Weird use of gems in battle?

[Viajero]

Caster is F8, she has around 10-12 fire gems and scripted to cast Evo9´s Flame Storm which is F5 and fatigue 100. (since my caster is F8, the fatigue for casting this should be aroun 12 or 13, 100/2/2/2)
She only casted twice but she goes and uses ALL the gems. Shouldnt this spell be at 1 fire gem cost? Something I am missing? is she using more gems for enhanced dammage or AoE? Is tehre a way to avoid consumption of all the gems?

She had around 42 fatigue before casting the first time and used 3 or 4 gems. She had 70 before casting the second time and used all the remaining 6 or 7 fire gems. After that she remained with fatigue 90. wtf?

[Squirrelloid]

ok, first of all you're calculating fatigue wrong. Its not halved for every 1 over, its 1/(n+1), where n is Path-Path_required

So 8-5 = 3 -> 1/(3+1) = 1/4 cost = 25 fatigue per casting +spellcasting encumbrance.

Only one gem can be used to increase path level (and thus level dependent effects), so i might expect an extra gem to be used per cast, making that 1/(4+1) = 1/5 cost = 20 fatigue + spellcasting encumbrance per cast, and effective F9.

Additional gems can be used to reduce fatigue cost, but since the next gem only saves 4 fatigue, I can't imagine she'd use it.

How the heck did she get to 42 fatigue before casting anyway? But if she used 3 gems that's 16 fatigue + spellcasting encumbrance to go from 42->70, so she must have a whopping *12* spellcasting encumbrance (ow!).

So, i don't know what's up with gem use necessarily, but I do know you should reduce your spellcasting encumbrance somehow - 12 is crazy town.

[Quitti]

Probably buffing itself in other paths, like summon earthpower+invulnerability or something similar, which could bring it to 42 fatigue. Nothing to be afraid of. And as Squirreloid said, 12 spellcasting encumberance is 'crazy town' levels, which is not necessarily bad if you just want to throw that one big spell with the caster, but if you want to keep casting spells, reduce it somehow. Easiest would be to take off that black steel full plate from the caster or whatever it's wearing, put rainbow armor or any of the dragon scale mails on it, they're good for those squishy expensive casters (at least in CBM, I seem to recall them being somewhat useless in vanilla).

To the original issue, spellcasting AI has some renegade ideas about gems, they're like candy to little kids - it just can't keep it's hands away from consuming them. Sometimes it can do it if the scripting is done to do some full-scale evos and there's just few units against the army/caster and it decides to cast something else from another path. Like summon fire elemental. Or something.

What you should keep in mind: If you give gems to a mage, don't expect them to be there the next time you fight with them. He/She/It will use them at the earliest opportunity, even to reduce 4 fatigue per gem. You can go around this by giving a stealthy commander, such as a indep scout the gems for next few battles and transferring them at the turn next to big fights.

[chrispedersen]

a few comments.

A). Was it raining? etc. Similarly spells can double the cost of fire based spells.

B). What was the magic setting of the province. Drain 3 could increase 20% iirc.

C). Fatigue is the sum of the spell cost and your encumbrance from armor.

D). Unlike what Squirrel said, you can only use 1 gem to decrease fatigue cost.


Try casting phonex power first. Also, I'd have to ask if you are using a crystal shield (heavy encumbrance cost). They're good for casting single big spells - but not good at repetitive casting.

[vfb]

D) You can use as many gems as your current level in the school when casting a spell, so for fatigue reduction purposes the number of gems you can use is (casting level) - (required gems to cast).

The combat AI likes to base the number of gems it uses on current fatigue. So if you have 4 gems and are casting a fatigue 50 spell, the AI might use zero gems on the first cast, and then once your fatigue is at 50, use 4 gems for the second cast.

[chrispedersen]

page 89:

"a mage may never increase his skill level by more than one using by using gems."

Ie., the mage may use 1 gem to increase his level (to cast a spell or to reduce fatigue).


the ai will always use 1 gem for fatigue reduction if it will put you over 100 fatigue.

Or choose not to cast the spell of course...

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

page 89:

"a mage may never increase his skill level by more than one using by using gems."

Ie., the mage may use 1 gem to increase his level (to cast a spell or to reduce fatigue).


the ai will always use 1 gem for fatigue reduction if it will put you over 100 fatigue.

Or choose not to cast the spell of course...

You can only use one gem to increase your path level, which is what i said. But you can spend extra gems after that to reduce fatigue as if you had increased your path level, but without the other benefits of increased path level (ie, no additional benefits to level-dependent effects).

So you can spend far more gems than 1 to decrease fatigue, but only the first actually increases your effective path level for other purposes.

[Bananadine]

Another misc. point: Cold-blooded creatures in the cold can get some pretty heavy encumbrance.

First time I read that bit on page 89, I also interpreted it to mean that at most one gem may be used for path boosting, and at most one may be used for fatigue reduction without path boosting. But I reread it just now, and yeah, the only thing it says about the limit to use of gems for fatigue reduction (without path boosting) is that the mage can't use more gems altogether than it has skill in the path. Well, this matches my experience--mages looove to burn up huge piles of gems! E5 mages spending three or more gems per earth elemental, etc. It's nice, at least, that mages are pretty reliable about using gems when you do want them to use gems, even if the casting will nearly kill them, though you can't trust them very well to save gems when you want them to save gems....

[Sombre]

I can't remember ever seeing more than 1 gem used per spell to reduce fatigue. So while what Squirrel is saying is something I have heard many times, I am not entirely convinced.

[chrispedersen]

I've never seen it either, nor am I convinced. Can anyone create a turn that shows this?