Wind ride & Hellbind heart

HJ · #1 June 22nd, 2004, 04:31 AM

I have a mage scripted to cast Wind ride on an enemy capitol. I have two Skrattis, one blood 2 and one blood 3, each with 3 blood slaves on patrol in the same province, and one has a Spell focus on him. Whatever I do, I cannot get them to cast Hellbind heart on the commander that arrives. I've tried this at least 20 times now, with various combinations such as attack/attack/HH, attack/HH/HH, attack/attack/hold/HH, etc., but they just don't want to cast the damn spell and cast idiocies such as body ethereal, BoW and similar instead. Not even once have they cast HH in all those trials, even though they were almost next to the enemy commander. So, what gives?

How I sometimes wish that we have direct control over battles... Or at the very least that the AI doesn't abandon script if we haven't.

On a related note, do blood slaves have to be in an immediate vicinity of the caster for him to be able to cast combat blood magic, or can they be anywhere in the battlefield for him to use them? That's why I had casters on hold in some combinations, so that they can catch up with the Skrattis.

Thanks for the info that will end this frustration.

Cheers,

[ June 22, 2004, 03:33: Message edited by: HJ ]

Norfleet · #2 June 22nd, 2004, 04:49 AM

This should have worked...you had enough Blood Slaves, and Hellbind Heart is range-30, easily enough to reach most enemies if you're kissing the front wall in your battle setup.

What kind of commanders were you pulling in?

HJ · #3 June 22nd, 2004, 04:55 AM

Thanks for the reply. Yes, the Skrattis are in the front row. I tried with 5 slaves now, and they still won't do it. I'm pulling in regular commanders, astrologers, mystics and Orokestes the Arco hero.

The only other thing I can think of is that I have a drain 3 dominion. But even so, the guy with blood 3 and 5 slaves should be able to cast it without problems.

Really annoying.

Norfleet · #4 June 22nd, 2004, 05:01 AM

Are they holding the blood slaves personally, or are you using mules in the back? Are there any "stray" mages consuming the blood slaves before your Skrattis can use them? It seems like you have a reasonable setup that SHOULD work....unless.....aha!

I see the problem.

The problem is that the mages are being too smart for their own good: They're not casting because Hellbind Heart requires gems to cast....and a lone enemy commander is, apparently, unworthy of having gems wasted on him. So your mages refuse to cast the spell.

HJ · #5 June 22nd, 2004, 05:09 AM

They have all the slaves in their gembox, and the only thing that's consuming them is their Breath of Winter...

Quote:

Originally posted by Norfleet:
The problem is that the mages are being too smart for their own good: They're not casting because Hellbind Heart requires gems to cast....and a lone enemy commander is, apparently, unworthy of having gems wasted on him. So your mages refuse to cast the spell.

So, in order for it to ever work, I would have to have pure blood mages? I mean, all battle blood magic requires "gems", and if they know any other path they'll always have something else to cast.

As I said, if we cannot have full control over battles, at least the AI shouldn't pretend to be smart and abandon scripts when they are doable.

Duncanish · #6 June 22nd, 2004, 05:23 AM

I think they'd still abandon the script if they think it's too excessive. They'd probably end up casting Bleed or Agony or something stupid like that...

NTJedi · #7 June 22nd, 2004, 06:51 AM

This topic sounds like another reason for gamers to have a way of disabling spells for commanders. Hopefully we'll see this added into dominions_3.

johan osterman · #8 June 22nd, 2004, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by HJ:
They have all the slaves in their gembox, and the only thing that's consuming them is their Breath of Winter...

quote:
Originally posted by Norfleet:
The problem is that the mages are being too smart for their own good: They're not casting because Hellbind Heart requires gems to cast....and a lone enemy commander is, apparently, unworthy of having gems wasted on him. So your mages refuse to cast the spell.

So, in order for it to ever work, I would have to have pure blood mages? I mean, all battle blood magic requires "gems", and if they know any other path they'll always have something else to cast.

As I said, if we cannot have full control over battles, at least the AI shouldn't pretend to be smart and abandon scripts when they are doable.

People used to complain when AI didn't abandon scripts and wasted gems in underwhelming forces. Before the script override you could teleport in a single commander before you walked in a separeate army, thus depleting all the gems of the spellcasters before the main force arrive. This was a complaint from dom 1 that was remedied for dom 2.

Gandalf Parker · #9 June 22nd, 2004, 04:07 PM

My favorite tactic (WindRide and HellBind Heart). Although I havent tried it since the patch.

I tend to use it with Pangaea. So is this where giants might consider it more effective to just smash, and Pans might consider it better to cast?

Maybe if the giants were given restricting items. A weapon which does 2 damage. Or one that does sleep.

Nagot Gick Fel · #10 June 22nd, 2004, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
My favorite tactic (WindRide and HellBind Heart). Although I havent tried it since the patch.

I tend to use it with Pangaea.

With Pangaea you can still use Charm, since it doesn't cost gems.