Best defense or cure against disease?
 

... other than the obvious like playing a faction such as Pangaea or Arco. I realise that the chalice can heal disease, but it's quite a stretch to research con8 just to protect 1-2 important characters.

I read through the items in the book and none but the chalice seem to have an affect on disease. Are there any undocumented affects or ones that were left out of the book by mistake? How about spells? I don't recall ever seeing any with that description, though it would be a good subject for a spell.

-Ubercat

Re: Best defense or cure against disease?
 

Regeneration appears to help with disease, so planting regen rings on folks (or if you have a nature blessing, that shroud should do it too) might help a bit once you already have disease. I think I saw some guys with 1 hp living a couple of turns just fine with disease in one game I was about to sub in.

And, if you happen to have Nature in general, getting Faery Queens (it's that Faery Court summon) will work too, they have the Heal ability. They're 3N3A mages that can summon (crappy) allies which makes them good even when you don't need 'em to be healing disease, and since their numbers aren't limited like with those tree guys, bigger demons and elemental royals you can get as many as you want or can. Gift of Health can fix afflictions, too.

Re: Best defense or cure against disease?
 

On prevention, there's two avenues. Battle and other.

On other...
1). Have enough supplies. Keep a bag of wine on hand in your castle garrisons. Be cautious when invading Ermor, or being a cold nation invading a hot, death scale land.

2). Leprosy - have a decent magic resistance.

3). Kill anybody likely to get Burden of Time up, especially death heavy pretenders leading nations with no death mages and plenty of years left till old age.

4). Don't play an a nation with mages with old age. If you do, growth scales can mitigate the effects somewhat.

When it comes down to the battlefield, however, there's not much you can do to prevent it other than reduce damage taken. I do hear regeneration does reduce the chances of gaining afflictions, as well.

I doubt this has been useful, but you did ask.

Re: Best defense or cure against disease?
 

Gift of health, too.

Re: Best defense or cure against disease?
 

I already mentioned that, btw. ;p

Re: Best defense or cure against disease?
 

If you have regen and disease, when you're in a battle you can regen back up to full health, so for example nature bless can be effective on sacred mages with old age, provided you can get them into battle.

Re: Best defense or cure against disease?
 

Ive noticed that some units which change during battle will heal afflictions. For instance, Sorcerors from Machacka. If they are diseased from being old you can send them into battle by putting them up front, when they "die" and turn into their big spider form, they can get rid of afflictions. Same as any of them that change. Lama's, Jaguar warriors, skinshifters, etc.

Re: Best defense or cure against disease?
 

The "lose afflictions on transformation" has been declared a bug, and may be fixed.
Then again, there are scores of more serious problems I'd rather see addressed.

Re: Best defense or cure against disease?
 

Gift of Health.
Definitely.

Against old age too, obviously.

I (very very) often (ok, almost always) include N5 mage strategy in my games.
[I only play SP, no time & patience for MP, sorry guys http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif( ]

Re: Best defense or cure against disease?
 

Thanks everyone!

Re: Best defense or cure against disease?
 

> I (very very) often (ok, almost always) include N5 mage strategy in my games.
> [I only play SP, no time & patience for MP, sorry guys (

The only difference, as far as Nature on your pretender is concerned, is that I
take exactly N4 in all of my MP games. I play only humans, and those just need
the regeneration blessing. More may be better, but I cannot justify the cost,
even for Pretenders who start with Nature.

Re: Best defense or cure against disease?
 

In fact, I just take the needed path to finally have N5 with boosters (artifacts). Usually, I'm playing rainbow mages, with the needed Nature, Earth & Astral paths (if not available within my national troops) to forge the needed artifacts to cast N5 spells.

Re: Best defense or cure against disease?
 

More is definitely better but I don't remember by how much. A regeneration of 5% makes it only 1/8 likely to get an affliction though (if I remember correctly).

Re: Best defense or cure against disease?
 

Why do you say that humans need the regeneration bless? I've always found it much more useful on creatures with more hp. Not only do they regen more, but they tend to be more expensive and last longer, thus being more likely to take damage and survive multiple fights, but build up afflictions.

The minimal regeneration humans get isn't very helpful, they're still going to die in 1 or 2 hits. Since they die so easily if wounded, they don't often have the chance to pick up afflictions.

Other blesses, that keep them from being hit or let them kill faster so there are less chances to be hit, seem better for most human sacreds.