Could anyone explain to me how the Spell of Making is supposed to work? In particular, how do you stop someone casting it? The manual doesn't really give any clue; in fact it seems to be out of date, it doesn't mention the Towers at all.
It might be simpler if I explained what happened so you understand why I'm asking.
1) In one game an AI successfully cast the SOM. I definitely lost, but the ending was a bit messed up, I think the game score screen thought I had won a Conquest victory or something.
1) In another game one of the AIs started casting SOM. At turn ten... nothing happened. No idea why. I might trying to load the saved games with cheats enabled and see if I can work it out. The only valid reason I could see was that another of the AI factions had just declared war on the SOM AI, so it's possible that a city had changed hands. Otherwise it might be a bug; the AI in question just started casting the spell again a couple of turns later.
2) Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, I used the next ten turns to find the AI and stop it. However stopping it did not work how I expected. I thought the whole point of your sovereign being immobilized for ten turns was that if someone could find and kill your sovereign they would stop you casting the Spell. So I did that, and nothing happened. The AI carried on casting the SOM. I still find this a bit odd, but reading the conditions again they don't say anywhere that your sovereign being killed will stop you casting the spell. So, fine, even if I think this should be changed; how do you stop it in the current game? I conquered the AI's cities containing one of the Towers; it carried on casting the SOM. I captured all of the AI's Towers; it carried on casting the SOM. At this point I was beginning to think this was a karmic bug, and just as I had survived when I should have lost, now I was going to lose when I shouldn't have. However at the ten turn point I got the not particularly inspiring message: "Spell of Making failed: Does not meet requirements", or words to that effect.
So, how does it work? Are the conditions only checked at beginning and end of casting? Does killing the sovereign have any effect? Bearing in mind having your sovereign die and losing your towers does not stop the spell, is there any way to cut short the spell short of being eliminated? Is all this working as designed?
