Re: Whoah theres a lot of micro management in this game
 

Two possibilities.
1) A morale check must be made to fly over enemies, and if it fails one drops in the middle somewhere. That said, iron dragons have a very high morale, so this is unlikely.
2) It specifically targets the rearmost squad, so if there was one large squad it could have just been hitting that squad in the front.

As for pretenders, go read the nation guides. There are several types of pretenders, and its very complex, so looking at existing compiled resources is probably the best option.

Re: Whoah theres a lot of micro management in this game
 

Ive looked at some of the wiki articles and the threads here, but im still confused about some things.

My understanding is that going deep into a path of magic is mostly for the bless right? Which seems to work best with a nation that has recruit everywhere sacred troops, at least average priests (for divine blessing) and decent sacred troops. Also best taken dormant/imprisoned since you are mainly using them for the bless anyway.

Rainbow mages seem to be mostly there for vesatility, but i dont understand how this versatility works. Obviously your pretender can cast a wider variety of spells and help in site searching...but is that all?

Im still stuck on mage support for battles unfortunately. +1 path items only bring you so far, and they tend to be a little fragile to spam empowerment on.

One thing i noticed is that my mages in combat, especially my pretender, have a very high tedency to ignore my script and cast random stuff. E.G. I set prince of death to cast shadow blast (or whatever the AOE level 5 evocation spell is...). I even put him infront of my undead horde. Instead of casting though, he just spams animate dead/skeletons instead(what IS the difference between those two spells anyway? Help text is very vauge.)

Weapons - Besides the flame/frost brands, are there any other weapons that do AOE damage?

Also can anyone confirm that there are no bugs associated with the ermor arch bishop/innocentius healing abilities? I have 5 of them +innocentius in a province, set to heal for 30+ turns, and they have yet to heal a SINGLE affliction. For the record, how exactly do undead gain affliction anyway? They are...undead! They dont even have eyeballs, how are they affected by the loss of an eye or a chest wound?

Biggest annoyances now :

-Shift + m everytime i conquer a new province, for site searching spells

-Can't queue forging

-Cant queue researchers, and theres no way to make them default to research when built

-Can't figure out a way to use archers effectively. It seems way easier to just make 3 large block of troops and ZERG RUSH KEKEKE and not worry about friendly fire. I tried using a caelum stack of icyguards + blizzard warriors...even with wind guide, the archers never amounted to much kills while the icyblades destroyed anything they charged.

Re: Whoah theres a lot of micro management in this game
 

Shift-m is to set up searching every month. You dont have to do it each time you take a province unless you are in a hurry to know about that one province. Hovering over a caster will tell you what province he is searching next so you can check

Notice that the AI tends to put archers to the flanks. Not straight behind his main army so they have to fire over their heads at enemy they cant see.

Also notice that AI tends to put cavalry on flanks. Often with "hold then attack" orders

Re: Whoah theres a lot of micro management in this game
 

Selecting magic paths on your pretender should be consequent to your overall goals for the game. For instance, if you have a nation with sacred troops that have a lot of health, taking a high nature bless will give them significant regeneration. Or, there might be a global enchantment that you know you want to cast because it will help your nation- (for instance, Gift of Nature's Bounty). You might want your pretender to start with nature 6, so that you only have to forge a +1 nature item for him to cast it. Rainbow pretenders operate on the same principle- they're not only great for site searching, but they can also cast a wide array of battlefield buffs, forge a large number of items (including excellent and useful cross-path items with high path requirements like the Chalice or the Gate Stone), or cast cross-path summons. All of these things might be possible with recruitable mages that are empowered or given path-boosting items, but will be more difficult.

As for mage support: decide what you want your mages to do, and construct them accordingly. Don't build a mage with items without having a plan for what you want them to cast. If you don't have national access to earth mages but you know you want to eventually be able to cast Army of Gold, then find a way to get an E2 mage, forge him Earth Boots and Armor of Earth, and send him with your army. Also, there are *many* path-boosting items, and you can give your mages a surprising boost to their magic power if you plan what items to give them beforehand.

I'm not entirely certain how it works, but there are algorithms the AI uses to determine that, in certain cases, your scripts will be ignored. I know that if you have mages scripted to cast spells that require a large number of gems but then encounter a small army that you can easily defeat, it will conserve your gems and cast less fatigue-intensive spells. Similarly, if you don't give your mages the required gems to cast high-fatigue spells, they obviously won't. This may be why your Prince of Death didn't cast Shadow Blast.

Animate Dead vs. Animate Skeletons- the former will give you Soulless (zombies), the latter will give you skeletons.

Undead can gain afflictions. They do have eyes. If you give a zombie a nasty chest wound, he'll have difficulties getting around just like a normal person, he just won't feel the pain. And undead cannot heal afflictions through the healing ability; I think the only way to heal undead is by using the Chalice or casting Gift of Health.

