Message from Abysia

[PrinzMegaherz]

We declare war upon Illwinter!

In earlier days we were a nation of fiercy warriors and mighty wizards, dominating the battlefield with fire and steel. Now we have become a nation of fierce warriors and old men!

After the awakening of our new goddess, she declared her first anathema dragon to be her prophet. Too bad the prophet cought a disease in late spring and died shortly after on old age. Same happened to the mages the pretender gathered in his capitol to research magic and the likes for him, they seem to die faster than he can recruit new mages! Conquest of new lands have become scarce, as those mages escorting the troops have bad eyesight due to their age and wouldn't hit a target even if it was standing directly in front of them!

Now, it's the late summer in year 4 of the ascension wars, and our goddess, the almighty enchantress has grown old herself! How long until she dies from those terrible illnesses? next time, we will surely worship something more lasting, like a well or a huge stone!

[Nerfix]

Take some Death with the Enchantress. Death magic.

[Endoperez]

Death scale makes old age more severe. Growth scale helps to keep the afflictions away. Death magic helps to survive longer before getting afflictions from old age. Nature magic keeps you younger. Fire magic slightly lowers your maximum age. The maximum age of Abysians is lower than that of humans.

Personally, I'd like to see Pangaea's and Abysia's ages switched around. Abysians would live for slightly longer than humans (perhaps 75 years), while the half-people of Pangaea had the shorter age now given to Abysians. Satyrs and Centaurs would suffer from old age sooner than the Minotaurs. Panii would always be few centuries old, and perhaps have a chance of old age even with their Nature magic. This has nothing to do with what nation I prefer to play or think is more powerful, but I'd rather see Abysia taking Death and Pangaea Growth than the other way round.

[KissBlade]

Seriously, I've said this numerous times in the channel. Old Age: Dumbest mechanic ever. What is it for? Flavor? Annoyance? Adding in even more random factors for a strategy game? Lame.

[PrinzMegaherz]

Well, Illwinter oriented itself at fantasy literature.

Imagine how Lord of the Rings would have ended if Gandalf hadn't died of old age in the mines of Moria! Or imagine Merlin changing the looks of Uther Pentragon as he wanted. Thank god he lost his eyesight to old age before he could do that.

[Endoperez]

Gandalf didn't die of old age, he died fighting the Moloch of the Shinuyama in the Cave Castle they had taken from Agartha in an eralier war. Their patrols had caught the sneaking force, who had counted on Shinuyama not buying much PD. Thankfully it was Aragorn the Bard who hauled the rest of the Fellowship around, and not Gandalf the Arch Druid. I think the Moloch died of dominion loss and not in the fight, btw. Gandalf himself died while retreating into enemy dominion. He was soon called back, however, and summoned Fangorn the Ivy King. Things really got rolling after that.

[KissBlade]

No Molochs die from retreating when all their imps route. Every DII fan knows that!

[PrinzMegaherz]

And people say that the bards soothing song would be useless...

Anyway, the old pretender was my own fault:

Poor girl was changed into a skin shifter after she naivly took that amulet from the fallen enemy commander.

I was able to cure her old age by pressing a thistle mace into her hands. She should remain youthful for another 20 years. After that an elixir of life might be the way to go.

[Nerfix]

Dip into sweet blissfull Death magic. You know you want to. Cast Twiceborn too.

[Olive]

KissBlade said:
No Molochs die from retreating when all their imps route. Every DII fan knows that!


Not anymore in D3. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

It's one of the first things I've checked. Or I've been very lucky in the couple of test battles I've made. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Endoperez]

Morale system has been redone, so the dying imps don't make Molochs rout. An easier way to test this is to play EA Yomi. Besides everything else they get, the Dai Oni start with three wolves in every battle. Perhaps they're there to protect them from assassins or something...

[st.patrik]

KissBlade said:
Seriously, I've said this numerous times in the channel. Old Age: Dumbest mechanic ever. What is it for? Flavor? Annoyance? Adding in even more random factors for a strategy game? Lame.



Actually I think it's a pretty good addition - now instead of your most powerful mage being the obvious buy (if you have the money) maybe you'll think about buying some younger mages, who last awhile longer. Thus more units get used, and the game just got more strategic depth.

[Nerfix]

I also like it. Besides it's fun to scramble for ways to prolong the life of your brittle mages. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Daynarr]

Makes nature magic very desired as well. GoH almost the best spell in game since it actually cures old age afflictions (unlike healing).

[Ballbarian]

So far I like the age mechanic and I do not see it as a random factor but rather another strategic factor to consider.

[Cainehill]

st.patrik said:

KissBlade said:
Seriously, I've said this numerous times in the channel. Old Age: Dumbest mechanic ever. What is it for? Flavor? Annoyance? Adding in even more random factors for a strategy game? Lame.



