DEATH Realm

[GermanJoey]

Hmmm, I think the AI is bugged the way it casts Wave of Despair. I suspect that its far too high on the priority list. For example, say I attack a wandering AI ghoul with an undead swordsman of my own. On the first turn, he'll usually summon a zombie. I counter by summoning a Centaur. He casts WoD. Repeat this 3x, until he runs out of skill. The issue here is that he's casting cross-plane, and so wastes 555 mana per battle. I can then do this to him 3-4 times every turn, plus nail him with drain power beforehand. That's like, burning 2500 of his mana by spending just 300 or so of my own.

Another question: does warping an Astrologer's node hit them twice as hard? I warped 3 of this guy's Arcanus nodes and his power production went from a full bar, on the Intl Agent graph, down to about half of what it was. I was completely shocked.

[Seravy]

Hmmm, I think the AI is bugged the way it casts Wave of Despair. I suspect that its far too high on the priority list. For example, say I attack a wandering AI ghoul with an undead swordsman of my own. On the first turn, he'll usually summon a zombie. I counter by summoning a Centaur. He casts WoD. Repeat this 3x, until he runs out of skill. The issue here is that he's casting cross-plane, and so wastes 555 mana per battle. I can then do this to him 3-4 times every turn, plus nail him with drain power beforehand. That's like, burning 2500 of his mana by spending just 300 or so of my own.

Another question: does warping an Astrologer's node hit them twice as hard? I warped 3 of this guy's Arcanus nodes and his power production went from a full bar, on the Intl Agent graph, down to about half of what it was. I was completely shocked.

No, Warp Node is the same, but they did have twice the power production from the unwarped node so it makes a difference.

Wave of Despair is the most effective spell to take out a single unit vulnerable to it. Using it seems the correct choice. Considering the resistance of Centaurs is 5, Annihilate is equally effective for slightly less mana but it's way too rarely available and only 9 mp cheaper so not worth adjusting the AI for that.
The AI avoids casting if its mana falls critically low but still wastes it if it has plenty, that's unavoidable. Letting the player win and eliminate units, even if they aren't the best, is rarely a good strategy. I rather go by the assumption that the AI's armies are important and worth protecting if mana is available, as there is no way for the AI to be able to know that....and this is probably the greatest reason why they need the high mana income modifier.
For example, let's say the ghoul is heading towards the assembly point - a likely scenario if it was alone. If it dies, the army will need to fetch another unit instead, so it can move out to attack a target several turns later - if this other unit is repeatedly killed, it might stay stalled for the rest of the game. So protecting it is the correct choice. On the other hand, if the ghoul is standing there with no purpose, and the assembly point is full and the AI has better units, then protecting it is a waste.
Similarly, if the AI protects a single purifying shaman this way, it's excessive...but if it doesn't, that means it's giving up on the ability to purify for the rest of the game, as any further shaman would also get hunted down by the player.

[GermanJoey]

But wouldn't, say, Black Sleep be almost as effective at 1/4 of the cost? Or heck, Weakness, drops the Centaur's attack down to nothing and it's even cheaper.

[Seravy]

But wouldn't, say, Black Sleep be almost as effective at 1/4 of the cost? Or heck, Weakness, drops the Centaur's attack down to nothing and it's even cheaper.

In that specific situation, yes. Otherwise, no. It's generally more desirable to kill units to end the combat as every new turn allows the human player to do something, in this case, summon more centaurs. If the AI did that you could still take advantage of it : summon centaurs until there are 4-5 of them with weakness on them, then cast dispelling wave and win.

Ultimately, if the AI didn't have a spell to kill your attacking undead swordsmen on the first turn, they can't do it later either so they have no way to actually win the battle, meaning as long as you keep summoning stuff, they'll be forced to waste mana anyway.

Either way, if you can suggest a formula of priority for any spells that works better, do so, but keep in mind it should be better in ALL situations, not just this one.

