Random questions COMII

[jhsidi]

Resist magic adds resistance, not defense, so it has no effect on anything that does direct damage (fire bolt, fireball, fairy dust, etc). However, nothing works to stop the flat 12 damage of doom bolt except complete magic immunity. Invisibility too, assuming you're not fighting a Life, Death or Chaos wizard with the proper countermeasures. The lack of any viable defense is what makes Doom Bolt dangerous.

A very good counter to warlock (the doom bolt guys) garrisons is troll armies. Trolls regenerate; if you bring 9 units to battle and 8 are killed in the process of winning, you get all 9 back at full health at the end. This also works with shadow demons, great lizards, werewolves, etc. Note that warlocks get 4 ranged attacks after they fire off their doom bolt, so expect to take some losses after the first wave of spells. In general, trolls are a great counter to dark elves, so you might search out a city of those first.

[HansLemurson]

Can "Counter Magic" interfere with Doom Bolts?

[jhsidi]

Yes, but it's unlikely to block many of them. Doom bolt costs 45 mana; counter magic (and node auras, etc) starts at 70 points. So the first doom bolt has a ~65% chance to slip through, and in case it's blocked the counter loses 10 strength. Even assuming the counter manages to block a couple doom bolts, it won't block any more past that. In any case... since the warlock is highly likely to cast doom bolt as soon as you initiate the battle, you're not likely to even have a chance to counter it.

This is basically why warlocks are viewed as one of the most dangerous units. A garrison of 9 warlocks can be a real pain to defeat. You'll either need one of the above strategies, or a spell like fire storm or blizzard which can clear them out before you go in.

[Anskiy]

Can the AI read from the scripts of custom spells to realize what effects they have, and aim at utilizing them in combat? For example, if I made a combat global that gave everyone Fire Immunity, would the AI cast it while assaulting a city protected by Wall of Fire?

[Seravy]

No, it can't.
That will require AI casting priority scripts but I don't plan to add that at this time.
Maybe if there is a lot more modding activity in the future.

[jhsidi]

Every game I play includes at least one Life Guardian AI. I've even seen two in one game. But I've never seen any other primary school get the Guardian trait. Is there something limiting Guardian to only Life?

[Seravy]

There shouldn't be, but each AI template has a primary and secondary retort assigned to them which have a higher than normal probability to appear.
Mono-Life has Guardian as primary and Runemaster as secondary.

Mono-Death and Sorcery-Death has Guardian as secondary. Everyone else has the normal (low because there are so many of them) chance to roll the retort but it's a 2 cost retort so it's even less because there has to be enough leftover picks.

Guardian is one of the retorts that have increased probability to appear on Lunatic or higher difficulty though.

[muxecoid2]

Do AIs trade spells with each other?

[jhsidi]

Ah, I'm playing at Lunatic so that would likely explain it. Still, I think the chances may be too high. This is 5 games in a row with a Life Guardian, one of those with 2 Life Guardians.

Guardian isn't realm specific, any wizard would benefit equally from it. Runemaster, I can see being more specific to Life.

[GMBarak]

what is the formula for hero cost please?