Is this a bug?

[Afterburner]

In my last game, playing the Grigori, I had one of my Adventurers-turned-Dragon-Slayer get randomly mutated. One of the mutations was Rage. And he spent the next 200 turns aimlessly wandering through my empire, under the AI's control, until he finally ran into Stephano, who killed him.

I thought it was completely random, but I'm a n00b, so what do I know, right? Maybe someone zapped him. This game was started under patch "m", and finished under patch "n".

So I've started a new game under patch "n". Playing the Lanun, Tectonic Mediterranean map. I only have 4 cities so far. I am building up a small expeditionary force to go clear out a barbarian city near my territory. And one of the warrior units has developed a mutation. It wasn't there when he was completed. I promoted him to Combat I, then sent him to the rallying point. At some point after leaving my city, he got mutated and now has all kindsa crap on him. I've attached a screenshot.

The warriors in question are being built in Innsmouth. The mutated warrior has made a beeline to the rallying point. It has only been 4 turns since he was built, and he's never left my territory. I right-clicked on the rally point when the warrior was in the city. He hasn't stopped to investigate any lairs or pee on a treant or anything of the sort.

So...bug? Or feature?

 

[Blackmantle]

Sources of Mutation / Enragemaent / beeing crazed known to me:

Chaos Mana has a small chance of mutating each unit you build (2 or 3 %, cumulative for each Chaos Mana you have...) (that is likely the reason why your Lanun Warrior got mutated.)

Mutation spell (Chaos 2, unlikely the reason at least by yourselves. Thats something you should have noticed doing.)

Mutation from exploring a lair (that might very well be the source)

Chaos Mana-Flare event where you get the choice to mutate your unit (that might very well be the source)

Units built in a city with an asylum (OO unique building enabling the lunatics-unit and giving a relative research boost.) sometimes get built with crazed (unlikely in the grigori-game, very possible in your Lanun one...)

Enraged from Armageddon-Counter going 90+


To my knowledge there is no offensive form (if you don't coun't mutating an "allies" troops with your mages and vice versa that is...) to hand out a mutation. So zapping in by someone else at least seems unlikely if not impossible if you got a fiendly "ally" with chaos-mana and mages...


Its very easy to miss the thing from exploring a lair (the text is something along the lines of: "your unit found a basket of apples and ate one transforming it...") or the flare-event even when they come up.
Also you will never get notified if a chaos mage from another civ you got open borders with drops by for some fun fiddling around with your guys...
(the nice thing is that you can do that to the AI as well . But it has no big drawbacks from crazed / enraged obviously and Mutation is mostly positive overall. Especially if you have priests available for curing some of the ensuing conditions.)

Also there is a promotion which randomly gives and takes enraged (which directly translates AI controlled and very agressive).
Its called crazed (look it up in the promotion bar of your unit) and can be gained from all sources handing out enraged by mutation and taking it away. Which means passing control from you to the AI back and forth.

So for a short answer: Yes. Feature.
But an extremely annoying one in its current form in case of crazed (especially because it also affects heroes, world units noncombatants and greath people.). Enraged is not such a big deal for combat-units usually.

It only effects living ones though. Exploring lairs with nonliving units is a safe way in that regard (though not in many other respects...). The same counts for AC 90+ Nonliving units rule there...

Might be subject to change in the near future. Since currently there is absolutely no counter to crazed (which means most units under that condition are as good as dead, save the most powerful ones.). Enraged can only be countered by winning a fight.

Also Mutations can turn out very positive. So its kind of the "price" that is paid for going around mutating things deliberately.
No counter at all for crazed still sucks big time...

PS: Your welcome.

 

[Afterburner]

Sources of Mutation / Enragemaent / beeing crazed known to me:

Chaos Mana has a small chance of mutating each unit you build (2 or 3 %, cumulative for each Chaos Mana you have...)

That's probably it. The Lanun palace produces Chaos Mana.

Thanks!