AI spell casting priorities

[Twan]

Gems won't be spent after round 5.

Hum there should perhaps be exceptions for some evocation spells (namely shadow blast, fire storm, niefel flames, shimmering fields). A player may want to have someone (probably a communion master or high level pretender) chain casting large area evocations as long he has gems, even after 5 rounds. As well there should be an exception for astral healing.

Banned buffs:


Only when scripted (because these are personal buffs more suitable for thug/sc units):

Astral Shield
Fire Shield
Personal Quickness
Flight (caster-only)
Water Shield

I disagree. They should be very low priority but not blacklisted. As they can't harm you they are something a mage should cast if nothing else -nothing not worse for your troops- can be done. And flight, giving more survavibility to a mage if his army is routed, should rather be in the "usefull buffs" list.

Blink
Breath of Winter
Charge Body
Soul Vortex
Barkskin (for poor Abysia)
Stoneskin (there are units with chill aura and Earth)
Ironskin (reduce lightning resistance)
Invulnerability (Ironskin should be enough for mages, and there might be earth mages with poison aura)
Personal Regeneration

These ones may be harmful for the mage or your troops and should be blacklisted. All protection spells give weakness against one element, so I include ironskin (especially bad in endgame, when the ennemy expect you to use army of lead/gold and so use shock dammage as much he can) only the player should decide to use one of them.

Preferred buffs:
Buffs mages SHOULD cast, if they can:

Summon Water Power
Summon Storm Power
Phoenix Power
Summon Earthpower
Strength of Gaia
Air Shield
Personal Luck
Mistform
Twist fate
Mirror Image
Iron Will/Resist Magic
Eagle Eyes
Flight (personnal)

Mistform should be higher priority than anything else (and airshield in land battles). Resist magic is usable only if the army isn't protected by antimagic, so should be high priority too as it may save the mage. In + magic buffs, summon earthpower should be 1st priority as it gives reinvigoration. Flight should get a good value when the mage's army as suffered a lot of losses.

Combat spells
Preferably, any buff spells/gem-expensive spells would have higher priority in the beginning, and would drop below direct damage spells of the same priority level in few turns. Thus, mages start by casting Luck/Body Ethereal, then quickly change into mind burn/paralyze or better spells.

Astral:
never unless scripted: Blink, Returning, Vortex of Returning, Solar Brilliance, Astral Healing, Soul Drain, Unraveling,

Astral Healing is one of the rare gems spell someone may hope to see used after round 6, except that agree.

Doom, Battle Fortune, Will of the Fates, Antimagic, Arcane Domination, Master Enslave, Astral Tempest.

I would include Doom and Astral Tempest in the black list. Doom is a waste if you destroy the ennemies, astral tempest kill your own guys.

Will of the Fates should be highest priority if a mage can cast it, and Antimagic as well. Mass enslave spells aren't that good if the ennemy has used antimagic and the caster has no penetration item, and casting one probably mean a powerful mage will be uncounscious, so they should not be valued as much as a defensive BE.

[Jazzepi]

KO, would it help if you had a bundled, sorted collection of the turn files, map files, and the fatherland files for the individual battles in question where the spell casting goes awry?

I know I've kept most of my turns for sloth, and I can provide you with multiple instances of arrow fend being cast for no reason. Also, there was a huge battle where R'yleh had undead mastery ready to cast in a big communion with over 5k+ undead in the battle, but instead cast bone grinding

Maybe it would be helpful if you could modify the values for the decision making process, and then "rehost" the turn to run it through a real life example to see how it would change the outcome.

Jazzepi

[Endoperez]

Twan said:

Hum there should perhaps be exceptions for some evocation spells (namely shadow blast, fire storm, niefel flames, shimmering fields). A player may want to have someone (probably a communion master or high level pretender) chain casting large area evocations as long he has gems, even after 5 rounds. As well there should be an exception for astral healing.

I know it isn't perfect, but would you rather have that or the current situation?

Thanks for the comments.

I would include Doom and Astral Tempest in the black list. Doom is a waste if you destroy the ennemies, astral tempest kill your own guys.

Will of the Fates should be highest priority if a mage can cast it, and Antimagic as well. Mass enslave spells aren't that good if the ennemy has used antimagic and the caster has no penetration item, and casting one probably mean a powerful mage will be uncounscious, so they should not be valued as much as a defensive BE.

I thought the battlefield enchants would mostly be for AI. While giving defensive BE higher value than enslavements would be good, AI could use Mass Enslave against other AI nations.

[Humakty]

I've seen an army of vans, with a staff of storms, cast ghost wolves rather than lightning spells. I lazily left them unscripted after summon storm power thinking : what could they cast not to win this battle ?
So I'd put the worthless ghost wolves in the blacklist.

[Endoperez]

Air:

Never cast: charge body, mist, wrathful skies, mists of deception, shimmering fields

phantasmal warrior
< false fetters, thunder ward, shock wave,
< Aim, Resist Lightning, Air shield, Mirror Image, shocking grasp, wind guide, ghost wolves, confusion, lightning bolt, flight
< Summon Storm Power, Mistform, orb lightning, arrow fend, thunder strike, mass flight, storm warriors, Fog Warriors

Summon lesser Air elemental
summon air elemental
summon valkyries
phantasmal army
living clouds
storm - I'd probably give this rather high rating, perhaps somewhere in the second-highest category. It may hurt you (archer nation), but it helps Air mages (storm power), so it's a tough choice.


Blood:

I don't know much about blood battle magic.

Death:

Death already does fine. Bane Fire and Drain Life should be rather high.

Earth:
never: Curse of Stones, Iron Bane, Rain of Stones, Earthquake

Flying shards, Earth Might, Iron Warriors
< Earth Grip, Fists of Iron, Earth Meld, Farstrike, Rust Mist, Armor of Achilles, Strength of Giants,
< Iron Will, Magma Bolts, Destruction, Shatter, Marble Warriors, Legions of Steel, Blade Wind
< Summon Earthpower, Magma Eruption, Gifts from Heaven, Army of Gold, Army of Lead, Petrify, Weapons of Shrapness

ones I'm not sure about:
Stoneskin, Ironskin, summon LEE, Invulnerability, summon EE, living Earth; the protection spells would probably go under "never cast these", and I have no idea about earth elementals.

[Sombre]

Phantasmal warrior or whatever it is, that's a pain in the arse as well. AI loves to cast that.

[Evil Dave]

Yup, and Ghost Wolves. From the little I can tell, the AI likes warm bodies on the battlefield, even if they're chaff.

[Loren]

A thought on the bit of not spending gems after turn 5:

There's one case I disagree on this. A caster who was scripted to spend gems should still have those spells available even past turn 5.

One thing that could improve the scripting: In addition to "Cast Spells" there would be "Cast Buffs" and "Cast Offensively".

[Tyrant]

I have to disagree, I think the non-gem spam spells are good defaults.

The ones that bug me are the Holy spells. It seems like one skelly anywhere on the battlefield will trigger banishment no matter how silly that is.

[Sombre]

Scripted to spend gems? How does that work Loren?