game option/old age
 

I typically avoid most races with old age, as it is not something i find much fun to deal with.

It would be nice if there was a game option where old age could be turned off. I think it would be easy to put in, just make any unit that starts old now start 5 years below the age they get old.

And I would have no issue playing a race that has no old age issues(Pangaea) against marigon, man, or abysia with old age turned off either.

And it seems arbitrary to me that Man's crone starts tremendously old, but vanaheim's best air mage does not. If anyone says man MA > Vanaheim MA and Man's crone needs that handicap for vanaheim to be competitive I will laugh.

And even Ulm, who has smiths, have to deal with old age a bit, though not to man, marigon, or abysia's extent.

If the issue is purely balance, increase the costs of the mages in question.

Re: game option/old age
 

It's not really about balance, it's a feature of the game.

It's also fairly easy to mod away, should you want. Although it might be a little bit time consuming.

Re: game option/old age
 

It is fire magic that gives (mostly) humans the low old age threshold. You know, the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

Re: game option/old age
 

And the crones of man, who have 3 nature magic and no fire? Why are they old?

It is a fairly annoying feature of the game, and one that would be nice to be able to turn off as an option. I guess you can mod it, but i have seen numerous complaints about it, and if there is a significant number of players that dislike the feature, why not provide an option to turn it off?

There is an option to make random events rare, etc. Just add one to make units that are old all start 5 years before getting old. Maybe this idea should be included in the dom IV wishlist if it is not as simple as i think to do.

Re: game option/old age
 

They are old because they are old women, that simple.

Re: game option/old age
 

Yes, that's it. She will get fewer afflictions from old age though, as she has death magic.

Re: game option/old age
 

I'm all for more options. I'd never use this one if it was implemented but I'm never going to be against having the choice.

I think it would make more sense if you were simply able to turn age off entirely though, rather than making everyone 5 years below the maxage.

Re: game option/old age
 

Personally I like the old age feature. It adds flavour, and makes all those commanders seem more human. I also like the gamble that is associated with purchasing old age mages. Some mages die from old age, but not a lot, especially if you have a growth scale.

I can understand why some people wouldn't like it though, especially those why don't like micro management or want the game more strategic.

I am all for the option though. But like Sombre it is one I would never use.

Re: game option/old age
 

There actually is such an option. In fact, you can turn off almost any feature of almost any unit. You say you play mostly with close friends, so it's just a matter of creating a quick mod and having everybody turn it on.

#modname "No old age"

#selectmonster <whatever>
#older -20
#end

#selectmonster <whatever>
#older -20
#end

etc.

The monster number is visible by hitting Shift-I when you've right-clicked to examine its stats. Put all those commands in a file called noage.dm in your dominions\mods directory, and when you create the game just go in to "Preferences" and select the "no old age" mod. You only have to fix the age of units you're going to actually use, and writing down five unit numbers for each nation and adding them to the mod is easy, so you're pretty much all set. For your perusal I've attached an example file which sets EA Abysia's Warlock to start at age 13 instead of 35. [The forum makes me name it noage.txt instead of noage.dm, but rename it when you download it.] It's just copy-and-paste from there.

-Max

Re: game option/old age
 

Actually as of late, i have been playing more people from this forum, but i am sure i could find people that wanted to play with the old age option turned off, especially if they liked playing marigon etc.

Re: game option/old age
 

I think you're wasting your time, he's indicated that he doesn't like mods and he's making the thread asking for the feature in the game, not as a mod.

Re: game option/old age
 

Thanks for taking the time to help Max, and I do appreciate it, and though i have come to like and use the worthy hero mod, I think this option should be in the game options, as every single one of my friends absolutely hate the old age crap, and I have seen several other posts from people on the forum that do not like it.

Maybe I do not like micro management, which is why i rarely use blood magic with pangaea, even though it is powerful. I just hate to be bothered with hunting slaves.


And my favorite part of dom III is how the tax rates sets automatically!

With respect to a mod, I may try just make one for man that
removes the old age from crones, as that is really the only race i like to play sp that it affects.

Re: game option/old age
 

I'm just pointing out that mods are, in fact, a feature of the game. Besides, it didn't take long to look up the #older command and now I know something new.

-Max

Edit: I should also point out that eliminating old age on a unit is like giving it +1 att, +1 def, +1 hp, +1 prec, etc., so aside from the micromanagement issue of units getting diseased and dying off, eliminating old age still affects balance.

Re: game option/old age
 

well,

when they get afflictions and die 5 turns after you buy them, it affects my mood! But with some races like Ulm, their mages are so cheap, and with only a few getting old and dying, it is just more aggravating and micromanagement than balance.