Actually I think it's a pretty good addition - now instead of your most powerful mage being the obvious buy (if you have the money) maybe you'll think about buying some younger mages, who last awhile longer. Thus more units get used, and the game just got more strategic depth.



Eh, I've seen nations whose "youngest" mages are still getting diseased by old age before the demo runs out. I have to agree with KissBlade - it's a mechanic whose unintended consequence is simply to irritate the living snot out of many if not most players.

Of course, doing away with the option to view the spell lists while creating your pretender (as you could in Dom2) might also seems to be designed to irritate players. Ditto for removing the mechanism for having researching commanders greyed out when looking at a province on the map - how the beta testers let that one go by I'll never know. Doing away with themes, thus limitting diversity and removing one of the only ways to try to get close to using all your pretender points? _Hopefully_ some of these are oversites that'll get fixed via patches, but Old Age may be the single change that keeps me from getting as much game time from Dom3 as Dom2.

[KissBlade]

st.patrik said:

KissBlade said:
Seriously, I've said this numerous times in the channel. Old Age: Dumbest mechanic ever. What is it for? Flavor? Annoyance? Adding in even more random factors for a strategy game? Lame.



Actually I think it's a pretty good addition - now instead of your most powerful mage being the obvious buy (if you have the money) maybe you'll think about buying some younger mages, who last awhile longer. Thus more units get used, and the game just got more strategic depth.



How does it add more strategy? Cheapie mages had always been the favored researchers as they offer the best Research per Gold ratio. The reason people purchase expensive ones is because they offer the best combinations for battle mages and sometimes gives you the desired paths to cast a spell. Instead now, there's an even worse random factor because you could've finally got that S5 mage you're looking for and OOPS FEEBLEMINDED BECAUSE OF OLD AGE! Not to mention, there's the varying lifespan per nation which makes me think it's even sillier (Despite flavor reasons). I think I'd rather reliable mages than hiring some guys who'll just keel over when you're about to embark on an expedition. "Sorry our war against Ryleh went poorly because their mages are all still alive while half ours keeled over from old age".

[Nerfix]

I think someone had bad experience with old mages... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Tortanick]

well it dose limit just how many philosophers you can stack up. I wonder why there is no game option to have old age or not though.

[Kristoffer O]

> Of course, doing away with the option to view the spell lists while creating your pretender (as you could in Dom2) might also seems to be designed to irritate players. Ditto for removing the mechanism for having researching commanders greyed out when looking at a province on the map - how the beta testers let that one go by I'll never know. Doing away with themes, thus limitting diversity and removing one of the only ways to try to get close to using all your pretender points? _Hopefully_ some of these are oversites that'll get fixed via patches, but Old Age may be the single change that keeps me from getting as much game time from Dom3 as Dom2.

Didn't you read the company pages. Our real goal is the end of the world. By making an addictive game and then thrash it in the next version is a very good way to make lots of people irritated, use swear words, curse at politicians who then will go to work annoyed and start one or several small wars. In the best of worlds these politicins were also gamers believing thet there can only be ONE. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

We are aware that there are people that will not like the ageing mechanic. Some in the beta didn't. Me an JK do. I got quite annoyed when I got my blood 4 Warlock diseased by old age in an MP test, but I've been annoyed before and will probably be again in a month or two. I know how I will feel and I'm not too concerned. Irritation passes.

> I wonder why there is no game option to have old age or not though.

You mean like in real life http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. If there is a wider consensus among fans there will probably appear an MP mod that alters the startage or maxage of nations with shorter lifespans. Perhaps an (EB) emotional balance mod to remove irritating or overly rewarding random elements such as age and heroes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Meglobob]

KissBlade said:
Seriously, I've said this numerous times in the channel. Old Age: Dumbest mechanic ever. What is it for? Flavor? Annoyance? Adding in even more random factors for a strategy game? Lame.



Well said.

[Nerfix]

Besides, it's just a game, even if an exceptionaly good one. Shouldn't we enjoy it's good sides and take the occasional irritation as just a bit of a spice? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Kristoffer O]

> Shouldn't we enjoy it's good sides and take the occasional irritation as just a bit of a spice?

No you shouldn't. It is your right to feel annoyed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

If anyone percieve something as annoying it is good for others to hear it. If there is consensus they might do something about it in a mod. If they nag at us we might change something in a way we like or make it moddable.

[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.

[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...

[Archonsod]

You'd think they'd be better wizards, having studied magic for longer, rather than being desperate to sign on for a pension http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

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.

[Morkilus]

KissBlade said:
Seriously, I've said this numerous times in the channel. Old Age: Dumbest mechanic ever. What is it for? Flavor? Annoyance? Adding in even more random factors for a strategy game? Lame.



