Casting "greyed" out spells

[Shmonk]

Question - in an SP game I had my Pretender enter the water to take a water province, and I thought I scripted him to cast Water Shield and 1 or 2 other buffs before going to attack closest. Now when the turn started, he cast no spells, just ran over and died after taking on 25+ ichtyids.

Now I thought if I had the ability to select a greyed out spell like Water Shield (I was on land at the time), it would still work as I moved to attack a water province. Is this not true?

It's possible I canceled the scripted orders somehow, but wanted to know in general if this was the case.

[quantum_mechani]

Shmonk said:
Question - in an SP game I had my Pretender enter the water to take a water province, and I thought I scripted him to cast Water Shield and 1 or 2 other buffs before going to attack closest. Now when the turn started, he cast no spells, just ran over and died after taking on 25+ ichtyids.

Now I thought if I had the ability to select a greyed out spell like Water Shield (I was on land at the time), it would still work as I moved to attack a water province. Is this not true?

It's possible I canceled the scripted orders somehow, but wanted to know in general if this was the case.

If you script a spell that is meant to be cast underwater, and he goes into battle underwater, he should cast it. The scripts are not evaluated until the battle starts.

[Shmonk]

Okay, thanks. I must have somehow canceled my scripted orders then. Darn, I hate losing a Pretender that way.

[En Forcer]

You may have also needed some water gems to cast it. No gems, no dice.

[Oversway]

You may have also needed some water gems to cast it. No gems, no dice.

Having made this mistake before, I find that the AI will usually cast some other spell (usually detrimental if not useless), not just skip the script altogether.

[Shmonk]

Yes, I've noticed this in other combats. I'll script the mage to cast Air Shield then 4 Fire Darts, then Cast Spells. But when I see the battle, they cast Air Shield, then Fire Shield, then some other buff, then the Fire Darts. And here I am attacking a province with maybe 10 other units, taking on a group of 40, and I want the fire darts to soften them up. But it didn't happen.

So I guess the AI modified my script to account for the "overwhelming" force of the AI? hehehe

It's good to hear that about the underwater attack. I do remember going back in to check his scripted orders, and I must have blanked them out by accident and forgot to redo them.

Now, I have to Call God with my 1 priest (as I recruit 2 or 3 more to help out). -sigh-

[Cainehill]

Generally in such a case ( the mage not casting spells like Fire Darts ) it's because the enemy was out of range for the spell. Happens all the time with spells like Sulphur Haze and the like, especially if you position your mages at the back of the field.

[Shmonk]

That's what it was, I forgot about being in range, and they were too far back to have the "interest" to cast it. So they did other stuff for 2 turns until the enemy creeped in range.

Stupid mages, for all that "brain" power you'd think they'd move closer a step or two.

[Cainehill]

Heh. Could be a lot worse. Missile troops with short range invariably run _ahead_ of other troops and get themselves killed - better for the mages to cast what might be wasted buffs, imo.

Example : Javelineers - fire closest, they won't sit still until the enemy comes within range, no they run up and get slaughtered. Another perfect example is Carrion Woods sacred archers - range of 15 means they always suicide, since there is no "Hold and shoot".

"Hold and Attack" - missile troops then charge into melee instead of using their missile weapons.

"Fire Closest" - missile troops charge forward trying to get into range.

"Guard Commander" - they don't do a thing until one of them dies, sending everyone into retreat if you try to an army of javelineers accompanying mage / archer commanders.

The _only_ effective way to use short range missile troops in conjunction with true range troops (mage, archers, etc) is to park the short rangers somewhat behind the archers / mages with no commands, so they get in front of the mages before the enemy butchers the mages - you hope you estimate enemy speeds, but on the other hand, you waste mage ability and troop ability both.

Now I've gotten back into the game for a few months, this has reminded me of one of the major reasons I left (other than WoW) : inanity in scripting options has made for some truly nutty situations, making it difficult to play as a semi-grognard or even as a drunken strategist.

In many ways Dominions 2 is _still_ a prince of TBS games, amazingly for its origions possibly a crown prince on the field. But I don't think Dominions 3 will be, unless the talent working on it is expanded - speaking as a former game designer, great ideas decline against the darwinistic competitors over time, unless they're constantly refreshed and renewed.

In my perfect world - the Dominions mechanics would be licensed by someone else while Johan et al received royalties in addition to the upfront payment. Wouldn't even need to be an exclusive license - multiple Dominions games could result, as other games have forked, with the original IP holders making money from all of them.

Hades - I could almost certainly come up with something between 4 and 10 thousand upfront myself, with a fair residual (5-10% scaling with units sold) on top. The core concept of dominion is ... awesome enough that a non-licensed clone wouldn't cut it, and something lacking dominion would feel 1 or 2 dimensional in comparison.

Maybe I'm wrong. But historical data tends to indicate that developers rarely fix fundamental flaws, prefering instead to add features and variety.

[magnate]

Hey nice post Cainehill, if straying a little OT ;-)

I too would prefer to see interface and strategy issues fixed rather than have more units/spells/sites/items added. I agree with you that the combat scripting is one of the big ones, but as others have said, how to avoid making it too complicated?

The licensing idea is interesting too, but would a studio with enough resource and talent to do it justice be the kind of place interested in that kind of deal? IMLE the bigger they are, the more they tend to want to own the IP outright.

CC