MA Man

[Tuidjy]

Much less often. But yes, they do. Mostly in late winter. I think it is a
feature making that one winter month twice as bad as any other. Sometimes they
will even lose a hit point that month, despite regeneration. Use a battle to heal
them. Sometimes I cast a special monster attack spell on my own damn province just
to get a heal for my poor, decrepit patients... I mean my allmighty wizards.

[Jazzepi]

Tuidjy, nurse maid of MA Man.

Jazzepi

[IndyPendant]

My leaders with old age have always gotten their afflictions in midwinter, and (excluding other causes, like already-diseased, battle-wounds, venom-charmed, etc) never have gained afflictions any other month.

There have been times I have (stupidly) recruited an old-age commander early winter, and have him get diseased one turn later.

I'm reasonably certain it's not that it's double-probability, but that Midwinter is the *only* time old age is the direct cause of afflictions.

[Tuidjy]

> Tuidjy, nurse maid of MA Man

Actually, head geriatrician of Pythium, thank you very much. MA Man's is the
capital these octagenerians are besieging.

> I'm reasonably certain it's not that it's double-probability, but that Midwinter
> is the *only* time old age is the direct cause of afflictions.

Yes, that is correct. What I meant is that Midwinter is the time where already
diseased, old people seem to take an take an extra point of damage. One that
regeneration sometimes fails to negate. And more critically, when that extra
point kills, immortality and twice born seems to fail.

[llamabeast]

Yep, it's correct that people lose 2hp in a single month in winter, I read that somewhere before. Also IIRC if an immortal dies from disease in this month it dies permanently, which is a bug obviously.

[Valandil]

I'm actually impressed by the depth of analysis and so forth that went into that. I should note, though, that boosting the nature magic of a crone de-oldifies (not a word) them. Als, they can self-heal in battles via regen spell anyway. Finally, late game you are definately going to have a faerie queen, which has Heal Troops.

[Nikolai]

In two weeks reading this board I have learnt more that from last six months playing the game. Even from the same people I play with. Now I know why all of Petar's Gods look same.

[CUnknown]

Tuidjy, I love unrest-causing units myself. However, why do you think that Bards are so much better than, say, spies? Bards may have a better stealth, but they're so much more expensive to recruit that I think spies are better for this purpose.

Not that I'm saying you're wrong. I was just wondering what your reasoning was. Are Bards better at causing unrest, or does that extra stealth mean that they are never caught, maybe?

[Tuidjy]

Bards are better than spies in a few small, but significant ways.

The extra stealth is very useful. How useful? In a game I am currently in, four
bards had shut down my capital. I had province defense of 25, a Call of the Wild,
a Call of the Wind, and a Watcher (50 men worth) patrolling, and it took me at
least three turns to catch them all. Before I summoned the Watcher, I did not
manage to catch even one. High stealth becomes silly. In that game, I was
brought from a surplus of 1500 gold to less than 200 in two turns.

The Bard is also a researcher, thus you can, and will mass them for other purposes.

The Bard is not helpless in combat. He has a number of songs that can be
useful, and the old favorite of "Eagle Eyes, Vine Arrow x 4, cast spells" is
there too. The combat AI is also smart enough to start using the Soothing
song when fatigue start running high.

And finally the bard can lead men. A bard, a monk, 15 stealth archers and
only a few wardens with protection are a hell of a raiding group. The archers
have to be found as indies, but even if you are not lucky in that respect,
wardens with Protection from the bard and the standard E4, N4 blessing will
do just fine.

[Jazzepi]

Tuidjy said:
Bards are better than spies in a few small, but significant ways.

The extra stealth is very useful. How useful? In a game I am currently in, four
bards had shut down my capital. I had province defense of 25, a Call of the Wild,
a Call of the Wind, and a Watcher (50 men worth) patrolling, and it took me at
least three turns to catch them all. Before I summoned the Watcher, I did not
manage to catch even one. High stealth becomes silly. In that game, I was
brought from a surplus of 1500 gold to less than 200 in two turns.

The Bard is also a researcher, thus you can, and will mass them for other purposes.

The Bard is not helpless in combat. He has a number of songs that can be
useful, and the old favorite of "Eagle Eyes, Vine Arrow x 4, cast spells" is
there too. The combat AI is also smart enough to start using the Soothing
song when fatigue start running high.

And finally the bard can lead men. A bard, a monk, 15 stealth archers and
only a few wardens with protection are a hell of a raiding group. The archers
have to be found as indies, but even if you are not lucky in that respect,
wardens with Protection from the bard and the standard E4, N4 blessing will
do just fine.

It seems like you could mass about 20 bards in the same square or so on the map, and just have them spam soothing song + vine arrows.

Jazzepi