[msew]

The purpose of the game is to make mages on "active" / "usable" when there are 25 non mage units.

When mages are out searching by themselves they must have their orders set to: "retreat".

If there are N mages out searching without troop support they must have all their orders set to: "retreat".


When mages are moving from army to army they have their orders set to: "retreat".

When mages are moving they have their orders set to: "retreat".


Okie. Cool. We all agree on that.


So: Now we have mages hanging out in their respective forts. Researching perhaps. Idling about. Just arriving from being out in the field. etc etc.

So by those rules ALL mages must have their default order be retreat. And only when they 25 non-mage units allocated to them may they choose to change it.


So if you have a research province all of the mages that do not have 25 non-mage units must have their orders set to retreat.



Consequences:

a) if all of your mages are concentrated in one area and can only retreat you better make certain they have a place to retreat from or you will lose them.

b) An enemy attacking a concentrated research province could massively disrupt your researching. And maybe kill off some mages in the adjoining provinces with secondary attacks

c) this stops the tactic of: making forts and dumping 10 mages that are "researching" and can defend that fort quite easily from the 50 unit 2 mage assault force