Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

I'm playing Arco in a mp game.

In Turn 11, 4 of my 5 philosophers get afflictions.

2 get disease and 2 get mute.

Is it normal that 80% of the old age people get afflictions in one round? I had absolute 0 afflictions from old age in turn 1-10.

Is here a bug possible? I got the same affliction twice.

Maybe its just bad luck but from 0 to 80% of the old age population afflicted is at least worth a post here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

I've growth 3 as active scale on my home province so i can't see a great bonus here.

Re: Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

sounds like bad luck... I've noticed the growth 2 scale providing better results compared with no growth scale at all.

Re: Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

That's high, but I seem to recall reading that everybody has the same birthday regardless of recruitment time.

Re: Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

I believe it was changed into a per-turn change in the patch (or was that just planned?). I would say that is bad luck. It seems to vary, but a growth scale and nature/death magic levels really help.

Re: Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

I'd say that jibed well with my results with Arco - the old age mechanism made them completely worthless, since the priestesses would live long enough to get some research done and the philosophers wouldn't.

Re: Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

I'm not trying to make anyone like the old age mechanic here, but I totally kick arse using Arco's philosophers. To say they're totally worthless kinda makes you look foolish. Now I admit to having some points in growth to make up for the money loss taking going Sloth-3 (or whatever that's called). I like to take that hit to production to increase their research power to the max. If you aren't doing that, then I can understand if your philosophers are lousy. I've never even considered that the growth was also helping them stay alive. So, it can certainly be done, and I believe you had poor luck, calmon. Sorry bout that :-(. I've had Sceptics get diseases extremely quickly, but it's been very uncommon for me and I can only recall old age throwing a wrench in my plans once.

=$= Big J Money =$=

Re: Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

You can only get afflictions from old age in the "late winter" season. That is why they all happened at the same time.

As for having 80% of your units get afflictions (and bad ones at that), that is worse than normal. Disease seems to be fairly common but AFAIK any affliction can happen. The chances are different from afflictions suffered in battle, where you get lots of chest wounds, limps, etc whereas in old age you get lots of disease and other sort of "wasting afflictions." Does mute prevent the philosophers from researching? Heh.

Re: Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

Isn't turn 11 the first Winter turn? Old Age really seems to hit much more in winter.

Actually, I kinda like the Old Age thing, even though it bites me as often as not. Makes me care about all the poor guys http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

I found that growth3 really helps a lot vs getting afflictions. In my testgames for the worthy heroes mod, I have a few guys living for 25 years (=300 turns) in old age without picking up a single affliction.

Of course they are still not immune and a few of them die, but with growth3 and/or deathmagic you can mostly ignore the old age giving afflictions thing.

Re: Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

The Old Age afflictions all hit (or not) during the winter of each year. So there really is an "old age day" when all the old men get afflictions.

That being said, in my Tien Chi game I currently am at turn 27 and I have received precisely one affliction on a celestial master all game. If you don't have a Death scale, old age seems to be pretty forgiving.

-Frank

Re: Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

Same here, I am currently playing Tien Chi as well. No aflictions so far, turn iether 16 or 20, don't rememer for sure.

But I think it is because CM have very long lifespan. Chance of afliction depends on it.

Re: Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

That was bad luck. My rough impression is that the life expectancy of an old unit is 3-4 years. However, even that is bad enough that I only use old units when I have no alternative. I pretty much hire them for key forgers and key battlemages - the ones doing the critical stuff nobody else can. I've not found them worth the trouble as artillery battlemages (although, to tell the truth, I'm pretty unimpressed with artillery battlemages anyway in Dom3) and I'd never hire them as researchers.

Re: Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

I am not so enamored with Marveni and Agartha for this reason in the Demo. At least Marveni can easily acquire Nature gems, and some of their old age Druids come out with Nature magic skills. But Agartha is an entirely different issue, with all their high-powered mages coming out with old age...

Re: Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

You must have hit some bad luck somewhere there, I'm playing EA Agartha, and in about 60 turns exactly one of my about 20 oracles has gotten diseased. No one else has gotten a single affliction, and even the poor guy is going to get a lot more research in before his hit points drop to 0. And I'm playing with Death-1 scale.. The fact that their max age is 400 helps them a lot.

Overall I'm quite happy with how age is working. It adds nice strategic decisions that aren't always nobrainers. Haven't played Abyssia yet though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

Maxage affects rate of afflictions. Agarthans, long-lived Celestial Masters, Gygjas (if they are old, I don't remember), Crones who are old but have lots of Nature magic boosting their maxage... they all are less likely to get more afflictions. Philosophers probably have maxage 50, and are thus more likely to get afflictions that most mages given as contradictory examples in here, and Abysians are the nation that suffers the most AFAIK.

Death magic protects from afflictions. I'm not sure of the rate, but Death 4 or 5 probably makes the mage totally immune to old age, and only few Ktonian Necromancers got nasty afflictions in a game in which I had Death scale 2 or 3. It didn't last very long, and I DID get couple of diseases and few other afflictions, but it was a minor effect.

Re: Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.
 

I don't see much problems with Druids. Some of them get deceased and die, but they're cheap, you can hire them everywhere and they still can inflict some damage on the enemies before dying, even when sick.