Don't ever play Dwarf Fortress then. You'll find plenty of "annoyance" mechanics, such as insanity, fey moods, ugly wounds, depression, and tantrums. What would you think if one of your Warlocks blew up your laboratory or killed your prophet? I love the game, however, and same with Dom3 and aging. If you want a game with no randomness, try Chess. Even there, there is no safeguard against a wayward cat, so beware.

[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 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Nerfix]

"Afflictions. Dumbest mechanic ever. What is it for? Flavor? Annoyance? Adding even more random factor for a strategy game? Lame."


... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[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.

[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? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[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. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

*Edit*

I had to fix my first sentence because it was messed up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[KissBlade]

IMO, don't fix what's not broken. Old age just seems to be a really needless "fix".

[Kristoffer O]

But it was fun to implement during development http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Valandil]

And of course you can now have a large amount of fun trying to age your humans beyond all reason. I reccomend precision 0 decay casters and burden of time. Banefire bows combined with a darkness spell also works.

[PDF]

Hmm, I don't yet have any definitive position on aging (as I'm middle-aged http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ), but yet I'm somewhat surprised by the fact that "lose an arm" is an as much probable effect of old age as "limp"...
IMHO aging should give 95% of the time some "standard" affliction, such as limp, or chest wound (lung problems...), maybe crippled. Some new "eyesight loss" affliction (prec -4) should be fitting also, but others (like lost an arm) should be very rare. "Diseased" should even be banned, in Dom the "disease" is a killer, quasi-impossible to heal, and is never caught by chance or in battle (only via magic or spreading sites/creatures). I feel it should remain this way.

[Nerfix]

You know that Disease is supposed to represent death from old age right?

[KissBlade]

The fact that the affliction system is so random is a bit silly by itself. Mainly because apparently despite all the magic and such, no one knew what a doctor is =\.

[Nerfix]

Except those Arco peoples. They and dem priestesses.

[DominionsFan]

Hm anyways, I thought that there will be a command line option to remove aging from the game. [I think that someone has mentioned this some months ago.]

[Taqwus]

If you want brutal injuries, read the critical-hit tables in the Middle Earth Role-Playing System. Everything up to and including amputations and instant-death, IIRC. :p

That was -not- a "heroes kill kobolds, suffer a little bit, and instantly recover from Cure Light Wounds" game.

[KissBlade]

If this game is going to mirror a roleplaying game I think I'll be setting my sights elsewhere in the future ...

[Theonlystd]

I really like it.

In prolonged battles. Watching Undead Archers age and cripple the back rows of troops before they've even swung a sword is funny... Just adds another aspect.



Tho i dont think pretenders should have aging problems. These are dudes who've "mastered" there mortality and are trying to achieve goddom.. Having them wither and die from old age is wierd imho. If i dont find out how to craft these boots that stop aging soon my ArchMage is going to be quite useless.

[DominionsFan]

Well aging definitely added some RP flavor to the game. The "luck factor" in the MP & SP games is also more important from now on, but its all cool.

[Taqwus]

I'd agree that pretenders shouldn't be aging much at all... so long as they have believers to sustain them.

I haven't tried to systematically identify magic sites in the game, but a rare site (N4? Or W4, fountain of youth) that had an 'enter to reduce aging' effect would be thematic.

[Boron]

KissBlade said:
Seriously, I've said this numerous times in the channel. Old Age: Dumbest mechanic ever. What is it for? Flavor? Annoyance? Adding in even more random factors for a strategy game? Lame.


Kiss, imho in turn based strategy games there has to be a random factor !!!
Otherwise they become a dull chess clone.

The random factor in Dominions 2 was imho just fine, 1 game out of 10 was very frustrating because of bad luck, but 1 out of 10 was also very rewarding because you had luck.

In Dom3 the random factor is about the same as in Dom2.

The problem is that if there would be no random factor in a turn based strategy game you could then plan the perfect strat. Do you really want such a game?

In a RTS if there is no random factor it is fine, there thanks to superior dexterity you can gain an edge. And in RTS you cannot do everything but have to focus on a "Schwerpunkt" with excessive micro or try to do excessive macro.
Anyways, in a RTS even if nothing is random because you cannot do everything because you are a human and not a machine this adds enough randomness.

But if you want a balanced turn based game with no random elements in it this leads to a game with identical factions, so something like chess and checkers.
Chess is a very good game, but such a game cannot get much more complex imho.
So for a turn based pc strategy game random elements are imho a must to keep it interesting.
The trick is just to make the game not tooooo random, so that skill usually wins over luck.

Dominions achieved that balance just fine in Dom2 and imho also achieves it just fine in Dom3.

[Boron]

Taqwus said:
I'd agree that pretenders shouldn't be aging much at all... so long as they have believers to sustain them.

I haven't tried to systematically identify magic sites in the game, but a rare site (N4? Or W4, fountain of youth) that had an 'enter to reduce aging' effect would be thematic.


