Frustratingly Stupid Fire Mages

[romis]

I know this has been brought up before, i apologize, but i need to vent just a little, its been driving me mad in my latest games, and i hope by bringing it up again it might get fixed.

playing tien chi, a handful of fire mages are equiped with my very limited fire gem supply to cast flaming arrows for my archers, followed by some combat spells. unfortunately they are ignoring my scripts, despite being fully capable, and quite often they are killing themselves.

frequently it seems the AI deems the enemy too weak to justify the casting of the flaming arrow spell, sometimes i win the battle, more often than not i loose because the AI can't fully appreciate that the bulk of my infantry are arrow catchers which require a vast superiority of numbers to win without fire support. even if i win however, i have now suffered far more losses than i should have and my advance has drastically slowed if not stopped entirely.

while the AI refuses to waste gems on flamming arrows, it seems to have no problem wasting them on fire elementals. most of whom get nowhere near the front lines before the battle is over. oh but thats not the best part. usually the fire elementals rush up to the rear of my troops and begin setting them all on fire and killing them, but lately for some strange reason the elementals make no effort to advance towards the battle, instead they sit right next to all my commanders and mages, killing or crippling them. Even if i live, i have now depleted my gem supply, so i won't be able to cast properly next time.

even when the AI is not wasting my gems on fire elementals, it seems intent on exhausting my mages with pointless spells. if you can't cast fireball one would intuitively guess that an offensive combat spell would be the best substitute, or possibly moving closer to the battle so you can cast it, or at worst, resting. instead the AI decides the best thing to do is exhaust my mage on completely worthless spells. casting strength of giants on a mage in the rear is silly. if there are no enemy archers, and you are in the back, arrow fend is a waste too. watching my mages ,as ermor ,cast flaming arrows after the last javelin has been thrown...
They exhaust themselves without inflicting any damage on the enemy, resulting in the battle being lost, and then they are too tired to run away, and die where they lay.

i just lost a battle, because a mage cast breath of winter on himself, killing most of the surrounding commanders, before he himself and what was left of my leaders, ran away. The enemy was no where near him, and he made no effort to advance on them. why did he cast it? There is no common sense here.
its bad enough going into a battle with an aura of fire/cold/poison/etc unit where you can try, futily, to place him away from those who lack resistance(only to watch them all ball up anyway(speaking of which, why is it when my elephants run away, no matter why they are, all my commanders immediately try to run into their path, another time perhaps...) atleast in that situation, you have some control with initial placement, orders, and hey, you put the guys in the same army. but mages doing this crap on their own is intolerable.

I know a few of the tricks, if there are more i;d love to hear them...

keep most of your gems on a well protected commander or a scout so your mage only has enough to cast the spell in question. ofcourse A) if you are attacked multiiple times in a single turn you are out of luck, and B) as if there isn't enough micromanagement in this game already.

spread out your commanders, so that when(not if) something goes wrong they aren't all massacred. but A) once their scripts end they have a very nasty tendency to ball up anyway, and b) spreading them out leaves them weak and vunerable for a rear assault by cavalry or flyers. there is strength in numbers, shared body gaurds, etc.

equip your mages with fire/whatever resistence items. works if you got the gems to spare, good luck outfitting everyone, thats alot of wasted turns and gems forging, and good luck accounting for every possible situation your mages can come up with, and even then, all your slots are taken up defending yourself against the stupidity of your own troops, instead of supplying bonuses or powers. and your non commanders are still barbeque. while your mages wont be dead from their own spells, they aren't doing their job and winning the battle, so at best, you will suffer extra losses, and at worst, loose the battle and possibly your fatigued mages.

seriously, just too simple check boxes would be nice.
1)follow the script irregardless of the AI's oppinions
2)don't use gems for non scripted spells

it would be nice if, after the 5 script entries, instead of 'cast spells', you could specifiy, 'cast buffs', 'cast summons', 'cast offensive spells'. etc.

actually, speaking of the follow script irregardless, it would be nice if that option were extended to all troops. i am noticing an alarming trend where my archers stop firing in mass to run into the enemy. often taking 2-3 turns to cover the distance. plenty of arrows, entire divisions so its not an injury, and i know they can hurt the guys they are/were shooting at.

there are alot of flaws in this game i can overlook, but when i can't win a battle despite all my preparations because the AI thinks it knows better. thats just not something i can't tolerate. its too aggrevating. I'd say its gotten worse with the last patch but i play rather sporadically. And obviously fire mages are just the worst for me right now, but clearly the problem i whine about concerns the AI as a whole.

