Fear of your own Mages

[Darryl]

There's a couple of things about mages that I've been wondering about as far as the design of the game goes and if this effect is intentional. I'm currently playing a game as Arco and just took Pythium's capital. Pythium has a small (20 man) force that may try to move on one of my provinces with a temple. Since I'm greedy, I decided to move some of my forces to that province (I have a fortress right next to it). As I looked thru the commanders the only one with decent leadership was an Astrologer with 1W. I started to script his spells to move him to the province and noticed the "Water spells" and thought "NOOOO!!! he's useless. He'll just Breath of Winter and kill his own bodyguards!" Then I noticed he doesn't have the power and thought "Whew!!". Is this intentional? Is it by design that I'm supposed to be "afraid" to use water mages because of Breath of Winter"? I mean it doesn't matter what you script. If it's a battle over 5 rounds, they WILL cast Breath of Winter if they have the skill.

Also, I'm curious about Astral magic. I've been casting "Tartarian Gate", and all of the ones with Astral Magic are immediately barred from combat (Astral Duel). I'm assuming this was done on purpose, but I'm curious as to why? As it stands, Astral = no combat, no exceptions UNLESS you are the "Astral King". I even remember reading an old post where someone suggested taking a pretender who came with 1 Astral and killing him intentionally to get rid of the Astral! Was this what the devs wanted?

Darryl

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by Darryl:
There's a couple of things about mages that I've been wondering about as far as the design of the game goes and if this effect is intentional. I'm currently playing a game as Arco and just took Pythium's capital. Pythium has a small (20 man) force that may try to move on one of my provinces with a temple. Since I'm greedy, I decided to move some of my forces to that province (I have a fortress right next to it). As I looked thru the commanders the only one with decent leadership was an Astrologer with 1W. I started to script his spells to move him to the province and noticed the "Water spells" and thought "NOOOO!!! he's useless. He'll just Breath of Winter and kill his own bodyguards!" Then I noticed he doesn't have the power and thought "Whew!!". Is this intentional? Is it by design that I'm supposed to be "afraid" to use water mages because of Breath of Winter"? I mean it doesn't matter what you script. If it's a battle over 5 rounds, they WILL cast Breath of Winter if they have the skill.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Just make sure your bodyguards have cold resistance or make sure your mage has no bodyguards and is far enough away from your other troops, and you won't have anything to worry about with Breath of Winter.

[ March 18, 2004, 17:57: Message edited by: fahdiz ]

[Sindai]

EDIT: Nevermind, misread your post.

[ March 18, 2004, 18:34: Message edited by: Sindai ]

[Taqwus]

If you don't like Magic Duel, there's an official mod for it that makes it cost a gem (thus reducing the chance it'll be used), and you could block the spell entirely by making it unavailable. You could do the same to Breath of Winter, albeit that one can be used with no risk by some mages when combined with the right troops.
But yes, water mages can be dangerous; even if they start away from everyone else, there's no guarantee that they won't move closer to the rest of yours.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Taqwus:
But yes, water mages can be dangerous; even if they start away from everyone else, there's no guarantee that they won't move closer to the rest of yours. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Water Mages, with Breath of Winter researched, are a health hazard to the rest of your forces that are too close, and probably should not be brought into combat.

However, they're so useful out of combat that "useless" is far from an apt description: Give him a water bracelet, have him get his lazy *** to work forging clams for you. You'll quickly learn to value him in no time.

[fahdiz]

Of course, there are some Water mages who you specifically want to cast Breath of Winter. SC pretenders with Water and Ice Devils quickly come to mind...since often they'll be soloing indie provinces.

Having said that, Water mages are a tad dangerous and generally best used out of combat, or for bringing landlubbers with them for taking sea provinces - or hopefully they only have Water 1 so they can cast Quickness and stay out of trouble. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Taqwus:
But yes, water mages can be dangerous; even if they start away from everyone else, there's no guarantee that they won't move closer to the rest of yours. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you put them on "cast spells", then they will only move anywhere if there are absolutely no other spells that could have any effect, or if you rout.

[Taqwus]

Hm. Clams are always nice. But for Celestial Masters, Theurgs, Mystics and others, it'd be nice to get some battlefield use.
BoW mixes decently with most undead; I think either Soulless or Ghouls might not be immune, but all the longead, spectral and wightly ones are. Jotuns also are immune, although Utgard needs to be careful about the Seithkonas that are oh so fun once Nether Darts is available.
A water mage can still be useful on the battlefield, with Quickening, Cold Bolts, Falling Frost, Frozen Heart, warding... not as showy as fire or lightning magic perhaps, or as entertaining as Gifts from Heaven (150 points of *WHAM!*) but still handy.

[Darryl]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by Taqwus:
But yes, water mages can be dangerous; even if they start away from everyone else, there's no guarantee that they won't move closer to the rest of yours. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Water Mages, with Breath of Winter researched, are a health hazard to the rest of your forces that are too close, and probably should not be brought into combat.

