Usually I set the MAGIC value during worldgen to LOW, because I'm a big fan of Conan and prefer that kind of world. As expected, though, fortress mode gets kind of easy, and it's not too long before I've conquered whatever continent I've embarked on.
So I set it to HIGH. Wizard time!
I didn't notice much of a change at first. There were a couple more options to train up in, but they all had dwarven names for things, and since no one during worldgen had come up with a dwarven-human translation guide, I was stuck guessing at most of the skills. It wasn't until I had actually embarked that I realized that I had managed to get one of my starting seven as a full-fledged mage.
Great, right? Except he won't do anything. He counts as a noble, and thus had a whole list of demands for his own room, workshop, apprentice, etc, and won't do a lick of work.
I've seen other people post about how useful mages are, but this guy's worthless.
Well, OK, not totally worthless. A necromancer attempted to siege me in my tenth year, and this guy walked right out of his workshop, walked up to the undead, and turned every zombie to ash. No fire, electricity, or anything. Just ash. The necromancer was so intimidated, he fled right off the map.
But *most* of the time, the mage just sits in his workshop with the task "Doing Research." Every once in a while he'll make a demand for a rare book or scroll. While I'm tempted to just let him go insane, his trick with the necromancer eventually convinces me to go ahead and fund an adventuring party to find what he wants.
Supposedly, mages are supposed to go with those adventuring parties, right? Not so for Mr High-and-Mighty here. I'll assign him using the (A)dventuring screen, but he'll just deny the request and return to his books.
Basically, I've got a grade-A wizard sitting in an ivory tower (well, he requested ivory, but I didn't have enough elephants, so I made it marble instead) who makes my main fortress nigh-untouchable, but doesn't do a bit of good over the entire kingdom. He's not even training the apprentices (he's got three now); he just makes them sweep the floors.
I suppose I could treat him as any other noble, and set up deathtraps (or just exile him, though, again, I don't want my empire to literally crumble to ash). But I started this fortress as high-fantasy, dammit; if I kill him, I might as well have played one of my other worlds.
Any thoughts on how to make this wizard actually useful?