Artificial Stupidity

I started through Spellforce 1 again, as mentioned last month. Played as a fighter, did maximum FPS before doing any RTS on any level--it's like a different game. Started on the first expansion. It does look good on a 24" monitor.

And then I got hammered by the NPC's Artificial Stupidity again.

I started this expansion as a wizard this time. Never played as that char before, because it seems too hard--primarily because you run out of mana, whereas a fighter never runs out of sword. Useful to have such in the group, but not to BE such. I don't remember how I played this one level before; it has some scripted behaviors I can't control properly.

I'm at this point where I have to escort a group of refugees. They don't move very fast, but they will fight; and they're weak. So they are probably going to get killed. A couple of levels back I had a team of Dark Elves, one class of which can summon things, and another can revive dead as skeletons. So you really have a lot of extra fighters.

It should always be the case that when you have an escort mission, you should be able to tell the escortee(s) "Wait here!" because you are going to go clear a path. And then you should be able to go back and say "Follow me!" and have that happen.

I start a new map with these refugees, it's an ice/snow location. As soon as I move, they start heading towards this locked gate. The key to the gate is on some giant wolves nearby. So I have to kill the wolves. I have some ice elf archers, but the group of us is not strong enough to swarm the wolves. I have to do the whole rope-a-dope routine in order to stay alive. This means that the wolves will get close enough to get the refugees to attack, meaning I lose half the refugees.

If I could have told the refugees to stay put a ways back, wolf problem can be solved. (ok , alternative: only send my archers forward, me and the refugees stay behind until wolves are dead.)

So on we go through the gate. The refugees slog onward, we encounter additional opposition, but I can deal with that, until we pass the ice-elemental-spawner. They start to attack, and while they are up ahead, the refugees halt and wait for me to kill the elemental spawner. Well, I'm too weak for that, and the refugees will NOT follow me to the next gate. Which is going to mean we are all going to die.

This is because of unrealistic behavior. Artificial Stupidity. "Let's attack the giant wolves with our bare hands! They're only five levels stronger than we are!"