Frustratingly Stupid Fire Mages

[Sombre]

That's worth testing.

[TwoBits]

I also think I remember hearing a good while back that mage "line of sight" is important, meaning the actual 'shape' of the battlefield might matter? That if your mage is behind a dip, and can't "see" the enemy, he might not cast? I'd be surprised if the game engine was that sophisticated, but who knows, and that's what I recall hearing, at least.

If true, I guess the moral is, have your Flaming Arrows caster further forward.

[Sombre]

No, line of sight doesn't matter.

Gandalf Parker posted several times about how his archers seemed to fire better when put on the flanks and suggested it was due to LOS, but this is not the case.

LOS is one of those things that we're 99.9% sure isn't in the game. There's always that last element of doubt with dom3 though.

[romis]

Originally Posted by Agema

Move your mages nearer the front?

Some of the Evocation artillery you'd probably want to default to if the AI declines to cast your script will have short(ish) range. If you're too far back, they can't hit anything, so they'll cast self-buffs or summon elementals. Although to be honest, mages summoning elementals when they have spare gems is one of those little frustrations that's hard to avoid.

They are usually placed just outside of archer fire, but still generally able to hit the enemies front lines on the first turn or at worst, before the script reached the combat spells, if they bothered to follow the script. when the front lines are destroyed and i am chasing down the stubborn archers and commanders in the back, i can see it, but its long before then usually.
i am sure its got something to do with taking into account additional fatigue from drain, and hot/cold scales, the computers evaluation of the two forces, and any number of other variables too numerous for me to figure out.

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Oh, one other thing.
If *all* your archers are moving into fire range they almost never cast it.

thats a thought, but the nice thing about tien chi is range 35 composite bowmen, and i like to keep them relatively clost to the front so they can fire archers, or just be a little more accurate. So in my case atleast it shouldnt be the issue.
I should clarify, when my archers charge the 2-3 turns into battle, im either fighting slow moving units(not far away units) or they are already engaged with my infantry. This behavior is done so randomly that i cannot believe it is the AI unwilling to fire into my owns ranks. i've seen them decimate entire divisions of my troops in one battle to kill a single enemy unit, then charge rather than fire on hundreds of advancing militia.

stupid me, i probably should have said Early Age Tien chi, although i don't recall it making much of a difference in their case, atleast in regards to their archers.

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Well here's my take on it.

Logic 1: All I need to win is flaming arrows.
Logic 2: Often my mages are blowing gems, and hurting actively hurting my prospects.

If both of those are true,

How about... flaming arrows, retreat.

modify as necessary for windguide, boosters or desired level of repetition. Flameing arrows, flaming arrows, retreat.

or communion master flaming arrows, RoR.

here is probably where i should have said EA tien chi, but like an idiot, i didn't.

The fireballs, falling fires, etc that the mages casts after the flaming arrows, can often affect the battle significantly still you have given me something to consider... if i could communion slave the idiot after the flaming arrows, he might not get the falling fires, but whoever he slaved to would be a little more effective and maybe cut my losses...

Originally Posted by vfb

Are you loading up your F mages with a ton of gems?

It's usually better to equip with just enough to cast flaming arrows once, and keep the remainder on scouts/non-F commanders.

I appreciate the suggestion, and its one i'm aware of, but to be honest if this is the only work around, i'll play someone other than tien chi(although its not like you can really get away from it).
As much as there is to do, and as few tools as there are to help you do it, i far too often overlook a step as it is. I'm sure you all know what i mean. priests preaching to high dominions, running out of commanders for shuttling reinforcements. forgeting to rehire mercs, if you use them. forgeting to reorganize troops after a battle or after you have split a large army, or just after you have employed a specific tactic. trying to remember all the places to recruit from. revieiwing site searches. reissueing mage commands because 'monthly' is applied before new conquests and gem income is handled. forging items, etc, etc, etc.

as it is you need a few sheets of paper to track whats happening in game. its enough. i am not going to start micromanaging gem supplies on individual commanders. its why i rarely play blood nations, and never for very long.

I appreciate the suggestion, but its not a solution as far as i am concerned. And please forgive any attitude that leeched into my post, its merely misdirected frustration, and i apologize for it.

Originally Posted by Lingchih

Hehe, your post is hilarious romis....snip.

i'm glad you are amused, i was worried i sounded like a jerk.

