re-read their posts.

The poster that mentioned heroic quickness got a reply back from me saying that YES the particular character in the particular incidence I mentioned had heroic quickness, and I AGREED that explained that particular bit of strangeness I had reported. And you want to rant and rave for two posts now about me denying what I actually confirmed? You're just making yourself look like an idiot.

If you actually agreed that heroic quickness caused the AI glitch (which it obviously did), then you wouldn't have just told me that the AI randomly picks different orders from what you tell it to do. If you want to be believed, then perhaps you should provide a battle replay where a mage that doesn't have heroic quickness disobeys your final order.

First, what other spells are causing problems? This is the only one that seems to give me much grief, although I imagine there are one or two others that would have the potential, I don't know what they are offhand.

Then perhaps you need to play the game more so that you understand the various rules. A spell as common as blade wind can cause more damage to your troops than breath of winter.

C'tis, again, I only played once, but I remember it being a *mixture* of troops, so again it's not safe to cast.

It might be a mixture of troops, it might also be nothing but marhsmasters and undead. It's definetly safe to cast in the undead only case, which is by far the more common of the two.

Even Jotunheim, in 2 of 3 themes, is likely to have troops that are vulnerable to it, in fact.

Well, except for the fact that nobody would use those troops.

[capnq]

Graeme Dice said:

I doubt that there is a type of troop in the game that no one will ever try to use.

[Strider]

Cut out the personal attacks, people. Think it through before posting further comments.

[Arker]

Graeme Dice said:
If you decided to believe us, then you wouldn't have just told me that you didn't believe us, and that there was still unexplained behaviour.

Like I said, learn to read. I didn't say the former, and the unexplained behaviour was explained long ago. It's still stupid but it's not unexplained.

"I don't see how you could say that with a straight face, knowing that there are several final orders that can be given, yet as discussed in this thread the AI always uses 'stay behind troops' even when it's not the order given?"

You are simply wrong when you claim that the AI uses stay behind troops when not ordered to. If you think that's what the people who understand the game are telling you, then you need to go back and re-read their posts.

Both you and Arralen have explained in detail exactly the conditions under which the AI ignores other orders and goes to 'stay behind troops' as the "default order" whether it's given or not. And your explanations, as I've said already, match my observations. Perhaps you should do some re-reading, or chug a pot of coffee, or something?

If you actually agreed that heroic quickness caused the AI glitch (which it obviously did), then you wouldn't have just told me that the AI randomly picks different orders from what you tell it to do. If you want to be believed, then perhaps you should provide a battle replay where a mage that doesn't have heroic quickness disobeys your final order.

The heroic quickness glitch explains the one instance I observed where the commander, with final order 'cast spells,' moved behind the rearmost troops and *then* cast BoW. Without it, he would cast, then move. The end result is the same. The basic problem exists with or without quickness. If you think Quickness explains more than that you certainly haven't explained what. Why on earth you're on about me needing to provide a replay to show behaviour you already explained I don't know.

The AI suffers from a chronic need to 'do something' every turn, and if there's nothing useful for it to do it will cast useless or harmful spells, and when it can't even do that it will 'stay behind troops' - exactly as you've explained, exactly as I've observed many times, exactly as anyone that's played this game very much will have seen.

A spell as common as blade wind can cause more damage to your troops than breath of winter.

Blade wind will also, in the course of a game, do tons of damage to the enemy. It's cast at the enemy, and occasionally hits friendly troops by accident. That's part of the design of the game. I don't think anyone minds that, although of course IF you go into battle with a horde of low AC troops, against heavily armoured opponents, it could become a very stupid spell to cast. And yes, it would be nice if the AI was smart enough to know that. And, in fact, the AI seems to be *almost* that smart, in that it seems to pick other, more suitable spells instead of blade wind when facing heavily armoured troops - the only obvious improvement there would be if it were smart enough to recognise the cases where it's better off casting nothing at all. In the course of a game blade wind will do a lot more damage to the enemy than your own troops, despite the occasional friendly fire casualty.

This bears only the slightest resemblance to the BoW situation, which is likely to cause friendly fire casualties AND very unlikely to cause any damage to the enemy, when cast by the AI.

[BigJMoney]

I keep noticing you say that there isn't the need to add all the extra logic checking about battlefield dangers because it can be done much easier, but I've missed what that easier solution is. I'm not sure if it was in an early post somewhere or not, but tell again, if I've missed it, what the simpler solution is that you suggested because this thread just doesn't read correctly without it, lol. I like someone's suggestion to be able to ban spells from a world list or also a specific caster's list.

Quick question from your OP: does the trident do anything other than what its stats list? It doesn't make the user immortal or anything, does it? I've noticed that most weapons I give my SCs are better than the trident, so I never figured out why I even care to compete in that silly tournament.

Finally, I'll add that I sympathize. I know if it were me, I'd be just as mad and I think you have every justification. I can't believe others aren't being more empathetic themselves. Here you are trying to work your strategy and there seems to be no way out of this stupid trap -- not even a jury-rigged workaround. I believe one person actually suggested you not research an entire branch of magic. :-/ I'm glad you didn't respond to that.

=$= Big J Money =$=

[Frostmourne27]

With regards to his solution, I believe it was basically check if nation is cold immune/mostly cold immune (undead ermors, caelum, jotun etc) and make the spell uncastable, except when a human scripts it. The trident IIRC give 50% quickness (as per water 9 bless) so its not too bad, especially on casters. I get particularly annoyed when comp ermor wins tournament with a dusk elder, it makes them into army generating power horses. Nothing an SC wont beat, but powerful nonetheless. Also, I second Strider's request for a bit of calm here, lets not get like so many other cheesy gaming forums out there.