game option/old age

[Graeme Dice]

Foodstamp said:
This is a question to the guys who hate the old age mechanic. Are you guys playing with death scales?

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?

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?

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.

[Tuidjy]

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?

[llamabeast]

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.

[llamabeast]

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).

[Sir_Dr_D]

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.

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

[Foodstamp]

I bet 6 afflictions counting the disease!

BTW, great story

[MaxWilson]

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.

(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.