Old Age - 80% afflicted in 1 round.

[Corwin]

FrankTrollman said:
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

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.

[curtadams]

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.

[Epaminondas]

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...