Enemy strategies

[AzureDrag0n1]

I have played this mod a few times and found it a lot of fun. However the enemies do not seem to deviate too much from certain general strategies. At least it does not seem that obvious to me judging from their opening moves.

 

Mage/Cleric encounters seem very rare and I find this a bit of a shame.

 

There are many interesting strategies that Mage/Clerics can employ which I think would be quite fun.

 

Same for Fight/Clerics and Fighter/Mages.

 

For example no mod that I know of has an enemy that has ever used Haste+Improved Haste+double Regeneration combo to give himself or his target absurd regeneration. I don't remember what it was but I think it was 72 hp per round regenerated. A character that requires instant kill or alpha strike attacks to kill.

 

No one uses Vampiric Touch or any of the touch spells that I can tell.

 

Can any give example of casters using interesting strategies in this mod?

 

There seems too few mixed class mages or clerics that would go up close and personal with physical attacks.

 

 

There are a few enemies that are pretty memorable but I can't tell where they are from exactly. 2 are in the docks. One is a Lich that actually uses Tensers and Teleport Field. Another is a Dwarf mage or something that also seems kinda interesting. One that I particularly like is Kuriosan because he is so different from almost any other enemy.

 

If that is not the purpose of this mod does anyone know any mods that have enemies with interesting strategies or themes?

 

Or if you are fine with suggestions maybe we could use this thread to come up with ideas for strategies enemies could use. They do not have to be optimal or the best but somewhat effective.

 

For example a themed enemy could be one that likes to mind control people like an enemy party that casts doom and greater malison followed by the mental mage who uses triple domination in spell trigger. I am not sure but I think that requires 3 saves to resist. Would probably use Dire Charm and Charm Person in sequencers as well. Perhaps even in a chain contingency Domination against the one that attacked him.

 

Another one could be a pair where one does blinding attacks and another does silencing attacks.

 

How about a cowardly (smart?) mage that tries to keep a huge distance between him and the party? Maybe even attacking off screen if possible with stuff like lighting bolt or sending summons. Not sure if this can be coded though. Or if that is not possible have him use improved haste and run away turning around to use quick and fast casting spells then running away again. Maybe even give him dimension door or teleport as well.

 

A fun themed fight would be a Thunder mage/cleric that uses Call Lightning, Chain Lighting, Lighting Bolt, Shocking Grasp, Storm of Vengeance, Energy Blades, Spell Trap, Air Elemental, and Protection from Electricity.

 

Maybe just more mages with interesting spell triggers instead of the instant death kind like triple fire arrow or triple horrid wilting in chain contingency. Say for example Malison, Web, and Cloud Kill. If you already have these then sorry I have not seen them. Do they use them as opening moves?

[DavidW]

I have played this mod a few times and found it a lot of fun. However the enemies do not seem to deviate too much from certain general strategies. At least it does not seem that obvious to me judging from their opening moves.

 

I'm a bit puzzled as to why you're only considering opening moves. Any mage in BG2 who wants to stay alive uses his opening moves to put up some defences. Any interesting strategy they deploy is going to come later.

 

Mage/Cleric encounters seem very rare and I find this a bit of a shame.

 

Blame the vanilla game: there aren't many mage/clerics, and I write AI for all of them. (Sendai is the most noticeable one). I'll bear in mind the possibility of using a mage/cleric next time I actually add an encounter (which doesn't happen often, so don't hold your breath).

 

For example no mod that I know of has an enemy that has ever used Haste+Improved Haste+double Regeneration combo to give himself or his target absurd regeneration. I don't remember what it was but I think it was 72 hp per round regenerated. A character that requires instant kill or alpha strike attacks to kill.

 

I'm only so-so impressed by this combination: by the time you're encountering parties with access to double regeneration, you've probably got access to enough antimagic to strip it down fairly readily (come to that, 72 hp per round isn't all that challenging by then.)

 

 

Can any give example of casters using interesting strategies in this mod?

 

Well, since I obviously didn't set out to write a mod that uses boring strategies, obviously I think all the strategies are interesting. Beyond that, it's hard for me to reply without knowing quite what you mean.

 

(One fair observation is that I don't that often try to use particular combinations of spells, except in sequencers. That's mostly because it's too easy for casters to end up doing something that doesn't make any sense given the actual situation.)

 

There seems too few mixed class mages or clerics that would go up close and personal with physical attacks.

