what the heck are my Communion Slaves doing?

[Zooko]

I just watched a battle and painstakingly transcribed every spell cast by my mages, and what their fatigue was after each turn. I have several questions:

1. Why did the Communion Slaves not cast any spells?
2. Why did the Communion Master go out of script on turn 5?
3. Why did a couple of the slaves change their minds and cast a couple of spells at the end of the battle (turn 18).
4. Why does the fatigue get distributed unevenly?
5. Why does the fatigue get distributed differently when the Communion Master casts a spell on one turn than when he casts the same spell on the next turn (turns 6 & 7, turns 9 & 10 & 11, turns 14 & 15, turns 16 & 17)?
6. Why does the Communion Master cast worse spells like Banishment or Solar Rays instead of better spells like Holy Pyre?
7. Why do my mages sometimes recover as much as 8 fatigue per turn? (4 is due to Summon Earthpower)

Here was the script:

Enforca: Communion Master, Power of the Spheres, Summon Earthpower, Phoenix Power, Immolation, spells
Metase: Communion Slave, Body Ethereal, Luck, Rage, Blink, spells
Clarbune: Communion Slave, Luck, Body Ethereal, Curse of the Stones, Blink, spells
Bphlah: Communion Slave, Body Ethereal, Luck, Rage, Blink, spells

Actual behavior: Enforca cast 1. Communion Master, 2. Power of the Spheres, 3. Summon Earthpower, 4. Phoenix Power, 5. Summon Fire Elemental, 6. Banishment, 7. Banishment, 8. Luck, 9. Banishment, 10. Banishment, 11. Banishment, 12. Iron Will, 13. Holy Pyre, 14. Solar Rays, 15. Solar Rays, 16. Body Ethereal, 17. Body Ethereal, 18. none, 19. Luck

The other mages cast Communion Slave, then did nothing until turn 18 (the same turn that Enforca did nothing) when Metase cast Body Ethereal and Bplhah cast Mind Burn.

Here are the fatigue levels of each mage after each turn. The fatigue caused by my opponent's Rigor Mortis is included in parenthesis, when applicable.

 turn

   |   mage ->

   v      Enforce      Metase     Clarbune    Bphlah

   1         19          19          19           3

   2         31          41          52           9

   3         37 (37)     69 (77)     58 (70)     33 (29) ???

   4         41 (50)     79 (75)     74 (70)     31 (41)

   5         69 (70)     84 (80)     89 (85)     50 (54)

   6         72          82          87          62

   7         68          78          83          58

   8         72          82          87          60

   9         80          89         107          64

  10         78          87         100          68

  11         86         100         104          72

  12         86         112          99          84

  13         85         104          98          84

  14         85          99          98          79

  15         86          99         109          77

  16         87         102         119          75

  17         88         103         115          73

  18          ?         118           ?          72

  19         98         113         101          70

One theory as to why Enforca didn't cast Immolation is that he didn't want to hurt the three White Knight bodyguards. Another is that he thought casting Immolation would hurt the Communion Slaves, not realizing that they had fire immunity fro.... Oh. I see that they only had 50% resistance from Phoenix Power. Maybe next time I'll do Phoenix Power, Fire Resistance, Immolation. So I guess the explanation to question #2 is Enforca was smarter than I was and knew not to cast Immolation.

[quantum_mechani]

Zooko said:

1. Why did the Communion Slaves not cast any spells?
2. Why did the Communion Master go out of script on turn 5?
3. Why did a couple of the slaves change their minds and cast a couple of spells at the end of the battle (turn 18).
6. Why does the Communion Master cast worse spells like Banishment or Solar Rays instead of better spells like Holy Pyre?

Well, I can answer these. Communion slaves are not supposed to cast spells, period. But they do in rare cases and no one is sure why . The final spell on the script might have been skiped if it was out of range. As for the AI mixing in weaker spells, the AI uses a random factor, so you can count on it trying almost everything in a long battle.

[Tuna]

I see a very simple pattern in the comminion slave castings: on turn 18, Enforfe fatiues out, thus not casting anything, and freeing the slaves for a turn as there is no free master.

Also, the extra fatigue removal is probably just the 5 you get for free for being above fatigue 100.

[Zooko]

> Well, I can answer the these. Communion slaves are not supposed to cast spells, period.

Oh. Darn. Well, that kind of takes some of the fun out of it ...

Thanks for the answers! I gained 8 fatigue back when I was less than 100, but maybe I just mis-transcribed the numbers or something...

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Zooko said:
One theory as to why Enforca didn't cast Immolation is that he didn't want to hurt the three White Knight bodyguards.

Immolation is a 0-range spell (it affects a small area around the caster). So a better theory would probably be there were no valid targets within range (?).

[Zooko]

Oh, I'm confused. I thought that Immolation was a "self-enchantment" that would give the caster a 7-area aura of firey death for the remainder of the battle. Where did I get that idea? Oh well.

[Vynd]

Nice job pulling all of that information together Zooko. Most of us (myself included) would have just asked "Hey, why did this happen?" rather than gathering together so much data to look at.

[Zooko]

Thanks!

Oh wait -- no mage ever gained more than 4 fatigue back unless they were over 100. The most any gained back while < 100 was 4. The most gained back while >= 100 was 8.

So it sounds like you can get a bonus of up to 4 fatigue back when you are over 100.

[Chazar]

Zooko said:
So it sounds like you can get a bonus of up to 4 fatigue back when you are over 100.

I dont want to be nitpicky, but on page 15 of the dom2 manual, section 6.2.8, reads: "At 100 points, a unit falls unconcious. Unconcious units recover..."

[Huntsman]

Zooko said:
Oh, I'm confused. I thought that Immolation was a "self-enchantment" that would give the caster a 7-area aura of firey death for the remainder of the battle. Where did I get that idea? Oh well.

Probably got that idea from Master of Magic. I seem to remember casting Immolation on those killer knights.