When mages don't cast...

[Einthoven]

I had a surprising thing happen in a recent game - I had ordered a mage with Level 3 in a path to cast a level 3 battlef ield spell (which requires a magic gem) at the beginning of his combat orders.

Watching the replay, the mage doesn't cast the spell but rather a defensive spell, then for his 2nd through 5th spells are as I ordered them. Now the mage seems to have all the right levels to cast the spell (it isn't greyed out in his spells list), and he does have the right number of gems, so I'm trying to figure out why he didn't cast the spell.

He's not feebleminded or afflicted with any wounded states, so any thoughts on what I did wrong?

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Einthoven:
He's not feebleminded or afflicted with any wounded states, so any thoughts on what I did wrong?

How many/how tough were the opponents you were facing? The AI doesn't use gems to cast big spells if it doesn't think that there will be enough benefit. This is useful to prevent a mage from burning off it's gems when a single scout attacks instead of the army you were expecting.

[Einthoven]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
How many/how tough were the opponents you were facing? The AI doesn't use gems to cast big spells if it doesn't think that there will be enough benefit. This is useful to prevent a mage from burning off it's gems when a single scout attacks instead of the army you were expecting.

Wow. That's a smart AI. As it turns out it was a province with fairly low defense and a handfull of weak defenders. No threat to my army at all, so perhaps that is what happened. I was wondering whether it might have been the fact that the spell costs 100 fatigue to cast, but perhaps that wasn't it.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Einthoven:
I was wondering whether it might have been the fact that the spell costs 100 fatigue to cast, but perhaps that wasn't it.

The AI will avoid casting spells that would instantly knock the caster unconscious if there is another choice it can make, and there almost always is.

[Einthoven]

Originally posted by Arryn:
The AI will avoid casting spells that would instantly knock the caster unconscious if there is another choice it can make, and there almost always is.

So do you have to buff up a human mage with some items or communion/matrix them in order to have them cast one of these big (100 fatigue) spells? I can imagine circumstances where it would be worth it to have a mage cast Fire Arrows at the beginning of battle even if he does go unconscious immediately. Could I force it by giving him only that spell in his spell orders?

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Einthoven:
[QB]So do you have to buff up a human mage with some items or communion/matrix them in order to have them cast one of these big (100 fatigue) spells?

No. Take a Marignon grand master, give him one fire gem, and script him to cast flaming arrows. He will cast the spell even if he's in a drain dominion.