Artificial stupidity

[Gandalf Parker]

I probably should have mentioned in case someone is wondering. That was an excerpt from a Dom3 log.

[Cainehill]

Arker said:

That's exactly what I thought you would say

What you're doing there, though, is giving up a huge number of creation points to supercharge them magically, and what you get out of it is really some quirky heavy cavalry.

I've played both of them that way, and experimented with the bless strategies, and my honest opinion is that while you can make them work that way, you'll still get your rear handed to you up against someone that spent those points on scales instead, and uses independent heavy cav/knight recruits.

But for the sake of argument, let's say you at least have a fair chance of winning that way. It's still beside the point to me - I'd like to be able to play it in role, that is to say, play them as light cavalry, using their speed advantage to bring those ranged weapons to bear effectively, not converting them into some oddball heavy-cav units.

And of course it's totally inapplicable to non-holy light cavalry, T'ien Ch'i, Arco... and actually not applicable to the Centaurs I was talking about either. You know, the Centaurs, not the White Centaurs, just plain old Centaurs, the ones that should logically by description and theme be the feared and fabled archery section of Pangaeas army, but in reality are totally useless

_Sometimes_ the dual bless strategy gets smashed - sometimes it doesn't. That's one of the things that makes Dominions such a great game - no strategy wins all the time.

But : Vans and centaurs (all kinds) actually both have big advantages over other cavalry, even without an effective bless (though I can't think of a reason to skip the bless with them). Vans have mirror image, _and_ glamour : very stealthy, and completely avoiding some early damage. Then all the centaurs : decent HPs, and recuperating : they recover from wounds if they survive the battle.

Even if non-sacred, both would still be viable units, unlike a lot of the other cavalry/chariot units.

[Arker]

Cainehill said:
But : Vans and centaurs (all kinds) actually both have big advantages over other cavalry, even without an effective bless (though I can't think of a reason to skip the bless with them). Vans have mirror image, _and_ glamour : very stealthy, and completely avoiding some early damage. Then all the centaurs : decent HPs, and recuperating : they recover from wounds if they survive the battle.

Even if non-sacred, both would still be viable units, unlike a lot of the other cavalry/chariot units.

I guess anything could be called viable if you want to play it badly enough, but one thing is for sure - you can't get them to use basic light cavalry tactics on the battlefield, it just won't happen.

According to the figures from Sunrays, you can recruit fifty longbowmen, sixty crossbowmen or woodsmen, or seventy four archers or tribal archers for the price of twenty centaur. They're good archers, but they aren't worth the money just for that. (Nor would it make any sense if they were, really. Light cavalry should be a good deal more expensive than foot archers.)

But the only other way the AI knows to play them is as heavy cavalry. As heavy cavalry, they're cheap, but woefully underpowered - they just aren't (and shouldn't be) capable of pulling that role off. The centaur cataphracts, on the other hand, fill that role quite well. Spend the same gold on a mix of centaur cataphracts and independent archers as you would on centaurs and you'll be a lot better off. Sure, the archers won't have recuperation, but they're cheap enough to replace, and most battle wounds don't really reduce their effectiveness anyway.

The Centaur warriors are even worse in this respect. You can get 80 independent light infantry for the same price as 20 centaur warriors, and it's a much better deal, as long as they don't know how to use their movement points.

Vanir have some great advantages, sure, like the centaur warriors their stats would be wonderful if the AI could just pull of basic light cavalry tactics with them. But since it doesn't they wind up being played as heavy cavalry, and they just don't have the punch to pull that role off against a serious opponent. Sure, they can chase down routers, but any unit can do that.

For the price of sixty Vanir, you can recruit seventy independent knights. The Van has thirteen hp, compared to twelve, but thirteen protection, compared to TWENTY. The knights have higher morale, more str and MUCH heavier weapons. Try it and see, the Van get chewed every time. Glamour is nice, but it gets knocked off real quickly when they engage in melee with heavy infantry, let alone knights.

