Re: Death scale on Abyssia
 

Perhaps you aren't maximizing the benefits of good luck, but you are minimizing the damage of bad luck, which - particularly with a Death scale - can be much more useful.

Re: Death scale on Abyssia
 

I was under the impression that many of the D3 events were also tied to misfortune scales, so taking L3 (or just not misfortune) would be some protection anyway.

Pity Abyssia has no fortune tellers I guess.

In any case, D3O3 seems a bad combo just due to the fact that they cancel the benefits of each other out, especailly later in the game, and especially for a blood nation.

Well I suppose we'll need some actual empirical evidence though ;)

I should note that I've played alot of LA Ulm with T3L3 (though no death) and not had much of an issue with negative events. However, LAUlm does have fortune tellers, but I have them concentrated in only a few provinces anyway.

Re: Death scale on Abyssia
 

While you get less events overall with Order+Luck, I'm not so sure it "minimizes" the benefits of a Luck scale. Granted, you are less likely to strike it rich early in the game, but the synergy simply matures later in the game - and there is a synergy.

I fought a D3 Abysia a few games ago, and it was hell. Of course, I was Caelum (under other circumstances, Caelum is devastating to Abysia), so H3+D3 meant that many provinces have 10-20 supply. With no national access to Nature, all my little birdies were diseased by the time I had taken just a handful of territories. So I think that the disincentive towards attacking Abysia, as well as the protection afforded from counter attacks (he was the aggressor, I annihilated his main force, and then fell apart in his Dominion), are factors that shouldn't be discounted.

Ironically, I think that the D3 with Abysia requires a specific strategy, involving high starting Dominion, rapid Dominion pushing early in the game, and then a second year rush of your most likely neighbor. If you can manage a build and a strategy that has you annex another capital very early on, then I think you find that those creation points can and should pay off in other areas. Obviously G3 is awesome for concerted Blood hunting, but the difference in D3 from G3 is 240 points, which is (almost) the difference between Imprisoned and Awake, for example.

Also bear in mind, 2D is relatively slow pop loss, and shields you from the worst of the negative events, while affording you most of the benefit of a Death scale. Even those who have Nature magic, will find that they have to invest a sizable amount of gems into keeping their forces supplied in your Dominion, or starve.

Re: Death scale on Abyssia
 

I think the O/L benefits would be different depending on map size (assuming you do well enough to get to 10%+ of a bigger map).

The real question though is do the good events benefit you more than the bad events hurt you. If the answer is yes, then you DO NOT want order, you want as many events as you can get your hands on. If the answer is no, then you do not want luck.

T3D3H3 is +360 points. Even if you don't take P or M you still wind up with +240, which is quite a pile to give you flexibility with bless or awake, or whatever else you want to spend on.

My MP experience is slim, and I tend to not play SP into the 4th year, so I don't know the complete ramifications of some of these choices for mid/late game. My limited experience with L3 (and then up to T3, but no O) is that the negative events are usually much less sever than the good, so I don't see why I would want to minimize my chances at getting a full 3 (or more when larger) events per turn.

Re: Death scale on Abyssia
 

With more than 20 provinces, Order won't normally stop you getting 3 random events per turn. And they'll be just as lucky as if you took Turmoil. Death will interfere with gold production by the late game, true. But by then you're generally more concerned with gem income anyway.

Re: Death scale on Abyssia
 

I have not found this to be the case, even with T3L3. Perhaps its bad luck/small sample size though.

Re: Death scale on Abyssia
 

Actually, the question you should ask about Order and Luck might rather be "do I need gold?". Order provides more steady flow of gold than Luck. Luck tends to get closer in time, but since there's less money in the beginning Luck nations might not HAVE the time, unless they can survive with less gold than their opponents.
You have to give luck time, because the minor benefits (few gems you can't use yet, PD in provinces you aren't fighting in ATM) add up slowly, and because the big benefits happen rarely. Gems you can't use yet are minor when you get them, but once you research and use them, they become valuable. The gems your nation doesn't have mages for can also become valuable if you might get enough to empower or get access to the path some other way. In MP, trading can also be good. And sometimes you just luck out, like getting a path booster as a random item, or a castle in a good place, or even something as mundane as several mine events totalling into several hundred gp more, every turn.

Re: Death scale on Abyssia
 

Well yes, early game you will benefit more from order, but my contention is that gold (at any point in the game) is easier to come by, and easier to ration than 'luck' events.

Abyssia has a built in 75g per turn anyway (well depending on the age I guess).

In any event with rapid expansion (which Abyssia should be able to do on normal map settings) after your 1st turn 200% tax run you should be set for 3 turns (including turn 1) of max or near max recruiting.

Where you will likely stall is in getting up a 2nd fort early, or lab/temple, however, rapid expansion and an eye towards mid/late game are the gains.

Lets remember that while Abyssia has expensive troops, they also have a steep production cost, so it's difficult to build many in a turn anyway.

500g a turn (average) is not that difficult to generate with turmoil if you are willing to alchemize.

Re: Death scale on Abyssia
 

Do we know the probability for some generic random event occuring? Is it something like 10% chance in any one province with no modification from order or luck scales?

Re: Death scale on Abyssia
 

I have tried T3,S3,H3,D3,L3,M1 in many SP games b/c I want to learn via experiments whether this setup is competitive.
I got to these scales following this logic - D3 is thematic and also Abysia has some advantage in it (food and taxes) that doesn't apply to its enemies. Now if you take D3 it kind of takes the point out of O3 right?- so there goes T3. Now you take out order and have high turmoil so luck 3 is a no-brainer.
Anyway this doesn't hold, usually Abysia is off to an awful start- lacking income, receiving not beneficial events (PD and gems are not useful at the start of the game) and sometimes also bad events. Then comes the first winter and cuts through your old aged mages. I was unimpressed with these scales to say the least.

I'd keep the D3 but change to O3 and L-2. Yes income will dwindle, but at least at a known rate and if you expand (which steady flow of income early on will greatly help to do) you could get more income.

Now, had Abysia received access to early game low level fire summons spell that summons "soldier" level units (for creating armies for early expansion - what with lack of income and low resource is not possible) and some fortune telling the thematic setup I mentioned above would have been much better.
Usually those fire gems just keep piling b/c low level fire spells are quite awful. They are marginally good for complementary units (fire drake) but not for making armies.