Dissapointed

johan osterman · #1 January 27th, 2004, 03:02 PM

Blessing and similar spells that do not target just the commanders could very well have been cast on other blessable troops in the vicinity. I am a little sceptical to claims that the AI has cast nonstackable spells that only targets the caster and has no fail chance repeatedly on itself. I attribute the cases reported to having troops nearby that can be affected by spells, so for example body ethreal has an area of 1 and so can be cast on nearby bodyguards, so that reported incident is most likely not a case of casting a nonstackable spell repeatedly on itself. As for not casting offensive spells on fleeing troops this is most likely stems from not being in range or that the AI calculates that the chance of hitting friendliess is to high. Most people otherwise seems to believe that the AI's friendly fire avoidance is not strict enough. The spellcasting AI will never be human smart, and if it were magic would become even more dominating in the game.

Your other complaint is probably caused by the battle replay bug. Unfortunately sometimes the battle replays does not match the battle. This might happen more if you participate in an MP game where the game is hosted on another platform. This bug has not been localised.

Edit: Also in the 2.07 patch the spell AI will drop the estimated worth of some protective enchanments. As it stands it will also value protective enchanments less and less as turns go by.

[ January 27, 2004, 13:16: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

IKerensky · #2 January 27th, 2004, 03:40 PM

I am sure many people have posted this suggestion but...

Why not add a spellbook management for the mages , something simple like:

Switching on/off spell he could cast.

Some other spell order can be usefull:

Order him to cast 1 spell continiously. ( so we can give him this as the 5th order ).

This is very bad when you lose undead spellcaster because thet doesnt cast raise undead but go to spell protection or decay

Anyway I would greatly like the possibility to "tweak" the mage spellbook so we can have him serving in the purpose we want without having to hold his hand too much.

sachmo · #3 January 27th, 2004, 04:02 PM

On the other side of the coin, I'll bet there are some who would complain if the spellcasters did not case protection spells at the start of the battle. Maybe a defensive or offensive switch?

Nagot Gick Fel · #4 January 27th, 2004, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by IKerensky:
Why not add a spellbook management for the mages , something simple like:

Switching on/off spell he could cast.

I just had a funny experience. I had 3 Serpent Priests stacked on the same tile in a rear corner, and one of them (my prophet) decided to cast Berserkers on the group instead of the Fanaticism he was scripted for. The 3 quickened SPs outran their bodyguards (I had mistakenly deployed those in the opposite corner), and gave chase to a few flying militia until they reached the opposite rear area. They were mopped up there by more routing enemy troops. Luckily for me the entire enemy army was routed before my Last priest died, as my army was now leaderless.

These 3 priests were my only casualties BTW.

diamondspider · #5 January 27th, 2004, 04:48 PM

I love the idea of a "don't cast" list.

Much easier than fussing with the AI which tends to be very time consuming (in the little bit that I've done).

The spell queue is nice and another option would just be to expand it to 10 spells although that would be more clicking in some cases when there are a few spells I just don't want casted.

A bit deeper on this topic, I actually REALLY like not managing the tactics of my troops. In Total War you have to manage your troops and while it is very fun sometimes, it can also get really tedious. You can let the AI do it, but you get such better results doing it by hand that you really have to unless you have a 10 to 1 advantage.

The downside to how Dominions does it though is, indeed, that when the AI does something absurd it can be very frustrating.

[ January 27, 2004, 14:51: Message edited by: diamondspider ]

tinkthank · #6 January 27th, 2004, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by johan osterman:
I am a little sceptical to claims that the AI has cast nonstackable spells that only targets the caster and has no fail chance repeatedly on itself. I attribute the cases reported to having troops nearby that can be affected by spells, so for example body ethreal has an area of 1 and so can be cast on nearby bodyguards, so that reported incident is most likely not a case of casting a nonstackable spell repeatedly on itself.

Well I was just playing the demo -- try it out and see if I am wrong. I don't think so.
Anyhow, I am not the first person to "complain" about this. Other people say it about "barkskin". In any case, even if there was a chance that some neighboring troop could get a bit of that "body etheral" area effect 1, that is IMHO not a good choice for the AI in most of the situations I saw.

Are you happy with it? Would you like it to stay as it is in the full Version? If you were on the programming team would you think my "complaint" was uncalled for?

Raz 24 · #7 January 27th, 2004, 05:00 PM

I have the full Version and I have never had this problem with the AI casting multiple non-stacking boost magic. I think my game is blessed , because it never behaves bad

Arralen · #8 January 27th, 2004, 05:16 PM

1) There's already patch 2.06, and 2.07 is in the works, as one could have guessed from johans article.

2) johan is on the design team

3) I've never seen the AI cast the same, unstackable spells with target "caster" more than once. Unless the commanders are scripted to do this. Keep in mind, though, that some spells do stack with themselves or each other.

4) ".. in the 2.07 patch the spell AI will drop the estimated worth of some protective enchanments. As it stands it will also value protective enchanments less and less as turns go by. .. think this will take care of most problems. Even if for some reason the AI doesn't recognize an enchantment already done, it wouldn't cast the spell again after some (5

) combat rounds.

Arryn · #9 January 27th, 2004, 05:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Arralen:
3) I've never seen the AI cast the same, unstackable spells with target "caster" more than once. Unless the commanders are scripted to do this. Keep in mind, though, that some spells do stack with themselves or each other.

I have had the AI cast Body Ethereal on my (quickened) pretender six consecutive times in the same battle. That's all my pretender cast for 3 complete combat rounds. Body Ethereal does not stack, nor did I script it.

Kristoffer O · #10 January 27th, 2004, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Arryn:

quote:
Originally posted by Arralen:
3) I've never seen the AI cast the same, unstackable spells with target "caster" more than once. Unless the commanders are scripted to do this. Keep in mind, though, that some spells do stack with themselves or each other.

I have had the AI cast Body Ethereal on my (quickened) pretender six consecutive times in the same battle. That's all my pretender cast for 3 complete combat rounds. Body Ethereal does not stack, nor did I script it.

Send the trn file to support@illwinter.com so we can take a look at it. Explain what is wrong so we have clue what to look for.

I have never seen anything like it, but there are some reports here that it has happened. No one has sent us any bugged files though, so it is hard to do anything about it.