I think the effect on balance would be marginal if no race had the old units. Except of course the races in MA that have no age issues like Pangaea, van, and Ryleh.

Re: game option/old age
 

In case you do not already know, A growth scale does decrease the chance of an old aged unit getting diseased by quite a lot. With 2 growth I find when the old age time comes around, at most one of my old aged researching mages gets a disease. There was more disieases amonst my mages that were fighting in an enemy dominion.

Re: game option/old age
 

I am aware of that, and I have 3 growth when i play Man. It helps but the old age is still a pain in the ... At 300 gold, i would prefer to get a mage with no management related issues.

Especially when said mage starts with 3 nature and no fire.
Just sort of baffling why Crones get extreme old age, and vanaheim's air mages do not. And vanaheim's do not even have the 3 nature.

I am not advocating that vanaheim get old mages of course, rather just an option to turn off the old age feature for those of us not wanting to deal with it.

Re: game option/old age
 

This has been explained - it is simply because Crones are old women.

Re: game option/old age
 

I don't think the old age was put in for any concept of balance of nations. It is there for role playing/nation flavour reasons. Vanaheims mages don't get old age simply because Christopher does not see them as being old.

Re: game option/old age
 

Well David(me) does not see the crone as having old age issues. Old yes, but not old age. there is a difference. I see her as having an extremely long life span, both from living in the forest of Avalon, and being one of the most proficient nature mages of the MA.

And it does affect the balance of the game a good bit, and it does affect some players enjoyment of the game. Both good reasons to have the option. One of my friends, who always loved machaka, has played the game about 2-3 times before saying this is dumb and going back to wow full time(:

While you can say he should enjoy the challenge, or it is no great loss, but it deprives me of a friend to play the game against, and it is one less person playing a great game(though he bought it, so it is no profit loss).

So give those who do not see the old age feature the same way as Christopher an option.

Re: game option/old age
 

There are several different races in the game. Humans, Abysians, Pangaean halfmen, Atlanteans, Vanir, Jotun giants and so forth.

Different races tend to have different lifespans, and for humans, old age hits at 50 unless they have nature magic. The Avalon Crones are humans with powerful nature magic, but even so, they have far outlived their normal (augmented) lifespan, whereas the Vanir and Sidhe count their lives in centuries. They this have more time in which to learn things and consequently do not start out as old comparatively.

Some of the old age mechanic is also a balance effect or otherwise all the powerful mages would stay around forever like they did in Dom2. The aging mechanics also force people to make choices between scales, or otherwise we would see nearly everyone using Death 3 for free pretender points.

Those who do not wish to deal with the aging mechanics are free to do their own mods. Frankly, and this is a general statement not aimed at anyone in particular, this demanding new features every time something isn't tailor-made to suit a particular player's PREFERENCES is starting to grate.

There's also the issue of priorities. The devs only have a limited amount of time they will use on Dom3 and assuming they would be equally interested in doing any of the following -
a) bug fixes
b) new content
c) tinkering with a feature to modify things that are not broken (but could easily become so) and which were intended to be in the game in order to accommodate people who could, with rather bloody minimal effort, do away with it for themselves.

- you can basically pick two. My picks are obviously a and b. That's with the assumption that the devs would consider all equally weighty things, and, my personal guesswork as it may be, I don't think they put as much weight on c as they do on the others.

Re: game option/old age
 

No offense taken Edi, and none meant,

but i think many people, if not a majority, favor twinking the existing game more than new content. The casual player, which does not include people on this forum that make up a very small percentage of Dom III players, do not make mods, and for them there is already a lifetime's worth of content.

While old age may not be near most people's list of where the twinking effort should be, I think improving the AI is a top concern of almost everyone. And that does not fall under new content.

of course fixing bugs should be done as a matter of course, and i do not think that warrants to be a separate category.

Finally, I thought I made it clear, if I did not i apologize, that i would like to see the old age optional feature made a part of Dom IV, not a high priority item that needs to be done in the near feature.

So, you see, there is nothing in my request that should "grate" you. You either agree with it or not. And I certainly do not think anyone should agree with every suggestion made by me or anyone else.

I do think the forums are the right place to express your likes and dislikes about a game.

Re: game option/old age
 

Fair enough, Xietor. I'm happy to give you a hand making a "no old age" mod, if you want. In fact, if you can just give me a list of the units you want changed, I should be able to do it pretty quickly.

Re: game option/old age
 

Actually don't worry, I can use Edi's database to find old units.

Re: game option/old age
 

Okay, here it is! Hopefully this mod should get rid of old age in all units in the game.

