Battle Afflictions: Gimp Gods

[RedRover]

(Caveat: I thought about doing this as a different thread, but then decided to lump it in with the God discussion. Haven't considered this as deeply, not past the special twist in how it might be done. I'm still thinking about whether it _should_ be done.)

BATTLE AFFLICTIONS: GIMP UNITS

Gimp Units:
Disbanding gimp units, that is, units so trashed by battle afflictions that they are virtually unusable, has sparked some discussion.

While I am perfectly comfortable with using these as fodder (in a way that I am _not_ comfortable using a gimp pretender), I would be equally OK with a disband function for those who want one. To the degree it makes the game more fun for some, a disband option may be a Good Thing, overall.

However, I propose a twist:

Disbanding Gimps could massively increase unrest.

After all, it's got to be hard on people's morale to see all these shattered wounded discharged into their back yards.

Some simple suitable rule might be used, say +1% Unrest per 5 hit points (rounded up) of units discharged.

Standard Disbanding:
The same convention might be used for unwounded units. The unrest comes from the local brigandage that develops with all those unemployed soldiers looking for fun, food, and loot.

Disbanding Gods:
It might also be used for pretenders, but here maybe a x2 or x3 multiplier--after all, the locals are seeing their god discorporate right in their faces! That can't be good.

(See also my first Gimp Gods post)

[Norfleet]

I think that the healing of afflictions is not as difficult as some people would make it sound.

When I first started the game, being largely clueless, I picked what looked like a fairly beefy god, and sent him forth to do battle.

Naturally, my thoroughly hamhanded approach quickly earned a lost arm, and a chest wound.

Immediately, I looked for a way to fix this. Naturally, I first turned to magic: Scanning the spell list, I looked at every spell that mentioned things like "Healing", "Regeneration", or "Health".

Within about 5 minutes of browsing through the spell list, I found "Gift of Health", which specifically mentioned healing afflictions.

That sounded good to me, so I immediately set out to go about casting it. This proved to be somewhat of a challenge, being that as R'lyeh, I had no suitable nature mages. This necessitated an exploration of the "Empower" command, which I had seen before, but deemed overly expensive, especially to do so for no reason. But now I had a reason! So naturally, I set out to do that. And after a few rounds of Gift of Health, those afflictions did, in fact, go entirely away.

So if I could figure it out when *I* first started, then it is not so difficult! It also made me very much more paranoid about afflictions in the future. In short, it prompted me to completely change my previously hamhanded approach to combat pretenders, a valuable learning experience. To remove this would be to deny newbies the opportunity to explore the richness of a complicated game in which actions have consequences, and instead replace it with the dumbed-down, consequence-free gameplay that is becoming increasingly prevalent to this day.

[PvK]

Seems to me like a case of getting one's just deserts for gambling on a supercombattant pretender. Battle afflictions in this game are a very well done feature, I think.

PvK

[moodgiesanta]

Pick an immortal pretender. Voila! problem solved.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by moodgiesanta:
Pick an immortal pretender. Voila! problem solved.

This will not prevent you from getting afflictions. Nor is it a guarantee of 'safely' dying should you be unfortunate (or careless) and get caught dead outside of your domain. Worse yet, relying on dying is bad for your god if it has any magical power at all.

You can reduce wounding chances by taking a god with regeneration, or by equipping items of regen. The best way to cure wounds, unless you are Pangaea with its special units, is to cast Gift of Health. T'ien Ch'i also has a hero that heals the wounds of others.

[ February 12, 2004, 07:40: Message edited by: Arryn ]

Immortal units heal their Afflictions akin to Recuperation.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Zen:
Immortal units heal their Afflictions akin to Recuperation.

Then I ran into a bug in one of my games because my immortal god didn't. Not until he cast Gift.