Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

Yeah, but going up against Jotunheim or Caelum when *you* have Cold-3 and aren't even a cold-loving nation (and maybe not even a water magic using one) would be really harsh. Even in your dominion you'd be in their preferred climate.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

one question,

typically, a nation can never benefit from positive scales of enemy dominion, although they suffer from the negative ones. is this so with temp scales and cold loving nations?

and two points,

I've witnessed most players playing a cold loving nation shoot for wolven winter in early game; and use it liberally. Its easy to use and accessible. So the fact that your dominion is one they like is not as much a disadvantage, and still well worth the upside. Warm loving nations have no Wolven Winter and will be doubly screwed (and triply screwed if they are cold blood) by a cold3 dominion.

Also, it provides just one more way to screw peoples incomes in your dominion. You can use the cold3 to fund order3, giving you an overall gain in income, plus ground to dip into the misfortune scale a little for some points. The enemy though will suffer the income and misfortune, with no offset from order. If you are playing a nation that can operate fine even with a Sloth scale, you really have a way to make peoples lands next to useless.

the contingent:

of course, this requires building around; but that's the point. The temp scales provide another means of tweaking your strategy, making it specialized towards your build in a way that you will be able and prepared to deal with but that your enemy won't. all this, and you even get design points for taking it; double bonus.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

No, it's not like that with temp scales. Or rather, there is no such thing as positive temp scales, simply variation on the continuum where your "neutral" scale lies.

I agree that temp scales are not a bad point sink.

-Max

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

Considering heat/cold I think that it should mainly depend on your nation AND your opposition. While cold/heat-loving nations are completely clear, we can see also that if you have good access to water spells and no such to fire, you should probably take at least 1 cold and vice versa. At the same time, if you see that your most dangerous opponents would be, for example, Abyssia - or cold-blooded C'tis, you should think about Cold, and if it's LA Atlantis, think about Heat. Of course, it's not always clear which opponents are most dangerous, but at least that's something to work with...