However, they're so useful out of combat that "useless" is far from an apt description: Give him a water bracelet, have him get his lazy *** to work forging clams for you. You'll quickly learn to value him in no time. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Oh I do this frequently. It's just that if I have a mage with 2 water for combat I have to micromange troops, whereas with other mages just give them some guards and send them into combat. Basically, I meant useless in combat if you don't have undead or other immune troops.

My basic question is what is the reasoning behind this. There are other things I "don't like" in Dominions but there are reasons. Examples:

I don't like starvation, but it's there to require more management of large armies.

I don't powerful spells cosing more gems, but it's there to restrict their casting.

I don't like most mages having few HP, but it's there to balance their power.

I don't like Water 2 mages casting Breath of Winter killing friendly troops if they aren't immune, but it's there because...???

I don't like Magic Duel basically making Astral 1 and 2 mages useless in combat, but it's there because...???

The first 3 are simplistic and I know there are other reasons, but you get the idea. Those seem to make sense to me and lend to a more interesting game. Can anyone complete the Last 2 and tell why those add to balance and gameplay??

Darryl

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Darryl:
I don't like Water 2 mages casting Breath of Winter killing friendly troops if they aren't immune, but it's there because...???<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's there because the spellcasting AI is stupid. If the spellcasting AI were not stupid, we wouldn't need even 5 spell orders, because the AI would always cast the correct spells. However, the AI is incredibly stupid, and this is why you are given 5 spells worth of handholding. Admittedly, the spellcasting AI is better than that of other games, but the fundamenetal problem here is that computers are stupid. They do dumb things quickly, but humans are generally smarter than computers. Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

I don't like Magic Duel basically making Astral 1 and 2 mages useless in combat, but it's there because...???<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Magic Duel is not has enormously harmful as you make it sound: It's actually the other way around: Those Astral-1 and Astral-2 mages are a big threat to anyone who has a small to moderate amount of Astral on the pretender, because you can communion them together and have a goodly chance of killing it that way.

On the reverse side, I doubt anyone is going to commit an Astral 7 or 8 mage just to magic duel your little astral mages, who are probably expendable anyway. If they send a less than astral 7 mage against an astral 1 mage, they will probably die from magic duelling you. They may kill a fair number of your mages, but it's easier to replace a stock astral-1 or 2 mage than it is to replace something which may be astral 5, and certainly required empowerment or items to get there. Besides, Astral is just too awesome to pass up, even with the threat of magic duels. Some people, however, feel that this makes astral too dangerous....and that's their loss, IMO.

[ March 18, 2004, 22:16: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

Magic Duel is a very real threat in the hands of certain players. If you want to see it abused, try playing T'ien Ch'i and relying on Celestial Masters in a MP game with Pythium, Arco, or R'leyh in the game as well and you will see it's effectiveness.

While I admit the other nations with at least 2 in Astral have a minor thought of Mind Duel, any nation with 1 Astral on their primary -expensive- mage has to worry about such things.

And Quickness and Mind Duel on the Astral King will wipe out huge masses of small end Mind Duelers. In my Experience Astral 7+ on an Astral King can typically nullify anything with 3 and Below Astral and kill them all with very little actual threat to him (weird luck aside).

Also Mind Hunt is a very real threat if you go into their Dominion with your Astral Mages.

[ March 18, 2004, 22:30: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Zen:
And Quickness and Mind Duel on the Astral King will wipe out huge masses of small end Mind Duelers. In my Experience Astral 7+ on an Astral King can typically nullify anything with 3 and Below Astral and kill them all with very little actual threat to him (weird luck aside).<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I recall that the safety margin for magic duelling was 6-over. If you're 6 over, always duel, otherwise, only duel if you killing him is more important than the survival of your mage.

Of course, the more duellers you face at once, the more likely they'll communion themselves into a large duelling array and gun you down anyway. The stronger their leading astral mages are, the fewer astral mages have to attend for this to happen.

It is, however, very true that the Celestial Master is particularly weak against duelling: He's only astral 1, which means you only need an astral 7 mage to kill him, and Pythium, R'lyeh, Arco, can all easily achieve that with a combination of items, communion, and/or randoms. The price tag of the CM being what it is, he can't quite be considered sufficiently expendable small-fry that nobody will bother, either.

[ March 18, 2004, 22:38: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

The Mind Duel does the highest first. So if he has 2 or 3 Masters with 4-8 Slaves (Assuming they are all lowend Astral Users).

I know what the 'safety' range is, but you win with anything 4+ in levels I have found except with freak occurances (which can happen, but 1 in 20 or 30 MD's or so). So all you have to do is win against the ones who are higher and mop up the lower end ones. What would be even better is if it targeted the lowest first to MD to kill Communion Slaves, however this would still give Pythium an edge. Most of the time you'll be dealing with Light of the Northern Star, but other than that, the odds still work for the higher end Astral user.

For other players it may be less of an impact. If I'm playing an Astrally strong nation or pretender, I always script Mind Duel first on those mages who have 4+ Astral (After LotNS) And I rarely lose any while the opponent loses Grand Thamaturgs, Warlocks, Grand Masters, Nornas and others with much more than the % frequency.