[SPOILERS] Balseraphs: A Guide to Mis-Management (by Kyan and TT)

[Krill]

Units who are mutated only have a chance of getting each of about 17 possible promotions. It's rare, but occasionally they'll fail their rolls for all of them and will end up with none at all.


I have no idea if the potion will get rid of withered, but it's kind of a waste to use it for that anyway. Save it for something like a hero unit who almost dies in combat and needs an insta-heal to keep from getting wiped on the defense. Or give it to a blitz trooper to heal between attacks.

Actually I was just wondering if I could give it to the blitz/heavy/strong freak at some point in the future. And good to know about the way freak promotions work. Pity we didn't get the other freak that came with all 17 promotions.

Thanks Bob

[DaveV]

OK. Killed one of the barb goblins next to the capital for 5XP, and the other one should die next turn rather easily. The weird part of the turn though, was that I built a freak that go came with mutated but didn't have any new promotions? What's happened there then?

From the manual:

8% Chance to receive each of the following Promotions (meaning the unit could easily receive none, and could rarely receive all 27)

Also, if I use a healing salve on a unit with the withered promotion, does that remove teh withered promo?

From CVSpellInterface.py:

def spellHealingSalve(caster):
caster.setDamage(0, caster.getOwner())
caster.setHasPromotion(gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROMOTION_DISEASED'), False)
caster.setHasPromotion(gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROMOTION_PLAGUED'), False)
caster.setHasPromotion(gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROMOTION_POISONED'), False)
caster.setHasPromotion(gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROMOTION_WITHERED'), False)

So, yes .

[Krill]

Thanks Dave. According to those numbers, we're looking at a 10.53% chance of getting no promotions, and 2.418*10^-30 of getting all 27 promotions.

Just wondering, is there a list somewhere of what promotions a freak can get upon being built? The civilopaedia has a list of some of those it can get, but not all. For instance, it doesn't list the Strong promo as one that a freak can get but we have couple with it...

[DaveV]

According to those numbers, we're looking at a ... 2.418*10^-30 [chance] of getting all 27 promotions.

Yeah, the word "rarely" in the manual was quite an understatement . I had a statistics prof who complained about how most people have no grasp of very large or very small numbers. He hated the thing about monkeys typing out Shakespeare.

Just wondering, is there a list somewhere of what promotions a freak can get upon being built? The civilopaedia has a list of some of those it can get, but not all. For instance, it doesn't list the Strong promo as one that a freak can get but we have couple with it...

All promotions that have the "bMutation" flag set in CIV4PromotionInfos.xml:

PROMOTION_AMPHIBIOUS
PROMOTION_BLITZ
PROMOTION_CANNIBALIZE
PROMOTION_COLD_RESISTANCE
PROMOTION_COMBAT1
PROMOTION_DISEASED
PROMOTION_EMPOWER1
PROMOTION_FIRE_RESISTANCE
PROMOTION_HEAVY
PROMOTION_HEROIC_DEFENSE
PROMOTION_HEROIC_STRENGTH
PROMOTION_IMMUNE_DISEASE
PROMOTION_LIGHT
PROMOTION_LIGHTNING_RESISTANCE
PROMOTION_MOBILITY1
PROMOTION_POISON_RESISTANCE
PROMOTION_REGENERATION
PROMOTION_SENTRY
PROMOTION_STONESKIN
PROMOTION_STRONG
PROMOTION_VULNERABLE_TO_FIRE
PROMOTION_WEAK
PROMOTION_WITHERED

[Krill]

Cheers Dave

You know, must of them actually look like junk to me. I suppose it's more the synergy from the freak upgrades, if you get them to a mimic or chariot with some of those promotions they start to shine just because of the sheer number of boni they have.

Pics of the Grigori:



So Acolostas got a Lizard with C4, but no subdue animal, an heroic axe with C5, magic resist, sentry and shock but no bronze weapons, and a bunch of crap.

And we attack in 38 turns. We probably won't get the Sorcery by then, though we could so easily spend half of that time in a GA, so who knows...but we will have a nice big stack of adepts whatever happens.



Yeah, I want to Hit Rawkking so hard come t160. By then we will definitely have our nice scary D2 mages. And we won't just have a dozen...

[Bobchillingworth]

What are you going to attack the Grigs with? Is Brian bringing something too?



Those are... interesting promotions on his hero axe. C I-V, sure, can't really object to that. Shock, okay although I'd hold off promoting until I knew just what I'd be facing, if I were him. But sentry and magic resistance? Sentry is just wasted, and magic resistance doesn't make any sense this early in the game. Also size 9 city with tons of unimproved tiles and no culture lol.

[Kyan]

Just wanted to apologise for disappearing until end of the month. Got two job interviews coming up so revising etc a lot. Krill has kindly agreed to handle the turns in my absence. Still totally up for this game and the new Clan one. Also, Bob you traitorous fiend..

[Krill]

What are you going to attack the Grigs with? Is Brian bringing something too?

Actually we're only attacking in a supporting role - part of the NAP with Brain was that we hit hit Grigori with a diversionary force.

Those are... interesting promotions on his hero axe. C I-V, sure, can't really object to that. Shock, okay although I'd hold off promoting until I knew just what I'd be facing, if I were him. But sentry and magic resistance? Sentry is just wasted, and magic resistance doesn't make any sense this early in the game. Also size 9 city with tons of unimproved tiles and no culture lol.

I never got the point of adventurers as melee units.

[uberfish]

I never got the point of adventurers as melee units.

Adventurer Warriors/Axes/Hunters are powerful early on because Heroic Strength/Defence adds +40-50% to their base strength which is multiplicative with the +100% for Combat 5.

[Krill]

As Hunters, sure, they can be really useful at clearing away animals that you otherwise would have difficulty with and you can get free units. But warriors/axes? I suppose if you are going to rush someone, but then that isn't a sure thing with different sets of problems, and there are better rushers out there.