Imho aging pretenders are fine.
After all they are still mortals and not yet gods.

It depends on the type though. Most pretenders should just age normally. An archmage e.g. can life forever, but he has to do rituals every now and then for that imho. Just as it is currently in Dom3.
Also dragons, giants etc. age eventually. As long as they have enough believers they can easily do the rituals for rejuvenation. But if they have not enough believers they might have not enough resources(=gems) to do rejuvenation.

There is a handful of pretenders though for which it feels a bit wrong that they age, mainly the immortal undead ones.
A vampire or a lich never ages. And for a being from other worlds other laws should exist too, be it a beeing from the underworld like the PoD or a mighty demon like the moloch or a divine beeing like the virtue.
For all those aging is harder to justify i think.

But a story of a great archmage who had many believers but eventually died and thus was forgotten and thus became no god is imho thematic. For this type of wannabe gods the race against time adds flavour. They have not only to fight vs. the other contenders but also vs. their mortality.
Someone who is already dead like a demon or an angel doesn't have to care about his age, he only has to care about entropy which can still kill him too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.

[Taqwus]

Oh, no worries there. I don't think there's a known perfect strategy for Go yet, and Go is a 2-player game with no hidden information and at most 361 legal moves from any legal state.

Dominions offers up to 21 players, has mostly hidden information, and has a far higher branching factor combined with a degree of deliberate measure-countermeasure in (that is, there are specific counters to different approaches... but exploiting the counters has opportunity cost. Pure minimax says you're screwed.)

Dominions offers a fair bit of variability, but when you're dealing with armies of 400+, the law of averages is going to come into play. It's mostly the random events hitting early that can make a huge difference (imagine the 1500 free gold + an item event at the start... or losing 99.9% of the population of your capital to the Ancient Presence event), and IIRC some events are restricted as to how soon they can happen, and that probability can be reduced on game creation.

Randomness frustrates me more in Diablo (farming monsters for item drops is tedious) and Nethack (which is pretty much the embodiment of 'arbitrary'). Here, I would be annoyed if an SC died to a randomly lucky arrow or Soul Slay... but it does mean that it's actually possible to counter SCs without resorting to SCs oneself, and that's probably a good thing.

[Valandil]

There is a nice proof that the person that goes first should always win. Unfortunately, there is no way to know how.

[Cainehill]

Kristoffer O said:
> I wonder why there is no game option to have old age or not though.

You mean like in real life http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. If there is a wider consensus among fans there will probably appear an MP mod that alters the startage or maxage of nations with shorter lifespans. Perhaps an (EB) emotional balance mod to remove irritating or overly rewarding random elements such as age and heroes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.



Ah, Real Life. In Real Life, one doesn't get to skip over hours of boredom simply to get to the interesting bits. Why does Dominions allow one to skip forward an entire month in seconds via the turn mechanism? For that matter, Real Life doesn't have graphics options to speed things up - why does Dominions? People (and not-people) are _dying_ and getting _maimed_ in those battles, why should the player be able to fast forward through their suffering??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

For that matter - does this mean that we can look forward to Babies Crying, Inlaws, and Nagging Spouses ("Zeus, when_ are you going to finally clean up Thebes?") in Dominions 4?

[Kristoffer O]

> Ah, Real Life. In Real Life, one doesn't get to skip over hours of boredom simply to get to the interesting bits. Why does Dominions allow one to skip forward an entire month in seconds via the turn mechanism? For that matter, Real Life doesn't have graphics options to speed things up - why does Dominions? People (and not-people) are _dying_ and getting _maimed_ in those battles, why should the player be able to fast forward through their suffering???

My real life has splendid graphics and i accidentally skipped this month http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

> For that matter - does this mean that we can look forward to Babies Crying, Inlaws, and Nagging Spouses ("Zeus, when_ are you going to finally clean up Thebes?") in Dominions 4?

Dominions 4 - Infant Gods. Ares still in dipers attacking Afrodite with a fork

[Morkilus]

Cainehill said:
Ah yes - yet another bloody way to have to pay expensive upkeep on troops because you don't dismiss them from service when they become crippled & useless. Nifty. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif



You mean you're not having any fun sending those feeble old wrecks to the front lines, ahead of the pikemen to slow down a cavalry charge? You either have no sense of humor, or are just a soft excuse for a pretender god bent on the destruction of the world for your glory.

An aside: I immediately sent that joke of a mercenary Madame Fortuna into the front lines when she hired on with a feeble mind. Then I realized my commander had was feebleminded immediately after the battle. Off he goes to the front! It happened again. I then read the text for this slave collar that was being passed down. Oops.

[Archonsod]

PrinzMegaherz said:
The old age itself isn't that bad, but it's one rather unbalanced factor in the game. Best solution to solve the problem is to take a nation with long living mages like Yomi. It's just a shame that my favorite nation (which was never one of the top dogs) has been degraded this badly.



