Mass flight bug - wrong script processing

[ano]

This is what I found there (extracts):

com Aksa(A) cast spell (favspell Mass Flight) (mayusegems 1)
est. choices 59
spellscore, Arrow Fend score 220322 (boost 91 scorat 262128)
Eval: Arrow Fend score 179123 (fat 33)
comp_castspell: eval Arrow Fend result 179123
best spell so far Arrow Fend (score179123)
spellscore, Mass Flight score 873 (boost 92 scorat 1023)
Spell punished for excessive fatigue 459 -> 153
Eval: Mass Flight score 153 (fat 100)
comp_castspell: eval Mass Flight result 153
looser spell Mass Flight (score 100153)

SO!
The spell is punished for excessive fatigue! And thus Arrow Fend was definitely a better choice...
I can't call this a bug, this is just a bad algorithm that costed me a half of my army (or even more). Actually, this either has to be changed or anyone planning to script some big battlefield spell will have to think about this algorithm and the fact that AI may find another *not so exhausting* spell instead of the one your whole strategy is based around.
Actually I think that scripted spells should never be be *punished for excessive fatigue*. If someone disagrees, let's discuss this.

[ano]

One more thing...
In this very case I could have given my raksha an air booster but let's imagine the situation where someone is planning to cast something like mast flight (I don't mean exactly this spell as it is useless in the storm) with A2 mage and storm power. He will never be able to do this as the mage will always be *punished for excessive fatigue*.
If it is really so, I think, it's unacceptable.

[thejeff]

ano said:
This is what I found there (extracts):

Actually, read it more closely. Mass Flight is being punished for extra fatigue, but that isn't what's stopping him from casting it. That just drops the score from 459 to 153, which combined with the 100,000 bonus for being scripted puts it at 100,153. That's below the 179,123 for Arrow Fend, so Arrow Fend is cast. It still would have been less if there wasn't the fatigue penalty: 100,459.

The real question is why is Arrow Fend rated so highly?

[Endoperez]

ano said:
This is what I found there (extracts):

The spell is punished for excessive fatigue! And thus Arrow Fend was definitely a better choice...

Actually, Arrow Fend got score of almost 180 000, while Mass Flight's total was 150 and even before fatigue reduction Mass Flight's score was under 1000... So there's something else going on in there. Perhaps Arrow Fend's score increases for every one of your units but Mass Flight's doesn't (i.e. Mass Flight isn't considered a buff, which someone already suggested), or perhaps every enemy archer on the field increases the chance of casting Arrow Fend, or perhaps castle's towers are considered more heavily than they should, but fatigue reduction wasn't relevant in this case.

[ano]

Yes, you're right. Problem is in extra high Arrow Fend score.
My army was about 800-900 units large (this may be the reason) but the only archers enemy had were two dozens of sprites (this doesn't seem to affect the score).
However I still think that scripted spells should never be punished for extra fatigue. And in order to avoid such situations scripted battlefield enchantments should never be overridden at all unless the enemy army is *too weak* and is not worth spending gems on it.
Btw... Does all this mean that my mage could cast nothing but Arrow Fend in this situation? It seems so...

[ano]

Btw... Does all this mean that my mage could cast nothing but Arrow Fend in this situation? It seems so...

[thejeff]

You get a 100,000 bonus for a spell being scripted, so take a look through the log. If there's anything else there above 80,000, he should be able to cast that.

[ano]

I know about that.
However, do you think that it is right and everything is ok with this algorithm?
Actually, my battle meant nothing and I have so huge potential that all these losses are nothing but a wasp bite, but there's a conceptual problem with this algorithm and I think it's worth modifying it in some way.

[Kristoffer O]

ano said:
Yes, you're right. Problem is in extra high Arrow Fend score.
My army was about 800-900 units large (this may be the reason) but the only archers enemy had were two dozens of sprites (this doesn't seem to affect the score).
However I still think that scripted spells should never be punished for extra fatigue. And in order to avoid such situations scripted battlefield enchantments should never be overridden at all unless the enemy army is *too weak* and is not worth spending gems on it.
Btw... Does all this mean that my mage could cast nothing but Arrow Fend in this situation? It seems so...

Did you have many archers? It might be that the AI counts wrong and counts your archers instead of enemy archers and multiplies with your archerscore or something. Similar problems have caused problems in other spells (like stygian paths).

[Jazzepi]

This has been pretty frustrating for me.

I've had the exact same problem. Arrow fend instead of mass flight, especially in castles.

Personally I think any castle battle where you're storming should give a boost to mass flight.

Jazzepi