Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

An interesting idea, but it won't play out in a real game. All the other player has to do is wipe you out and then your dominion vanishes, to be quickly replaced by thier own. The only nations that have dominion which makes invasion a serious pain are the pop-killers / insanity ones.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

But that doesn't support 'refuting common wisdom on scales'. It's obviously possible to win with any scales and if you have enough people you'll find some who have won/done well with total garbage scales. It's essentially just the mirror image of the 'everyone uses X therefore it must be the best' argument and hence it's just as silly.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

The biggest problem is that there are some nations that can afford goods scales and other can't. Especially it is true about "free 150 points nation" which do not need awake pretender. Some nations are lucky to have great expansion early and great game later.

Other ones just need to do something to survive first 2 years. So they need to waste [yes, waste] 150 points to get awake pretender. And that is almost 4 scales and not cheap SC chassis. You have to make sacrifices. And even if you are resource heavy nation productivity is the least painful one. You use your SC to conquer provinces around capitol. You get good land - you get nice resources. If you get bad ones - well, you'd be doomed with prod3 too.

If all nations had viable early-game expansion options then awake SC pretender would be really a choice for those that want to get few more provinces in exchange for scales.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

On the other hand, all your troops and mages have +2 encumberance in Cold 3, while cold-resistant opponents (Jotun, Caelum, undead, LA Atlantis and perhaps few more) won't. It's only when you are at full Cold 3, of course, so not all the time.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

But there is a difference here. If you ran a poll, and 90% of the experienced players ran Order3 in their MP games, and ran another poll to find that 80% of the winners had Order3, then it could be argued that NOT taking Order3 is twice as good as taking it, in a well arranged strategy.

Obviously, accurate polling on this subject can't be attained, because you reasonably have to cull out the really newbie players who are learning MP and simply will NOT ever win a real war against another human in that particular game - their scale choices are irrelevant because there are other factors determining their chance (or lack thereof) of success.

My argument though is that I think O3 is SO prevalent, that you might be surprised to find a disparity between the use of that scale in practice, and the use of other scales in success.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

MaxWilson - you've got balls! Taking misfortune-3 over sloth-3? I would never take Misfortune-3 under any circumstances, ever. It is a horrible, horrible scale.. Maybe I lack testicular fortitude, but the prospect of straight up losing the game by turn 2 without any interference by an enemy player is too much for me to take.

Sloth, you can get around it, and you will pretty much forget about it by turn 30 or so. Maybe I am just cursed by fate, but Misfortune haunts me and causes the doom of my nation. Even if it doesn't, I hate just sitting and waiting for the hammer of the gods to fall on my head.

Misfortune-1 or even 2 can be offset by Order, but there's a whole set of extra "Events of Doom" reserved for the brave souls who attempt Misfortune-3.

Maybe that's just me. But I honestly think that Misfortune-3 is far worse than Turmoil-3. I'd much rather be able to plan around a crappy economy (but one that is consistently crappy) and be pleasantly surprised when I get that +500 gold windfall event, than have a great economy that I try to plan around, only to have it destroyed by numerous evil events.

Edit: I think some people greatly underestimate the effects of Misfortune, and blame their personal Misfortune as a player when they are struck by bad events in-game. The truth is, you -give yourself- these bad events by taking Misfortune! You have no one to blame but yourself. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

At least if you lose the game outright on turn 2, it's over and you can start another one.

If you're handicapped the entire game, it's a long slow slog to your lose.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

Just to add some little facts instead of speaking about theoriminions...

As far as Order 3 goes, run the following test :
Common setting : start with 9 provinces, awake god.
Setting for test 1 : order 3.
Setting for test 2 : luck 3 turmoil 3.

Just wait for 30 turns without moving and see what you get... some people are going to be surprised.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

CUnknown,

I habitually take Misfortune-3 along with the other scales being pretty good. The only time I have ever had seriously game-killing events was during a brief period when I was experimenting with Death scales. Under Growth, Misfortune has never been a real problem even if I'm sometimes curious what heroes I'm missing out on.

I can certainly imagine that some people would prefer to take Sloth, but I wouldn't. I like Prod. Bear in mind that I play SP.

-Max

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

You were just lucky. Misfortune 3 kills people in MP games. Of course someone needs to come and take their lands, but that is just finishing what was done by misfortune scale [yes, it happened to me with MA R'lyeh and Order 3 Misf3 and I have seen other people getting killed that way]. The worst things are cumulated unrest events in capitol.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

That test doesn't make a lot of sense to me. 9 provinces is not the average size of a dom3 'nation'. It doesn't factor in the difference in the early game. It isn't fair in that order 3 costs points whereas turmoil 3 luck 3 doesn't. It ignores a major disadvantage of luck turmoil (that it doesn't scale to large territories) and ignores a major advantage (that early gold event that lets you double your expansion rate).