 

There are some counter-examples: Abazigal, Irenicus (in hell), the Prison Plane Warden. In general, the game has a moderate number of fighter/mages, and they all get scripts with a reasonable focus on spells that boost their combat efficiency. I agree that they're heavily outnumbered by straight mages (again, I'm following the vanilla game here.)

 

There are a few enemies that are pretty memorable but I can't tell where they are from exactly. 2 are in the docks. One is a Lich that actually uses Tensers and Teleport Field. Another is a Dwarf mage or something that also seems kinda interesting. One that I particularly like is Kuriosan because he is so different from almost any other enemy.

Kuriosan isn't mine, he's from Tactics. I'm not sure who the others are; SCS is very random in its choice of strategies so it could just be some generic mage who happened to get an "interesting" strategy.

 

Or if you are fine with suggestions maybe we could use this thread to come up with ideas for strategies enemies could use. They do not have to be optimal or the best but somewhat effective.

Be my guest.

 

For example a themed enemy could be one that likes to mind control people like an enemy party that casts doom and greater malison followed by the mental mage who uses triple domination in spell trigger. I am not sure but I think that requires 3 saves to resist. Would probably use Dire Charm and Charm Person in sequencers as well.

Cute, but there are an awful lot of items that grant immunity to charm, more's the pity. (Also, any sane party above about L12 buffs with Chaotic Commands, so you'd need to take those down first.)

 

Perhaps even in a chain contingency Domination against the one that attacked him.

 

It's painfully expensive for a wizard not to use CC for defensive purposes (that's not decisive, but it's a big factor). Only CC allows a wizard to raise short-duration defences and still get an attack spell off in round 1. Most BG2 battles are over, or at least under control, in 3-4 rounds (not allowing for timestop), so losing that round is very painful.

 

Another one could be a pair where one does blinding attacks and another does silencing attacks.

I think "silencing attacks" just means Power Word: Silence, since that's the only party-friendly silence spell. So I'm not sure this could really be built into a full strategy.

 

How about a cowardly (smart?) mage that tries to keep a huge distance between him and the party? Maybe even attacking off screen if possible with stuff like lighting bolt or sending summons. Not sure if this can be coded though. Or if that is not possible have him use improved haste and run away turning around to use quick and fast casting spells then running away again. Maybe even give him dimension door or teleport as well.

Very hard to code, unfortunately. (The scripting language has virtually no sense of position.)

 

A fun themed fight would be a Thunder mage/cleric that uses Call Lightning, Chain Lighting, Lighting Bolt, Shocking Grasp, Storm of Vengeance, Energy Blades, Spell Trap, Air Elemental, and Protection from Electricity.

 

Cute, yes.

 

Maybe just more mages with interesting spell triggers instead of the instant death kind like triple fire arrow or triple horrid wilting in chain contingency. Say for example Malison, Web, and Cloud Kill. If you already have these then sorry I have not seen them. Do they use them as opening moves?

 

I don't think I use a single triple ADHW in the whole mod. I'm not even sure I use a double. I use about thirteen chain contingencies, containing a combination of protection from weapons, spell turning, spell immunity, summoning spells, simulacrum, mislead, and ADHW, but I don't use more than one ADHW at a time.

 

I use 17 different combinations of spell trigger:

 

1) II, Spell Immunity: Div, Spell Immunity: Abj

2) Spell Deflection, P/MW, Stoneskin

3) Secret Word, Breach, PW Silence

4) Sunfire, Cloudkill x2

5) Chain Lightning x2, Chaos

6) Lower Resistance x3

7) Chaos x3

8) Remove Magic, Malison, Death Spell

9) Tenser, Improved Haste, SI: Abj

10) Tenser, Stoneskin, PMW

11) Flesh to Stone x3

12) Domination x3

13) Chain Lightning x3

14) Death Fog x3 [rakshasas only]

15) Blade Barrier, Spell Def, PMW

16) Blade Barrier, Spell Def, Stoneskin

17) Globe of Inv, Spell Deflection, Shadow Door

 

I use 13 different combinations of spell sequencer:

 

1) II, Stoneskin, Fire Shield

2) Stoneskin, Fire Shield x2

3) Remove Magic x3

4) Skull Trap x3

5) Flame Arrow x3

6) II, Fire Shield x2

7) Haste, Fire Shield x2

8) Minor Spell Deflection, Minor Globe of Invulnerability, Improved Invisibility [fire shield for necromancers]

