AI spell list and priority for each path

[Bananadine]

Always surprises me when I come out of turn after turn of agonizing over how to convince enough of my mages to JUST. MAKE. SKELETONS. to see people saying defensive spells and weak summoning spells are what they want to avoid. I generally don't mind the defensive spells, myself, because they sometimes help and they tend to run out of targets before long. And I seem to spend most of my time in big, long battles where there's time for that.

Maybe the discrepancy is that I've been playing in a late game setting where everybody is rich and every player is human? I find that in that situation, unscripted offensive spells usually aren't effective. It's too easy to block almost all of them by casting every kind of battlefield-wide defensive spell, and by putting expensive clothes on every important commander. But a wall of skeletons can still hold off or pin down almost anything, as long as the skeletons rise frequently enough. It might not help on offense, but on defense I'd much rather see an ever-changing crowd of skeletons clogging the fortress gate than one failed attack spell after another.

But of course it is a big game and there are many many settings. I think there was a time when I was mad about somebody casting Body Ethereal on all his friends instead of attacking... the other problem with late-game large-map no-CBM play is that it lasts forever and you forget how the other parts of the game go.

I would also love to see path booster spells considered. I don't think I've ever seen an unscripted Summon Earthpower and that should be a very high priority.

As iRFNA says, Summon Earthpower is definitely in there, and sometimes it even comes up fairly early. But it can also be easily put off forever in favor of stupid Flying Shards and endless (but potentially non-stupid!) Earth Grips.

I wonder about the others, though. I don't think I've ever seen the water, fire, or air ones used without a script.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally Posted by Bananadine

Always surprises me when I come out of turn after turn of agonizing over how to convince enough of my mages to JUST. MAKE. SKELETONS. to see people saying defensive spells and weak summoning spells are what they want to avoid. I generally don't mind the defensive spells, myself, because they sometimes help and they tend to run out of targets before long. And I seem to spend most of my time in big, long battles where there's time for that.

The objections fall in two categories:

Air magic: JUST BLAST STUFF ALREADY. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.

Death magic: Everybody loves skellyspam to tie up opposing armies or provide targets for enemy blaster mages, but as a general rule we bloody hate seeing ineffectual skellyspam used against thugs and SCs configured for army destruction. It is particularly agonizing to see the AI choose to create a bunch of skeletons instead of blasting the Bane Lord or Tartarian next door with Dust to Dust (for those with good precision) or Wither Bones (for those without)

And, of course, many of us hate any and all AI-chosen summoning spells once we are into the endgame and the AI chooses to summon chaff while Wrathful Skies, Fire Storm, or Acid Rain is active. If we want any chaff at that point, we'll damn well cast Mists of Deception.