Mists of deception make my 8 Marble Oracle dead?

[Cipher]

Hi all. I am playing a MP game. Last turn there was a big fight when I (ma agartha) try to storm Pythium's capital. After a huge fight, my force manage to make Pythium's force route, at that time I still have a big army including 8 Marble Oracle (fully armored) many mages and agartha statues. see the screenshot here


Then incredible things happened, this big army just disappeared step by step. I watched the battle slowly, noticed that in one turn, suddenly 3 MO disappear. All MO has more than 100HP, It's not likely the Phantasmal Warrior can kill it by 1 hit. I have no idea about this. Is this because Mists of Deception has the function that enemy could lost himself in the mist? or a big bug?

The starting force before battle can be found here

[Twan]

Mist of Deception is a bugged spell (and using it usually ends in long threads about bug exploitation).

Your oracles were probably auto-killed because the battle reached the turn limit (75). Mist of Deception bugged effect make battles never end before (except if you kill the caster before he leaves the battlefield).

[Zeldor]

Did he use other battlefield enchantment too? If yes it is enough to get him out of that MP game, switched to AI and turn rehosted. That is a known exploit that is comparable almost to hacking turn files. Thing that would get people banned from MP if we had bans here. Just using MoD that way may be enough to rehost that turn if your opponent did not know about that bug. That is really more than losing a Golem because a 50 turn limit.

[Twan]

Actually in defense no need to use another BE, Mist of Deception + retreating caster just allow the defender to win everytime (and kill any attacker still on the battlefield when turn limit is reached).

But if the caster remains 5 rounds or more on the battlefield, giving reasonable chances to kill him, usual MP rules (most hosts) consider this spell valid.

[llamabeast]

I haven't had a chance to look at the turn yet, but will work under the assumption that Cipher's opponent was simply innocently using MoD as it was intended, a powerful battlefield enchantment. Unfortunately, because of the bug whereby retreating casters don't have their enchantment's cancelled (and because Cipher managed to rout his opponent), the spell rather unfairly decimated Cipher's army.

I'm not sure what to do about this. Neither rehosting nor not rehosting seem entirely fair. I'm beginning to think this spell should just be banned outright, since it can cause this kind of problem even when used in good faith. Does anyone have any thoughts as to what I should do?

[Twan]

Don't know for this game, but if I was you my default games (especially newbie games, as they aren't supposed to know the bug / rules about this spell) would include a mod to remove or fix the spell (I made one making MoD an instant summon of an army of fog warriors coming from the sides + normal Mist as secondary effect - it may need some balancing but something like that -).

[Edi]

Disabling MoD via mod would be a good idea for MP games.

[llamabeast]

That sounds like a good idea for the future Twan. Would you mind sending me your mod if you still have a copy?

[Cipher]

Thanks all. Now I know it is a bug, I would request to re-host it, because the battle result will be very different without this bug, my remaining force will be able to survive and capture the enemy capital. And I think no one should use this magic in this game anymore, even you may not intend to use the bug, but if your caster root, it will became a bug.

[Twan]

llamabeast said:
That sounds like a good idea for the future Twan. Would you mind sending me your mod if you still have a copy?

The mod is there.