Originally Posted by Calahan

Even though it sounds odd, you could try having less men on your side of the battlefield. As the AI is not casting flaming arrows as at the start of the battle, it is judging you have enough troops to win without needing to expend any gems. And is then only using gems later, after you have lost some troops, as all of a sudden the AI decides you do need to use gems to win, and so burns them on Fire Elementals.

So you can try to convince the AI that your army does need to use gems to win, say by maybe leaving out 10-20% of your troops, as then the AI should be more likely to use gems on round 1 of the battle, and hence will then follow your scripts instead of ignoring them.

Its a thought, but its a little tough to manage. i find provincial defense and troop reports to be misleading and inaccurate. i've attacked an undefended province just as reinforcements arrived from seemingly out of thin air.
unless these are stealthy units who can sneak instead of attack, you've still momentum problems...


i appreciate all the feed back, look forward to more, definitely some things to consider here and try to work with. But alas, i think my tolerance for frustration and micromanagement is just a little too low for certain nations in this game.

[Jarkko]

With MA Marignon I had the same trouble in a MP game ages ago (I think it was one of my first Dom3 MP's, right after this was released). I then started to place the archers way back, so they would for *sure* not be able to fire on first turn, not necessarily even on second. The mage on Flaming Arrows duty was scripted with (if I remember correctly) Phoenix Power, Power of the Spheres, Flaming arrows, cast spells.

Dunno if it was just coincidence, but that worked like a charm from battle to battle. Until I was hit by a ton of storm-demons or something (cant remember what it was anymore), but that is another story... Anyway, seemed to me the AI saw the archers to be in range, the mage had nice buffs so would take very low fatigue hit for casting flamin arrows, and thus the script went through. It also worked wonders with the knights having hold&attack, being below the archers in the command screen, so the flaming death hit first, and then the lances of the blessed knights ripped the rest apart. Anyway, like I said, I was soundly beaten in that game, but it sure was awesome as long as it lasted.

[Nightblade]

Some years ago, i asked here about a similar problem.
I had a Blood Fountain pretender that was maxed out in Blood magic. Because it was an endgame, and i wanted to test my best and well equipped commanders against some horrors, i casted the global enchantment "Astral Corruption".

To test my pretender itself, i launched an astral spell with it and the Slave of Unreason found its way to my fountain.
My fountain was scripted with "Cast Spell" to leave it free to chose its own. It casted only one spell, "Infernal Prison" that got rid of the Slave of Unreason.

But powerfull horrors like the Slave of Unreason never stay imprisonned for long. several turns after that, it appeared again in one of the province.
I sent my best commander, with the scripted spell "Infernal Prison" to see if he would do the same as my pretender to the Horror.

In the battle, he never ever casted "Infernal Prison". I didn't understood why, until someone mentionned the range. Infernal Prison has a range of 30 in the manual, and i had placed my commander far in the back, thinking about avoiding anything nasty the Slave of Unreason could launch first, letting my foot troops/canon fodder gets all the fun

So check if you fire mages are not by any chances too far from the target when it is time for them to throw the first spell you scripted them.

[Swan]

Imo, this simulate well the difficult of general that have to deal with lieutenat and other officials.

[Squirrelloid]

While medieval military history is full of commanders who didn't follow orders of the nominal superior commander, the default AI when a spell is out of range is stupidly predictable - cast buff spells. Generally historical commanders who refused to obey orders erred on the risky side rather than the conservative side.

IMO, a mage who is out of range for his scripted spell should have a chance of moving forward so he *might* be in range next round, possibly a very good chance... There's little point in standing around on a battlefield unable to do anything.

[thejeff]

On the other hand, often moving forward is exactly the wrong thing to do. Brings the mage that much closer to the enemy that's closing on him.
Imagine a mage with an army on Hold and attack. He runs up past his troops and gets run down by the enemy's charging cavalry before his men even move.

It's not a trivial AI task.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by thejeff

On the other hand, often moving forward is exactly the wrong thing to do. Brings the mage that much closer to the enemy that's closing on him.
Imagine a mage with an army on Hold and attack. He runs up past his troops and gets run down by the enemy's charging cavalry before his men even move.

It's not a trivial AI task.

If you know your army is scripted like that, you can script the mage more suitably (such as scripting hold, or perhaps casting a specific buff spell instead)