Frustratingly Stupid Fire Mages

[Bananadine]

Lightning does have a limited range, but it's a long limited range, and the enemy did eventually enter it. This suggests an important question that I've somehow never wondered about: If a commander is ordered to cast a spell in round #x, does that spell get super-high priority to be cast starting on round #x, or only on round #x, or something else? I'd assumed it was the first of those choices--that is, that if you tell a sage to cast Horror Mark on round 1, and his astral skill doesn't get boosted to level 2 (by somebody else's spell) until round three, then he'll still cast Horror Mark on round 3 or very soon thereafter. Or, like, if a mage gets interrupted by a few harpies or something, maybe he'll spend one round killing them, and then the next few rounds continuing his orders as if nothing had happened. My experience suggests that this is how it works--but is it? If so, why didn't my mages cast Lightning after the enemy entered the spell's range? That's what I'd expected them to do.

Similarly: Is it ever possible to successfully order a mage to cast a short-range spell, like Hand of Death or Shock Wave? I've given Shock Wave orders, and it seemed that they succeeded, but maybe the mages were just making their own decision.