I just don't see what it really tells us.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

It tells me you haven't run the test. And try to refute facts with theoryminions.

I did run that test. What it tells me is that the average gold given with such as test rivals the gold gotten with order 3, and that you get a lot more gems too.

The link to the test is in the other thread about luck.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

No, I dont agree. I almost always take Order 3, Misfortune 2/3 in every game I play. There is only a *very* short period in the game where misfortune is actually dangerous rather than a nuisance. Only turn 1, 2, and perhaps 3 are the truly dangerous ones for a Misfortune player. Beyond that, you have enough provinces that the chance of anything terrible happening to your capital drops off to practically nothing.

IMO, the only reason not to take Misfortune is if you really want your nations Heroes.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

Why would I run a test I see as essentially flawed in application to this thread? Besides I'm not refuting the results you posted in the other thread. Just the conclusions you draw from the test.

You don't seem to have actually read the post of mine you quoted.

But that's ok judging from your response I don't have any interest in debating anything with you.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

Ironhawk:

Yes, first 1-4 turns are really a problem. In that R'lyeh case I had 120 unrest in my capitol from events.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

I think the point is that Turmoil/Luck can come near Order in gold income, even though it costs 120 less points, and comes with all the perks of Luck.

I know that the test if flawed. It's the only test that is easy to run, though, and that's why I have run it (or similar ones) and I think that's why others have done the same. If I can bother, I could modify my test map so that two nations start the game own equal, unconnected areas of about fourty provinces, temples in all provinces. It would only provide two samples at a time, so generating data would be very slow and very boring.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

Well, I take Order-3, Misfortune-2 quite a lot myself. It's just that Misfortune-3 scale in particular that is a killer for me. I just don't think the 40 points are worth the extra chance of catastrophic doom.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

The test is flawed as far as trying to extrapolate the long term benefits yes, but the more "long term" you try to look, the more static your situation becomes. We'll take a quick example, between an O3/S3 nation starting with 428 gold income and 44 resources, as compared to a T3/P3 nation starting with 310 gold income and 116 resources. Regardless of later options, the beginning of the game will be shaped by the dynamic of this balance, and how it relates to indy strength and other factors. I think it could be argued that most non-bless nations (and some bless, as well) are forced to make highly inferior troops at game start with such low resource income at the capital. For the same gold cost, they get to upgrade to much more durable troops, and can produce a very low attrition indie clearing force in less turns, that requires less upkeep.

Sure, it can be argued that a strategy like this will generally leave you overextended, with a small economy compared to your massive size. Yes and no, because you must remember that not only do you produce your elite heavy infantry much more quickly than the Sloth player, but with the huge resource income, you can cherry pick indies to get what you need in times of crisis. This perspective holds especially true for some bless nations with non-cap sacreds who may not swing 6 points on both scales, but who could potentially benefit from leaving the scales even. I would be willing to argue that even scales can be leveraged to even more strategic benefit, as you will have no glaring weaknesses.

I will wholeheartedly agree that Order is an easier scale to maximize in your strategy, but I am such a fan of the "luck" factor that for a long period after I got Dom3, I went T3/P3/L3 with almost every nation (didn't know what I needed for a good SC, or to work a bless strat, so I mostly used troops). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif I'll tell you, I sure miss the days of virtually 0 barbarian attacks..... It's easy to overlook how much of a dent those can make in the first year economy. When I take Misf2-3, on my faster starts I often end up with 1 army that could be working my borders, but is instead stuck running around my interior, mopping up barbs/villians/knights/trogs/etc.

Also, much of a big deal is made about these initial lab burning down events and such. How painful is it when as an aquatic race you have a thief "steal some of your magic gems" and lose like half your water gems a turn or two before you get Tiamat? How about the temples and under construction castles that are occasionally lost when there is a random event that makes you lose the province?

Order really is the late game winner, not the early game builder or the mid game developer. It helps with those phases of the game, but early has far more factors in play than brute cash flow (and what it can and can NOT provide for your nation), and mid is more defined by Magic, and its exploitation pushing you ahead of the competition one useful spell at a time. But looking at it that way, is suggesting that the vast majority of players are not looking for gaining a decisive advantage in the early game most of the time, but would rather have a guaranteed modicum of early performance, and then rely on diplomacy to survive to the late game, where their actual strategy unfolds.