Which is exactly as it should be, to that point. They're light cavalry, after all. Ultra-elite light cavalry, but light cavalry nonetheless. Light cav isn't meant for melee, and it isn't meant for shock charges. It's meant to wheel and dance just outside the enemies reach, while calling them rude names and showering them with volley after volley of projectiles. It's meant to screen the main army, obstructing the enemy but never engaging, keeping them off balance, harrassing them like a swarm of hornets, and in the end, running them down after they break formation and start to flee.

And the Vanir have the stats to do that job wonderfully. If only the AI was programmed to do it.

[KissBlade]

Eh ... to say nothing about how 6 dual blessed centaurs will trounce 80 light infantry easily ...

The cost of Van to Knights are simply incorrect. Knights cost SIGNIFICANT resources and often that will stunt you way further than gold. Furthermore Vanir are sacred and really sacred units are meant to be blessed in some shape and form. Make no mistake, knights are probably the strongest recruitable basic troops but once their lances are exhausted, they're really not /that/ great. Meanwhile Vans can give SC's a run for their money easily and then say nothing of the extra magic res which is very very important. I really think you're not taking full advantage of either units here, and mind you they really don't need to be dual blessed. F9 is one of the cheapest blesses and considering that both units are stealthy, they are among the elites of raiding (Which dominates a major portion of most wars between dom II players). Someday you'll need to get on and duel one of us to really see this in application and you'll agree that Van and White Centaurs are just incredible units compared to indies. =)

[Graeme Dice]

Arker said:
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.

Are you trying to pretend that you never wrote:
"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?"

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?

Perhaps you should make up your mind whether you agree with us, or whether you actually agree with your statement that I've quoted above.

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.

Then he either had absolutely no spells to cast that would reach any enemy targets (as was already explained to you), or you are mistaken, and you left him on stay behind troops or with no final order.

Why on earth you're on about me needing to provide a replay to show behaviour you already explained I don't know.

I want a replay because you are claiming behaviour that does not happen in the actual game.

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.

Why don't you make up your bloody mind whether you think that it's a bug or not when your mages move in various situations. The previous paragraph has you complaining that it's a bug when your mages change to stay behind troops for a turn. Now you're trying to tell me that it's not a bug.

[Graeme Dice]

Arker said:
I've played both of them that way, and experimented with the bless strategies, and my honest opinion is that while you can make them work that way, you'll still get your rear handed to you up against someone that spent those points on scales instead, and uses independent heavy cav/knight recruits.

I really want to know why people think that a F9W9 Moloch with Order 3, Sloth 3, Cold 1, Death 1, Misfortune 3, balanced magic, and dominion 5 is going to be killed easily by a heavy scales pretender. You make a minor sacrifice of 6% gold for the sloth 3, 2% for the death 1 scale, and will research slightly slower, and get F9W9 blessed Vanii in return.

[Graeme Dice]

Arker said:
The Centaur warriors are even worse in this respect. You can get 80 independent light infantry for the same price as 20 centaur warriors, and it's a much better deal, as long as they don't know how to use their movement points.

No, it's not a better deal. 20 centaur warriors will trash 80 light infantry with perhaps a half dozen losses. 20 centaur warriors will also trash 40-60 hoplites without severe losses

[Wick]

In the combat simulator using 195 units in equalizer mode and with 200 Heavy Infantry (ind, 20 res) as the baseline 77 centaur warriors, 141 Hoplites, and 286 Carduces are equal utility.

The combat simulator assumes size = 0 and has a number of other quirks, nor is my sample random, so add salt to taste.

[Gandalf Parker]

You know, using map commands you can add armies to yourself. You can make armies of your choice then play them with scripting and everything. Even do it over and over.

[Wick]

I've done that too, but when trying to find the equal value levels for a lot of units it's just way too much work. At least, unless there's a way to run the game and get the battle results by script...