Archers alone are of limited use. They'll do significant damage to units with low protection. Units with high protection or with shields are rather archer-resistant. And then there's Arrow Fend to pretty much negate their effectiveness. But cast Wind Guide and Flaming Arrows on massed archers and watch your enemies drop. :)

Hope this helps.

Re: Whoah theres a lot of micro management in this game
 

Getting deeper in paths can also work when one is trying to get to specific items or spells. For instance, one might want S6 on their pretender for Wish access, or they might want W2N1 for several Clams of Pearls and Naiad access, or they might want D4 to get Bane Lords out quickly, and move to Wraith Lords easily. So on and so forth.

Research is a big aspect as well. An awake Rainbow Mage can easily add 20-30 research points per turn, from turn one. That has the potential to be huge - for instance, assume you are playing Sauromatia. A few turns in, and you have access to the Raise Skeleton and Raise Dead spells, which can provide a constant screen that is absolutely brutal against independent provinces with even marginal archer support. Getting this early can be useful for the initial expansion phase. Moreover, that initial manual site searching is far more useful than it sounds. A decent chance to find every site in a province with two turns expended (one getting there, one searching) and no gems used is a major advantage. Gem economies win games.

Re: Whoah theres a lot of micro management in this game
 

Your script will oft be ignored if the AI feels there is not a sufficient threat.

Re: Whoah theres a lot of micro management in this game
 

Honestly a lot of learning in this game comes from experience, going through the wiki, and going through some of the strat threads on here. I remember being totally lost when I first started playing, to the point where I stopped for a couple of years before rediscovering how awesome this game is (mostly thanks to mods...personally I am a huge fan of the CBM mod and some of the ones that add new and powerful units, like Mytheology and Epic Heroes). I basically started a lot of SP games to see how different nations play and to test out some strategies; once I got bored or realized I could have played it better, I started a new game with a different nation. When I get a good one going, I play it out to mess around with late game summons and magic.

In reference to a couple of your questions:

-The "Attack Rearmost" command doesn't guarantee that you will attack the enemy's commander. In fact, I believe the game purposely made it quite difficult to attack commanders, as this would make enemy armies overly easy to route and kind of nullify the whole strategy aspect. Attack Archers usually works to specifically target archers whereas Attack Rearmost will cause you to attack at the flanks of one of the enemy's groups, though not always the one you want.

-I think part of the problem with scripting is the range on spells (I could be totally off base here but this is just what I feel like I've seen, most people on this forum have a far better understanding of the base mechanics behind the game than I do). If your mage is way in the back and you script him to cast a spell with a range of like 25 that can't reach the enemy, he'll just do something else and he won't go back to the spell he was supposed to cast previously. Either position your mage closer or start with self-buff spells or those with high range e.g. Frighten.

These were the two items that stood out from your post that I don't think anyone else answered yet. Some aspects of the game you'll just have to deal with because there isn't much you can do about the micromanagement. Personally I feel that CBM removes a little of the most tedious micromanagement from the game (like worrying about making zillions of gen gems), but overall it's the nature of the beast. Get involved in some newbie multiplayer games; having to wait for your turns will make you more patient and allow you to enjoy single player more, in my opinion (I used to get too obsessed with cranking out turns and miss out on a lot of opportunities). Hope this helps and that you enjoy the game because it can be a ton of fun if you can deal with it's more annoying aspects.

Re: Whoah theres a lot of micro management in this game
 

Well there is some anecdotal evidence that there is a check. But it simply isn't a morale check. Nobody knows what it is. But assume that it is there.

Re: Whoah theres a lot of micro management in this game
 

Range is a lot of it, but when it comes to self buffs the AI stubbornly refuses to cast some. The best example of this is taking any unit with a complete resistance, casting a protection upgrade spell that reduces it, then trying to cast an elemental resistance spell to bring it back up - the last step rarely goes as planned. There is a lot of weirdness in the AI, but you do get used to it pretty quickly, even if it does retain the ability to throw the occasional surprise.

Re: Whoah theres a lot of micro management in this game
 

Shadow Blast has a fatigue of 100, i.e. it requires the caster to spend one death gem from their personal stock to cast the spell. If the script tells the caster to cast something that has no valid targets (such as an anti-undead spell where there are no undead), something that has no targets in range (trying to cast bless from the back of the battle when all the sacreds are at the front), or requires gems that the caster doesn't have, the caster will then ignore the script.

Also, casters won't spend gems casting spells if they are fighting an enemy that is considered too weak. This is to keep giant armies from spending dozens of gems blasting 1PD into smithereens, but sometimes you will have cases where it causes results that are less than satisfactory.