Countering Master Enslave...

[K]

Baalz said:

That's actually not true. Several nations get access to S4 mages (Marverni, Arcoscephale, R'yleh off the top of my head)

S4 + cap + coin + crystal shield + ring of sorcery = S8

Heck, even cheaper is to drop the ring and have a second mage carrying the light of the northern star - bonus he can cast vortex of returning after the master enslave if you want. Slap an eye of the void and rune smasher onto your main caster for +4 penetration. Drop those two where you expect an enemy army to move and they'll act first so no anti-magic and no retaliation at all. Yoink!

I've found that the AI gets very twitchy when casting spells with 200+ fatigue (50/50 of not casting). That being said, it tends to mean that only high astral or communions get the job done reliably.

But, you may have had a different experience. I'd be interested in other people's experience with this aspect of high fatigue spells.

[ano]

I made a thread once about my starspawn ignoring scripted Undead Mastery. I teleported 2 starspawns on a big Ermorian army aiming for casting UM and then Vortex of Returning. It went very well in test but in practice Death Starspawn just ignored the order and they both were successfully returned home with VoR. (Acting order was correct - I checked it many times) Next turn I repeated that trick and again had 8 astral games wasted as well as a turn of two good mages. After that I decided to stop trying