Mass flight bug - wrong script processing

[ano]

I could not give four gems because Raksha is level 3 air mage and thus can use only 3 gems per cast. So the only option is giving a booster item (Flight has obviously no sense during storm). This means (as I mentioned above) that this spell seems to be uncastable at all for a A3 mage without boosters once Arrow Fend is researched.
As for the battle mechanics, I just think that scripted spells should never be overridden because of "excessive fatigue". They still should be overridden if the spell cannot be cast or if the opponent army is *too weak* (I think, this is a separate discussion topic) but NOT in the case when everything is ok but the non-scripted spell which AI likes very much (Arrow fend in my case with 220322 score) is cast instead of scripted one just because it causes less fatigue. It makes no sense at all in my opinion.

[Bananadine]

ano said:
I could not give four gems because Raksha is level 3 air mage and thus can use only 3 gems per cast.

Ah yes, thanks, I forgot that rule. A good thing to remember!

About the problem with the algorithm etc.: You keep saying scripted spells should never be ignored in this way, as if that rule should be patched onto the existing system on top of everything else. But it seems like they've already tried to work the rule into the spell priority system by giving some huge point bonus to scripted spells. So like others are saying, it might make more sense to say that the weird thing is the high Arrow Fend score.

However, due to the complexity of the spell system, this is surely not a problem that will respond well to addition of big new rules--it's a delicate, fussy tuning problem. There's probably no simple solution anybody's going to come up just by thinking about it; they've got to have access to the code and be able to twiddle with it until it seems to work in all reasonable situations. I'm a programmer, so my fantasy scenario would be to have a server someplace that runs a large number of test battles every time a developer tweaks the spell AI, and makes sure the mages in these battles all still make reasonable decisions. And then every time a thread like this comes up, they'd add another few test battles and then make little changes to the AI until all the tests pass again.

[kasnavada]

An solution I've seen around for scripting is creating a player-defined spellbook for each caster so he can only cast a limited portion of list of spells you have researched, and doesn't use unwanted spells randomly.

[Bananadine]

kasnavada said:
An solution I've seen around for scripting is creating a player-defined spellbook for each caster so he can only cast a limited portion of list of spells you have researched, and doesn't use unwanted spells randomly.

How is this done?

[kasnavada]

It doesn't currently exists in Dominions.

What it would be is for example : on the "details" screen of your unit, you would have a spellbook icon. In that spellbook you would have every spell you have researched and a possibility to :
- save the spellbook,
- load a saved spellbook,
- modify the current spellbook by setting whether it should be casted or not.

In a even more perfect world, you would have columns for each spellbook where you defined spells to use in different situations (even fight, assassination, easy fight, SC fight...), and possibility to set yourself the chance of spells to be cast (ie : 75% sermon of courage and 25% vine arrow for a dryad in early game).

That would be a dream for scripting.

[thejeff]

And an absolute nightmare for micromanagement.

I'd rather have AI fixes.
And maybe a configurable blacklist of "never cast unscripted" spells. Used for your whole nation.

[kasnavada]

The option to save and load spellbooks could have buttons so you can apply them to every units you control, or all of a specific kind of caster (all with 2N 1D), or all of a certain type (all vampires) to reduce micromanagement...

For me, a "configurable blacklist of "never cast unscripted" spells, used for your whole nation" is to be avoided, because I don't want my 2N mages to cast wine arrow, but I do want my 1N mages to do so. I want my 4N 2E casters to use nature spells, but 2E casters to use earth. A configurable blacklist for the whole nations doesn't let me do that, and is therefore in my opinion, not enough.

The solution I propose, however, doesn't prevent AI fixes. So don't choose one or the other, when you can do both.