It's the best solution if you don't want to or can't deal with old age. To be honest, I wouldn't agree that it's a disadvantage, apart from in the early game. For any blood nation, research construction and a relatively cheap (10 blood slaves) item is available which negates ageing alltogether. Given that old age is payment for increased abilities or lower than normal value, this is going to give you a cheap, powerful or otherwise advantaged mage which you can ignore the downside of. In other words, you just became slightly more powerful than everyone else.
You could even build a strategy around this. Consider the crone or other pretenders who get a points or abilities break because of old age. Select imprisoned for maximum goodness, and bank on getting one of the age negating spells or items before your pretender breaks free. You can then prevent old age from ever affecting your pretender, thus effectively giving you free points.
It's down to playing style really. Some people are going to rule out nations with older mages because it doesn't suit their style. Others will embrace them and find ways to deal with the ageing problem or even turn it to their advantage.

[Archonsod]

Taqwus said:
If you want brutal injuries, read the critical-hit tables in the Middle Earth Role-Playing System. Everything up to and including amputations and instant-death, IIRC. :p

That was -not- a "heroes kill kobolds, suffer a little bit, and instantly recover from Cure Light Wounds" game.



Wasn't that based on Rolemaster? The only game to include critical hit tables for chair legs?

Started an EA game up with Abysia. To be honest, it's not too bad. Great troops (especially burning one's) and the apprentices are good enough for research and blood hunt, especially once you can build lanterns.



For that matter - does this mean that we can look forward to Babies Crying, Inlaws, and Nagging Spouses ("Zeus, when_ are you going to finally clean up Thebes?") in Dominions 4



http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif
From what I hear it's the new events which are to be most feared, like the Inland Revenue demanding back taxes for all this land you apparently own, and Health and Safety preventing research because of the fire risks in the lab...

[Twan]

Personnally I'm not against the aging system but I think making global mod commands to change it would be a good idea to please everyone(something like #longlives [x years] adding for all characters x years to the old age limit, or #allyounger [x years] reducing all start ages by a number of years).

Anyway mods will probably be done to change max ages, even if the modding stay manual, but giving a command like #allyounger would make more players use a soft version of the age system instead of using the "10000 years max mod" that will very probably be made.

[Tyrian]

Age system is a good idea for the gestion of effect like burden of time. It is silly than near-immortel creature like the illithid are equally affected than simple human. Age system is a good solution for this problem's type.

[Fate]

Ok, as I mentioned above I was playing a MA Agartha game. I had Growth +1, and my only land opponent (after knocking of Machaka) is Jotunheim, with Death 3.

To date, around 3 - 4 years (I need to check), I have had exactly 2 mages contract disease in my dominion, and 2 others get exactly 1 wound each (neither was disease or feeblemindedness). That was out of at least 16 mages.

I have also sent an army of ~10 mages through Jotunheim's death 3 dominon in the war. They all died in a large attack from Jotunheim, but prior to that 4 got diseased, another 2 got wounds, and none were feeble minded.

So, to recap, I lost 5 to disease (1 got feeblemindedness at the same time, so I think that counts more), 1 to feeblemindedness, and 4 got non-debilitating wounds. Keeping in mind that I have another 10+ turns of use after a mage gets diseased, I don't think it is that bad at all.

It could be that growth scale help. I know death scale really hurts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Daynarr]

Precisely. Death scale is no longer 'no brainer' to pick when you play a nation that has commanders/units with old age. Growth scale makes big difference.

[Fate]

I love the old age system, actually. I am playing MA Agartha, and I have two diseased mages, one of which is feeble-minded. So, I "retired" them with a title (Lord [name], Master Mage) and retired them to a "nursing home" province. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

One thing I would like to see is for units to "upgrade" due to old age (eg, hastati -> principes -> triarri being the most common one). Especially for those Polypal Spawns to grow into Aboleths (envisions a couple "missed" decay spells to "force grow" some Mind Lords). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[KissBlade]

Like I mentioned before, this is a strategy game, not a roleplaying game.

[JaydedOne]

Oh, I think it's a little column a, a little column b, Kissblade. There are definitely RPG qualities at work here and people can enjoy it in a variety of ways. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[thejeff]

I like the upgrade with age idea. Only applies to some units, obviously, but there are enough obvious upgrade paths in the descriptions that it's worth thinking about.

Even mages: Daughter -> Mother -> Crone?
Obviously balance would have to be considered. Might make more sense if only old and experienced units upgraded?

How about a nation that couldn't recruit its top mages, but had to wait for the lower tier ones to age? And hope they didn't die or get crippled first.

[AAshbery76]

The more roleplaying elements the better.

