[Tuidjy]

> What are sensible ratios of masters, slaves and relief casters?

In my opinion it very much depends on whether you have other casters and troops.
I do not use more than a relief caster except if I have scripted extremely
powerful spells of the 'Master Enslave' kind. As a matter of fact, that is the
only time I use communion, even with Pythium.

> is it plain stupid to have 4 masters, 10 slaves and 2 relief casters (of
> which one is also a communion master)

Not if you have no troops or if you are expecting a short fight. If you have
a lot of troops, especially archers, and the fight Lasts a long time, your
slaves will be wiped out.

> Will a relief caster occasionally cast more than the 5 scripted relief-spells?

Yes, if the AI judges it necessary.

> How can I encourage this?

What I do relies on my assumption that the AI takes into account how tired your
whole army is, as opposed to just your casters. So, I make sure that if I have
an army, it gets tired. So, avoid missile units, use clockwork horrors, and
high encumberance units. If sounds crazy, but when I play C'tis I love to do
so in cold provinces. Everyone gets tired quickly, and the relief casters
go wild. I think that someone else suggested to use casters that have few if
any paths beyond nature. This is very good advice.

> What happens if the relief caster is also a communion master?

I avoid this... not because of testing, but because of my intuition, which has
been wrong before. Please let us know how it goes.

> Do communion masters judge the strength of the enemy in a different way?

I have not noticed that.

> Where do you place the slaves?[/b]

Usually I keep them right in front of the masters, but I usually play Pythium
or C'tis, whose mages are on the fragile side. On the other hand, in a battle
against my girlfriend's Vanheim, I realized that a wall of matrix'd vanherses
with assorted buffs is simply impregnable. I think that upwards of 300 troops
including 50 or so devils that started on her side broke on her vans with no
visible effect.

> Are there still buggy items around whose powers transfers from masters to
> slaves in the presence of master/slave matrices?

I think it is still here. I was in 2.14 for sure.