Decay
 

What does decay do exactly? It says you will die in a few minutes. So do you die after the battle?

Re: Decay
 

If the target is successfully hit with decay then the unit will age 5 years for each turn which lasts about 12 turns. I'm sure someone will know the exact number of turns. This aging will kill most recruitable units by the end of battle, yet undead and some other summons are usually not harmed since their lifespans are significantly longer.

Re: Decay
 

If the decay hits (as in penetrates the normal MR roll), the target ages 5years/turn like NTJedi said. The effect gives the unit 5% chance per combat round to do a MR roll vs 15 to end it (so your basic MR10-12 units are almost quaranteed to die to it unless they have many many decades until old age).

Re: Decay
 

As a general rule, I'd consider decay a virtually useless spell.

Re: Decay
 

Decay is nowhere near as brutal as it was in Dom2, where it did hp damage.

It still has niche uses. It's low research and easy to cast. It's unlikely to win you that fight, but it might win you the next one. Foe example, ancient elephants are much less threatening.

Re: Decay
 

Sorry, why nearly useless? 12 turns to kill a nice unit sounds ok for an early game spell?

Re: Decay
 

The thing is it doesn't kill strong units because these always have 1000 of years to live...
Whatever happend to life fast die young...

Re: Decay
 

Really? I didnt know that. I could have sworn my elephants got pretty badly damaged by some decay. Actually, I think I hired Hannibal, is that the name of the Elephant Merc? I got him on turn 10 or something, and I was quite pleased, he is cheap, and 5 elephants plus the leader can often cause havoc. I think 3 of the 5 elephants had 3+ hearts at the end of the next turn, and they were dead shortly thereafter.
How long do units live? I notice a lot of my mages "spawned" with bad old age problems. I didnt know that 1000 of years is normal!!

Re: Decay
 

Long life (and high mr) is normal for most common SCs and thugs. That makes decay largely wasted on them.

It's largely wasted on normal troops. It doesn't kill quickly enough to win the battle and who really cares if a few more regular soldiers die afterwards. It won't usually target mages, unless they're closer or large. If they're large, they're non-human and probably long-lived.

Short lived, large important units are what it's good for. Preferably low mr. That means elephants. Hydras? Maybe some other niche units I'm not thinking of. It could be useful against some of the low end human thugs. Ulm's Black Lords maybe?

The great thing about using it on elephants is that it doesn't kill them. They just get afflictions, often limp or crippled. This slows them down so they often don't even reach your troops and do less damage when they do, but your enemy has to keep paying upkeep on them. Since they're slow it's even hard to get them up front to be killed off.

Re: Decay
 

1000s of years aren't normal for mortal troops. The "old age" ages are kind of what you'd expect - 50 years IIRC for humans, longer for various magical things, thousands of years for banes and so on. Illuminated One just meant that lots of powerful things are magical beings or undead and so have long lifespans.