Life realm AI in the early game

[zitro1987]

I kind of agree with the analysis that armor from endurance is very useful. However, if we're discussing early game with 4-6 armor units, it's not essential as a starting spell.

Holy armor fares better early (which is a likely better starting spell than healing for AI ... especially considering how early game is dominated by multi-figure battles)

I still strongly encourage 'uncommon on research book' to include prayer. I don't know why it's left out over a plane shifting spell (nice, but essential?) and 'stream of life' (extremely expensive, AI may not have banks/merchant guilds yet). Prayer is the only spell the opponent might need this early in the game.

[Seravy]

I still strongly encourage 'uncommon on research book' to include prayer. I don't know why it's left out over a plane shifting spell (nice, but essential?) and 'stream of life' (extremely expensive, AI may not have banks/merchant guilds yet). Prayer is the only spell the opponent might need this early in the game.

See the AI spell picks thread - Prayer is the first uncommon pick for AI, unless they have 8 Life book which guarantees every uncommon and allows picking a starting research, in which case SoL and Astral Gate are better choices - rushing Prayer early is pointless because the AI won't have 40 skill to cast it for a while. Especially if we go with the 50 mana/50 research distribution for below turn 30.

[Seravy]

EXP3 now makes the AI research early if they play mono-life - but it's not failproof. Required minimal mana takes priority over that, so at least on the Hard test I did the AI was only able to do the 50% research in about one out of 2-3 turns. I'd expect it to be completely unable to research at all on normal or if picking lower books, but it'll probably have no problems doing the 50-50 on extreme and impossible.

It's not surprising - starting skill is higher than starting power base so even with 100% spent on mana the remaining amount is zero. The Normal and Hard difficulty bonuses are not enough to have power income/2>=skill.
I'd expect an Archmage wizard to be unable to do any research at all even on Extreme and Impossible.

[Nelphine]

That's probably fine.

Interestingly, I'm not sure what happened in the hard sorcery game I'm playing, but my mono life 3.31 opponent was actually buffing everything in sight. And had virtually no summons. I was very impressed and happy about it. My Sky Drake actually had to be careful because Orc Hordes with Endurance/Holy Weapon/Holy Armor/Heroism/Lionheart... hurt. A lot. As they should. And pure sorcery didn't have anything to heal .. oh. Dispelling Wave. *sleep*

Does the AI not use max power Dispelling Waves? I've been irritated and lost battles to dispelling wave, but.. I don't recall getting smashed as hard as I was hitting this. Oh. Never mind I usually use Specialist on my mono life. Makes sense.

[Seravy]

That's probably fine.

Interestingly, I'm not sure what happened in the hard sorcery game I'm playing, but my mono life 3.31 opponent was actually buffing everything in sight.  And had virtually no summons.  I was very impressed and happy about it.  My Sky Drake actually had to be careful because Orc Hordes with Endurance/Holy Weapon/Holy Armor/Heroism/Lionheart... hurt. A lot.  As they should.  And pure sorcery didn't have anything to heal .. oh. Dispelling Wave. *sleep*

Maybe they were perfectionist...or didn't get a summoning spell. Or there were multiple copies of Divine Order in play.

[Seravy]

Now that the Astral Gate/Planar Travel bug was found, I wonder, how much of the AI's poor performance with Life was caused by this.

I mean, not plane shifting is one thing but...Plane Shifting a unit every turn onto ocean from all their cities and losing them is a different level of problem...and with a broken ocean check that could just as much happen.

...and with this fixed, we might start seeing Life wizards that completely spiral out of control by colonizing both planes early. Imagine a Lizardmen Inquisitor that has Astral Gate and Stream of Life on turn 40-50 - and is allied with everyone else because with "peaceful" and a strong army they can.

[Nelphine]

Yup, could totally change my opinion of astral gate as a rush spell for them.