I *hate* unscripted Touch of Madness.

[Taqwus]

An unscripted Touch of Madness can send one's archers, mages, or pretender counter-productively running into melee, and there's no "execute the caster for treason or capital stupidity" option.

For, say, Arco -- where it's useful to have priestesses tagging along with your armies, for the healing and prayers -- is there a good workaround other than scripting every priestess and hoping they take the hint after five non-ToM orders?

[Sombre]

Mod touch of madness to be very high level, like N9D9, thus removing it from the game.

[bananafish]

i agree... or at least have the AI do a better job of making sure there is a squad melee troops close enough to have this cast upon. and not cast it if mages are present w/in the squad.

[TwoBits]

Count me in the "hate" column too. Often I'll try to keep level 2 or above nature mages out of combat just to avoid this problem.

Heck, if it was merely a matter of a pointlessly wasted spell (think Earth mages spamming Legions of Steel), or even of wasted gems (mage thinks, "hmm, I think we need another puny elemental in this already lopsided battle..."), that'd be one thing.

But this spell gets friendly units killed. And sometimes very valuable units!

I think there needs to be a way to disable the AI from casting certain spells. This has often been suggested before though...

[Sandman]

It should just give the beserker ability, without actually making the target beserk.

[PyroStock]

there needs to be a way to disable the AI from casting certain spells

[Ewierl]

Count me in on a big vote for "don't cast unscripted." The number of times I've seen my mages send each other charging down the battlefield is ridiculous...

Especially as MA man, where you don't have the option to keep nature mages out of combat, where your mages are physically weak, and where you want to cluster your mages a bit for other reasons (Soothing Song).