In BG 2EE in a new game,
my thief/mage character,Imoen has begun to automatically cast spells like magic missle, as does my cleric Jaheria for the armor. spell, They do it as a combat begins. Why?
I checked the options/game play page and I do not see anything activated to do this. How can I control this? i like to have my party act as I command.
Thanks, Muzzien

You need to change their script. You can do that from their character sheet --> customize --> script.

Actually, what you *really* want to do is turn off the party AI entirely. In classic BG2 (don't know about BG1 or BG2:EE, but probably in the same place), in the lower right corner (IIRC), there is a button you can click to toggle the party AI. Turn it off and your party members won't act on their own (barring certain scripted events, of which there are way too many in BG2).

If you do this, you probably also want to turn on auto-pause; at the very least, turn on auto-pause when an enemy is seen.

(Of course, this option does not turn off the *enemy* AI; enemies will still act according to their AI, and you can't control them except with certain magical effects; the game would be too easy otherwise.)

(By the way, I remember finding Icewind Dale, or at least what I played of it, more fun with the AI off.)

That is another "helpful" thing Beamdog added to the BG games. You can turn the AI off, but you have to be really quick about it or else Imoen completely wastes a spell right after the first cutscene.

This is one of the "enhancement". As others mentioned, you need to switch off AI scripts.