So how about extending the depth of the casting queue?

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Huzurdaddi:
Nothing more fun that seeing your casters casting lots of buffs once the 5 spells are cast. It's cool!

There are also plenty of times when you also want your casters to buff themselves and those around them after they run through their script.

And yes, there is definetly a chance that game balance would be affected when a SC could buff themselves to complete invulnerability. For example, with an unlimited script, I would pick something like:
Quickness, invulnerability, soul vortex, phoenix pyre, resist magic, iron will, elemental fortitude, resist lignhinng, resist fire, resist cold, resist poison, summon earthpower, body ethereal, personal luck, astral weapon, astral shield, breath of winter, fire shield, mirror image, mistform, personal regeneration, strength of gaia, etc.

You know that the enemy will eventually surround you, which is really what you want, since you can continue to buff at a rate of 1 spell a round after that point. Or you could tell them to attack for a single round to make sure that you get close enough to do some damage while you contiune to power up.

[Demosthenes]

I certainly would enjoy more control over combat, and particularly over my mages.

I think what this comes down to unfourtunately is a conceptual decision on the part of the designers. The amount of control, that is limited control, that you have over the mages is fairly consistent with the amount of control you have over the combat as a whole. I might even say that that is pushing it, and that the mages actually are more flexible than any other part of the combat engine as it stands.

Comparing to MoM, HoMM, or AoW in all of which every unit gets round by round control by the user, Dom2's mages are already getting very special treatment compared to its Inf, Cav and Archers.

I'm not saying that I don't think expanding the spellcasting interface and level of user control is not a FANTASTIC idea. I'm just saying that as it stands, I find the current level of mage control consistent with the rest of the package.

[Esben Mose Hansen]

I would just like to state that I LIKE the limited control. The idea with "Cast specific spell" would be cool. though, as would a "attack mages", which would target the nearest character that had cast a spell.

Attack leaders, however, would be extremely uncool.

All this is in thread with my "Micromanagement is bad theme".

(If I had my way, you would not be able to build armies except at your capital. At all That would also make light infantry more useful.)

[HJ]

The option to enbale/disable spells from the casting selection screen would suffice. You would still have to choose whether to cast or attack after the fifth, but if you choose to cast at least there would be some control to avoid casting spells that are inappropriate/unwanted.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Esben Mose Hansen:
All this is in thread with my "Micromanagement is bad theme".

(If I had my way, you would not be able to build armies except at your capital. At all That would also make light infantry more useful.)

Maybe you just need to rethink your playing style. I've found that I can greatly reduce the level of micromanagement I suffer through a few simple adaptations to my playstyle, and avoiding certain micromanagement-intensive nations. This allows me to easily complete even the late-game, massive-map turns in less than an hour easily. Going faster helps, too!

[Soapyfrog]

Well we all know the root cause of the problem, and that is overly simplistic AI.

A Mage should be able to make some basic checks to his situation... if there are nothing but mages on one side of a battle, they should not be buffing themselves repeatedly into unconciousness while the enemy waltzes up and skewers them. Mages should know when they need to be casting attack spells rather than buffs. Lastly, the AI should be aware of fatigu state, and not try to cast spells that will knock itself out.

Assuming this is too difficult a problem to fix, then there are some simple patches that can be done to minimize the impact af the AI, and these have already been mentioned in this thread (and I am sure elsewhere):

1) extend the script... I am not talking about unlimited scripts, but just to 10, which ought to cover some of the longer battles in dom2.

2) "cast offensive" and "cast defensive" in addition to the "cast spells" option. This ought to do the trick for the most part, and would not rquire extending the script.

3) Change "cast spells" to alternate between offence and defence. Once the script runs out, the mage should alternate between attack spells and buffs instead of just picking one spell it likes and going crazy with it.

All these I think would be good solutions, and hopefully not too difficult to work in.

For sure the current situation of mages buffing themselves to unconsciousness and then getting slaughtered is not what the designers had in mind!

Originally posted by Demosthenes:
I'm not saying that I don't think expanding the spellcasting interface and level of user control is not a FANTASTIC idea. I'm just saying that as it stands, I find the current level of mage control consistent with the rest of the package.

I agree in principle; I'm all in favour of minimising micromanagement and quite happy to accept that playing at the Grand Strategic level means not having much control over tactics.

But your argument falls over if un-scripted mages are incapable of making rational spell-casting decisions. Note I say rational, not optimal. Reasonable but sub-optimal behaviour is fine, but completely stupid behaviour is just a cause for player frustration.

So if Illwinter seriously improved the spellcasting AI, that would be a fine solution. But that sounds like a lot of hard work, and a good result may not even be achievable. Or they can give players more control, so that there are less choices available to the spell-casting AI. Less work for the devs and less frustration for the players.

Mark