My companions do not do anythign but mindlessly attack. They don't rage, bards don't sing, magus' don't cast a spell with their melee attacks, etc. which means unless I want to be demolished by every single battle, then I have to micro-manage everyone. its not fun.

I noticed Harrim does cast heal, Linzi does cast haste.
Anything special I need to do myself.

Reduce the difficulty if you don't want to micromanage, you can melee down any enemy like this until you get used to the spells later in the game.

I usually melee down anything but bosses or more difficult enemies. Then I have to micro-manage or die. But I could also lower the difficulty.

Why would you even play party-based cRPG if you don't want to manage your team? No offense, just curious. There is also story difficulty.

You also can pretty much right-click through the game on hard, if you know what you are doing, except the beginnig and the very end.

You can put things on auto-cast by right-clicking it.

There's a game setting that restricts companions from using limited spells and such. Check that.

On most party-based cRPG's it isn't that bad. But Magus takes extreme micromanagement. You must cast a spell to get the benefit of his melee/spell ability.

It just means that every single combat is a big deal. There are no minor encounters, every encounter you must treat like a boss fight or the team gets splattered. I suppose since I am playing on Hard, that I can just lower the difficulty down so that basic melee/range attacks without abilities will suffice.

I just know that the AI in other games allow for them to cast their spells and use their abilities. They may use them in a less than effective manner by blowing their big spells abilities up on a rat or spider, but they use them non the less. In this game, they don't. So that even spiders are a big deal and normal type fights you get hammered unless you take over every minute detail.

I looked forward to Pathfinder cRPG very much. I can say that I don't get any of the joy I thought I would from it. I clicked that.

I haven't tried the auto-cast thing. If I get the urge to open the game up again, I will certainly give it a shot to see if that helps. Hopefully the bard will actually sing and the barb actually rage, and the magus actually cast, you know, the basic stuff, if I tell them to auto-cast.

Dragon Age Origins is the best game for this. Mods made the companions even more 'scriptable', I would love to see something like this here.

magus is one of the least micro-intensive classes. shield+haste+arcane weapon and you are done. those usually last long enough for the whole map(except for haste). touch spells can be auto-casted. touch of fatigue is good enough for the 1st half of the game. then you can right-click other touch spells - just watch that you have 1-2 casts in reserve in case you need the slots. late-game it's even more mindless as you just buff up, use transformation and forget about him. on anything below unfair magus doesn't even need to watch his hp as he won't ever be hit apart from 20s

same deal. if you right-click it they will use it at the start of the combat. doesn't even take active auto-cast slot the spells do.

buffs like arcane weapon, shield, etc must be manually cast. doesn't take much effort. buy some lesser extend rods from olegs to reduce the tedium or rebuffing.

arcane accuracy can be autocast, but takes an autocast slot.

yes, primary spell-casters require hard babysitting to use to full potential. same with combat maneuver skills like bull rush.

but if you need to micro for trash mobs you have more problems than just AI. most of encounters in the game can be simply right-clicked with haste and rudimentary buffs.

I tested "Prayer" (Gebet) with Jathal, she casts it over and over during the fight, not just once as buff/debuff. Others are OK, like enhancing my weapon.

if the memory serves, arcane accuracy is swift action, so you can't make more than 1 per turn, so it works. buffs an most spells, as I mentioned above, do have to be casted manually.