Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Your priest are holy themselves, it's probably a self bless (and as morale spells are now not cumulative, they ignore sermon or fanaticism scripts when all units have the morale boost). They just act like mages who love to cast fireshield or astral weapon just in case... when the closest ennemy is at 40m.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

The ignored spell was Smite, and I know foes were in range.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

I scripted 5 blood/other mages to cast 4 spells (they were all self enhancement spells or troop buffs), then Reinvigoration, cast spells. Give each 1 a single blood slave, checked the fatigue paths of all spells involved to make sure they were ok. Idea being they could do my script, then do there own thing with 0 fatigue.

What happened?

They all cast summon imps using the 1 blood slave as there 1st spell...arrrrgh...why? Summon imps was no where on the script, all 5 did the exact same thing. Of course because they ignored my carefully crafted battle plan, I lost a very tight, important battle. After summoning imps they did nothing because they were too fatigued...

It's very frustrating when the computer does it's own thing ignoring yr orders...

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Did you check the range on that? It seems like they cast other spells when there's no available target, and Summon Imp happens to be the one they cast every time if they have a slave.

I'd prefer that the AI wouldn't use gem spells unless you script them to do so, it's especially annoying when they go through a bunch of gems summoning elementals or boosting to cast Fireball.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

And then there are the other times, you know, when you give your Wraith Lord full equipment of path boosters, 20-30 death gems, script him to 5xShadow Blast, look deep into his fiery eyes and tell him that you rely on him - and you can actually pretty much count on him continuing to devastate the enemy with shadow blasts even after round 5 instead of going into skellyspamming mode (so long as your army contains enough chaff that he doesn't feel personally threatened - and, even if he does, he'll likely just blast those who threaten him).

Sometimes gem use by the AI is vexing - sometimes it is truly great. Personally, I'd love one or both of these options when giving commander orders to be available: a) "Repeat this spell for the rest of the battle" as a terminating order, and/or b) "Allow this commander to freely use gems yes/no" radiobutton - but I'd hate having the current system with commanders absolutely prohibited from using gems on their own initiative. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Everyone here has been talking about the straighforward, blow them away, kind of magic. Also experiment with some of the other spells. Body Ethereal was mentioned, a very nice spell. Also look at Destruction (in the demo) which turns enemy armour to mush. Protection has a long range and can help, though it is not as powerful. Strenght of Giants can also help your forces hit a lot harder, while Fear can make your enemy run. The power of this type of spell is not so obvious, but if you are suffering less causulties and scattering your enemy, you will end up on top after a few turns.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Weapons of sharpness is a very nasty buff spell, its not too easy to cast but making all your troops weapons AP (within the rather large AoE of course) is well worth getting a mage up there. Casting it on a group of knights (they have deadly lances, broadswords and hooves, although i cant imagine a horse with a sharpened hoof) they can just charge in and slaughter anything. Also if you can cast it you can also protect them with legions of steel.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Weapons of Sharpness + Strenght of Giants + Flails = http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif