Caster of Magic II Bug Reports!

[Suppanut]

About AIs losing settlements to monsters and then resettling, a minor improvement would be that when the AI does lose a settlement, it should send a unit to scout the location for ruins, and clear the ruin if possible.  The AIs don't seem very good at clearing empty ruins, settling next to them rather than taking the empty ruin that's on the best spot to settle.

I think it would be difficult, AI and player tend to be in competition for space, especially in 13 players game, if they not take it quick, others would take it instead. You could think about it as race to the bottom.

[JustOneMoreTurn]

I don't see why it would be difficult. "If city = lost, send scout" If there's a nearby unit not already on a high priority task, it can be redirected. If not, build a spearman at the nearest city. If others get there first, too bad, but otherwise, this would give the AI the option to settle either a better spot (the original site rather than next to it) or open up a site that a human player would use because it has an empty ruin on it.

An alternative: if anyone's city is destroyed, retrigger the AI's 'investigate lairs' routine. I'm not sure how often the AI presently retriggers its 'search for best settlement sites' routine, but clearing a lair should trigger it. Given the high speed of modern computers, some extra processing shouldn't be an issue.

I see the present inability to deal with empty ruins as an unnecessary weakness for the AI. Empty ruins have significant value.

[Seravy]

It's difficult because it's basically :

-If city lost, mark the lair to be one that blocks settlers in the area.
-If there is a nearby army strong enough to take the lair out, send them to attack it (this would happen automatically anyway unless there is a more important target for that army)
-If there is no nearby army to attack the lair then? Wait and leave place unsettled for an unknown amount of time, or not?
-Either way, if the lair is cleared, mark it valid again.
-But what if the location isn't even good for building cities because for example, tiles got corrupted or volcanoed meanwhile?

More importantly, why only THOSE ruins?
What about other ruins that were already there and block the location?
It makes no sense to make an exception instead of handling the case globally?


...and no, a spearmen wouldn't be able to do it. There are monsters in there. Early game it might just be 2-3 hell hounds, later on it might be 2 efreets. But even against 3 hell hounds the AI will need more than a spearmen.

[Suppanut]

This is not bug but systemic loop hole that very disadvantage toward player

I have my unit end up park on other wizard that have wizard pact with, he finish casting time stop at the end of that turn, he has his turn more than twice lead to my wizard pact to collapse, I think wizard pact should be able to violate during Time Stop or else it would lead to this kind of situation.

[JustOneMoreTurn]

Why only those ruins is because I've never encountered empty ruins that were created at the start. I do encounter city ruins that are empty; even a settler should be able to enter it safely, gain the superior spot (it was the top choice for settling initially) and gain a trivial bit of gold or mana. I don't recall trying this with a settler, but spearmen do take them without a battle.

There's no need to mark a destroyed city as blocking settlement; just mark it as a lair to be explored, since it wasn't on the list of original lairs. Giving it priority makes sense because it has the potential to be empty (easily cleared) and provide value (someone put a city there for a reason, plus some loot). As a human player, if I spot a ruin with a bit of road leading to it, I give it priority for scouting. It's an exploit for human players. It's like the AI ignoring a pile of treasure at the side of a road because it wasn't there the last time they travelled that road.

If the ruin does have some monsters in it, it still might be a lower challenge than the remaining original lairs, and thus still a good investment in looting.

[Suppanut]

Sorry for that I have no save game for you to analyze but from time to time I get message show up that spell of wizard who already been defeated/retired has been countered, especially during time when AI using Time Stop.

[Seravy]

I do encounter city ruins that are empty;

That sounds like a bug. If the city was destroyed by monsters, whichever monster destroyed it should be in the ruins.

In case of a tie, both armies get obliterated but the defender counts as the winner so the city should stay safe.

It shouldn't be possible to end up with an empty ruin.

just mark it as a lair to be explored, since it wasn't on the list of original lairs.

The system doesn't work like that, the AI looks at every lair during every game turn and should see the new one and should attack if whenever they have a free army to do so.

If they don't attack it, either they had no free army available or had a better target. If they do otherwise, again, that should be a bug.

Sorry for that I have no save game for you to analyze but from time to time I get message show up that spell of wizard who already been defeated/retired has been countered, especially during time when AI using Time Stop.

Do let me know when you have one, it might just be a display bug (wrong player name) but might also be a more serious bug (dead wizard getting a turn during time stop).

[JustOneMoreTurn]

Does no one else find empty ruined cities? Maybe I've modded something that's broken the raiders, but I've found these empty cities very common. Some of them have fairly large rewards (1800 GP recently). I think empties are more common than city ruins _with_ remaining raiders. I'll have to try an unmodded game and see how that turns out.

[mshih]

1800GP should be an initial ruin -- not destroyed city. Destroyed city treasure is never that high.

It's likely a lair that the AI has whittled down for you without taking.

[Seravy]

Yes that sounds like a modding problem, not sure what kind though.

The AI should never "whittle down" lairs, it either knows it can beat the place and does so, or it doesn't attack.
Even in the old DOS version where the battle outcome was less predictable, it was extremely rare for an AI army to double-ko with the lair defenders and leave an empty lair behind.

Raiders are spawned without taking monsters out of the lairs so that possibility doesn't exist either.

Any chance you modded the lair cost or type of monsters and the game fails to find a fantastic creature of the appropriate realm that costs 1800 or less?
Empty lairs are possible but only if no monster can be placed in them at the start of the game due to the budget being lower than the cost of a single copy of the cheapest monster.