[tibbs]

I think the old age idea is used as more of a game mechanic to balance the power level of certain units than for roleplay though it fits nicely in both aspects.

I like it.

[Cainehill]

Fate said:
I love the old age system, actually. I am playing MA Agartha, and I have two diseased mages, one of which is feeble-minded. So, I "retired" them with a title (Lord [name], Master Mage) and retired them to a "nursing home" province. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif



Ah yes - yet another bloody way to have to pay expensive upkeep on troops because you don't dismiss them from service when they become crippled & useless. Nifty. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif

[Teraswaerto]

I don't know if I quite *like* the new old age thing, but:

1. It can be countered with spells and items, different units are effected differently, etc. which adds strategic depth.

2. Some nations suffer from it more than others, which means it's a balance consideration, AND it's thematic that R'lyeh or some such has one up on the puny humans.

[PrinzMegaherz]

The old age itself isn't that bad, but it's one rather unbalanced factor in the game. Best solution to solve the problem is to take a nation with long living mages like Yomi. It's just a shame that my favorite nation (which was never one of the top dogs) has been degraded this badly.

[Cainehill]

Morkilus said:

Cainehill said:
Ah yes - yet another bloody way to have to pay expensive upkeep on troops because you don't dismiss them from service when they become crippled & useless. Nifty. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif



You mean you're not having any fun sending those feeble old wrecks to the front lines, ahead of the pikemen to slow down a cavalry charge? You either have no sense of humor, or are just a soft excuse for a pretender god bent on the destruction of the world for your glory.




Problem is that those old, feebleminded mages tend to often have map movements of one - guess incontinence makes it difficult to travel fast. In dom2, I often saw where it would take 10 turns or more to drag useless troops (and "free" militia) to a valid front line to get them killed off. Given that _every_ turn you have to find that army and update orders, since there's no pathfinding or waypoint mechanism, it's a royal PITA.

And I have another gripe about the age system - following up in new post.

[Cainehill]

It also has (presumably) unforeseen consequences such as making EA Arco's philosophers a very dubious choice now. Yes, their research rate is high, _but_ they start old. Priestess's start with a good 30 years to go before hitting old age.

So, let's see - why would I want to recruit philosophers who die of old age, instead of priestesses? And yes, I noticed this in my very first game : philosophers were dropping like flies from age.

Secondary side effect of aging : a quick test makes it look like _all_ units have Christmas birthdays, ie, all units age in Late Winter. So - want to buy a mage on the cusp of old age? Buy him/her in early spring to have more time before aging. And don't _EVER_ buy in mid-winter, or you may be bitter. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Nerfix]

Cainehill said:

It also has (presumably) unforeseen consequences such as making EA Arco's philosophers a very dubious choice now. Yes, their research rate is high, _but_ they start old. Priestess's start with a good 30 years to go before hitting old age.

So, let's see - why would I want to recruit philosophers who die of old age, instead of priestesses? And yes, I noticed this in my very first game : philosophers were dropping like flies from age.

Did you perchance take Death scale? I usualy take 1 Growth or neutral growth with early Arco and I have yet to see significant amounts of Philosophers to die. I recruit them early on because they can give a significant research edge.

They become less attractive to me when you hit the point where your Mystics can do something else than shoot Fire Flies and forge Enchanted Pikes anyway, but that might just be me.

The only one with whom I had serious old age problems was Abysia. Now, those fellas could use some extra five years before they hit old age. /threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif

[Cainehill]

Ah, joy - just got my copy of Dom3, and have yet another source of bitterness about the Aging mechanism, and the manual which is supposedly worth five dollars.

Perhaps it was senility that led the manual to have no mention of Aging, Old Age, etc, in the index or table of contents? A major new mechanic in the game, and no bloody mention of it?!? There's been talk here on the forums about various things having an influence on aging - magic paths, growth scales, etc....

And yet, looking in those sections of the manual, there STILL isn't any god-forsaken mention of aging or the influences of Growth/Death scales or Nature/Death magic paths.

Before I was disgruntled, now I'd color myself a subtle shade of pissed.

(Not even to mention the school of design that led the Age stat to be displayed via ... Fatigue! It's even worse than putting Size "behind" HPs. Hmmm, I better check.... Whew! I thought maybe a new Sanity stat had been added onto
Move, or maybe Precision now displayed Upkeep, or Attack Skill displayed Moral Alignment. *mutter*)

[Nerfix]

So that's where it is displayed. I wondered about that myself. It ought to be moved under HP or somesuch.

[moodgiesanta]

I like the age thing a lot. It adds a lot of flavor and some interesting mechanics and it makes Death scales matter in small games where depopulation isn't an issue. Abysia is a country that really has no issues with aging except in the very beginning. It's a simple and cheap ritual to decrease age by 10 years. In fact in my latest game I got a blood mage down to zero years old. Was hoping he'd go negative but it seems you're capped at zero. Sadly the graphic didn't change into that of an infant but hey. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Nerfix]

Anathemants can't cast Rejuvenation.

