Final Newbie Question (or compilation of questions!)

[thejeff]

Play with LA R'lyeh for a while. It is different.

I think the recruitables are the same. (Or at least very close.)

[llamabeast]

CBM is awesome, promise. I would say that rather than making summons dominate, it makes the earlier summons worth considering summoning. In base game it's very disappointing to save up and spend 8 gems on a single drake. Even with CBM summons should only be a small part of your armies though (until very late in the game when national troops and cheap summons both go out of the window and are replaced by big beasties).

[happygeek]

ok thank you!
What does "insanity" actually do?

Another question: I am playing a first time with MA Abysia - fun! But what's the deal with the national summons? If I see right, they get some interesting ghost men thingies at conjuration 2, I think -- cost 5 death gems. But I can't cast that. I don't think I can even get a random death pick on warlocks (at least ive never gotten one). I suppose I *could* design a pretender around being able to cast that spell (I chose an air and earth titan), and make him search for death gems, but that just seems weird -- or is that what everyone does, what you are supposed to do with MA Abysia?

One last one: A lot of those mages are Old. Just like those Pythium guys. It doesn't say that explicitly in the manual -- only that the older you get, the weaker -- but the old ones seem to collect these aweful diseases and other handicaps (like mute!). Is that from old age? Is there a way to figure out who has a chance of getting what when, and something to do about it?
Thank you!

[rdonj]

Insanity is a chance that the commander will do one of a bunch of random acts on a given turn, and you won't be able to give it orders. They can do things like preach, become prophets, pillage or some random off the wall thing that has no real effect.

If you want to cast spells like that you may have to have the paths on your pretender, or you may be able to empower find enough death gems over the course of a game to empower someone to be able to cast the spell.

It is due to old age. You can reduce the chance for them to acquire afflictions by having a growth scale, or by casting certain spells that lower the caster's age. There are also items that prevent commanders from aging so they don't become old. You can't specifically tell who is likely to be afflicted, it will happen randomly to old people.

[Fate]

Insanity is a percentage chance that the unit will ignore any orders you give it for a turn and do something random. When they do their picture will turn red and their random order will be already selected for them. Insane units will not randomly decide to move.

For most nations the insane orders are stuff that doesn't do anything (stuff like "F'taghn!" and "Stargazing"). For R'lyeh (whose dominion spreads insanity) they will execute real orders, but rarely to any effect (a non-magic path commander attempting to site-search). Occassionally R'lyeh will get multiple prophets this way (you can search the forums for more information on this).

Finally, I have read that tartarians are insane and do some interesting things, but I have never really experimented with them so I am not at all sure.


Question 2: Most nations have national spells. Some of these can be cast be the national mages, some can be cast with a little help, and some require luck/empowerment/pretender paths as you mentioned. You can try a test game and summon these to see if they are worth it, but I doubt it unless you can figure out other ways of leveraging those paths on your pretender (maybe summoning more death mages to really start your foray into death magic, though you would have to balance it against your blood and fire and astral magic as well).


Question 3:
You can search the forums for information about old age. Some short points:

Age advances at the end of every late winter by one year.

Old age causes new afflictions every late winter along with other stat modifications.

Afflictions from old age can only be cured by the Chalice (N4? Construction 8 unique item) and the Gift of Health global (N4, Ench 6?).

The spell Rejuvanation (Blood school 6? , B3?, ritual requires 10 slaves) reduces age by 10 (enough rituals will remove old age). The boots of youth (Constr 6? B? item) stops aging and new afflictions from old age.

[happygeek]

Thank you! Perfect. Do you know what the % chance is? Does it depend on something else?

That seems odd to have to have a pretender to cast national summons, I will have to try later on that then. Thank you!

Are you saying Growth scales help protect against old age symptoms? I didnt know that! Do you know the %chance to help? Nothing like that in the manual!

The manual also says that when fatigue goes over 100, you fall unconscious. I have been watching battles quite a bit and I do not see any effect of this. I have some mages with 140 fatigue, and some non-mages too (like normal human priests caught up in Abysian heat), and they don't seem bothered by it -- still unchanged defense and attack stats etc. Wouldnt you expect defense to be lowered if unconscious? Or did I misread something?

THank you!

[Fate]

Are you asking about the percent chance to get an affliction from old age? No I do not, though it would appear the chance for contracting disease is calculated seperately from other afflictions (uner growth I tend to get a variety of afflictions, but under death they all seem to be disease, unless that is just silly pattern-seeing). From my experience (I normally play at least growth 1 for old age nations) about 1 in 10 old mages get wound each winter. I think under death 3 that number rises to more like 1 in 4.

As for getting spells, it is *possible* to get another mage to do that (at the very least alchemy/empowerment can get you into anything), the opportunity cost is normally too high (the exceptiong is lucking into independant mages with the paths you want).

Effects of fatigue are not shown on the unit's stat page. They are:

-1 attack for every x fatigue lost (I think it is 20?)

-1 defense for every x fatigue lost (I think it is 10?)

+x% chance to receive a "critical hit" (a hit that is considered AP even when the weapon isn't - melee only?)
I am not sure what the percentage, but tests have shown it to grow very quickly. That is why fatigue is a large concern for any thug/SC that has any reliance on protection.

After 100 fatigue the unit falls unconscious, meaning they don't move or attack or cast spells. Units lose 5 fatigue per turn while unconscious (in addition to any other reinvig they might have) and so will normally wake up eventually, unless the enemy continues to hit them with fatigue-inducing spells.

[Gregstrom]

The percentage chance for an insane commander acting up on any given turn is shown if you hover the mouse over the insanity icon. You'll see insane(x), where x is the % chance.

Some national summons are arguably there more for flavour than utility, btw.

[Dragar]

A small note on the Smoulder Ghosts - they are useful, but don't waste empowering or a pretender on them. Abysia gets a few national heroes which have both fire and death, so if you want them Luck is your best bet to help your chances. They are also important as Fire + Death gives you Skulls of Fire, a great fire booster at construction 6. If you get no national heroes that is potentially worth empowering for at some stage, though of course you want to find a death caster of some sort and empower with fire, rather than the other way around

Old age is a major hassle for abysia. If you plan to get a lot of warlocks I recommend growth 3, and potentially a nature 4 bless so you can shroud them if diseases. If you don't wish to invest in growth minimise the number of warlocks you recruit and rely on demonbreds.

[thejeff]

In the long run the cure for old age with Abysia is Boots of Youth, not growth or nature bless.