Spell Casting Times

[Psientist]

Lietenant: "Commander Supermage Sir! The battle is almost over, and we are losing badly!"
Commander Supermage: "Quit bothering me! Can't you see I'm in the middle of my tea?"

What are the parameters that regulate how long it takes to cast battlefield spells? Is it tied to fatigue, or spell research level? I've lost a numerous battles waiting for my key mages to feel like casting specific battlefield-affecting spells.

Since most of them (e.g., Grip of Winter) take quite a bit of time to have a significant effect, having commanders delay multiple turns (assuming they bother to cast them at all) seriously robs such spells of their combat value.

[quantum_mechani]

Every spell takes exactly one round to cast. You need to script for the ones you want, if the mages still aren't casting them then they are most likely out of range or lack enough power in the magic path(s).

[Psientist]

So I would think, yet not in my painful, repeated experience.

Pretender: Ancient Kraken, astral 8.
Scripted: "Master Enslave" (nothing else)
Items: Eye of the Void, Amulet of the Fish, Crystal Coin. 30 astral gems.
And yes, Thaumaturgy researched to level 9.

effect: nothing. Pretender waits until about round 3 in the battle, when enemy troops make it through front line and attack (he then defends melee).

Similar experiences in past using well equipped and scripted mages for Astral Tempest, Death mages casting Plague (or whatever the battlefield version is... they chose to cast "raise skeleton" repeatedly instead, like that would help), and Water mage casting Grip of Winter (who WOULD cast the spell, but would wait until at least the second round of spellcasting).

I mean, I gotta be doing something wrong here, because my whole game strategies go out the window if all my mages are going to resort to automated battlefield behavior.

[K]

Mages won't cast spells that take them over 200 fatigue. In the above example, the pretender would take like 800 + spellcasting endurance fatigue (assuming the final Astral score is 9). Try a Communion or more Astral.

[MaxWilson]

That's really odd. I've heard conflicting reports on whether casters will cast spells that take them over 200 fatigue (Graeme Dice insists they won't, others seem to have experienced it) but this sounds like a case where this is happening. S9 lets him use one extra gem, so he'd take 800/3 + encumbrance fatigue, which is about 240. If you added another booster to make him S10, he could use two gems for 800/5 + encumbrance, which would be 165 or thereabouts, which means he would cast it. Since you can't (IIRC) use another item booster without popping out the Eye of the Void, try casting Light of the Northern Star or Power of the Spheres on round 1, which will bring you up to S10 (and also give you +1 to penetration). He should then cast Master Enslave on round 2.

Let us know if that works.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

Update: okay, now I'm totally puzzled. I had a Tartarian Titan boosted to S9 with items (which is the same as the above-described kraken, S8 kraken + Crystal Coin = S9) scripted to <Master Enslave> and that's it. She had exactly 8 pearls. She cast the spell, no problem, and ended with 200 fatigue. So I see no reason why the kraken should not have cast its master enslave.

If it makes any difference, I'm running on Windows. This is a weird situation.

Edit: my only idea so far is that perhaps the kraken decided it wasn't "worth" burning 8 gems. My Tartarian Titan was in the company of several other Titans all decked out, and she had +3 Penetration from items, and the army we were facing was Ulmish. When she cast the spell I got about 65% of the enemy army. The combat AI simulates everything before it actually commits to a choice, and perhaps in the simulation (since the Kraken had only +2 Penetration, and depending upon the MR of the enemy troops) only a few enemy were controlled. Since the kraken was apparently on its own, perhaps the AI decided it didn't want to burn 200 fatigue just to control 10% of the troops. My other theory is that the kraken, as a melee SC chassis, somehow has different behavior than a mage chassis. I don't really believe either of these theories, though. If you ever figure out what was going on, though, please let us know.

In the meantime I'm having fun knocking down castles with my Ulmish army. The computer always builds these armies of 400+ troops, but I've never actually *owned* one before...

-Max Wilson

[calmon]

Psientist said:
Pretender: Ancient Kraken, astral 8.
Scripted: "Master Enslave" (nothing else)
Items: Eye of the Void, Amulet of the Fish, Crystal Coin. 30 astral gems.
And yes, Thaumaturgy researched to level 9.

effect: nothing. Pretender waits until about round 3 in the battle, when enemy troops make it through front line and attack (he then defends melee).

I never had any problems with astral 8 and casting master enslave (ends up with 200 fatigue). Are you sure there are non-undead and non-magic beings on the battlefield? Master enslave doesn't work with undeads and magic beings. For this 2 there are undead mastery and arcane domination.

K said:
Mages won't cast spells that take them over 200 fatigue. In the above example, the pretender would take like 800 + spellcasting endurance fatigue (assuming the final Astral score is 9). Try a Communion or more Astral.

Thats not true. They cast them and end with 200 fatigue.

[Wish]

i have had mages cast menial spells for a couple of combat rounds, then jump into their script from the beginning. i wanted them to start with fog warriors, it came out on turn 3.