Poor Spell Casting AI

[Lucid]

So i have all these great evocation spells learned and my buffed commanders decide to..... Cast summon wolves.... you have to be kidding me.

The well behaved wizard mod used to fix this, but it doesnt appear to work in dom 4. Anyone know a way to improve caster AI?

**Edit I modded Well Behaved Wizards to work in Dom4**

[Vieira]

I think you can choose to activate or deactivate a spell in the creature panel.

[Smiling Spectre]

Do you know about command queue, Lucid? Theoretically speaking, you had to script your initial spells, and only after that your commanders will be free to do what they wants.

[Lucid]

Originally posted by Vieira:

I think you can choose to activate or deactivate a spell in the creature panel.

Via modding or in game?

@ Spectre, yup, i know about queueing those spells, the problem comes when you want them to continue firing spells from the back row after the 5 commands are up.

@ Devs (which arent present), a super quick fix would be allowing up to 15 scripted commands.
A less simple fix, would be allowing much more complex scripting (similiar to FFXI) for users or open the combat AI up to modders.

[Staythecourse]

That's never going to happen, at least in Dom4. The limited spell scripting has become an integral part of both game balance and strategy. Tactics based around front loading important spells and placing mages in the right place to encourage them to cast the right spells against the right targets are a major part of gameplay. For instance, if you're talking about ghost wolves, air mages cast them less if very close to the enemy, forcing the player to choose between mage safety and effectiveness.

Allowing finer player control over spellcasting will both unbalance spells vis a vis each other, and unbalance combat magic versus conventional troops, bless sacreds, etc. Increasing the size of the spell script would also unacceptably increase micro at higher levels of play.

That said, certainly, the AI can and should be prevented from casting actively harmful spells unless scripted, which I do hope can be done in Dom4.

[Lucid]

Originally posted by Staythecourse:

That's never going to happen, at least in Dom4. The limited spell scripting has become an integral part of both game balance and strategy. Tactics based around front loading important spells and placing mages in the right place to encourage them to cast the right spells against the right targets are a major part of gameplay. For instance, if you're talking about ghost wolves, air mages cast them less if very close to the enemy, forcing the player to choose between mage safety and effectiveness.

Allowing finer player control over spellcasting will both unbalance spells vis a vis each other, and unbalance combat magic versus conventional troops, bless sacreds, etc. Increasing the size of the spell script would also unacceptably increase micro at higher levels of play.

That said, certainly, the AI can and should be prevented from casting actively harmful spells unless scripted, which I do hope can be done in Dom4.

Thanks for the reply, i think this might be confusing a bug with a feature. Indeed it is part of the strategy now, but its also frustrating.

The particular balance mechanic of choosing caster range should be dealt with via the precision mechanic not poor spell casting AI.

I do like that at some point you lose control of the exact spells you cast, it would be nice to have either more control OR a better AI. This could be done by a simple matrix. (Fatigue: High, medium low X Enemy range: Far, Medium, Close) and maybe attacking could be an option.

I believe there would be more interesting and veraitile strategies with better AI.

[Tomsdeli]

i still think a simple multi check box in the script area for summon/damage/buffs would be the best way to go about a change at all. its the best middle ground idea ive heard and would allow you to throw wiegth into whatever area you want while still maintaining the hands off approach that is intergil to the game.

that being said i think that summons have a huge problem as units that can cast them always revert to them in 90% of the situations. the weigths really do seem to high for whatever reason. i genrally like my D2 to skele spam, outside of fort battle where im screaming at my screen as i now out number the opponent 400 to 20 and i want to see some shadow bolts or bane fires or really anything that isnt a another hordfe of skeletons.

overall i can live with the system as is but some weigth clean up on summons might be in line imo.

[Staythecourse]

Originally posted by Lucid:

Thanks for the reply, i think this might be confusing a bug with a feature. Indeed it is part of the strategy now, but its also frustrating.

The particular balance mechanic of choosing caster range should be dealt with via the precision mechanic not poor spell casting AI.

I do like that at some point you lose control of the exact spells you cast, it would be nice to have either more control OR a better AI. This could be done by a simple matrix. (Fatigue: High, medium low X Enemy range: Far, Medium, Close) and maybe attacking could be an option.

I believe there would be more interesting and veraitile strategies with better AI.

I think you are not understanding my point. I'm not saying this method of balance is a good way to balance things. I'm saying it has become fundamental to the current balance, and any change that actually lets you force mages to be significantly more efficient will require complete rebalancing of the game; magic, formations, units to prevent major imbalance.

