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[USEC_OFFICER]

A mage will keep on casting spells until they're unconscious. So if they're at 99 fatigue they could cast a spell and suffer 100 more no problem. You'll probably have to script them to do that but that speaks more about mage AI than anything else.

A mage can spend gems casting a spell if they can already cast it with their base levels. Basically every extra gem used increases their base level by 1, increasing the spells effects and (most importantly) cutting down on the fatigue they experience. Generally if you give a mage gems they'll do this to reduce fatigue, unless you tick 'Conservative Gem Usage' on their orders.

So as far as I am aware, the answer to both is yes.

[MCreeper]

Ok, question 3. How much enemies earthquake spell actually hits?

[Il Palazzo]

It targets everybody (friend or foe), but hit depends on unit stats.
It's a roll against defence of all units, excluding floaters and fliers, and mostly cancelled by etherealness. Caves add a second roll against defence to 10% of the battlefield squares, which does not exclude floaters/fliers.

As a rule of thumb, low defence <10 units get good chance to be hit, high defence >15 get low chance, and high armour units can survive hits better.

[MCreeper]

Thanks! 

[Karlito]

Question 2 - can mage spend two gems on casting a spell, if he already can cast it with his base levels?

The answer to this question is actually "no". Or maybe "yes," depending on what you're asking exactly. There are two ways mages can spend gems on a spell. The first is to boost their effective path level for casting a spell. A mage can only spend 1 gem per spell to boost their path level, allowing them to cast spells at 1 level higher. The second way to spend gems is by paying the cost of a spell that costs gems (most battlefield summons and many battlewide enchantments or other big spells). Every mage has a per battle limit of how many gems they can spend, which is the level they have in the path of the gem. This limit will also be increased by anything that boosts the mage's paths for the duration of the battle (summon x power, crystal shield, communion, etc). There's no limit on bloodslaves.

For example, giving an E1 can spend an earth gem to cast Summon Earth Power(E2), boosting them to E2 (and also boosting their gem spending limit) for the rest of the battle, which then allows them to cast Strength of Giants(E3) by spending another gem, but then they're back to casting only E2 spells.
As another example, an A2 mage with 2 air gems can cast Arrow Fend. They spend 1 gem to temporarily boost their path to A3, allowing them to cast the spell, and the second gem is used to pay the cost of the spell.
Lastly, an F2 mage can spend 1 gem to cast Fireball as an F3, but can't spend 2 gems to cast Fireball as an F4, because gems can only boost path once per spell.

[MCreeper]

For some reason i thought that mage can spend two gems for reducing fatique on one spell. Also didn't knew about gem spending limit. Probably i should read the manual. 

[E. Albright]

Every mage has a per battle limit of how many gems they can spend, which is the level they have in the path of the gem. This limit will also be increased by anything that boosts the mage's paths for the duration of the battle (summon x power, crystal shield, communion, etc). There's no limit on bloodslaves.

That's new, significant, and not something I'd heard discussed. In Dom4 it was a per-cast limit, not a per-battle limit. And it was worth noting that it got weird with communions; IIRC communion levels wouldn't let you use more gems, unlike other means of boosting.

[USEC_OFFICER]

That's just poor wording on Karlito's part. The limit is still per turn/cast, not per battle. Assuming that the manual isn't horribly out of date, of course.

[Karlito]

Ha, really? How many months have I been wrong about that? 

[E. Albright]

Hmm, the new Mekone/Arco summon is... uh... interesting...

Spoiler: Conj6/D2/9d for 3 (click to show/hide)

I can't decide if that's impractical fluff, or something really nasty since it's an invisible ethereal frightening flier. Leaning towards really nasty, though.

[etgfrog]

I would also lean to really nasty, although it isn't that bad since how cheap it is to get a bless for spirit sight and magic weapons. What it can do is potentially save you from ethereal sacreds that would otherwise walk over you.

[USEC_OFFICER]

The major problem with the Keres is that only LA Arco has the paths needed to summon them, and only because the same patch added the Orphic Mystic to their lineup. _{D1N1 + 50% FWE + 50% ADN for 95 gold, along with reincarnation(why?) and spellsinger. They're excellent labrats and those that trigger their sorcery random should be useful in combat too. Not as useful as a Mystic but usable.} So the only time you'll see EA/MA Arco or Mekone using them is if they splashed some Death on their pretender for the express purpose of doing so or broke into death through a summon or something.

One minor problem with them is that invisibility only affects melee attacks and ethernalness affects mundane ones. If you can get around those then 5 Protection and 17 hitpoints won't be worth much. I was going to mention something about banishment spam until I realized that it doesn't affect devils anymore but... Smite Demon is still a thing, for anyone with H2 or better priests. Battlemagic is still a possible option too, though not as finely targeted against them.

In other words, my impression is that the Keres will smash through anyone unprepared for them but crumble against armies that are. An excellent surprise weapon and, if you can find someone stealthy to lead them, they should make top notch raiders too. Definitely worth it at 3 gems apiece, and Conj 6 isn't horribly late game either. _{Not something you can rush for either but still.}

[E. Albright]

At the same time, D2 is trivial to replicate if your pretender has any death at all - the only non-national spell path that would be easier would be low nature...

[USEC_OFFICER]

I know that. My point is that it's something you have to explicitly build for, or at least get lucky with randoms/whatever. Not something you can pull out of your ass when it'd be extremely useful.

[E. Albright]

I'm terribly observant; I seem to have missed Thereodos having Keres as well. They mostly have to bootstrap to cast it, though.

Some of the people that have dug into game files to peek at some in-development stuff observed that the descriptions for later eras of Mekone sounds like they'll be able to cast it natively, FWIW.