Why doesn't the AI promote its Arcane units?

[shapecharge]

I have noticed, that the AI seems to have a aversion to promoting its Arcane units..it will build mass quanities of them and they will run around glowing Blue, and the AI doesn't give them thier promotions.
I was attacking one city that had 2 long bowmen and somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 mages defending it (all glowing blue), and no melee units.
After taking out the longbowmen the mages fall pretty easily, but if he had promoted them and 20 mages hurled fireballs at my stack, or 20 specters on the city then it would be much more formiable.
Just curious if there is a reason behind this, or is it just some pecular to my last few games, and not the norm for others to see so many arcane units being pumped out by the AI and them not getting promoted.

 

[BlackArchon]

I had this too, Patch 8.34. But this odd behaviour wasn't there for a long time, it seems that it has occured in one of the last patches...

 

[shapecharge]

Interesting, I have had 8.34 for a while and only noticed it my last couple of games, I mean the Sheiam were attacking with a stack with 39 mages and 39 skeletons..not a single pyre zombie?
They never did that in the past.
And all thier Mages were glowing Blue, so I would assume they could of took a promation to Death II and had Specters, instead of Zombies..much more scary and effective.

Maybe it has something to do with updating to patch o in FFH, maybe somehow it affected, wild mana and created this.
Well maybe I will start anthor game and see if the pattern remains.

 

[Sephi]

this is very contradicting. If the AI has mages, it must have promoted its adepts. Maybe the AI lost access to death mana.

 

[Tholal]

this is very contradicting. If the AI has mages, it must have promoted its adepts. Maybe the AI lost access to death mana.

I think he was just using mage as a descriptive term rather than referring to that specific unit. I haven't checked the Wild Mana code recently, but I recall that when I was copying over some mage promotion stuff to my mod, I ended up removing a section that encouraged arcane units to hold onto some of their experience. I was never quite sure what the goal was with that code, but removing it didn't seem to hurt anything.

 

[shapecharge]

Sephi your correct in it is very contradicting, Tholal is right in that I was using Mage as a generic arcane unit term, but what you said is not wrong. The AI would have tons of adepts and mages all glowing blue, and not promoting them. So he did have to promote some to bring them from adepts to mages, but why not promote the other adepts, and why not give his mages promotions.
Got to admit those three games, I never played them long enough for people to get to archmages to see if the trend continued.
Also I used the Sheim as an example because they surprised me the most, since usually if I get them near my border, they seem to amass pyre zombie armies and come at me rentlentlessly with them..so I was a little taken aback when they attack with a stack of 39 mages and adepts (all glowing blue), and 39 skeletons (exactly one per arcane unit).
Also the same games it wasn't just the Sheim other civ's would create stacks consisting of nothing but catapults and arcane units to attack, and their cities would be defended by 1 or 2 archers/longbowmen and mounds of arcane units. Its like their Melee units went on a unioun strike for three games.
Now that I had that long reply, I did start a new game after my original post and the Sheim are back to pyre Zombies as the bulk of their army, and I don't see the same issue. So I guess strikes over and an collective bargining agreement has been made with the Melee units.
Never meant to report it as a bug, it was just odd to have three games in a row with the same AI Arcane unit spam, no melee units and not continuing to promote them so thought it might have something with me downloading patch o for FFH (even though I didn't think one was connected to the other it just seemed to start around the same time period I downloaded it.), and if others were seeing the same thing.

 

[shapecharge]

Tholal,
Also on a quick note I wanted to say that I thought your Naval AI Mod was great and used it in all my original FFH games once I discovered it, so kudos to you on making seafaring maps fun again.
On that thought, I have been playing wildmana mod exclusively for the last 5-6 months, and using erebus continent and stratega maps fairly exclusively. When I started the game I mentioned above, I did go with a achipelego map (sorry sp), so seeing your naval AI link made me think how is the naval play in wildmana. Haven't got far enough in my current game to make any kind of half-cocked amature assesment yet.
Just to clarify for people like Sephi and Kael and all the others by no means am I complaining about any AI in your games I relize the amount of work that all you individuals put into these things and I appreciate every bit of it. FFH and the wild mana mod are fantastic just curious more for my own info rather I should go back to pangea type maps or if I should give some seafaring maps in wild mana a try.

 

[Tholal]

Now that I had that long reply, I did start a new game after my original post and the Sheim are back to pyre Zombies as the bulk of their army, and I don't see the same issue. So I guess strikes over and an collective bargining agreement has been made with the Melee units.

Was it a different leader? If the first leader had more mage-type traits, then that could explain their extra interest in arcane troops.

 

[Tholal]

Tholal,
Also on a quick note I wanted to say that I thought your Naval AI Mod was great and used it in all my original FFH games once I discovered it, so kudos to you on making seafaring maps fun again.

Excellent! Always good to hear that someone was playing it!

Working on my mod has taken away most of my actual playing time, but from what I understand, the current version of Wild Mana has the same issue with naval power that FFH does. Not sure if anything has been done to improve this in version 9.0.

 

[Aline]

They do build some ships, but do not use them very good.
They rarely leave their own territory, let alone invade via the sea.

 

[Calavente]

and pirate ships in cities are... yummy target for your units