Ideally, all previously old units will now be 4-5 years below the age at which they're considered "old".

There's more than a couple of odd things going on with the age modding commands. I've worked out and compensated for a couple of these, but there's still some stuff going on that I don't get - for example, I can't work out why the Abysians have ended up with the ages they have. Still, they're not old, and their ages aren't completely ridiculous, so hopefully it doesn't matter too much.

Let me know if you find any issues or problems, I can quickly fix them.

If a future patch fixes the age commands, this mod'll go a bit haywire, but it'll only take a couple of minutes to produce a fixed one.

Incidentally I'm not a big fan of this idea personally, and won't be playing with it - but if it'll make other people enjoy the game more, then I reckon that's a good thing.

PS Thanks to MaxWilson for getting me started on this one.

Edit: Old mod version removed - see later in the thread for new versions.

Re: game option/old age
 

Thanks, llamabeast! That should be helpful to new folks. If you want to know how the aging mechanics work, look up the thread by that title. I haven't done the math for all that many units, but it does seem like it works exactly that way, though there is probably an upper limit as well as a lower limit for fire magic effects, since it is not as severe for units with high maxages.

Re: game option/old age
 

Nice! Thanks, llamabeast. It will be nice to have something to point newbies to if they ask for this feature.

-Max

Re: game option/old age
 

The mod is a good balance. It does not eliminate old age, just extreme old age.

My 2nd crone I bought was old, but he was barely old. With the random age variation, you still get units that start old.

Re: game option/old age
 

Oh, I'd thought that setting them 4-5 years below their maxage would be enough to stop any of them being old. Would you prefer it if they were never old, or are you happy with it as it is?

Re: game option/old age
 

No, a little old age is not bad. It is not a wholly useless feature of the game. I think the mod is perfect.

In my game I am presently playing with the Beowulf mod, no old age, worthy heroes, and black steel of ulm turned on, 2 of my 1st 4 crones were old.

But that makes it still enough of a factor to take growth, and give them nature boosting items, which is part of the game. And some old age is not bad to manage, i just thought the extreme old age of some mages, and even heroes, was bad.

Re: game option/old age
 

In my opinion, these sorts of things are exactly what the devs should be spending their time on. Options that allow people to tailor the game to the way they want without having to mod dozens of units. User interface issues that have been around for years such as blood slave micromanagement for sacrificers, game logic issues like the still broken morale system, etc. These are things that are useful to the players, and which can't be fixed by the players, unlike the addition of even more nations, which is something that players can accomplish using the mod tools.

Instead, what we get is a major nerfing of fire magic and the nations which use it. Never mind that fire was only better than water magic in Dom 2. Never mind that the fire nations were well behind the power curve, and are now even more so. (Well, you can make an argument for Abysia, but their power came from blood magic, not fire, and Machaka, unlike Marignon, has usable death, nature, and earth magic.)

Mine are a and c, since they are what actually need to be fixed in the game. I don't really care at all about new content, since I expect it to be much like the new content in Dom 3 - badly balanced and haphazardly thrown together with little thought as to how it will actually work. I suspect that we'll continue to wait for several months or years for balance fixes. I mean, we've been waiting for more than five years for something to be done about Ulm.

Re: game option/old age
 

I agree on the content front. I'm really not fussed about the devs adding new nations and whatnot. It isn't like there's a shortage of those available on the modding forum and we're still seeing a boom there.

So for me the order of priority would be

1. Bug fixes
2. GUI and control improvements
3. AI improvements, or ability to mod AI
4. Other innovations and preference tweaks
5. Mod commands
6. Balance tweaks (can be modded already)
7. New Content, nations etc

Re: game option/old age
 

Well those priorities are fair enough Graeme and Sombre, and I can see where you're coming from - but you shouldn't assume that everyone feels the same way (not that you said you were, of course). Personally I'm also very excited by the new content, and am really looking forward to it.

I think it's important to remember that the devs have no obligation to produce any more patches for the game. Most commercial games have a couple of bug fix patches, if that, and then move on, sometimes leaving the game in quite a bad state. We've already got extremely good value for what we paid, and really the only reason the devs should carry on working on dominions is for fun, because they enjoy it. So while it's worthwhile reminding the devs of the things that would be it would be really helpful for us if they worked on, I think we also shouldn't fail to show our appreciation and enthusiasm for all the work they are doing. If they're producing new content, then I for one am happy, because it's content we wouldn't otherwise have got, and hopefully they're enjoying it.

Re: game option/old age
 

I acknowledge the points made and I do see where you are coming from. I even agree with a lot of them.