[Theonlystd]

Morkilus said:

Cainehill said:
Ah yes - yet another bloody way to have to pay expensive upkeep on troops because you don't dismiss them from service when they become crippled & useless. Nifty. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif



You mean you're not having any fun sending those feeble old wrecks to the front lines, ahead of the pikemen to slow down a cavalry charge? You either have no sense of humor, or are just a soft excuse for a pretender god bent on the destruction of the world for your glory.

An aside: I immediately sent that joke of a mercenary Madame Fortuna into the front lines when she hired on with a feeble mind. Then I realized my commander had was feebleminded immediately after the battle. Off he goes to the front! It happened again. I then read the text for this slave collar that was being passed down. Oops.



whoa am i the only one that saw a potentially lame tatic with this?


I asumed slave collar would be destroyed when the wearer died. Make a bunch put them on crappy commanders have them attack the turn before your army and hopefully feeblemind varius mages???


Or where you giving poeple the collars?

[Nerfix]

It's about equaly lame as passing that shapeshifting amulet to others.

[Fate]

I really like the old age system. I am now playing as Pythium, with +3 growth, and I have had at least 70 very old mages (starting age is 60/50) and so far maybe 5 have died of old age, and another 4 are diseased. And remember, diseased mages can still work until they die!

I don't have any problem with the aging system. A growth +1 scale is sufficient protection, normally.

[KissBlade]

Cainehill said:

Ah, joy - just got my copy of Dom3, and have yet another source of bitterness about the Aging mechanism, and the manual which is supposedly worth five dollars.

Perhaps it was senility that led the manual to have no mention of Aging, Old Age, etc, in the index or table of contents? A major new mechanic in the game, and no bloody mention of it?!? There's been talk here on the forums about various things having an influence on aging - magic paths, growth scales, etc....

And yet, looking in those sections of the manual, there STILL isn't any god-forsaken mention of aging or the influences of Growth/Death scales or Nature/Death magic paths.

Before I was disgruntled, now I'd color myself a subtle shade of pissed.

(Not even to mention the school of design that led the Age stat to be displayed via ... Fatigue! It's even worse than putting Size "behind" HPs. Hmmm, I better check.... Whew! I thought maybe a new Sanity stat had been added onto
Move, or maybe Precision now displayed Upkeep, or Attack Skill displayed Moral Alignment. *mutter*)



As you may have guessed, it's mentioned lightly under the unit stats area of the manual. However, no significant explanation is garnered =\.

[Morkilus]

Theonlystd said:


whoa am i the only one that saw a potentially lame tatic with this?


I asumed slave collar would be destroyed when the wearer died. Make a bunch put them on crappy commanders have them attack the turn before your army and hopefully feeblemind varius mages???


Or where you giving poeple the collars?



Sounds like an awesome and funny tactic to me. No, I didn't give anyone the collar, it was passed on from Madame Fortuna to the other commanders of Ulm. It's not a "cheesy" tactic either; we all know what fantasy RPGers do when they find a new item, and "identifying" it is not the answer. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif To all who face me in the future... beware the army of feembleminded scouts! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

[Taqwus]

Oh, Theonlystd hasn't been around to see how badly people could attempt to sabotage the Deathmatch, I see. Suffice it to say that against evil human opponents, you should -not- send a commander you don't mind becoming diseased, feebleminded, cursed, blinded, or doomed to becoming a werewolf.

I think it's hard to beat the anecdote where a player had multiple Demonbred mages, all with one Eye of Aiming (Abysian mages having notoriously aim; must be the heat distortions). One died in battle, another picked up the Eye... and blinded himself by swapping it for his remaining good eye.

[thejeff]

That's diseased, feebleminded, cursed, blinded and doomed to become a werewolf.

[NTJedi]

thejeff said:
That's diseased, feebleminded, cursed, blinded and doomed to become a werewolf.



Actually its diseased, feebleminded, cursed, blinded, Horror_Marked, and/or doomed to become a werewolf.


Fixed

[KissBlade]

swap horror mark and doomed around =). You cannot horror mark someone to be a werewolf hehe ...

[Theonlystd]

Taqwus said:
Oh, Theonlystd hasn't been around to see how badly people could attempt to sabotage the Deathmatch, I see. Suffice it to say that against evil human opponents, you should -not- send a commander you don't mind becoming diseased, feebleminded, cursed, blinded, or doomed to becoming a werewolf.

I think it's hard to beat the anecdote where a player had multiple Demonbred mages, all with one Eye of Aiming (Abysian mages having notoriously aim; must be the heat distortions). One died in battle, another picked up the Eye... and blinded himself by swapping it for his remaining good eye.





