Mass flight bug - wrong script processing - Page 3

Bananadine · #21 March 27th, 2008, 10:45 AM

Quote:

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 · #22 March 27th, 2008, 10:52 AM

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 · #23 March 27th, 2008, 11:56 AM

Quote:

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 · #24 March 27th, 2008, 12:02 PM

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 · #25 March 27th, 2008, 12:12 PM

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 · #26 March 27th, 2008, 12:27 PM

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.

thejeff · #27 March 27th, 2008, 01:03 PM

The thing is, to be competitive you'd have to use the individual spellbooks for almost every fight. And adjust it as you learned new spells.

The most common use for them wouldn't be to ban a few spells you didn't want, but to set a caster to spam one spell repeatedly after his script ran out.

Not optimizing spellbooks for every battle would soon be as effective as not bothering to script your mages for battle.

And if this huge change was ever put in, (Which it won't be. The devs have shown no interest in making such major interface changes.) you'd be able to workaround all the bugs in the spellcasting AI, so there'd be no pressure for fixes.

(And I know it was a typo, but I like the "wine arrow" spell. Damage and confusion.)

kasnavada · #28 March 27th, 2008, 01:18 PM

Quote:

Not optimizing spellbooks for every battle would soon be as effective as not bothering to script your mages for battle.

I think that it would be as annoying to script your mage for every battle than changing the spellbooks... well, it's possible that it will never exist anyway, so...

The whole point of the spellbook idea, though, is to workaround all the bugs in the spellcasting AI, which in my opinion will never be resolved because there is no way that the AI could choose the spell that reflects best the strategy chosen by a player in a given circumstance.

thejeff · #29 March 27th, 2008, 01:41 PM

Obviously the AI will never become perfect. It will never be "do what I want", especially when "do what I want" isn't the same as "do what I told you"
That's not a bug, that's just the nature of AI.

But what started this thread wasn't a complaint of the AI wasn't perfect, it was a specific case of the AI overriding the script, due to what looks like a massive overrating of Arrow Fend. There are similar issues with Astral Shield. These can be fixed as they're found, and may even trace back to the same root cause.

Which reminds me. Should this Arrow Fend issue go to the bug list?

As for the spellbooks, an easier solution would be to just extend the script or have a last action of Cast Specific Spell repeatedly. That's how the spellbooks would be used 90% of the time.
This has been suggested and shot down by the devs many times.

And, AFAIK, experienced MP players script all the mages they send into battle.

Kristoffer O · #30 March 27th, 2008, 02:05 PM

Quote:

ano said:
Yes, you're right. Problem is in extra high Arrow Fend score.
My army was about 800-900 units large (this may be the reason) but the only archers enemy had were two dozens of sprites (this doesn't seem to affect the score).
However I still think that scripted spells should never be punished for extra fatigue. And in order to avoid such situations scripted battlefield enchantments should never be overridden at all unless the enemy army is *too weak* and is not worth spending gems on it.
Btw... Does all this mean that my mage could cast nothing but Arrow Fend in this situation? It seems so...

Did you have many archers? It might be that the AI counts wrong and counts your archers instead of enemy archers and multiplies with your archerscore or something. Similar problems have caused problems in other spells (like stygian paths).