I think I'm going to set up a poll, to see the difference in scales that someone takes when they are rushing to make a kill as early in the game as possible. (may be worthwhile to note that a single 30000 pop capital should net you as much gold as six provinces averaging 5000 pop apiece, plus the admin bonus, plus the castle to build troops in, plus the lab, plus the gem income - not to mention it eliminates a nearby rival, potentially giving you more room to grow afterwards). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

I couldn't have said it myself any better... Now, I wish that 9 provinces times 30 turns meant the same amount of events that 270 provinces in a single turn does. For some reason, many people seem to believe there is a cap number of events... and that it doesn't scale because of this. Probably because there is a cap.

Just removing that cap would make turmoil / luck and order about equal.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

I was specifically thinking of heavy death scales here. The population loss from death coupled with the pop killing events, even with luck 3, will significantly reduce your population pretty quickly.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

Man, I am getting tired head on this topic. Can't we just fight it out? I'll stick with Order 3 Misfortune 2.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

I've been reading this thread, watching ppl beat the dead horse, rez it and beat it some more; wondering when they would start talking about something different. I did learn some things about opinion on Order/Turm and Luck/Mistfort; but in the end nothing said was really something I didn't already know, and didn't see anything that was going to change the way I think about scale design. I tried starting a convo about heat/cold analysis, but only one person bothered to comment. I was going to comment back, but it felt pointless because the convo would simply get buried underneath piles of dead horses.

its nice to see someone else feels the same way.

but hey!!

on heat/cold, like Endo said, it causes encumbrance. I think the upside to taking cold3 is worth it. you have a harder time with cold resist nations, but they would be using Murdering Winter anyway, and you have an easier time with cold-blood nations, and I do not think there is a heat version of MurdWinter.

In addition, you can build a strat around the temp scales. If you have a nation with chaff-type units and/or light armor/encumbrance units available, the encumbrance aint such a drawback. And you would benefit in battle against players who are depending on fewer, but heavier armored and robust, units. It affects everyone on the battlefield, and provides just one more way to stack the deck in your favor by designing around it.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

I'm sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about.

Think of it like this: Growth gives a static precentage bonus to population, every turn. To test Growth scale, you can run a test with 9 provinces for 30 turns, or a test with 270 provinces for 1 turn. The results will be different.

Growth/Death affect late game more than early game. Production's main effect, more resources, is static but importance of resources goes down as more magic is researched. Order is good, but Production or at least non--Sloth, non-Misfortune may be better in early game for some nations.

Why, then, should Luck's bonus be static? Luck is random, but it CAN give huge bonus in the early game, much bigger than Order, and the rare events where everything goes right that are game-changing (getting a single path-booster may enable you to forge more of them, especially for Air or Death, and sometimes you get Staff of Elemental Mastery or a Ring of Sorcery)... But Luck can also give militia, or a lab in an unimportant province or as many gems as you get from your capital every turn, and these are useless in early, middle AND late game.


If more events happened, you would get more actually good events, and more actually pretty useless events. It would be BORING to read through them, every turn. IMO, a better solution would be to directly increase the quality of events in middle/late game, not their quantity.


Giving all nations some national troops and restricting labs to provinces with recruitable mages would help. Adding in events that are too good for early game would help a lot. Whether they are limited by the number of provinces you own, amount of research you have done, or the availability of a spesific unit (an ancient mage's soul being bound in one of your mechanical men, giving you air/fire/nature mage), it doesn't matter.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

The problem for me isn't the cap itself but bad events "stealing" event slots when your scales aren't maxed everywhere, so you need a very strong dominion or to be turtling to have reliable effects.

It's very rare to have luck 3 everywhere when you are expanding, you often have provinces with luck 0-2, or even worse with your turmoil scale but not luck (or with the misfortune of a neighbour). Then you may get an half of bad events, replacing same number of good ones, and these events can nullify the positive effect of the scale.

Order of course only give bonus where the scale has been developped, but provinces without order don't steal the income bonus of provinces having it.

Tests don't represent that well, as they are usually based on strong dominion + temples everywhere + no expansion.

I think the best way to reevaluate luck scale would be to check provinces by decreasing order of local luck (so you'd get events in provinces with low/negative luck scale only if the total number of events of your lucky provinces didn't have reached the event cap).

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

edit: source http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...;Number=612131

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

I should be really unlucky if it's the real mechanic.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

You don't know what you're talking about. What you just did was a perfect example of a strawman argument : the events you get from luck or misfortune from turn n do not affect turn n+1. Growth from turn n affects turn n + 1, therefore as you justly said, you can't compare growth that way. But you can compare luck effects since they are independant from one turn to the next. Same with order and production (and negative counterpart).

That's the reason why the only difference between testing luck for 30 turns on 9 provinces and testing luck in 270 province is the cap limitation for events... which should be gone.

