AI spell list and priority for each path

[Bananadine]

Small crowds of phantasms can tear up enemies that aren't ready for them. Unarmored, barely-conscious mages, for instance. Of course they very often cannot reach such enemies.

I don't think I've ever seen a mage cast Dust to Dust on a powerful undead commander... oh what a lovely spell that could be, if it were used more!

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally Posted by Bananadine

Always surprises me when I come out of turn after turn of agonizing over how to convince enough of my mages to JUST. MAKE. SKELETONS. to see people saying defensive spells and weak summoning spells are what they want to avoid. I generally don't mind the defensive spells, myself, because they sometimes help and they tend to run out of targets before long. And I seem to spend most of my time in big, long battles where there's time for that.

The objections fall in two categories:

Air magic: JUST BLAST STUFF ALREADY. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.

Death magic: Everybody loves skellyspam to tie up opposing armies or provide targets for enemy blaster mages, but as a general rule we bloody hate seeing ineffectual skellyspam used against thugs and SCs configured for army destruction. It is particularly agonizing to see the AI choose to create a bunch of skeletons instead of blasting the Bane Lord or Tartarian next door with Dust to Dust (for those with good precision) or Wither Bones (for those without)

And, of course, many of us hate any and all AI-chosen summoning spells once we are into the endgame and the AI chooses to summon chaff while Wrathful Skies, Fire Storm, or Acid Rain is active. If we want any chaff at that point, we'll damn well cast Mists of Deception.

[Bananadine]

That makes sense. For whatever reason, I don't see it happen. My death mages don't choose skeletons over good attack spells--because they have Disintegrate, which is almost all they're willing to use. And my air mages don't choose phantasms over lightning, because they've already dedicated all their time to Confusion. Since Disintegrate and Confusion do almost nothing in the very late game, I long for weak summoned units, which are at least something. (But Dust to Dust and lightning would also be welcome.)

Of course it's all the same complaint: obviously useless spells instead of obviously good spells.

[Finalgenesis]

Hence needing to know what AI prefers for different path under various circumstances, or basically a) AI spell list and b) conditions for AI to consider it. Some paths are gonna have a suck spell list (well arguably they all do, just suck at different level).

Ex. With a 2S / 3S / 4S mage assuming you have the research, will be spamming paralyze/soul slay/ enslave after buffing body ethereal and maybe astral shield, knowing this, you can put them where needed (vs SCs without crazy MR, big low MR units...etc) and maybe some cheap pen gear like void eye. However if you want it to stellar enemy elites or SC thugs after 5 turns, don't bother. I assume solar ray is on the spell list but the 3 biggies just overrides it in 99.9% of the situations.

Or if the mage has E and S path, expect it to have a useless (more useless then usual) AI spell list, because it'll buff for 3-4 turns or so and knock itself out or close to it, don't expect these to add much spell power after 5 turns. I think a ES combination favors the 3 astral spam once they get through the buff cycle and when awake, I guess the 3 astral main spam has much easier conditions then all the other earth stuff.

Or that blood has a 99% useless AI spell list, the 1% being when spamming imps are useful (which does happen), I think I've seen non-imp spells from blood though but I don't use it enough to remember. Blood really does take intelligent scripting to work well (more so then others.

Now I have a fair idea of the AI spell list and conditions for Astral, Death, and some of earth and blood, but I know I have holes in earth and blood (I'm sure they have other spells on the AI list with more uncommon conditions) and perhaps some really offbeat ones with astral and Death.

What I'm really lacking are the other paths and when you have combination of paths.

Feel free to share more of what you know on spell list and conditions!