Strange actions order

[ano]

In a current MP game the following situation has happened:
I teleport 4 mages into an enemy province with the following scripts (order is as in commander screen):
Mage1 (Adept of the Silver Order) - Body Ethereal, Returning (to protect StoneRainers with BE and Luck from the Sword of Aurgelmer)
Mage2 (Oreiad) - Summon Air elemental, Retreat (to hold off enemy force)
Mages 3, 4 (Oreiades) - Ironskin, Rain of Stones, Rain of Stones.

Everything went as expected except for the second Oreiad who didn't retreat after summoning an Elemental (she had 94 fatigue and was quite able to). She just ignored her turn and was killed by RoS. Log says absolutely nothing about it (first turn cast order was 1-2-3-4 while on second turn mage 2 was absent appearing only as RoS victim)
Does anybody know what could have happened?

[chrispedersen]

Happens all the time.

[ano]

Not an explanation

[chrispedersen]

whats to explain? Scripted orders only get additional weighting, at evaluation time. The AI will often decide the exigencies of the situation require that it go oft script.

most commonly, this occurs when:

a). the spell scripted requires gems and the AI thinks the expenditure of gems is not warranted.
b). the spell is question inflicts friendly casualties.
c). the spell scripted is out of range


The AI will often not cast returning - especially if the commander has body guards.

[Micah]

She was killed by the second set of RoS then? I've never had a retreat order ignored, but I don't see what's keeping her safe from the first Rains aside from luck/eth, which of course have a chance of failing.

[ano]

chrispedersen
What you said is obvious and common things that explain nothing. I read the debug log and even didn't find the name of that Oreiad on second turn. Immediately after Adept cast Returning second Oreaid cast RoS.
Micah
She was killed by the second set of RoS then? I've never had a retreat order ignored, but I don't see what's keeping her safe from the first Rains aside from luck/eth, which of course have a chance of failing.
Of course, she was killed. She should have retreated before RoS but just skipped her turn (not just ignored retreat order). That's what I don't understand. This loss was not terribly important because the game was actually won long ago but I never saw such things before and I'm wondering what might have caused this?..

[Micah]

If she was killed by the first turn of RoS her turn just hadn't come up yet. Magic happens first.

[chrispedersen]

Mage 1 Spell 1 Spell 2
Mage 2 Spell 3 Spell 4
Mage 3 Spell 5 Action 6
Mage 4 Spell 7 Spell 8


What micah is saying (I believe) is that the order of execution is

Spell 1
Spell 2
Spell 3
Spell 4
Spell 5
Spell 7
Spell 8
Action 6.
Troop action1

Or it might be
1
3
5
7
2
4
8
6
Troop action 1. Never remember. Either way, the mage would get hosed by the RoS before the retreat.

[ano]

Thanks.
I always thought that action order is completely determined by the order at commander screen. Never knew about "Magic happens first".