Your ideas are interesting though, but a better solution would be to group the events :
Example : your followers found some water gem in provinceA, fire gem in provinceB instead of 2 messages. Even more since it doesn't matter where the gems are found.

Same for gold : it could be summed. For the loss of gold, it should also be. I always found strange that losing 200 gold in a province that gives 14 gold result in a loss of 14 gold...

Luck should scale with territory since more territory means more chances for luck to happen.

And, as far as militia events being useless, they've been mostly replaced by national troops events AFAIK... so your wish has been heard.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

Luck does scale with territory, but only until you reach the event cap.

Militia events are still pretty common and in some cases the national troop events are just as bad anyway.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

That's not true at all. Indy attacks on turn n affect turn n+1 very obviously: you still don't have the province, unless you send an army to retake it. Buildings destroyed by an event remain destroyed until you rebuild them. Population killing events have a persistent effect just like death scale's (only more dramatic). Free buildings, extra mines, and many other luck events have persistent good effects. Unrest events on turn n will affect your tax revenue - if you use autotax, it will automatically cut taxes to reduce the unrest, and if you don't, you will have to manually reduce taxes, patrol, or reduce unrest some other way in order to get your tax revenue back.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

Kasnavada, I hope you don't have a career as a scientist.....


Your 9 prov * 30 turns = 270 provinces for 1 turn is fatally flawed. You have been told repeatedly that events cap out. It's hard to say definitively if it's 4 or 5 or even 6 - that's not the point. The point is that even if it's 6, and even if you only reliably got 2 per turn with 9 provinces, your test would result in 60 events with the 9 province test, and 6 events in the 270 province test. So to clarify, you are theoretically (though not in any way -accurately-) extrapolating the effects of Order, you are getting 10x the Luck effect on the empire that is 1/30 the size.


Just.. stop.. arguing.. please. <3

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

wow...

you guys are worse than social scientists and even historians; and historians love to debate, and they get mean man.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

@Jim,

On the other hand, somebody probably SHOULD run the luck test on more than 9 provinces, just so we get some quantitative idea of what we're dealing with. I'll try to get to it this week. If I do so, Kasnavada will be satisfied and everyone will benefit.

-Max

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

Ive found it fairly playable to take negative luck with nations who have plus-luck gods and units available, and low domain.

Ive also found it playable to take low production with nations where Im concentrating on non-armored units (such as Pangaea). And low growth or high temperature for nations with lots of nature magic.

Usually not the most extreme settings +3/-3. Those I rarely use. But then again thats probably what +3/-3 should be.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

interesting. why is nature magic a contingent for extreme temps? for the spell relief? do the "resist" spells (cold and fire) reduce or eliminate the encumbrance effect of temp scales?

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

Supply. Nature mitigates supply issues--he's not talking about the loss of income or encumbrance penalties.

-Max

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

What are these plus-luck units of which you speak Gandalf?

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

Doesn't the Lady of Luck add luck to the province she's in? I thought she did.

-Max

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

There are also units which prevent bad events from occurring for the province they are in.

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

Please. That's not what I was saying. I tried to argue that different scales have different effects on different stages of the game, and that Luck doesn't have to be as powerful in late game as it is in the early game. I was probably acting a bit harsh, and I'm sorry for that.


You have to consider the feasibility of something being added to the game. I doubt events can be easily combined into few messages, especially when so many events give you several different types of things. The only combined message I know of is for hunting blood slaves in a single province.

I don't have anything against raising the event cap, by the way. Scaling the number linearly (i.e. if you get max 3 events with 12 provinces, you get max 9 events with 36 provinces and max 12 events with 48 provinces) just wouldn't work well.It should scale much, much slower, such as 6 at 60 provinces, 7 at 100, 8 at 150. Why? As I said before, it would clutter the message view, and the events would lose what little special feeling they have. If the events would have to be grouped, wouldn't replacing them with better events be a better idea?


And about militia events - yes, many nations were given new events, but it's far from most. The actual line from the progress page reads:

* New militia events (mostly for uw nations).

Re: refuting common wisdom on scales everybody kno
 

of course. i reallized this as I was at work, having a "dom strategy" moment.

if you take cold3 order2 and growth1, you will gain net income bonus (even more so considering random temp flucs), and halfway reduce the supply issue; the growth over time will work out to even more income. I've never encountered supply issues, but I think that is my playstyle, as I prefer to use smaller armies with thugs and SCs.

If you can manage the supply somehow (like with nature mages), then large cheap armies really benefit from the encumbrance penalty, as the individual units would die before it had any effect anyway, and the opposing army will tire themselves out on it.

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...