Message from Abysia

[Archonsod]

I quite like the aging mechanic myself. I just had a great run with an elderly prophet (lost both his eyes, an arm, had a never healing wound and a chest wound by the end) who still managed to lead our troops to victory over the infidel empire of C'tis.Just proves how inferior those heretic lizards actually are.
Ironically enough, he died when we discovered Inkpot End in one of the lizards' old provinces.

It would be nice if the afflictions possible were a bit more selective for old age though. It's rather amusing to see a mage who's never left the lab suffer a battle wound or similar.

I think balance might come into it though. The older mages could certainly gain from a little more magic or a research bonus over and above what they already have, to negate the fact that they tend to die in a couple of years (Disease seems to be a common affliction for age). On the other hand, you can always play a nation which doesn't have older mages, such as EA Ulm or Ermor.

[Kristoffer O]

Abysia's mages are slightly cheaper IIRC to compensate for the age. They are also recruitable anywhere. Warlocks are not but they can reduce age by blood magic.

[Archonsod]

You'd think they'd be better wizards, having studied magic for longer, rather than being desperate to sign on for a pension

I'm not so sure the cost decrease goes far enough to be honest. The afflictions are a little too random - a mage can last for several years with nothing but a limp and a chest injury, or he can die a couple of turns after you recruit him. If he gets disease, he's doomed. If he gets feebleminded, he's useless.
A little more predictability would go a long way to rebalance the situation, even if it upped the price slightly. Perhaps restricting or reducing the chances of the more serious afflictions (disease, feeblemind) until severe old age would work, though preventing them from occuring within the first few turns the mage is around would help.
I also think it's a bad idea to have age on a pretender. I mean, they're not going to be much of a God if they're half senile before they start. Then again...

[DominionsFan]

I don't see anything wrong with the aging system. It is now a part of Doms 3. You can loose units faster, but this is also true about your oppoments.

[Kristoffer O]

> I mean, they're not going to be much of a God if they're half senile before they start. Then again...

Most pretenders in this world were either senile or mad

[Agrajag]

Well, since we are given control over the age of units using mod commands, it shouldn't be very hard to nullify the aging mechanism with a simple mod.
Something like:
Selectmonster 1
MaxAge 10000
Selectmonster 2
MaxAge 10000
...
Selectmonster 1500
MaxAge 10000
...

I'm just making up command names though, since I don't know the max age commands and don't remember the unit select command.
Either way you could write a script to write that for you quite easily.

[DominionsFan]

Agrajag said:
Well, since we are given control over the age of units using mod commands, it shouldn't be very hard to nullify the aging mechanism with a simple mod.
Something like:
Selectmonster 1
MaxAge 10000
Selectmonster 2
MaxAge 10000
...
Selectmonster 1500
MaxAge 10000
...

I'm just making up command names though, since I don't know the max age commands and don't remember the unit select command.
Either way you could write a script to write that for you quite easily.

Exactly, using modding commands you can modify this part of the game also. Personally I wouldn't change it for MP games to be honest.

*Edit*

I had to fix my first sentence because it was messed up.

[Nerfix]

You know, a mage could get his arm blow off in a failed magic experiment...but ah, it would be nice to see stuff like Limp being a more common old age Affliction and perhaps some new old age related afflictions...

[Daynarr]

You know Abyssia is actually the nation that should suffer from least from old age. You guys just need to get used to the mechanics and workarounds.

Some tips for Abyssia:

- Use rejuvenate on your more expensive blood mages. It costs 10 blood slaves and takes away 10 years of your age. Abyssia has easy access to blood magic so it's no problem for them to do this.

- Use item that stops aging. You more expensive mages can wear boots that stop aging. From my experience it also stops getting afflictions from old age even if your commander is already old.

- get GROWTH instead of death scale. Abyssia is not immune to death scale as you may think. Death scale doesn't reduce supplies for them but population still dies, they get less income and your mages still get more afflictions from death scale. Growth scale is good for blood hunting and it helps against old age. I was using only growth 1 and it helped a lot.

- get pretender with nature magic. Nature magic allows your sacred troops to get regeneration (1/8 chance to get affliction in combat and restores HP) and they have lots of HP to make a difference and it allows your pretender to cast Gift of Health. Gift of Health heals your old age afflictions as well. It's much easier to do it in SP games, just make sure you put enough nature gems into it so that you make sure it stays up. Once you get it up, all your old age troubles go away. Good example of pretender design for Abyssia is to take imprisoned Solar Disc with F9 N6 blessing. He can have good scales as well (Order 3, Productivity 3 and Growth 1). Makes playing Abyssia easy.

I hope these tips will help reduce irritation you may get by playing them. In my last long game (well over 10 years in game time) I didn't lose a single mage due to the old age. I did lost lots due to the horrors that got attracted by lightless lanterns, but that's another story...

[Nerfix]

Hmmm, this is interesting. Aging stopping boots? Lightless lanters attracting Horrors?