Can't get communion to work

[Amhazair]

Originally Posted by MartialDoctor

Really? I read elsewhere that slaves must cast first and then the master.

There's probably a bit of confusion here with another communion mechanic. As Llama said, it doesn't matter in what order the mages cast the communion master/slaves spell, all mages who cast one of those will join the communion as masters or slaves accordingly.

However, once in the communion, communion slaves won't cast spells anymore if (one of) the master(s) has already cast a spell in that turn. This doesn't matter if all you want to do is to boost the paths of the master(s) so they can cast high-pathlevel spells, and to distribute the fatigue amongst the slaves. (In fact, this is a good thing, since having slaves cast their own spells will increase their fatigue, and thus the chance they fall unconscious and die from the fatigue of the master's spells.)

There is however a specific kind of communion - often referred to as a "reverse" communion, in which you want to take a large number of slaves, have one or a few mages buff them (with for example Power of the Spheres, the various elemental path boosters, eagle eyes and the like) and have the buffed slaves do the bulk of the spellcasting. To set up this kind of communion you have to make sure the mages you choose as masters cast their spells at the end of the turn*, otherwise the slaves won't cast the spells you want them to.**


* Mages on the battlefield will allways cast their spells in the same order, with the ones at the top of the battle-setup screen comming first, and those at the bottom last.

** Assigning mages at the end of the casting order as the 'masters' is the easiest way of forming a 'reverse' communion, however this isn't allways possible. (For example, you have only one earth mage you want to cast summon earthpower, so all slaves benefit from the fatigue reducion, and he comes early in the casting order.) There are a couple of tricks to pull this of regardless, including having them retreat after buffing, (with the drawback they will end up in some other province after battle, rather than with the rest of the army) or giving them some kind of missile weapon so you can give them 'fire' orders after they've cast their crucial buff.