How to script a Bard ?

Borg · #1 July 30th, 2004, 08:44 AM

How do you script a Bard so that he stays close to his squad and uses his songs.

So far it's been guesswork as to how many "attack once" actions I have to give him and then HOPE that he's in range to use his songs and let the squad benefit from his Standard Bearer effect.

[ July 30, 2004, 07:45: Message edited by: Borg ]

Truper · #2 July 30th, 2004, 03:03 PM

When I'm playing Man, I usually set my infantry to "hold and attack closest". This is because Man has the best archers in the game - you might as well give them as much time to wreak havoc as possible before melee is joined. This has the added benefit of not letting them wander so far forward that they get out of range. Otherwise, there's not much else you can do that you haven't already done. Note that its also very valuable to have a Bard singing Soothing Song near your other mages, to have them benefit from the reinvigoration.

Borg · #3 July 30th, 2004, 04:38 PM

I do that, Truper
but it seems that you can't make the Bard do BOTH things, cast spells AND stay close to his squad.

It looks like you EITHER let him advance together with his squad so they can benefit from his Standard ability, or you keep the Bard close to "stationary" troops like the Longbows or Mages so he can "sooth" them.

Making the Bard cast spells in the neigbourhood of moving Infantry seems like dangerous guesswork to me, or is there a solution to this ?

[ July 30, 2004, 15:39: Message edited by: Borg ]

DeathDaemon · #4 July 30th, 2004, 07:46 PM

There was a topic a couple weeks back along the same lines...
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...=003290#000000

one thing I saw that was funny was that you could put a bunch of bards all over the battlefield and hopefully the troops walk past the bards up front on the way to the enemy.

[ July 30, 2004, 18:48: Message edited by: DeathDaemon ]

Chris Byler · #5 August 1st, 2004, 03:24 PM

That's why Bards are so cheap - so you can buy a couple to stand still and sing, and a couple to walk forward and use standard.

Although it would be nice if an unscripted Bard would walk to friendly troops and *then* sing. Or, in general, any commander on "stay behind troops", if he is already behind troops, should use archery or magic if he has them instead of running back and forth between 2-3 spaces behind the troops.