Its a fun game... you know, when it doesn't make me want to run my fist through my monitor.

i've said my piece, feel free to delete.

[Agema]

Move your mages nearer the front?

Some of the Evocation artillery you'd probably want to default to if the AI declines to cast your script will have short(ish) range. If you're too far back, they can't hit anything, so they'll cast self-buffs or summon elementals. Although to be honest, mages summoning elementals when they have spare gems is one of those little frustrations that's hard to avoid.

[chrispedersen]

Well here's my take on it.

Logic 1: All I need to win is flaming arrows.
Logic 2: Often my mages are blowing gems, and hurting actively hurting my prospects.

If both of those are true,

How about... flaming arrows, retreat.

modify as necessary for windguide, boosters or desired level of repetition. Flameing arrows, flaming arrows, retreat.

or communion master flaming arrows, RoR.

[Sombre]

That still won't make them cast flaming arrows, which he apparently needs them to, or the battle is much harder than it should be.

Retreating mages like that is also going to seriously slow his advance.

If the fire elementals are causing problems, they could be removed from the game via a mod. Not ideal, but people don't use summon lesser elemental that much anyway.

[Squirrelloid]

I think part of his problem is that the mages aren't casting flaming arrows despite being scripted to cast it. I can't think of any way to *force* them to do so.

Placing them closer will stop them from summoning elementals, at least for awhile. But they'll either blow their gems on other things or start summoning elementals once the enemy has retreated out of their range (when those elementals will do absolutely no good).

It certainly isn't hard to imagine more sensible mage AI. But without direct access to the code none of us can do anything about that except whine.

[vfb]

Are you loading up your F mages with a ton of gems?

It's usually better to equip with just enough to cast flaming arrows once, and keep the remainder on scouts/non-F commanders.

[Calahan]

Even though it sounds odd, you could try having less men on your side of the battlefield. As the AI is not casting flaming arrows as at the start of the battle, it is judging you have enough troops to win without needing to expend any gems. And is then only using gems later, after you have lost some troops, as all of a sudden the AI decides you do need to use gems to win, and so burns them on Fire Elementals.

So you can try to convince the AI that your army does need to use gems to win, say by maybe leaving out 10-20% of your troops, as then the AI should be more likely to use gems on round 1 of the battle, and hence will then follow your scripts instead of ignoring them.

[Lingchih]

Hehe, your post is hilarious romis. I've seen all of those things happen. You do seem to know some of the solutions though, and all the posts here are right, and will help.

Flaming arrows can be notoriously hard to cast correctly though. It seems like the mages just become show-offs when you give them fire gems. "Flaming arrows... bah! Behold... walking fire!" I've played MA Marigon a few times, which is quite dependent on the spell, and I eventually got to a point where I could usually cast if effectively.

You definitely just give the mage only as many gems as he needs for the cast. Hopefully you can use a mage that can cast it without needing to boost his level. An extra gem for level boosting will often make him do his Merlin impersonation instead of just doing the job. Moving him up a bit may help, but most of all, just use it on large armies. Trying to use it on smaller armies will almost always make the mage decide it's not needed. And often times, I find they will eventually cast it, but not where you have it scripted. They'll do a couple other things they think are more important first, then cast it.

[chrispedersen]

Oh, one other thing.
If *all* your archers are moving into fire range they almost never cast it.

[thejeff]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Oh, one other thing.
If *all* your archers are moving into fire range they almost never cast it.

I wonder if that's the key. If the effectiveness check for Flaming Arrows is "Archers in range this turn", not just "Archers", that could be a reason people have trouble casting it.