[Micah]

4. has nothing to do with nation ID, but rather commander ID. The game goes in order and casts spells as it goes, but it's (seemingly?) random each turn if it goes in numerical order or reverses the order, so you can't really game the system unless you double-cast with one mage at each end of the order. (The order can be seen by the order that your commanders show up in your provinces, but there's no way to compare between nations)