Given the limited dev resources, it simply will not happen in this game.

[Maerlande]

What will or will not happen with a future possible Dominions 5 is a very unknown thing. Currently Illwinter are focused on the near release of Conquest of Elysium 4 planned for November. Although I am on both beta teams, I don't know their plans for after that. Perhaps at some point JK or KO will let us know :) But historically they keep those sorts of business decisions tightly secret.

There have been many suggestions for upgrading the game, but who knows. I personally don't support the idea of more script slots. 5 is more than enough and gets incredibly heavy for micro in the late game. However, AI improvements, black lists, white lists, or other things that can be setup universal without a lot more micro are good.

[Lucid]

Originally posted by Maerlande:

What will or will not happen with a future possible Dominions 5 is a very unknown thing. Currently Illwinter are focused on the near release of Conquest of Elysium 4 planned for November. Although I am on both beta teams, I don't know their plans for after that. Perhaps at some point JK or KO will let us know :) But historically they keep those sorts of business decisions tightly secret.

There have been many suggestions for upgrading the game, but who knows. I personally don't support the idea of more script slots. 5 is more than enough and gets incredibly heavy for micro in the late game. However, AI improvements, black lists, white lists, or other things that can be setup universal without a lot more micro are good.

I agree with your approach - black lists / white lists is probably just as easy and better. For the record - well behaved wizard mod seems to work in Dom 4. (There was an error with summon imp(s) that has to be corrected in the download via opening in word pad and changing all 'summon imp' into 'summon imps')

[Oor-tael]

Another very frustrating example of the really poor spellcasting AI :

Useless Flying shards prefered to banishment (with +3 penetration) against ethereal Shadow Vestals with 18 MR.
I have made a video here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06ON3y97rQ4

SOOOOOOOO frustrating to see fine tactics put aside by this AI. This battle result could almost be tagged as a proper bug.

I also think that allowing more than 5 rounds of precise scripts is not a good idea. What sould be done is an accurate tuning of the "Cast spells" loop ending the scripts. With a black list, or with thematic restrictions, like "Cast Holy spells" or "Cast Alteration spells", or even both "Cast Death Enchantment spells". That would be really easy to do and WAY BETTER.

[Lucid]

In game black list - shared by youre whole nation is best I think. It can be overridden by scripting a black listed spell.

I can't imagine how complicated it would be to write a decent AI casting script that selected spells and targetted.

[Red_Rob]

In case people aren't aware, the Well Behaved Wizards mod referred to in the OP has been updated to Dominions 4 - it can be found here:

http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=3063

[meglobob1]

Would love Illwinter to put in a nation combat spell blacklist. Basically, just a list of all combat spells that you could click on / off. So your mages would not cast any of the ones switched off. Nice simple system.

Lost too many battles due to terrible AI choices.

eg Mage sees giant wielding a huge magic sword advancing on him, does he cast gifts of heaven or soul slay or even paralyze to give himself a chance...nah he casts body etheral on himself and gets split in two by the huge magic sword!

Dumb mages!

[Catowl]

I would maybe prefer a white list. Have it be very limited in muser of spells you can put there. Say you can only put in 3 spells, but any(and every) mage in the nation will cast one of them after scrips is done.

So a death nation can say "everyone casts horde of skelespam you at all can" and every skelespam capable mage will do so. Then they can say "everyone casts banish" and every mage not capable of skelespam spams banish. Want your death mages to do something different? Too bad, clear white list, or they only skelespam (after scripts are done)

Doesn't give an overwhelming level of control, but let's you tell your mages their 3 or so "bread and butter" spells that they should resort to after 5 rounds

[[762] RomanticFool]

Originally posted by Renen:

I would maybe prefer a white list. Have it be very limited in muser of spells you can put there. Say you can only put in 3 spells, but any(and every) mage in the nation will cast one of them after scrips is done.

So a death nation can say "everyone casts horde of skelespam you at all can" and every skelespam capable mage will do so. Then they can say "everyone casts banish" and every mage not capable of skelespam spams banish. Want your death mages to do something different? Too bad, clear white list, or they only skelespam (after scripts are done)

Doesn't give an overwhelming level of control, but let's you tell your mages their 3 or so "bread and butter" spells that they should resort to after 5 rounds

I think your suggestion gives an overwhelming amount of control - it just doesn't give fine control. I honestly haven't had issues with the casting since the AI casting update last patch - I think people need to understand how the AI checks for status of battlefield and tries to respond to that based on what you have researched.