Serpent's Blessing

[Jazzepi]

Could the developers please lower the barrier to casting Serpent's blessing when a unit already has 50% resistance to poison?

I'm trying to use it with foul vapors + C'Tis units, but my marsh master would rather cast poison ward instead which is infinitely less useful.

At the very least, let me script the spell. There's no reason the AI needs to be casting it on already poison resistant units, but it's frustrating to have it ignore my commands.

Jazzepi

[Szumo]

EDIT: nevermind :)

[Ironhawk]

I think that Resistance spells should ALWAYS cast so long as they are AoE or battlefield wide. The AI should never interfere with those, because if you script them, you definitely have a reason for doing so. The only time the AI should refuse to cast a resist spell is if it's caster-only and the caster already has 100% resistance.

[ano]

Agree. The same with returning - it was discussed some time ago...
There definitely should be a list of spells that should NEVER be overridden.

[WraithLord]

I'm not sure I agree. The reason AI may override spells, esp. ones the burn gems is that it was abused in the past (was discussed before so I won't bring the examples again).

Also, specifically for returning, there's the added reason that its currently one of the only ways to counter a telporting SC with S picks.

I do think that the AI reasoning of whether or not to cast a given spell should be made more clear. I found it very frustrating to lose battles or skirmishes due to the AI overriding my scripts.
If the AI reasoning is made clear than the knowledgeable player would be able to predict the effect his scripting will have in various scenarios.

[Jazzepi]

If the AI reasoning is made clear than the knowledgeable player would be able to predict the effect his scripting will have in various scenarios.

It's not about understanding why the AI is making the decision that it is. The problem is that the decision is wrong, and I have no way to override it. Even though I've spent tons of time researching to serpent's blessing, the stupid AI has wasted all the time for me by disallowing the casting.

Jazzepi

[WraithLord]

I see. Well it would seem that a small flag near commanders script titled "Force casting" or "Disallow overwriting script" that defaults to false would satisfy all. Who he wants serpents blessing cast even when attacked by a pack of black hawks will be able to get what he wants. He may repent it when later attacked by a real army but then again its the player's decision.

Same goes for returning. Though as I said earlier for returning this would change the current balance somewhat. Since teleporting astral thugs would be virtually impossible to catch making them raiders on a level currently not in existence in the game.

[ano]

I see. Well it would seem that a small flag near commanders script titled "Force casting" or "Disallow overwriting script" that defaults to false would satisfy all. Who he wants serpents blessing cast even when attacked by a pack of black hawks will be able to get what he wants. He may repent it when later attacked by a real army but then again its the player's decision.
It is a good idea but probably we have no chance of this being changed, so...
And I agree with you that it'll be even better in some aspects not to disallow AI overriding scripts but to make it predictable. Some rules describing the AI logic would be fine. At least for now.

[Psycho]

I don't think people are getting the point here. It's not about being attacked by a pack of black hawks. Instead of a spell that gives you BE poison resistance and costs one gem, AI choses another spell that gives AoE 15 poison resistance and also costs one gem.

[WraithLord]

ok Psycho, what you describe is evil. I hope this gets fixed.

[Psycho]

I didn't describe it, Jazzepi did.

I had a similar thing, though. My Pan scripted to cast mass protection refuses to so, because the opponent is not enough of a threat. Instead he casts wooden warriors which doesn't require gems and does so several times. On third or fourth casting he uses up the gem he had for reducing fatigue. The effect is that the gem is still used up, but not all maenads are affected by barkskin.

[WraithLord]

Well Jazzepi and Psycho. Now I understand your point better.
Its not just that the AI overrides your script, its that AI chooses to do so for a clearly inferior alternative. This is very distinct from the returning issue ano has described in his thread. Since in the returning case its arguable whether the AIs decision to override is inferior or not (depending on situation). However choosing to cast a limited version of scripted spell (effect units instead global) is clearly wrong esp. if the limited version costs the same amount of gems as the global.

I can only hope devs will be aware of this and maybe, hopefully provide a fix.

[Edi]

Run a debug log and examine the spell prioritization process on why it casts the wrong spell. It gives an evaluation on what to cast and that may give you some clues.