Losing Commanders in a rout

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by Darryl:
To be honest I didn't understand 90% of the spells the AI cast in this battle. I had about 6 tarrasques and 4 abominations along with an Ether Lord and 14 "Ether troops" or whatever they're called. My mages were basically there to ensure a stray arrow didn't rout the army. The AI KEPT casting spells which basically did nothing since no enemies was CLOSE to the left side of the screen. It seems to just cast some spells with no regard to how effective it would be against the enemy. I mean it wasn't like they were being attacted when Breath of Winter" was cast.

The AI cast breath of winter precisely because there were no enemies close by, had there been enemies within range the AI probably would have used a ranged attack spell. Now, most likely, it didn't find any applicable ranged spells and therefore choose a passive/defensive spell. The AI is not clever enough to make a prediction if there will be troops nearby later in the game, and breath of winter certainly can be useful in many circumstances even if no enemies currently are present.

The AI does make an evaluation of which spell it considers most appropriate to a situation, obviously though it will never get as good as a human to discern when a spell is best though.

[ March 09, 2004, 01:09: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

[Darryl]

Originally posted by johan osterman:
In general it is allways a good idea to spread out mages, both for outflanking missile and aura spell reasons.

I actually had 8 commanders in that battle. The one who died just happened to be the closest to the genius water mage.

[Darryl]

Originally posted by johan osterman:
The AI cast breath of winter precisely because there were no enemies close by, had there been enemies within range the AI probably would have used a ranged attack spell.

So anytime my army does well a water mage will decide to off anyone in range? That doesn't make sense to me. The AI says "There are no enemies in range, so I'll cast this damaging aura spell without regard to 'friendly fire' ". That's the way it's supposed to work? It actually doesn't take into account friendlies at all? So I can't assign national troops to guard water mages unless they're immune to cold and this is by design?

Now, most likely, it didn't find any applicable ranged spells and therefore choose a passive/defensive spell. The AI is not clever enough to make a prediction if there will be troops nearby later in the game, and breath of winter certainly can be useful in many circumstances even if no enemies currently are present.

The AI does make an evaluation of which spell it considers most appropriate to a situation, obviously though it will never get as good as a human to discern when a spell is best though.

It's not a matter of which spell is best. In this case casting nothing would have been better. I mean it was a regenerating Sea King with 63 HP and 25 Prot (Red Dragon Armor and Shield of Valor) wearing boots of Quickness and guarded by 5 trolls with a Tarrasque guarding the mage who died (so it was nearby as well).

Also maybe Breath of Winter should be reclassified. That is hardly a passive/defensive spell if it is most often cast when no enemies will "feel it", but allies will.