OK, you cultists

OK, I gave in to peer pressure somewhat. I've built another nature mage, but I'm letting Rulanna do most of the leading.

Quick question--is there an easier way to automate the combat orders? I want my nature mage to stand back and throw lightning, but she is determined to either twiddle her thumbs or start swinging her staff. ATM, I've changed the combat to pause every round, but that's just terribly jarring. There's got to be a better way.

You can build talent queues with CTRL. Hold down ctrl and use the number keys to use talents or spells on your current target. Or hold down ctrl, click on a spell, then on a target - this way you can cast spells on different targets, one after the other - very useful for that fire spell that keeps burning for some time. When there's no spells left in the queue, your caster will attack with their equipped weapon.

I usually start with double-clicking on a characters portrait to select the entire party, then click on an enemy to have everyone engage in combat on that target, then click on individual portraits to give everyone specific attack commands in queues.

Oh, and you can also set the characters to aggressive (click on the shield icons on the portraits) so that they'll always run to the nearest enemy they see. Might not always be what you want though.

Dealing with one enemy at a time is frequently the best strategy with large groups. I set my casters/rangers to defensive and either queue spells or ranged attacks, while my tanks are set to aggressive. Many battles are strategic and tactical like in Wiz 8. If you all just run in swinging, you'll get wiped out a LOT!!

I often used ranged attacks even BEFORE the enemies spotted my group !

This gives quite an advantage ! Surprise effect !

Needless to say that this requires some quiet sneaking …

Plus, I often concentrated on healing - a lot. I often gave characters with a high skill in healing (whatever, be it spells or herbs) the order to heal other party members.
And then fight further on, after that.

Originally Posted by dteowner
OK, I gave in to peer pressure somewhat. I've built another nature mage, but I'm letting Rulanna do most of the leading.

Quick question--is there an easier way to automate the combat orders? I want my nature mage to stand back and throw lightning, but she is determined to either twiddle her thumbs or start swinging her staff. ATM, I've changed the combat to pause every round, but that's just terribly jarring. There's got to be a better way.

like they said, when fight starts (auto-pause) just select everybody and click on one target to gang on it, then give specific orders if needed (like spells, special attacks, etc). Ctrl-action will queue actions. Set meleers on aggressive and squishies on defensive. Some enemies will be smarter and go straight for the squishies at the start of combat, but a hit from the fighter should pull its attention.