AI

[Nelphine]

The attacker was Merlin (4 sorcery, 2 chaos, 6 life)

The defender was Horus (4 sorcery, 8 life)

By spellpower, Merlin has about.. 10% more than Horus? (So merlin ~300, Horus ~270, maybe a bit lower for each?)

But I know Merlin has very rares researched, so I'm not sure exactly how that matches up. I'll try to get you the save file later.

Actually just looking at that I'm really confused as to why Merlin was losing. .... i wonder if this is an old save before the casting skill fix. Hm. In theory I think that was an 11C file...

Although I suppose its possible Horus has invisible units I can't see, but I'm pretty sure its just a spirit heading for the node his troops are sitting on, so I feel that's unlikely.

[Nelphine]

The spirit in question is two squares left and 2 squares down from Zom (which is a blue Horus city on the south east continent.)  I'm not sure where the nagas start from exactly.


  SAVE1.GAM (Size: 151.94 KB / Downloads: 1)

Although there is another spirit up 1 and left 1 from Zom, so it's possible that one was attacked and I just misinterpreted which one it was.

[Seravy]

There are no spirits in the specified location or anywhere near it. I think this is the wrong turn.
Edit : it was a spirit on the floating island in Craagpool. Time to investigate.
Their casting skill is 200 and 227, and Merlin has the more direct damage books so they should be winning. Weird.
...There are no invisible units with the spirit and the nagas are not damaged so might be some bug.

[Arnuz]

Maybe life books prevent damage?

[Seravy]

Found it : Merlin doesn't have enough mana crystals when the battle happens to use any, while Horus does have enough to use at least half of his skill.
So Horus is winning because 100 casting skill is generally worth more than a naga.

These are the numbers when starting the combat (all numbers are in hex) :

Code:

A.DEF : 252
A.ATK : 240
A.HP : F
D.DEF : 18C
D.ATK : 0C6
D.HP : A
A.Mana : 0
A.Spell/Turn : 0
A.MATK : 1B8
A.MPA : 9
A.MDEF : 64
D.Mana : 65
D.Skill/turn : 10
D.MATK : C8
D.MPA : C
D.DEF : 78

[Nelphine]

Oh, it's his mana. I didn't realize his mana pools were that low. That makes perfect sense.

[Nelphine]

OK, actually going to test Jihad. The AI have 9 turns to stop me from casting SoM. Might actually do it in 8 now that I'm not spending any extra on research. Can the AI even get a single stack to attack my capital in that time? (And no, I'm not doing single spearmen delay tactics.)

[Seravy]

8? lolwtf it costs 15000 mana. I raised the cost with the assumption that it takes long enough to cast for the AI to be able to react.
In 8 turns I wouldn't be able to stop it even as a human player...

(albeit if their doomstack is fast enough and is on your plane, it might reach the capital in 8 turns.)

[Nelphine]

Yeah that's what I figured.. But I want to see if anything reaches. This game isn't really fair I've just never got to see Jihad before so I want to see if I even notice anything. In theory, in 8 turns, half of merlin and Horus' main continents should be able to reach, as well as a few myrran units near the closest tower (which I'm not blocking since all 4 AI have astral gate).

So, I want to see if anything at all reaches.

But yeah, this is my game with the amp towers, so I'm up to 1545 overland skill or something, and I'm still building a few amp towers, and I'm spending about 3000 power per turn on skill.

And despite 2 4 sorcery book opponents, neither have spell blast - and I have suppress magic cast even if they did.

[Nelphine]

So, jihad is actually going OK. Within 2 turns the AI had started to attack my fortress. Only 2 AI so far, but the other 2 AI will make their first attacks on the 4th turn. Not super strong attacks or anything, but they are attacks nevertheless. I'm quite happy.