Mages and scripted spells

[Herode]

Hi gentlemen,

I'm trying an EA game with T'ien C'hi. Some heroes joined pretty soon in the battle, and amongst them the Immortal Ho Hsien-Ku (A2 N3). I scripted Ho Hsien-Ku with False Fetters (requires A2 and no gems). Nevertheless, during the battle, HSK never casts this spell but prefers other ones like Air Shield (and that's a real spoil as Air Shield comes with the bless...), Howl (pretty wolves, almost useless against my actual opponent Helheim...) and so on, making her of little use. Moreover, she consumes her nature gems and that's not what I want right now.

So, my question is : why doesn't HSK follows the scripted orders ????? (PS : of course, I have unlocked False Fetters with the required amount of research).

[Sombre]

First - are the enemy actually within range of false fetters?

Second - Don't give her nature gems if you don't want them used.

[Nick_K]

Yeah, the AI burns through gems like crazy. I'd probably be in favour of completely removing the 'spend a gem to reduce fatigue' mechanic for Dom4 just to reduce micromanagement in equipping battlemages

[Herode]

1 - Range : nice shot ! I guess this is the explanation. AMOF, I don't have any idea about how far are "15 in range" since the grid is bugged on my computer (some graphic device pbm for sure...) : when I enabled the grid, the screen turns to a full plain gray display... OK then, I'll try to "false fetter" putting the mage closer to the front line

2 - Gems : you're right indeed. The point is : HSK generates nature gems herself.

Thanks for the clue !
H. the newbie

[Sombre]

Ah, makes the gems eh? That's a different story. If you script a spell that can't be cast for whatever reason the AI picks one instead, based on its own 'relatively' smart criteria.

[Nightblade]

And when you script a mage, you should always remember there is a chance the mage AI will think it is smarter than you and it will cast spells that are not what you scripted, even if you are in range and even if you have enough gems.

When it is happening it can be highly annoying, as this AI behaviour can then led your army into a defeat if you were counting on a specific spell to save a situation.

I wish there was an option somewhere in dom3 to force really a mage AI to follow exactly its script.

Having an AI sometime overriding its order can be nice in a roleplay point of view, but when it happens when you really need a specific spell to be cast at a specific time and situation, that is just an fun breaker.

But when the AI do exactly what it is ordered to , your army can really sometime do wonders in a desesperate battle.
In my last game my besieged army routed a way bigger army thanks to the casters using the spells i scripted them to do.

[Tyrant]

I approve of the AI going off script, but it certainly can be annoying sometimes. I recently had a mage lose me a battle by perversly cast Doom instead of Will of the Fates.

[mivayan]

Tyrant said:
I approve of the AI going off script, but it certainly can be annoying sometimes. I recently had a mage lose me a battle by perversly cast Doom instead of Will of the Fates.

Ouch.

Or was it an s3 mage?

[Yrkoon]

Same happened to me with MA Caelum.

I had a high seraph scripted to cast fog warriors and then stay behind troops. He had enough gems to cast the spell, but he chose to cast wind guide instead. My mammoths got chopped by a vanheim army instead of trampling them all to death in mist form.

Since fog warriors has no range (battlefield wide), I really didn't expect the AI to go wrong there. And other high seraphs did the same thing. So my game is pretty much good for the bin - I really need fog warriors and the AI keeps overruling the script.

Is there any way to force the AI to do what it is told ? It really kills the game at times otherwise.

[llamabeast]

Yrkoon - your mage was A4 with 4 air gems, right?

I have never had a mage fail to cast Fog Warriors in a sufficiently large battle. But I used to miscalculate that you could cast it with an A3 mage - which you can't.