Phoenix Pyre, ARGH!

[Loren]

I'm playing with the Dragons mod, it's got some F3 dragons. I had a group of them scripted for Phoenix Power, Fire Shield, Cast Spells.

This had been working quite well. They would spend a couple of rounds buffing themselves and then start dropping various nastiness on the enemy.

I had deliberately left them in a group so the attackers wouldn't spread out. They're tough enough arrow fire wasn't a big deal.

Anyway, this battle several of them cast Phoenix Pyre. I was facing an enemy pretender, he managed to nail one of those with a spell.

Given the amount of damage they had rained on the enemy (2/3 of the enemy units were already dead) my guys were of course at pretty high fatigue. The pretender's spell got through--kablooie, 80% of my army goes up in a big blast of fire!


I think this spell needs to be scripted-only! Had they done what they were supposed to I would have lost only a couple.

[MaxWilson]

Ouch, that's too bad. What nation were you playing?

There are currently no scripted-only spells AFAIK, but the alternative is modding the spell to cost a gem. I like Phoenix Pyre on my thugs too much to mod that in, though.

-Max

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by MaxWilson

Ouch, that's too bad. What nation were you playing?

There are currently no scripted-only spells AFAIK, but the alternative is modding the spell to cost a gem. I like Phoenix Pyre on my thugs too much to mod that in, though.

He mentioned he was playing the Dragons mod. Is Phoenix Pyre still dealing non-fire damage? I guess some of the dragons would have resisted the damage if it could be resisted.

I'm sure I've read about scripted-only spells. I'm not sure what they are right now, but I think at least Returning and Vortex of Returning are never casted randomly.

[Zeldor]

Endoperez:

You are wrong. I had one of my mages ignore the script and cast Vortex of Returning when enemy was already routing.

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by Zeldor

Endoperez:

You are wrong. I had one of my mages ignore the script and cast Vortex of Returning when enemy was already routing.

I see. It shouldn't be cast, any way, and perhaps that is what I remember reading about. I'm sure there are few other spells that the AI shouldn't cast on its own. Hell Power is another one that comes to mind.

[Tifone]

IMHO the self buffs should be "scripted only". Your mages losing valuable turns casting on themselves all those totally situational spells (holy avenger and fire shield in primis) useful to thugs only, are a real waste.

[thejeff]

Yeah, but the path booster buffs, especially earth power, should be much higher rated than they are.

[MaxWilson]

Some of the self buffs are quite good. Invulnerability, for instance. Summon Earthpower, as thejeff mentioned, is another. Depending on the nation I may even like Phoenix Pyre--it's a useful form of insurance against stray arrows.

-Max

[thejeff]

Invulnerability is great, unless your enemy is using poison. And unless you could be slaughtering the enemy with blade wind instead of protecting yourself, when you're at the back of the field far from danger.

[MaxWilson]

Urg. I hate unscripted Blade Wind more than almost any other spell. An E2H2 leader of a small band of holies can be scripted to e.g. [Blessing, Blessing, Summon Earthpower, Ironskin, Hold, attack closest]. Usually 2 Blessings gets everybody, but every once in a while the first Blessing will do the job and then he casts something like: [Blessing, Ironskin, Summon Earthpower, BLADEWIND, Hold, attack closest]. "Nooooo!" I scream as he charges into battle with 90+ fatigue. Leader dies, sacreds route.

So, thugs that think they're arty mages are as frustrating as arty mages that think they're thugs. You just have to learn to work around this. (In this case, that often means scripting Invulnerability instead of Ironskin on Round 3. It gets the same job done at slightly higher fatigue cost, but the disaster scenario above can't happen.)

-Max