One or three questions I have...
 

I am enjoying the game immensely. The manual is a very good read, but with a game of this depth, as I play, some questions arise here and there. Here they are, for anyone who is willing to help me learning this game:

- What are the changes for the difficulty levels of each Pretender? Is it just a matter of having more gold/resources or they in fact play better as the difficulty goes up?

- I play Man and follow a strategy of maxing income and resources at the expense of magicka. Besides hindering research are there any other consequences for having drain magicka at -3?

- It buggers me my generals always getting afflictions that most of the time lead to their untimely demise. How can I heal these guys? I seem to recall from the manual some races - not Man, for sure - have a unit specific ability that heals afflictions, but I am going for a more general way of mitigating the problem.

- Is there any way of recruiting a number of other factions troops?

- What are these Horrors I keep hearing about that from time to time appear listed while the turn is being processed?


Thank you for your help.

Re: One or three questions I have...
 

1) Just extra gold/resources/pretender points etc. Easy gets a handicap.
2) You get extra mr in drain dominion, and IIRC spells cost more fatigue.
Also, certain random events only happen in certain scales, I'm not sure if/which are drain specific though.
3) Arco priestesses can cure afflictions, as well as some other units (the only one which comes to mind is the Faerie Court leading faerie
4) Recruiting enemy national units is impossible, except through bugs :X
Though I think there are some mercenaries and indies that you can recruit that are similar to some national units.
Not sure if I'm not confusing something here :X
5) Its probably the part of the turn processing that has to do with horrors, which are horrible creatures that are attracted to units which are horror marked, also randomly attacking them.
Especially strong commanders get to be attacked by especially strong horrors.

Re: One or three questions I have...
 

3) The global enchantment Gift of Health cures afflications. If you want to reduce the afflications you get in the first place then regenerating commanders are far less likely to become afflicted. There are various items and spells which cause regeneration.

Re: One or three questions I have...
 

3) If the afflictions appear on old mages outside of battles, they might be due to old age, and taking Growth scale will help.

Re: One or three questions I have...
 

3) Certain units also have a chance of healing any afflictions in the province they dwell. Arcoscephale's Priestess recruitable and the Mother of Serpents pretender (I think) can do it.

Re: One or three questions I have...
 

Thank you all for the usefull answers. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: One or three questions I have...
 

Is there a way to heal "Never healing wound" or something like that?

Re: One or three questions I have...
 

Never-healing wounds does heal over time, if you have some Healing effect - it's just that it seems much harder to get rid of. Basically, Gift of Health in a long game.

Healing afflictions
 

Commanders healing others in the province isn't automatic -- you need to use a specific command ('Heal Troops'; heals commanders too; probability seems unaffected by number of troops in province), so there's opportunity cost.

Arco Priestesses, a T'ien C'hi immortal national hero, some priestly type belong to EA Ermor (Flamen? Haven't tried them) can do it. There's a Sauromatian national hero who's healer, too. Faery Queens might be the only healers available to all nations without use of charming/enslaving magic, and are not limited in number. None of them can heal the undead/lifeless, if memory serves. There may also be a restriction on healing afflictions from old age, although I've not really tested that.

Gift of Health is the only spell that'll do it, and it works on friendlies throughout your dominion. The Chalice heals units and commanders in the same province as the commander who bears it, regardless of dominion. Both heal any type of unit or commander.

Re: Healing afflictions
 

Taqwus,

Do certain healing units or artifacts or spells heal more efficiently or powerfully?

That is, I recall someone saying that an Arco priestess has a 20 percent chance to heal any given wound per turn.

So my question is: Are there other units or artifacts or spells that can heal with a 50 percent chance or even 100 percent?

Re: Healing afflictions
 

At least one of the Pretenders (the Minoan Snake Goddess lady) heals. If I remember correctly, her ability is more likely to succeed in any given turn than a Priestess's. I don't recall the actual % chance though.

Re: Healing afflictions
 

I don't remember rates being specifically disclosed. 'Heal Troops' rates for monsters can be modded to specific values, however.

AFAICT, the Chalice seems to have a pretty high chance, compared to, say, a Faery Queen. Haven't bothered to run tests, 'tho, and you can only have one Chalice.

Re: Healing afflictions
 

See manual p. 70. Heal Troops command has % chance for several units. So priestesses of Arcoscephale are 50%.

Re: Healing afflictions
 

Do you know if that's 50% per unit, or 50% per affliction per unit?

The reason I ask is I haven't looked if they heal more than 1 affliction per unit or even if they heal more than one unit per turn, but since we're talking about it I'm curious. I just trust that it works usually http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Healing afflictions
 

Manual states Faerie Queen is "Healer 30", so that's one thing :X

Ah, info.
 

Ah, good. Haven't scoured the tables for a while.

One wonders how that compares with immortals self-healing or the pretenders heal-upon-being-called. *shrug*