As far as fire nations go, I do not actually remember there having been any purely fire nations in Dom2 the same way there were pure air or astral or death nations. Marignon was perhaps the only one that would qualify for that. Most nations with Fire combined it with something else, such as Abysia with Astral and Blood, Machaka with Earth and Death and so forth. So, the only pure fire nation was...Marignon. And even they had Astral.

Much the same holds true for Dom3, where only EA Abysia and MA MArignon can be considered pure fire nations and Marignon does have astral while EA Abysia does not have too much blood. It is a bless nation, though. I do agree about Ulm without reservation, though, even though I have always like it even as it is.

If we take Sombre's list, which is rather more finely grained and sensible compared to the simplified 3-point list I posted earlier, we can get a more sensible discussion. Using that list as a basis, I have, loosely, the following priorities:

1. Bug fixes
2. Mod & map commands (to make some more things already in the game moddable and expand map making options
3. New Content, nations etc to get back the things that were in Dom2 but didn't get included in Dom3
4. Balance tweaks (can be modded already)
5. GUI and control improvements
6. AI improvements, or ability to mod AI
7. Other innovations and preference tweaks
8. Totally New Content, nations etc

The reality is that the devs are going to do what they feel is interesting and harping too much on something is just going to ensure that it is less likely to be added if it's an optional issue. It's also, given what they have posted, a fairly safe assumption that they are, or at least Kristoffer is, more of a sandbox player than cutthroat competitive player. A more sandbox style play does not have the same issues as cutthroat multislayer, so the prioritization was probably from the former rather than latter point of view.

Take that as you will. In the meanwhile, I'm going to concentrate on item 1) on the above list and try to do my best to make sure that problem issues are clearly listed and easily referenced. That way we are likely to see their number diminish drastically, leaving more time for the other items.

Re: game option/old age
 

Of course, even if new content isn't a big deal to me it's certainly better than nothing. I play SP and new nations to play are appreciated. But there are already more solid nations in the mod forum than I can keep up with.

Plus if you're someone who really loves the MP game and the new content is unbalanced you might actually have been better off with nothing, which is sort of frustrating.

If we aren't vocal about what we'd like/prefer, we're doing ourselves and the devs an injustice.

All that said, I really like Lanka.

Re: game option/old age
 

Yeah, I think we all pretty much agree to be honest. I just wouldn't want the devs to feel that we're always demanding fixes, and not appreciating all the good stuff they do. New nations do add to the richness of the game, and Kristoffer's quality is generally exceptional.

Re: game option/old age
 

I do find it a little curious that anyone would demand balance fixes to Ulm while saying that new content doesn't matter. If the stamp of "official Illwinter Nation" doesn't matter, there are plenty of modded Ulms to use. If it does matter (and my perception is that it does), then new nations by Kristoffer will be more widely used than a mod nation, especially by the 90% of players who play casually and never visit the forums.

So to me, new content seems quite valuable. I'd love to see #4 (hooks for writing AIs) but it doesn't conflict in any way with new content because of the division of labor between K and J.

Other than that, I agree with Sombre's prioritization.

-Max

Re: game option/old age
 

This is a question to the guys who hate the old age mechanic. Are you guys playing with death scales? When I take growth scales, I can go years without getting an afflicted old age mage, and when I finally do get afflictions on my mages, it is usually just one or two mages out of the bunch.

This reminds me of the thread where people were upset about populations not increasing when a growth scale was not taken. People complain about the growth/death scales and fortune/misfortune scales being trivial and taking a backseat to Order/sloth. Then I see a lot of people complain about mechanics in the game that are directly affected by those scales that were listed as trivial before.

Maybe players should take a second look at what scales they consider to be trivial scales instead of wanting the benefits of those scales modded out of the game?

Most people hate the old age mechanic, and most people think that taking a death scale on your pretender is a no brainer. Is there a correlation?

Re: game option/old age
 

I don't think it's that the death scale weakens you that's annoying people - that's fair enough. It's that it weakens you in a way that increases micromanagement.

Re: game option/old age
 

No I always play man with 3 growth, but the crones still get afflictions too early and often to suit me.

I think the No Old Age Mod strikes a perfect balance to me with Man anyway. I still get a good number of Crones that are old, some even 4 years too old, but not every damn one is old and not only old but like 40 years past their max age.

I do not mind managing some old age, but i do not want it to be my main focus. It was a good concept to add to the game, since you had burden of time and decay already, but needed toned down.

