AI Hardcoded starting spell

[Seravy]

Just in case someone is wondering why the AI always have certain spells.
Normally, the AI gets spells following the same rules as the player, and picks them in the order they are selected by default when the player is picking.

However, I found today that there are hardcoded choices on top if this, that ignore the normal rules (the AI will get these spells without spending picks, after he selected the spells the "legal" way.)

If the primary realm is

Nature : Start with Sprites.
Life : Guardian Spirit
Death : Ghouls
Chaos : Hell Hounds
Sorcery : Nagas

If the difficulty is 2 or higher then also

Nature : Basilisk is always researchable
Life : Unicorns
Death : Shadow Demons
Chaos : Chimeras
Sorcery : Phantom Beast

While I don't mind the commons (they already got them from their picks anyway, it's the primary realm we talk about so that's like 5+ books), the uncommons are plain and simple cheating. The Sorcery one doesn't even guarantee they'll have a strong monster to summon in overland which seems to be the intended purpose.

[Tiltowait]

I don't think it's cheating, it's making a more challenging experience for the human player. You want cheating, look at the food + mana bonuses the CPs get on the higher levels. Whoa.

[Seravy]

I don't think it's cheating, it's making a more challenging experience for the human player. You want cheating, look at the food + mana bonuses the CPs get on the higher levels. Whoa.

I don't mind that (even if it's cheating the AI needs it if we want to have fun) but the AI always having the exact same spell every game is...boring.
Especially these ones.
Basilisk and Chimeras are easy to deal with, I don't see them a threat. They are good uncommon units but nothing game-changing. I rather have some variety and encounter some armies of fire giants, giant spiders, and gargoyles at least in some of the games. I buffed them up so they are not the worthless garbage they were by default. Maybe not as good as those two but they cost much less so ultimately they are equivalent. 3 Fire Giants is more of a threat than 1 Chimeras.
Shadow Demons are very powerful, every Death wizard always having them is just a big no. Even if I can handle it as a player, it's not fair. And Night Stalkers are more fun to encounter.
Unicorns, well I guess that's reasonable, Life has a bad chance to get a summon spell but...why do they need one anyway? Life is not about summoning. And it's one more source of mass-resistance that turns half the spells in the game less useful, no need to see them all the time.
Phantom Beast, a big no, why would Sorcery always need to have a top tier combat summon spell? Sorcery is the highest threat to a player anyway even without this. Spell Blast, Spell Binding, Suppress Magic, Time Stop, Sky Drake, triple dispelling...

My problem isn't that they get an extra uncommon spell for free (as you said they get much more than that), but why do they need to always play the same spells? They have enough books to get like 8-10 uncommons per game, plus much more if lucky with lairs.

Besides, always having a source to trade these spells from might even help the player. Especially Shadow Demons and Phantom Beast.

Oh I get it...the unmodded spells were so bad in the original game that they HAD to make sure there is at least something that's both useful and not brokenly overpowered in the AI's spellbook...

Well not while I'm in change of what the spells do.

[FrancoK]

So are you changing this in the patch or in your mod?

[Seravy]

Yes, the M028 patch did remove this guaranteed uncommon in 1.50. Caster of Magic has an entirely different spellbook system that offers guaranteed uncommon spell picks as a feature for both human and AI so it doesn't need to cheat to get some.

It's subjective as the AI cheats in all sorts of ways, but I believe the game would be boring if they always had the same uncommon summoning spell, plus the AI also gets additional picks on higher difficulties, so they are extremely unlikely to end up without one.

Furthermore, it's just an uncommon creature - if the AI doesn't get a rare, or very rare, they are still in (much greater) trouble. Having no uncommon is not that big deal compared to those.

(Do note the AI will use their legal starting spell picks on getting a summoning spell early enough, so they will never really need the common anyway.)

[FrancoK]

Gotcha, thank you.