9) Dire Charm x3

10) Fireball x3

11) Lightning Bolt x3

12) Blight x3

13) Blight, RMx2

 

I use 8 combinations of minor sequencers:

 

1) Invisibility, Mirror Image

2) MM x2

3) Melf x2

4) Stinking Cloud, Web

5) Charm Person x2

6) Ray of Enfeeblement x2

7) Chromatic Orb x2

8) Invis, Sanctuary

 

Only Contingency is fixed (stoneskin below L18, PMW thereafter). It's also true that I don't use all these sequencers and triggers equally: defensive ones turn up more often than offensive ones.

[AzureDrag0n1]

Oh wow I think I have only seen 1/3 of these. Well the thing about the triple super regen is that I think you can cast it on an ally. So you can make a super buff warrior where normally warriors do not require debuffing.

 

Also not all enemies I think require walls and walls of defensive magics. Sometimes a good offense can be a good defense. For example just a Mislead can be plenty of defense while the rest of his magics are used for offense and debilitation. If you can knock out the hero who can use Truesight then that Mislead is enough to defend against most attacks. Basically the most dangerous mages I have encountered where the ones who had very little defense and went full out offensive because they caught me off guard so badly. I did not expect such aggression from such usually defensive mages. Now if they where by themselves I can understand having walls of defense but in a party with other enemies it is not as important. That mage might only live 1 or 2 rounds sometimes but sometimes he will get lucky and kill or disable many of my party members almost immediately.

 

I mean that is a strategy I even use. I don't bother with tons of defense when 1 serves its purpose for that particular area or encounter.

 

Sometimes I think that they would accomplish more with being offensive rather than defensive as I am so used to their defensive strategies that before they can do anything I just take them down because I know they are no immediate threat to me.

 

In a random encounter it is fine if they have holes in their defense. You will have holes in yours as well. For example Chaotic Commands is something you will not have in every random encounter.

 

As for silencing I mostly mean anything that makes casting very hard to do such as acid arrow or insect swarm. I think some of the spells have been changed from the cleric pool but there was stuff like miscast magic as well.

 

I think it might also be safe to use silence 15' radius in a party where the front line of enemies is made of warriors or as a first round move against a mage who is likely to be in the back.

 

I do notice that there are very very few cleric/mage sequencers and contingencies but at least there are some.

 

Oh yes I would agree that probably most of these would only serve as random encounters.

 

I guess my request could be summed up if you could put more mage/clerics in the game to fight. At least as random encounters.

[Guest Guest_Loz_*]

To my mind triggers are used far too little for non pre-buffing mages. At the moment they are often wasting 2-3 rounds trying to get up their defenses while the rest of their party is slaughtered - they need to start disabling/summoning/damaging faster. If they used triggers for defense and then immediately started fighting they would likely be much more effective. In particular I feel I don't see enough of trigger 17(GoI/Spell Deflection/Shadow Door) and sequencer 8(Minor Spell Deflection/MGoI/II) or really globe of invulnerability in any triggers at all, its just too useful not to have up at the start of the fight because there are far too many tricks low level parties can pull with level 1-4 spells. Level 14-16 mages are probably the worst off - usually they have less defenses than the vanilla equivalent. Level 18+ mages also suffer though, as they often waste an entire time stop or two buffing.

 

Obviously these concerns only hold true for the non-prebuffing mages - the prebuffing ones are perfect, they dive straight into the fight and generally rebuff when it starts to look like the fight will go on some time. I guess the mod is designed with prebuffing mages in mind, but would it be too hard to have mages without prebuffs value defensive triggers more? At the moment they often have some super trigger with like 3x chain lightning but never get to use it because the fight is over too fast.

 

I do agree somewhat with azuredragon that mages are too focused on defense - but this imo is due to what i've described just above with mages wasting too many rounds at the start of the fight when they could get those defenses in a trigger.

 

I've noticed the same thing to some extent in scs1 but due to the power of high level spells, not getting them off is more crippling in BG2.

[DavidW]

A couple of general comments:

 

1) it's true that SCS's AI assumes a reasonably high level of prebuffing. I try to make some allowance (in my choice of sequencers) for the level of buffing, but perhaps this is something I should revisit.