Re: game option/old age
 

Other than Abysia, which becomes truly crippled when they use the death 3 scale that they are supposed to have, old age really only affects the human nations. These nations pay almost exactly the same gold cost for mages as the superhuman nations, yet don't get any benefit from their poor stats and susceptibility to randomly dying. Is an Arch-Theurg of Pythium or a Druid of Marverni really so powerful that he deserves to have the same cost as a Vanadrott and to also be old?

The tiny amount of benefit you get for not having your mages get diseased with a growth scale in no way offsets the massive 120 point cost of the scale. A lack of disease won't even start to have effects till ~14 turns into the game, long after the critical initial expansion is over. The scale needs a lot more early game benefit before it would be worthwhile.

Re: game option/old age
 

I like the old age mechanics, but I think that it needs to be balanced cost wise.
Humans have poor stats, and age quickly. Ok, fine, but that's offset by their
quick reproduction, thus human mages should be at least a bit cheaper than similar
Vanir / Abysians / Nagas.

Furthermore, I think that just as some mages are recruited a bit older than most,
some mages should be recruited a bit healthier than most, and have their old age
trigger point delayed.

And finally, I would love to see an item that _reverses_ the aging process. I.e.
each year will make the mage one year younger.

I am talking about balance, because Pythium, which was my stronger nation in
Dominions II seems to have fallen down quite a few rings down the ladder due
to old age. There are plenty of other good nations, and I just realized that
all of my favorite nations (EA Arco, LA Man and C'tis) are old age nations.
So old age can't be that much of a game breaker, can it?

Re: game option/old age
 

Okay, thanks to Edi's pointing out the aging mechanics, and a bit more thought on my part, we now have a new, tweaked "Reduced old age" mod.

The changes are:
- Before I misunderstood how fire magic affected old age, resulting in, e.g. funny ages for the Abysians
- All previously old units are now roughly 8% below their maxage on average. I've found this gives a moderate rate of old age randomly occurring - so like Xietor says, there will occasionally be an old unit, but they won't all be old. Previously all units were just 4-5 years below their maxages, which... well, it's not very interesting, but lets just say it was a bit wrong.

So basically it's just a bit more consistent.

Re: game option/old age
 

And here, for the real hardcore old-age haters, is a "no old age" mod, where all units are at least 25% below their maxage. You should never see old age any more with this mod, I think (magic aside).

Re: game option/old age
 

The adventures of Egalitus, the Arch Theurg

Egalitus the old and dying Arch Theug was nearing the end of his existence in this realm, with only about one month expected to live. He was therefore placed in the front of the battle, being prepared to go down in a blaze of glory. The battle was going well with Egalitus himself taking down many enemies, and in the middle of it something estonishing happened. Some mage cast astral healing, and miraculously Egalitus was restored to full health. He is still diseased which has taken his right eye, and he is severely weakened. But he seems to have seven more months to live, and he intends to make the most of it. He intends to bring down as many enemies as possible.

The adventures of Egalitus the diseased, weakened, nearly blind Arch Theurg shall continue.

Lets make a wager on how many afflictions Egalitus will get before he finally kicks the bucket. See, how can anyone find old age not fun. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

(And being able to heal a diseased unit to full health sounds like a bug to me, but it is a fun bug.)

Re: game option/old age
 

I bet 6 afflictions counting the disease!

BTW, great story http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: game option/old age
 

Yeah, the other thing about old age is that for mages, pretty much all stats except Precision are irrelevant. Unless he loses an eye or goes blind, Old Age is almost irrelevant to a battlemage. As Egalitus ably demonstrates. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

(ISTR that if you give a mage with disease from old age a ring of regeneration, he won't die as long as you keep sending him into battle.)

-Max

P.S. Aha! I always thought "lost an eye" referred to the eyeball actually falling out, but I bet in the case of old age it actually refers to cataracts.

Re: game option/old age
 

Feeblemind does tend to put a damper on mages just a bit. I had a druid get hit in the head with a falling toad, and for some reason he didn't get diseased, just feebleminded.

It took him more than six months to casually stroll through the forests from my capital to the front lines, meanwhile he was eating up 13 gold every turn with his evil pension plan.

Re: game option/old age
 

As long as Egalitus doesn't get feeblemind, or go mute he should be alright. Even if he goes blind he will be usefull in combat. The main spell I want him to cast 'astral fires' is a 100 precision one. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Quite a few suprises happened in that battle. I was fully expecting to get the message that he died of a disease. But since I was storming a castle that round, and i wasn't sure if I would need to fight more then one battle, I had given my mages a few extra gems. And the one mage used it to cast astra healing. It was a good spell to cast since the enemy was also casting posion spells on my army.

Occasionlly the AI does pick a good spell to use. (shock)