Some Old Age Tests

[FrankTrollman]

And if the Philosphers had been young, they would have picked up 12000 research turns instead. A Sloth 3 Philosopher picks up 8 Research a turn for 50 gold plus or minus the Magic rate.

At Magic 0, the Philosopher is a better buy over 121 turns than a similarly priced character who generates 5 Research. That's great, because you can't get characters for 50 buck who generate 5 Research who are young.

At Drain 2, the Philosopher is still beating a character with a base 5. At Magic 1 - same deal. At Drain 3, the Philosopher pulls ahead of a young character with a research of 6 - which is awesome. At Magic 3 they are still advantageous over characters with a 5 base, but it's a lot closer.

Of course, that's the 120 turn picture at Growth 3. At Death 3, the 120 turn picture is a lot bleaker. At neutral Magic scales, our Philosopher only pulls ahead of researchers with a base research of 4 - which is only a very good deal. At Drain 3 they pull ahead of base research 5 characters, and with any Magic rate at all they are only better than Research 3 characters - which is the industry standard. At that point, in the long run they are only a noticably good deal for the money (costing as they do considerably less than a normal Research 3 magician and out thinking them by a lot).

And of course, the Philosopher is researching in a front-loaded fashion and once they die of old age you aren't paying them upkeep any more.

---

So the bottom line is: Even at Death 3, a Sloth-inspired Philosopher is a better deal in the long run than any available young researcher for the moolah. And in the short run, he's just crazy crazy awesome.

People whine about age a lot, but at least for philosophers, it isn't even a deal. Those guys are still worth every penny and more.

-Frank

[Agrajag]

FrankTrollman said:
People whine about age a lot, but at least for philosophers, it isn't even a deal. Those guys are still worth every penny and more.

Not that I whine about age, but for me the real problem with old commanders isn't that you are somehow getting less for your money because they are only useful for X turns, but rather that they are unreliable. Its much harder to base a strategy around a core of casters if you can't tell if they won't randomly drop dead deep into enemy territory.

[calmon]

Ok, new tests. This one is very interesting!

I use normal scales and the province has

- 100 philosophers (i want to compare the result with my older tests, 9 HP)
- 100 Anathement Dragon (Fire 3, 11 HP)
- 100 Grand Thaumaturgs (Death 2, Astral 2, 1 Random, Holy 3, 8 HP)

Here are the results:
(number of living units in the round)

Turn 13: 100 Philosophers, 100 Anathemant Dragon, 100 Grand Thaumaturgs
Turn 25: 83 Philosophers, 78 Anathemant Dragon, 100 Grand Thaumaturgs
Turn 37: 74 Philosophers, 64 Anathemant Dragon, 98 Grand Thaumaturgs
Turn 49: 67 Philosophers, 57 Anathemant Dragon, 91 Grand Thaumaturgs
Turn 61: 57 Philosophers, 41 Anathemant Dragon, 88 Grand Thaumaturgs
Turn 73: 51 Philosophers, 32 Anathemant Dragon, 86 Grand Thaumaturgs
Turn 85: 42 Philosophers, 27 Anathemant Dragon, 85 Grand Thaumaturgs
Turn 97: 36 Philosophers, 19 Anathemant Dragon, 84 Grand Thaumaturgs
Turn 109: 32 Philosophers, 18 Anathemant Dragon, 82 Grand Thaumaturgs
Turn 121: 28 Philosophers, 14 Anathemant Dragon, 79 Grand Thaumaturgs

Non-Afflicted at the end:
4 Philosophers, 2 Anathemant Dragon and 22 Grand Thaumaturgs

While philosophers get an equal result like my former test (25 on turn 121 there on normal scales) only 14 Anathemant Dragons survived. So either Fire 3 or the lower Old Age entry date 32 (compared to 50 Philosophers) has a negative effect here.

Grand Thaumaturgs has like the Philosophers 50 as Old Age entry date. Only 21 out of 100 died within the 6 years testing time. So death 2 and/or holy 3 (maybe the astral 2) has a significant effect to get no disease affliction. Afflictions in general are fewer (22 non afflicted at the end).

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

I believe the following holds true:

Fire Magic affects Old Age negatively. Earlier Old Age, and more afflictions, depending on level.
Nature Magic affects Old Age positively. Later Old Age, and less afflictions, depending on level.
Death Magic affects Old Age positively. Less afflictions, depending on level.

I would be interested in seeing the effects of old age on:

--mage with 1N
--mage with 2N
--mage with 3N
--mage with 1F
--mage with 2F
--mage with 3F
--mage with 1D
--mage with 2D
--mage with 3D

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Actually, it would also be interesting to see:

--mage with 1f1n
--mage with 1f1d
--mage with 2f1n
--mage with 2f1d
--mage with 2f2n
--mage with 2f2d
etc....

Is there any way all this data could be added to the wiki, or to a web page for future reference?

[Taqwus]

Just curious -- an expensive feebleminded mage can be even worse than a dead one, if you don't have a ready means of healing.

[alexti]

Maybe old age affliction chance is proportional to
({current age}-{beginning of old age})/{beginning of old age}?