Using Gems in Combat and Holding Positions

[Mysterio]

Hey, folks. I have a couple things I'm seeing during battles and wonder if you guys can explain why they're happening:

1. I have a mage who's level 3 in a path who's been ordered to cast a level 4 global battlefield spell in that same path. He has 10 gems of the associated path in his inventory, yet didn't cast the spell in battle. Since he's level 3, he can use 3 gems max to cast the spell. It's a 100 fatigue spell, so one gem is used to boost his level to 4 for the single casting and two more can be used to reduce fatigue. So, why did he cast Personal Luck instead of the level 4 spell?

When he was recruited, he was level 1 in the path. I used empowerment to get him to level 3. Could it be the game thinks he's still at level 1? If so, then that's a major bug. Does anyone have a theory? If not, I'll be submitting this as a bug report.

2. I give my level 1 priests the following order: (Banishment)(Banishment)(Banishment)(Banishment)(B anishment)Spells. Even though I have them aligned in a line from top to bottom, they all gather into a clump in the bottom left corner of the battlefield. My theory is that if they don't have a valid target for Banishment, they cast Bless on the first round if there's a valid target, but then do a "stay behind troops" when they don't have one for banishment instead of staying put. Has anyone else seen this behavior? I want them to maintain the line, not clump together in the corner.

Thanks!

[Fantomen]

1: What spell is he trying to cast? You have to consider the gem cost for casting the spell as well. If the gem cost is 3 then he can´t use any gems to boost his path level and is thus unable to cast the spell. Another explanation might be that you are facing a weak enemy. If the enemy army is judged too weak compared to your own then your mages will not "waste" gems in that battle.

2: I have no idea.

[thejeff]

1) My suspicion is that the AI decided not to waste gems in the battle. If you still have the turn, rerun the battle with debug on, that should give you more info on whay he chose to override the script.

2) Yeah, that's what they do. You could script them to (Hold or Cast)x5, then cast, which will keep them in place briefly. Beyond that there isn't much you can do. Give them bows and let them fire, if you really need them to stay put.

[Illuminated One]

1.) No idea, I think noone really knows that. It could be the AI considered the enemy to weak to waste gems, but sometimes the AI will override spells you have scripted and still waste gems.
Empowerment has nothing to do with it afaik, since I know of cases that worked where spells could only be cast after empowerment.

2.) Try (hold and cast). Or try to let them attack some turns before you cast.

[Mysterio]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

1: What spell is he trying to cast?

I had him scripted to cast Flaming Arrows (Fire-4), which costs 1 fire gem and 100- fatigue. Since he's Fire-3, he should have been able to use one gem to increase to Fire-4, one to cast the spell, and perhaps one to reduce the fatigue cost. Right?

Originally Posted by thejeff

1) My suspicion is that the AI decided not to waste gems in the battle. If you still have the turn, rerun the battle with debug on, that should give you more info on whay he chose to override the script.

How do I turn on debug, and will doing so flag me as a cheater in the MP game?

[thejeff]

He should have been able to cast Flaming Arrows.
There have been other reports of problems with Flaming Arrows in particular. I think one suggestion is that he won't cast if none of the archers are in range yet.

You turn on debug by passing a "-d" (or some number of d's. The more the more info) to dom3. I use Linux, so I just run it from the command line. On Windows you can do it from Start->Run, or by editing the properties of a shortcut. The debug output goes to a file called log.txt.
It won't interfere with a MP game. You can just watch the battle and it will log the debug info as it recalculates what happens.

[Mysterio]

Originally Posted by thejeff

He should have been able to cast Flaming Arrows.
There have been other reports of problems with Flaming Arrows in particular. I think one suggestion is that he won't cast if none of the archers are in range yet.

You turn on debug by passing a "-d" (or some number of d's. The more the more info) to dom3. I use Linux, so I just run it from the command line. On Windows you can do it from Start->Run, or by editing the properties of a shortcut. The debug output goes to a file called log.txt.
It won't interfere with a MP game. You can just watch the battle and it will log the debug info as it recalculates what happens.

All my Longbowmen were within range before he had the chance to cast Flaming Arrows, so that can't be it.

Here's the debug log info for the mage who was scripted to cast Flaming Arrows as his first spell, but cast Personal Luck instead:

com Radan cast spell (favspell Flaming Arrows) (mayusegems 0)
est. choices 39
best spell so far Fire Flies (score30)
best spell so far Twist Fate (score137)
best spell so far Earth Might (score393)
best spell so far Personal Luck (score895)
Fireshield start 0
Fireshield b 70
Fireshield b 70
Fireshield end 92
castspell: cnr48 spl340 (Personal Luck) vis0 x7 y16 spldmg2

I'm assuming the "mayusegems 0" means he's not able to use gems, which doesn't make any sense.

During the same battle, a similar thing happened to my Astral-3 mage who was scripted to cast Anti-Magic as his first spell. He had astral pearls on him, but didn't cast it. Here's his debug info:

com Wossan cast spell (favspell Antimagic) (mayusegems 0)
est. choices 27
best spell so far Twist Fate (score108)
best spell so far Earth Might (score300)
best spell so far Personal Luck (score621)
castspell: cnr110 spl340 (Personal Luck) vis0 x7 y14 spldmg2

None of this makes sense.

[thejeff]

What was your opposition?
The "mayusegems" flag should mean the AI is conserving gems because it doesn't think it's worth using them on such a weak enemy.

[Mysterio]

Originally Posted by thejeff

What was your opposition?
The "mayusegems" flag should mean the AI is conserving gems because it doesn't think it's worth using them on such a weak enemy.

About a PD of 20 and some Longbowmen.

[Fantomen]

I think that it was definately a case of "weak enemy". How big was your own army?