Current priorities are :
Black Sleep - "Type B" +10
Weakness - "Type B"
Wave of Despair - None if no targets, otherwise 56-(6*targets)+"type A"

See the AI thread for more details on priority groups. (This reminds me, I'll need to finish the combat spell list there some time)

Oh, one more thing. Let's say the formulas are changed and Weakness is higher than Wave of Despair. So the AI casts Weakness on the centaur. You then don't summon another one and pass the turn. Since the centaur is already weakened, the AI can't cast weakness again, so it'll use the highest priority valid spell, Wave of Despair and kill it anyway. Wave of Despair is an AOE attack so it won't check if the units are already affected by any status effect as it doesn't target anything specifically, and while most direct damage spells avoid targeting sleeping enemies (or confused etc), there is no such restriction for Weakness : a unit affected by it is still a threat in most cases, as it only lost 3 attack. Which means it might still have like 12-15 even if it's a fire giant or stag beetle. In the worst case scenario, if the AI tries to be too smart, it might cast weakness first, then sleep, and finally wave of despair in decreasing order of priority, wasting 3 spells on a single unit.

[GermanJoey]

Hmmm, I see your point. I think what I was imagining was something like, there needed to be a total enemy "danger" number before Wave of Despair was a valid spell to cast? But thinking on it now, that would be really complicated to implement if there's nothing similar to that in place right now, ah well.

[Seravy]

Hmmm, I see your point. I think what I was imagining was something like, there needed to be a total enemy "danger" number before Wave of Despair was a valid spell to cast? But thinking on it now, that would be really complicated to implement if there's nothing similar to that in place right now, ah well.

I don't think that concept is suitable for this game in any way whatsoever. A single spearmen is as much threat as 3 great drakes if the wizard sending them has 400 casting skill. Every turn in the combat is a free chance for the enemy to use a flame strike, doom bolt, disintegrate, their own wave of despair, summon paladins, earth elementals, magic vortexes etc., there simply isn't such a thing as a low level threat.

[GermanJoey]

You have a very good point... but then, a wizard (player or AI) only ever has so much mana to spend. Even an Impossible AI's mana is not infinite. For example, the whole reason I'm trying to drain this sucker's mana in these otherwise pointless fights is so that he won't have much left to use when I send in my real armies.

The other thing about Wave of Despair that makes it especially vulnerable to "mana milking" is that there's no other spell that has its combination of:

1.) Very expensive per-cast
2.) Affects all targets, and is re-castable
3.) Devastating amounts of damage against some targets, but deals no damage at all against others
4.) The immune targets are easily producible, and cheaply
5.) The wizard has no other spell that is easily able to kill the immune target

(actually, now that I think about it, Massacre also qualifies, and the wizard acquiring Annihilate stops this situation from becoming a problem)

The closest other spell I can think of is Flame Strike. However, a fire-immune Fire Giant is much more expensive to produce than a death-immune Skeleton; between wasting overland skill and the extra mana it costs to summon the FG, I'd be hurting myself as much as the enemy trying to milk them like that. Furthermore, a Chaos wizard also has numerous other ways to kill the Fire Giant on the first turn of battle (e.g. Lit Bolt, Doom Bolt, Warp Lit, Disintegrate) as well as other ways to kill the centaur (fireball, or any of the above), so it is extremely unlikely the AI would actually want to cast FS first.

That said, I can't think of an easy solution of how to differentiate between when to cast WoD or not, given what you said in your prior post.

[Seravy]

You have a very good point... but then, a wizard (player or AI) only ever has so much mana to spend. Even an Impossible AI's mana is not infinite. For example, the whole reason I'm trying to drain this sucker's mana in these otherwise pointless fights is so that he won't have much left to use when I send in my real armies.