 

2) One weakness of SCS is that it's not that sensitive to whether a given mage is alone or in a party. This is a consequence of trying to write general code that works for all encounters. In an ideal world I'd be more encounter-detail-sensitive - the problem is that this takes lots of work and (more importantly) requires me to learn too much about the details of a game I've only played 3 times and want to savour more.

 

3) re AzureDrag0on1's Silence suggestion:

 

I think it might also be safe to use silence 15' radius in a party where the front line of enemies is made of warriors or as a first round move against a mage who is likely to be in the back.

 

The thing is, SCS's number one priority is not to do anything sphexish, i.e. immersion-breakingly stupid. If I did this, one time in four I'd cast a silence spell in a moronically stupid way, and draw attention to the fact that the computer is running a crude algorithm and not genuinely being intelligent.

[phordicus]

on top of your code i go in and try to make each battle unique. the F/M at the CC use SR's knock and blindness (huge PITA spell for 1st lvl) and then true strike right before entering melee. even without adding more guards, those 3 spells alone make those lowly guards unique and challenging.

 

none of that has anything to do with overall AI changes. i think they're expecting that ^ kind of variety among the fights at no loss of effectiveness which is, imo, impossible to guarantee.

[Guest geg_Ma3gau]

You say you re using 3 x domination and 3 x flesh to stone triggers. I ve tested triggers with the same save or die spells and they are never 100% effective. When 2 spells land simultaneously, they use the same saving throw check, so 3 flesh to stone landing at the same time either all work or all dont work. 3 flesh to stone trigger is the same as 1 flesh to stone spell in that regard. 3 same spells in a trigger sometimes make a target to roll a save twice but never 3 times. its an engine limitation. Its better to use spells with diffirent projectile speeds in trigger imo so they land in diffirent moments and use diffirent saves. for example : flesh to stone(slow speed), desintegrate or chromatic orb (medium speed), polymorph other (fast speed).

 

Btw, is it possible to account to this engine limitation and make spells that land simultaneously use diffirent checks with this mod?

[Guest Guest_Loz_*]

It would also be nice to see enemies use limited wish. Two options in particular seem very interesting.

 

From http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/SpellsReference/Main.htm

 

- I wish for my entire party to be healed (Wisdom 10+): Heals the entire party for 20 hit points and cures poison, blindness, disease and deafness. Rather expensive, but better than having to rest.

 

This could be an excellent way to deal with blindness from e.g. natures beauty - not to mention its other benefits.

 

- I wish to make my party invulnerable. (Wisdom 12+): 'Mass Minor Globe of Invulnerability'. Let loose those Skull Traps and Fireball/Lightning Bolt combos (from the Staff of the Magi).

 

Obviously great if you have allies around.

 

 

And maybe some of the other options could also be used occasionally.

[DavidW]

You say you re using 3 x domination and 3 x flesh to stone triggers. I ve tested triggers with the same save or die spells and they are never 100% effective. When 2 spells land simultaneously, they use the same saving throw check, so 3 flesh to stone landing at the same time either all work or all dont work. 3 flesh to stone trigger is the same as 1 flesh to stone spell in that regard. 3 same spells in a trigger sometimes make a target to roll a save twice but never 3 times. its an engine limitation. Its better to use spells with diffirent projectile speeds in trigger imo so they land in diffirent moments and use diffirent saves. for example : flesh to stone(slow speed), desintegrate or chromatic orb (medium speed), polymorph other (fast speed).

 

Btw, is it possible to account to this engine limitation and make spells that land simultaneously use diffirent checks with this mod?

 

Yes. And SCS does. SCS Triggers use variants of the original spells with zero casting time, and casts them via ForceSpell. Testing confirms that this leads to three simultaneously cast spells with three separate saving throws.

[Guest Geg-Ma3gau]

Unfortunately for me, on my version 15 of scs II i still have only 1 save check in log when i use 3 flesh to stone trigger.

 

Also: another possible bug is that staff of smiting doesnt slay golems (there are no saves in log nor golems insta die on hit). It only grants bonus dmg.

[DavidW]

Unfortunately for me, on my version 15 of scs II i still have only 1 save check in log when i use 3 flesh to stone trigger.

When you use it: maybe. When enemy mages use it: not so much.

 

Also: another possible bug is that staff of smiting doesnt slay golems (there are no saves in log nor golems insta die on hit). It only grants bonus dmg.

 

Yep, known bug.