Never played Mp.


Sp id usually send someone in there who was cheap to hopefully maim a powerful Ai opponent so i had an idea what it would be like in mp.


And ahahhahahh replaces his only good eye with another one...

[PrinzMegaherz]

Archonsod said:. For any blood nation, research construction and a relatively cheap (10 blood slaves) item is available which negates ageing alltogether.



About those shoes:

Yes, they stop aging. But do they prevent old people from getting diseases?

if that wouldn't be the case, Abysian mages start at around 55 with old age beginning at 35 and you would need to cast rejunevation twice to get them out of old age and would need to construct those shoes. Oh, and you would propably need to boost blood magic as reju is blood 4.

Over 30 bloodslaves just to get one mage that won't die of old age? Sounds not like a good deal to me.

But I did Illwinter injustice with me starting this thread, because Abysia still rocks if you focus on demonbred instead of anathemas for early expansion. They might be a bit weaker in fire magic and a bit less (un)holy, but they fly and have a long lifespan, so there's definitly a reason to use them (never used them in dom 2 because anathema were just better for my purposes)

[Daynarr]

Whenever I used those boots that stop aging, I never saw that commander get affliction from old age including disease.

[Nerfix]

I played LA Man yesterday and Umor, those guys sure get aging problems. /threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif I took 1 or 2 Growth and the mages kept dying. It's propably to offset their amazing troops.

[Morkilus]

The more I think about it, the more I think aging is a great concept in this game. Think about all the horrible things that can happen to you in this game and in myth: Barbarians pillaging, vampires, catching a crippling disease, losing your daughters to the local warlock apprentic, being forced into slavery by sea nymphs (maybe that's not too bad...) Through history, fantastic and realistic literature has always illustrated man's fear of those things, but aging has always been prevalent. The Greeks were practically obsessed with it. So I don't mind having this in the game, and without it I wouldn't get that cool Decay effect where my troops age rapidly. The first time I saw that happen (after attacking some TC troops for some reason..? I loled.

I always liked the old Ultima IV and D&D description for the Haste spells, where you took a year of age for casting the spell as a side effect. Anyone know if this happens in the game? It would be a great touch if it did.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think aging also took care of the tactic of heavily defended labs with eternally improving mages that were such a game definition of games with large maps, long running games.

Also for mega-equiped last-forever super combatants (altho not as much) but it can affect your leaders so that they arent eternally improving. It abit of a realistic "use them while they are young" situation now.

[Archonsod]

PrinzMegaherz said:
Yes, they stop aging. But do they prevent old people from getting diseases?



Apparently so, though I'm not sure if that's intentional. Then again, if the chance of affliction is age dependent it may just be that the mages are stuck with a miniscule chance of an affliction.Either way, I haven't seen a mage (or pretender) develop an affliction through age once they're wearing the boots.

[DominionsFan]

Gandalf Parker said:
I think aging also took care of the tactic of heavily defended labs with eternally improving mages that were such a game definition of games with large maps, long running games.

Also for mega-equiped last-forever super combatants (altho not as much) but it can affect your leaders so that they arent eternally improving. It abit of a realistic "use them while they are young" situation now.



Yeap, this is totally true. This way it is more balanced, especially because mage spamming was very annoying in Doms 2. Well we can still spam mages sadly [that is why I've mentioned that mages should be extremely expensive], but now we can also loose them because of the aging system. It is pretty cool imo. Anyways this is my subjective opinion, especially about the mage spamming part, since probably many players never had a problem with that.

[curtadams]

Well, I just had my first experience with an age-susceptible kingdom and I have to agree aging is overdone. I was playing Marignon, no growth/death, and those Witch hunters were dropping like flies. First, it really clashed with my concept of Marignon. I'd always assumed the initiate/hunter/Grand Master business was one of those youth-adult-old man contrasts and it certainly doesn't feel right for all competent witch hunters to be doddering old men with a life expectancy of four of five year preaching from the pulpit. Second, it made Witch Hunters almost useless - if I'm going to put up with aging, I'm normally going to do it only for relatively rare particular issues, like a critical combat or a site search team, or if I can manage some treatment, and I'll just go ahead and get a Grand Master then. Third, it's just too weird that Witch Hunters age and die as fast as High Inquisitors, who really *are* supposed to be doddering old men. Simarily, it was odd for my Tien Chi S&A Celestial Masters to die so fast if they could make it to 300. If it takes them that long to get old, it should take a little longer to actually die than for a normal human.

In real life aging is an exponential process and the chance of death doubles every x years, where x is relatively constant for a given species (it's 8 years for humans). I figure the base chance of dying should be about 100/(years to get old), or about 2%/year for a human. It should double every (years to get old)/6 years (8 for a human, assuming a start around 50) So a full formula would be 100/years to get old)*2^(age-(years to get old).