AI doesn't follow orders ?

[Meglobob]

Yes, I have encountered this too. Personally I would prefer the AI to follow the players script no matter what. Then if it all goes pear shaped, you have only your self to blame...

[Olive]

Yes I've ritual of returning cast on the pretender, it's safer as he's not of the SC type.

There's always the solution to script him with returning and attack his province with a earth attack or such to bring him back home next turn (let's hope he'll cast the returning spell this time )

[Maltrease]

There was abuse where players would flood large armies with count and chaff attacks and so the large armies would use up all of the gems, before the "real" battle.

So looks like both approaches have problems.

[NTJedi]

I've had scenarios where the entire enemy is retreating yet my mages were casting spells like "living fire" which summons fire elementals.
Complete waste of gems.

[Evil Dave]

I occasionally run into problems with many-paths-1 rainbow mages "forgetting" to cast power of the spheres, making the rest of my orders for powerful spells useless. I wonder how hard it would be to add a "just follow orders" option to go with spell scripts.

[Sheap]

Yes, the real problem with any simultaneous-turn game is that you never can predict exactly what will happen between what you are planning for and what actually happens, that might ruin your plan. Like in this MP game I am in, where I arranged my troops for elephants, but instead got longbowmen because someone else attacked at the same time as me.

Clever players will exploit this to waste your gems if the AI does not have ability to override orders, it is easy to do, just cast a cheap remote summon and watch the gems boil away.

A checkbox to say 'always follow my orders no matter what' would be good, but if you use it too much, gem-wasting attacks become viable again.

Better would be if the AI's overriding was smarter, but how smart can it get really?