Legions of Steel

[Dedas]

Yes, it was working fine but broke along the way.

[Endoperez]

NTJedi said:
This is so true, as it's been annoying for me as well. The mage will cast the spell on a group of archers instead of on the group of knights!

Suggested Fix: The spell Legions of Steel should target a group of nearby units with the highest protection first. Also archers should ALWAYS be targeted last.

No, that doesn't work. There are many melee units with armor and javelins you might want to protect, LA Man's best infantry has crossbows, etc etc. Targetting high-prot units first might work, targeting archers last wouldn't.

[Loren]

Endoperez said:

No, that doesn't work. There are many melee units with armor and javelins you might want to protect, LA Man's best infantry has crossbows, etc etc. Targetting high-prot units first might work, targeting archers last wouldn't.

How about targeting the unit with the best melee damage first?

[Endoperez]

Loren said:
How about targeting the unit with the best melee damage first?

Light cavalry often has light lances and bows. Longbowmen have +1 str and +2 weapon damage (shortsword) to normal spearmen. Shinuyama's O-bakemono have Furs and str+dam 26; Dai Bakemono have good armor and str+dam 24. Oracles of the Ancients and Troll Kings might decide to cast it on themselves because they are strong.

[NTJedi]

Endoperez said:

No, that doesn't work. There are many melee units with armor and javelins you might want to protect, LA Man's best infantry has crossbows, etc etc. Targetting high-prot units first might work, targeting archers last wouldn't.

Well I there might be a few scenarios where you'd want to target the fellas with crossbows and javelins first.
Unfortunatley the way the spell is working now targets the archers before the group of knights. In most scenarios if the enemy has reached your archers then you're on the last line of defense or offense.

Suggested Fix: The spell Legions of Steel should target a group of nearby units with the highest protection first.

[Endoperez]

What about giving mages a bonus to targeting whatever's directly in front of them (i.e. between the mage and the where the enemy is supposed to start from). If there's a squad of infantry in front and squad of archers to the side, the infantry would be more likely to be boosted. It could also be used to make mages prefer to boost SCs above normal units by putting the SC in front of the mage.


The boost should have a rather short range, because otherwise mages would prefer to cast AoE damage spells to the mixed melee in the front and not the group of knights told to Attack Rear.
The boost should not be bigger right in front of the mage. Otherwise the mage would start buffing himself and his bodyguards.

[Dedas]

If you test legions of steel in version 1.00 of the game, it works just fine. Shouldn't be a problem to simply aim to have that code working again.

[Herode]

BTW, I used LoS recently with MA Agartha and the result is not satisfying, as it has been said here.

- Not only the mage does not target proper units but he carefully calls the spell on an area where he is the only target available and this was not so easy to compute
- but his own protection didn't gain even a single point of bonus after the buff.

Arf