Renadomly Crazed units? Bug or feature?

[BlakeTheDrake]

Short version: Whenever I produce a unit in my capital city, even if it's a theoretical noncombatant like a Diciple-unit, there's chance it will start with the Crazed and Enraged promotions, and immediately run off to pick a fight with the nearest barbarian.

I don't understand why it's happening. Is it some kind of hidden 'feature' applied by some of the choices I've made, or a bug? If it's a feature, please tell me there's some way to get rid of it...

To answer a few obvious questions: Yes, I've got Overlords as my State Religion. Yes, there's an Asylum in most of my cities, for the research-bonus. (I tried making a few Lunatics, but Crazed was just too much of a handicap - they'd usually just run off and get themselves killed by some heavily-fortified Longbowman.)

So, is it a bug? If not, can I remove this effect by changing religions, or by demolishing the Asylum? It's REALLY interfering with my attempts to build up an army for the upcoming war with the elves...

EDIT: ...I really wish there was a way to edit the title. Damn typos...

 

[DaveGold]

Units produced by Asylums can randomly be mad. Simple as that. My advice - specialize your cities into research/asylum cities and military cities. Since it's too late in your game you could try producing more stygian guards as they can't go mad, they're demonic already. Fortunately, you can get a lot done with just stygian guards, cultists, boats, and catapults.

 

[BlakeTheDrake]

Figured it was somethin' like that... eesh. Wish there'd been a warning-label on that Asylum, then I never would've built it... well, at least not in my main city.

Ah well, lesson learned. Still managed to pull through with a Tower of Mastery victory. Just had to pull enough sane troops together to seize the Way of Leaves holy-city from the Hippus and get that last Nature Mana I needed. I landed on their shores with my mostly-sane army, and two things happened in rapid succession: First I found out why everybody hates the Hippus, and then I found out why everybody hates Baron "I'm a goddamn werewolf" Halfmorn. Fortunately, Halfmorn was on my side. My initial invasion-force got nearly wiped out by a horde of horse-archers and hunters, but then the equilibrium shifted, and the Hippus homeland was overrun by an ever-escalating flood of bloodthirsty werewolves. While the Hippus was busy looking for trees to climb, I used the Nature-mana from the Leaves 'Cathedral' (I brought my own Prophet) to build the Tower of Transmutation, switched my entire output to gold, and started building the Tower of Mastery in my capital. A few turns later, I was able to 'hurry' the production to the tune of 15.000 gold, and the game was over. Nobody expects a band of pirates to win through on sheer arcane power...

...eh, I guess that was more information than anyone really wanted to know. My apologies, I tend to ramble on sometimes. Enough said, on my next play, I think I'll pick someone Agnostic and steer clear of the Octopus Overlords...

 

[Calavente]

well 10% chance (any living unit) becoming enraged or crazed after being born in a city with asylum.

IIRC, I read once that crazed (or enraged) could be "removed" if an adept use "loyalty" on the crazed unit.
But I can't remember :
1) does it effectlively works in current version ?
2) does it works for crazed or for enraged ?

 

[BlakeTheDrake]

I loaded up my post-Mastery save and experimented a bit. Cast Loyalty both on a Crazed-but-currently-calm and an Enraged unit, to no effect. So the answer is:

1) No.
2) No.

If there's any present 'effect' of Loyalty, it would have to be preventive - as in, it prevents a Crazed unit from going Enraged. And I don't have the patience to test THAT out - you'll have to ask a code-diver.

 

[Calavente]

well.
I read about it somewhere.
maybe it's in WM or Orbis or RifE... or maybe even in a former version of FFH or of those modmod
sorry for the false hope

 

[UncleJJ]

The asylum is a complicated building that I have mixed feeling towards. The +15% and 1 GPP are very nice even if the cost (150 hammers) is a bit steep. But as the OP has found there is a severe Klux (the 10% chance of a crazed living unit) that spoils these benefits, unless carefully handled. You need to be careful where an asylum is built.

There are ways around the klux in some cities you want to use to build up your military units. If you want to use the Lunatic then the asylum is required, but I've never really found the Lunatic to be a particularly useful unit as an early champion replacement. I just can't handle powerful and expensive units disappearing and doing-their-own-thing, just when you need them to do something critical.

Other ways round the problem of crazed units is to build units that are not affected and that includes catapults, and all types of ships. I do that quite often in coastal cities where I want to run several specialists (making the 1 GPP from the asylum useful).

You can also build the Drown (90 hammers for an Undead axeman that waterwalks and is vulnerable to fire) and the superb Stygian Guard (120 hammers for Demon champion with waterwalking). I build some Drowns before Fanaticism is researched and then upgrade them to Stygian Guards (with fire vulnerability but that doesn't matter usually) for about 80 gold each. That is a way to get a big stack of Stygians quickly and cost effectively. You need to stick with OO to build Drowns and Stygians and to upgrade them and to have Temple of the Overlords.

 

[DaveGold]

Loyalty used to have an effect on madness but was changed a few patches ago. I suspect that fanatics and loyalty provided excessive reward for the work required.

