AI for Mages Using Gems

[sansanjuan]

capnq said:

Animations are only relevant for watching the replay; there's no reason to calculate the visuals while the battle is being resolved.

ok. I'm a bit intrigued...

So when the .trn file is being generated with the battle sequences, every unit ends up with a "this is what unit-x did this turn", etc. etc.? As the battle engine cycles through commanders and units each unit reacts to every appropriate unit on the battle field for both friends and foes (morale check, can't move there, can swing at bog beast, etc.)? The computational heavy lifting results from all these (each unit's) array checks. If so I can see why it's a bugger to finesse the AI into "deep and clever" code. Thematically I do agree that some mages would nuke their own friends due to panic. I also still am convinced a single attribute (IQ) that would leverage a single with/without magic iteration might be doable. I may be full of hooey... wouldn't be the first time.

-SSJ

Edit: We'd call it the "mage watches battle in lawnchair" iteration. Perhaps only useful if they are the only mage in play for that battle.

[Darkstone]

Like others have hinted before, I think a big part of this is perspective.

We have a bird's eye view of the situation. Mages are in the battle itself. It's hard to see the enemy. Perhaps they're stacked a dozen deep, or they're beyond a group of your own troops. Frankly, considering the situation, the mages do a hell of a good job.

[sansanjuan]

Darkstone said:
Like others have hinted before, I think a big part of this is perspective.

We have a bird's eye view of the situation. Mages are in the battle itself. It's hard to see the enemy. Perhaps they're stacked a dozen deep, or they're beyond a group of your own troops. Frankly, considering the situation, the mages do a hell of a good job.

Upon reflection... you are probably correct. Likely on average the mages chose significantly wiser spells than I would have scripted.
-SSJ