The other thing about Wave of Despair that makes it especially vulnerable to "mana milking" is that there's no other spell that has its combination of:

1.) Very expensive per-cast
2.) Affects all targets, and is re-castable
3.) Devastating amounts of damage against some targets, but deals no damage at all against others
4.) The immune targets are easily producible, and cheaply
5.) The wizard has no other spell that is easily able to kill the immune target

(actually, now that I think about it, Massacre also qualifies, and the wizard acquiring Annihilate stops this situation from becoming a problem)

The closest other spell I can think of is Flame Strike. However, a fire-immune Fire Giant is much more expensive to produce than a death-immune Skeleton; between wasting overland skill and the extra mana it costs to summon the FG, I'd be hurting myself as much as the enemy trying to milk them like that. Furthermore, a Chaos wizard also has numerous other ways to kill the Fire Giant on the first turn of battle (e.g. Lit Bolt, Doom Bolt, Warp Lit, Disintegrate) as well as other ways to kill the centaur (fireball, or any of the above), so it is extremely unlikely the AI would actually want to cast FS first.

That said, I can't think of an easy solution of how to differentiate between when to cast WoD or not, given what you said in your prior post.

1., doesn't matter. Unless the AI can't use up all its skill in 25 turn otherwise which is...extremely unlikely. a Cheap 20 mana spell times 25 already uses 500 skill.
2., Targets also doesn't matter, recastable does matter though. However, buffs can be used as many times as the AI has units per spell...and if there aren't many units, summons can be used many times instead and then those can be buffed anyway.
3., deals no damage is the key, as it allows you to force the AI to stay in combat and keep casting. Buffs can also achieve this and you don't even need an immune unit. Life wizards are the easiest targets.
4., this matters, in fact you need a unit immune to everything the AI can use against it for the strategy to work. So if they have too many different nukes, it fails. Undead units are immune to a whole lot of things though.
5., exactly.

We can conclude : This is a more generic problem as any wizard that does not have direct damage spells is affected. If they have some and your units are immune that just results in the former scenario which is the root of the problem.

The mana saving tactic they have based on remaining mana crystals should be enough to at least avoid losing their capitals, but unfortunately that's as far as it goes unless you have a really good formula that tells how important a specific encounter is and how much mana should be spent on it. Right now the AI can only tell apart three cases, "Capital","Important" and "Average" battles. Also, the proposed formula should be compatible with the overall overland unit movement strategy AIs use, in other words it cannot result in the AI losing the majority of their forces just because the human player attacks them one unit a time while they are on their way to group up. There is no way around that, units will go 1-2 at a time towards assembly points.
Actually I think there are some serious implications based on how the game works.

Assuming the territory is invaded by enemy stacks - visible or not doesn't matter - that can strike at any nearby city or unit passing through.
New units are produced in cities, and a stack is limited to 9 units. The way the game works, a stack containing fewer than 9 units is weaker. When a new unit is produced, there are 10 units at the city, which has to be split to two groups. It's pretty obviously impossible to make two 9 stacks out of 10 units, so either one, or both stacks has to be quite suboptimal.
As we have proven the game mechanics force players, human and AI alike, to move their units in suboptimal stacks -most often leaving 6-9 in the garrison and sending 1-4 towards an intended destination - this means the majority of units will have to be moved in vulnerable stacks at the very least after they have been produced.
If the AI tries to defend their vulnerable stacks because it deems them important, it can be mana milked but the units will be safe.
If the AI abandons the units as unimportant battles, it'll not lose mana but it won't ever be able to form new armies anymore, as every unit will get killed before they can join up with something else to create an army that's big enough.
We can conclude that this is a core part of the game and it's unavaoidable : having enemy presence in your lands means you either need to waste lots of mana fighting them back (yes, even as the human player) or giving up the ability to form armies entirely, strictly keeping your units in your city garrisons of 9.
And btw this shows how the problem can be avoided by the AI. If there is NO enemy presence, the problem doesn't exist. The AI needs to wipe out every unit in their territory...to do that they need to fight them...and spend the MP on those battles to win. So...there is no way out. This is an unforgiving game system, you either spend resources to get rid of enemies, or you lose control over your own territory and units entering it just go there to die.

I think we should continue this in the AI thread though.

[GermanJoey]

Alright, continued here: http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...#pid618546

[GermanJoey]

bug: under Zombie Mastery, when a unit with Heroism on it gets zombified, the Zombie will continue to keep the enchantment and also get +2atk and +2def. This happened on a unit with adamantium weapons, and so the resulting zombie was 8/7! (and other zombies in that battle for that wizard were 4/3)