I thought I'd post another anecdote about how monsters work in BTII on the C64...
So each monster has four different attack options to pick from for any given round, 1 through 4. It's an even chance (25%) for all 4.
Did you know that monster have access to every single spell that players do, with the exception of MAFL?
There's a few other quite weird things that can happen to when a monster tries to cast certain spells.
For instance, the "residual" spells can be cast by monsters, and the spell will behave as though the player cast it. This also is true of BASP.
Monsters can cast SCSI in combat, and it'll actually pause combat and tell you "You are in the city, and face west. Press a key."
They can also cast the Dreamspell, which has the bizarre split effect of behaving like normal, except that it casts MAMA at the party, and nukes all illusions in the monster ranks.
A monster that tries to cast ANDE at a party member will produce the message: "___ casts a spell at ___ but was too far away!", despite being 10' away...
The DISP and DIIL spells, when cast by monsters, will turn all "Illusion" monsters in the party to "Dead", instead of causing them to vanish.
Both FAFO and MEME will work against the party if successful.
And finally - this one made me giggle - monsters can cast SASP, and guess what happens. That's right,
your ass is teleported back to the AG in Tangramayne, minus all gold. Can you imagine facing a monster group and having them do that to you after reaching say level 7 of some dungeon?
Anyways. I'm very sleep deprived. Again.