Is it possible to kill Pretender god of old age?

[terve886]

And if it is, will the pretender keep dying of old age after being called back?

[Mormacil]

I don't think units die of old age, they can die of Decay but not old age itself. Generally old aged units die of related afflictions each winter.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by Mormacil:

I don't think units die of old age, they can die of Decay but not old age itself. Generally old aged units die of related afflictions each winter.

To be a bit more specific, "Old" units have a chance of getting many afflictions, including the "Diseased" affliction each winter, which reduces their HP by 1 each turn until they die. It is inevitable that "old" units will eventually become "diseased".

IIRC, Pretenders who die of Disease from old age and a later Recalled by priests return WITHOUT the Disease affliction but WITH any other afflictions it may have gained as a result of being "old". They also return at the same age the died at, so their chance of gaining the "Disease" affliction in following winters and again dying due to being "old" is increased. Better look into Boots of Youth / Chalice of Heatlth / Gift of Health! ;)

Regarding most Pretenders, there are a few other facts to keep in mind:

*Most pretenders have incredibly long "Max Age" values -- how many years they need to age before they start making "old age" rolls in the winter" It's not uncommon to see pretenders with max-ages of 300, 500, 700, or 1200 (or greater!) years of "maxe age".

*Certain Magic Paths increase the max-age value; for undead pretenders, each level of Death magic increases "max age" by 50%. Every level of Nature increases a living pretender's "max age" by 50%. (keep in mind that each point of Fire magic reduces a pretender's max age by 5%!)

*All Pretenders have an extremely high base Magic Resistance score (18), so they'll ignore the effects of "Decay" and similar spells fairly easily. Trying to "age out" a rival god into oblivion is not going to be a viable option for most players. ;)

[terve886]

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

Originally posted by Mormacil:

I don't think units die of old age, they can die of Decay but not old age itself. Generally old aged units die of related afflictions each winter.

To be a bit more specific, "Old" units have a chance of getting many afflictions, including the "Diseased" affliction each winter, which reduces their HP by 1 each turn until they die. It is inevitable that "old" units will eventually become "diseased".

IIRC, Pretenders who die of Disease from old age and a later Recalled by priests return WITHOUT the Disease affliction but WITH any other afflictions it may have gained as a result of being "old". They also return at the same age the died at, so their chance of gaining the "Disease" affliction in following winters and again dying due to being "old" is increased. Better look into Boots of Youth / Chalice of Heatlth / Gift of Health! ;)

Regarding most Pretenders, there are a few other facts to keep in mind:

*Most pretenders have incredibly long "Max Age" values -- how many years they need to age before they start making "old age" rolls in the winter" It's not uncommon to see pretenders with max-ages of 300, 500, 700, or 1200 (or greater!) years of "maxe age".

*Certain Magic Paths increase the max-age value; for undead pretenders, each level of Death magic increases "max age" by 50%. Every level of Nature increases a living pretender's "max age" by 50%. (keep in mind that each point of Fire magic reduces a pretender's max age by 5%!)

*All Pretenders have an extremely high base Magic Resistance score (18), so they'll ignore the effects of "Decay" and similar spells fairly easily. Trying to "age out" a rival god into oblivion is not going to be a viable option for most players. ;)

I was just wondering if Death mage with high Death magic + some penetration items could reliably get the enemy pretender out of battle for good.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by terve886:

I was just wondering if Death mage with high Death magic + some penetration items could reliably get the enemy pretender out of battle for good.

Death has a handful of spells which can directly ruin a pretender's day (Disintegrate; Plague, Nether Bolt) but trying to rely on "Decay" type effects won't really do the trick -- IF they fail their MR roll, you'll most likely only age a single target a few decades, which is fine against a mortal unit but inconsequential when a Pretender typically can live several centuries or even millenia. ;)

[terve886]

Also, does curse affect the aflictions old age gives? Like giving more serious aflictions?

[DasaKamov]

"Curse" never gives more serious afflictions, it just raises the chances that a unit gets afflictions. I'm not sure if Curse and Old Age synergize (I may be wrong, but I think Curse only modifies the chance to get afflictions from taking damage).

That said, "Cursing" an enemy Pretender is always a good tactic, since nothing can remove curses.

[Mormacil]

Disease doesn't remove one HP each month/turn, it removes 10% with a minimum of 1 IIRC.

[Red_Rob]

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

*Most pretenders have incredibly long "Max Age" values -- how many years they need to age before they start making "old age" rolls in the winter" It's not uncommon to see pretenders with max-ages of 300, 500, 700, or 1200 (or greater!) years of "maxe age".

One other thing to bear in mind is that "Max Age" is just the age at which you start getting afflictions and penalties. Units can survive for considerably longer than this, particularly if they have some means of coming back to life (Immortality, being a Pretender etc).

Look at the Bogarus Hero 'Koschei' as an example, his max age is only 50 but he starts the game at 440!

[DasaKamov]

Good point Mormacil; most of the diseased units in my games were standard 10-hp troops so I generally assumed that Disease caused a 1 HP drop. :b

Also good point, Red_Rob; in regards to pretender age, I was looking at the "Crone" (the only old-aged pretender?); her max age is 500 years but she starts at age 715.

[Mormacil]

That's a lot of slaves to get her young again :P

[Gregstrom]

Crone is one of the odd pretenders. She really needs quite a lot of Nature or Death if you want her to last. N because of the maxage bonus, and D for two reasons. 1: Twiceborn. 2: levels in D reduce the chances of being diseased due to old age (but they do not reduce rhe chance of gaining any other affliction due to age - arms can still fall off at random, etc.)