 

[Jarrema]

You can also build the Drown (90 hammers for an Undead axeman that waterwalks and is vulnerable to fire) and the superb Stygian Guard (120 hammers for Demon champion with waterwalking). I build some Drowns before Fanaticism is researched and then upgrade them to Stygian Guards (with fire vulnerability but that doesn't matter usually) for about 80 gold each. That is a way to get a big stack of Stygians quickly and cost effectively. You need to stick with OO to build Drowns and Stygians and to upgrade them and to have Temple of the Overlords.

I prefer to drown my warriors, builded in small cities
and then upgrading them to stygians

 

[UncleJJ]

I prefer to drown my warriors, builded in small cities
and then upgrading them to stygians

Yes, that's an option but costs a bit more gold and it depends whether you have hammers or gold to spare. Building a Drown costs 90 hammers and doesn't seem such a good deal; but my key point is you can do that in a city with an asylum that can't build any other useful units (except a catapult) without the risk of it becoming crazed (the subject of this thread )


You have to pay 60 gold to upgrade your warrior to a Drown (which is a good deal) and then the another 65 gold to get a Stygian; and I think you can upgrade directly from warrior to Stygian if you have a Temple of the Overlords (IIRC). So by building the Drown rather than the warrior you use 65 extra hammers and save 60 gold. That compares favourably with building wealth which in FfH2 only gives 1 gold for 2 hammers. It is useful to do that before Stygians are available but not afterwards.

 

[BlakeTheDrake]

Hmm... all workable approaches to the problem... unfortunately, it doesn't work too well with my 'blitzkrieg' strategy. I need fast units to sweep through enemy territory before they can rally a defence - that means Horse Archers, Charriots, and Knights. (Only, when I was playing Lauans, it was Wartortles, which are less fast, but whatever, they're awesome.) I usually only assemble large groups of heavy infantry and artillery if I'm facing a heavily-fortified three-lines-of-units sorta city. And even then, I usually prefer to bring The Three Stooges for artillery-support, since they can upgrade to 2 Move like the rest of the infantry. Dragging cannons and catapults around slows an army down to a crawl, and I just don't have the patience for that...

I think I'll mostly just have to be careful to only place Asylums in cities that won't be military strongholds - same approach as the Prophecy of Armageddon when playing a non-Sheaim civ. (Why build it at all, then? Partially to stop anyone else from doing it, and partially because it impresses the Sheaim a lot and thus makes it easier to keep a peace with them 'till you're ready. Or 'till your tower is done, which-ever. )

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Enraged used to let you keep controlling the unit until it turned barbarian, which it was given a chance to do every turn. Loyalty suppressed that version. Doesn't work anymore though.

 

[BlakeTheDrake]

Enraged used to let you keep controlling the unit until it turned barbarian, which it was given a chance to do every turn. Loyalty suppressed that version. Doesn't work anymore though.

Ahh, it used to work like that? That explains the 'pedia descriptions of Ravenous Werewolves and Lunatics - I was wondering why those claimed that they might turn on you, when the worst they can do is get themselves killed.

Incidentally, the AI that controls Enraged units - is it affected by the AI level you've set in the game? Like, would Enraged units act more cleverly if you're playing on Deity than on Settler? 'cuz most of my Enraged units so far just seems to throw themselves at the nearest Archer-with-full-Fortification-behind-City-Walls, apparently jockeying for that <0.1% chance to win.

 

[Jarrema]

Difficulty level does nothing for the AI "cleverness". AI plays with the same intelligence at prince and at deity, unfortunately. Difference lays in bonuses for AI and penalties for human player at higher levels, and bonuses for human and penalties for AI at low levels.

btw, I believe, that enranged units should work this way - they attack first met unit, no matter what their chances are

 

[BlakeTheDrake]

btw, I believe, that enranged units should work this way - they attack first met unit, no matter what their chances are

Yeah, I believe so too. It's when they run past several unfortified units in the field, workers and cavalry alike, while beelining for the nearest fortified city, that I get a tad annoyed.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Ah, they changed that, did they? When I still played FfH a lot ravenous werewolves would never attack a city if they could see any other option. So I would blast a city's defenders with magic, clean up all the longbowmen and such with my best units, then turn Duin loose on the weaklings and watch the 3 ravenous werewolves run off to fight some goddamn elephant in the ass end of my territory or something instead of tearing into the weakened city.

 

[BlakeTheDrake]

Heh, yeah, I guess THAT isn't much better... still, in my case, they often just ignore a weakened city to run over and attack the untouched one next to it. Seems like most of the time, my ravers are less 'enraged' and more 'suicidal'. I suppose it may just be a random-chance thing - I've known for a while that the RNG hates my guts.

 

[avalonnn]

I find (using werewolves) that sometimes the werewolf were lose the enraged by attacking something like a worker -- a nice freebie.

I have the same issue as OP with the Asylum and only place them in some cities.

 

[MrMestopheles]

*lol* Had a warrior which turned into a mutated crazed sceleton warrior through random event and graveyard exploration. He then killed Shelba ( I think it's her name ) all alone, gaining like 80 xp, haha. But then the Red Dragon settled next to my capital, and my mighty skeleton warrior went into a suicidal desaster. :S