Another one bites the dust

[krpeters]

Raise Skeletons/Dead is exactly why I gave up on Death magic. The level of micromanagement needed to keep death mages from casting it is just offensive.

I also have a problem with Earth mages flinging Blade Wind at shielded troops when they should be using Magma Eruptions instead. But if I script Magma Eruptions, he will at least cast it.

[Finalgenesis]

I've found truly effective use of AoE evoc to involve either a) suitably immune troops or at the very least appropiate ward/antimagic, b) very high precision (wind guide, eagle eye) with a smaller AoE (pillar, Tstrike), or c) premptive hit in round 1-2 before the army joins together (shadow blast ...etc). For short range evoc I tend to spend 1-2 rounds buffing before getting in 3-4 turns of evoc (luck, eth, quickness, blessings, eagle eye ...etc)

Either way you're limited to 5 turns of controlled spell casting, after which you can count on AI spell casting to be worst then useless 80% of the time.

[krpeters]

Yeah, the AI is spectacularly useless. But I'm testing MA Ulm now, and having my smiths cast [Summon Earthpower / Ironskin / Magma Eruptions x3] seems effective. I haven't gotten to any huge AI armies yet, though, so that will be the real test.

[brxbrx]

Orders given to our troops should be followed better. We should also be allowed to make contingency orders like "if X, then Y."

It's still a great game, but this would make it better.

[thejeff]

Contingency orders would be a nightmare. Scripting, especially of mages, is already the biggest time suck in the game. This would be a huge multiplier. And you'd have to do it in MP, because you'd lose to anyone who did.

Some things wouldn't be bad. Separate battle and assassination scripts. Maybe separate can use gems/can't use gems scripts. Not much else.

[rdonj]

It sounds like you need to - have your mages closer to the front, script more carefully what spells you want cast (buffing for the first two turns will help a lot with useful fatigue use), or use the hold command more often. All of these will help with getting more effective spellcasting out of your mages.

Also mage SCs like we were talking about a while back in a different thread. They take a fair amount of research but are the best way to kill off AI armies. Even gearing some mages just to be harder to kill by random stray arrows can go a long way towards increasing the effectiveness of your AI-killing.

[Knai]

Originally Posted by thejeff

Some things wouldn't be bad. Separate battle and assassination scripts. Maybe separate can use gems/can't use gems scripts. Not much else.

That would be really nice.