Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

A few comments:

I prefer an order3, Mis2 approach. However, on some nations, a
Luck3, turmoil3, death3 (magic3) approach is equally viable.

Specifically, nations that have fortunetellers, or have chosen a fortune teller divinity.

If you build nothing but Fortuneteller (5) units in your capital, you will have %badevent = -100 by the time turn 10 winds around. (Which to my mind is when a lot of bad events get enabled).

I do not recall ever getting a plague event in such circumstances (ie., where the luck + fortuneteller >=100%).

As I recommended in the Mictlan thread, I don't recommend D3 scales for gold so much. I like them it will eventually open up the death path for you by the appearance of necromancers.

The Luck scale has the highest effects on Death and after that on magic. So if you are going to maximize your luck scale, you want to carefully manage these two scales to determine the type and quality of events you will get.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

While agreeing with chrispedersen in many respects,
- is clearly wrong. Each Fortuneteller has his/her own, independent chance to prevent bad events. So, even 10 (or 100) Fortunetellers won't prevent all bad events. But they'll prevent enough to make difference. Also, this reasoning works equally in case of Misfortune. Actually, I think that Luck vs. Order choice (when you don't have points for both, of course!) more depends on whether your nation is more gold- or gem-dependent. And this, in turn, on presence of good non-sacred units and on fortress types. Some also argue for Turmoil/Luck when you would bloodhunt extensively.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

@ Wrana - Please do not post absolutes about the game mechanics based on your own beliefs or theories without first testing to back them up. Since it is you who is clearly wrong on this occasion, and Chris Pedersen is correct (although his maths skills are a bit worrrying :))

The fortune teller ability has already been proven to stack, and a total of 100 does indeed prevent all bad events from happening (as the attached save file, which I posted ~2 years ago shows).

Posting false information about how specific game mechanics work (without first testing) only serves to confuse new players (and seasoned players for that matter)

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Nice to see you posting again Cal. You wanna test item bonuses on global dispels btw?

As for math ability.. accurate within the handwave precision I was talking about... Some events activate on turn 7, others earlier and later. 10% here or there is a quibble.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

I think the math bit was a reference to

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Can't say I have any plans to test the global mechanics for a while. IIRC how I tested it last year, shortly after being enlightened to the truth from a talk with Micah, it was something like this.... (not 100% I remember, as it was literally a five minute job)

Two N5 pretenders casting minimum Mother Oaks. First one casting it with a load of boosters (probably +6 from MLich with tree staff, twisty armour, three Misc), then having the second one try to overwrite the global without boosters. The extra 6 levels (so 30 bonus points at 5 per level) from the boosters should have made the global virtually immune to a base level overwrite, but it didn't, and since the random element on the global mechanic is only a drn, I thought it unlikely that a drn roll would have resulted in a 30+ score so often. So I concluded from that brief run-through that Micah was correct when telling me boosters are ignored for global bonus levels.


I suppose a drn roll could have thrown out a load of 30+ returns just to trick me, but for now I'll assume it didn't :)
Yep, Greg has it with regards my mattymatics reference. My decaying mental abilities are not yet degraded to a sufficient level where it can't spot that 5x10 is 50 and not 100 ;)


Also with regards the Fortune Teller ability, I should add that it does not stack with the Luck scale. ie. If you are getting +39% (+45% CBM) chance of good events from Luck 3, you still need a total of 100 Fortune Teller ability to stop bad events, as I'm pretty certain they are two separate mechanics. At least they appear to be. ie. You can not prevent all bad events by making-up the shortfall from the Luck scale bonus with a Fortune Teller total of 61 (55 CBM).

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

I'm pretty sure you're wrong.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

You can make a province immune to bad events with 100 total points of fortune telling ability, but it doesn't "shift" the even to a good event, it just nullifies it. This was shown in a statistically significant test elsewhere on the board.

Basically, your Luck scale operates independently, saying yes there is an event or no there is not and then selects an event from the list of possible events based on how your luck scale has been tipped.


Then when the event has been selected, if it is bad, the computer rolls dice to see if your fortune tellers successfully counter it based on a d100 versus the total fortunetelling skill in your province and if successful, no event occurs.

That's my understanding of event mechanics.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

We agree on a lot.
We agree the luck scale increases or decreases the chance of a luck event.

However, the luck scale also changes the chance if an event is good or not. At issue is whether the fortune teller ability stacks with luck scale.

My memory (old and infirm as it is) recalls that a jade emperor (66% fortune teller event) stacks with 45 % luck to yield no bad events in the province that he dwells.

I find it hard to believe that illwinter would invent two mechanisms to do the same thing.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

This is a dangerous assumption, since they have a history of having done with certain aspects of the game.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

They don't do the same thing at all.

Fortune teller prevents bad events *after* they are generated. (It also works against Baleful Star iirc, which Luck scales don't effect at all).

Luck scales biases the die roll when determining what event is generated. I believe that there is some list of all the events that could possibly be generated for your scales, ordered from 'best' to 'worst'. A die is rolled that determines which of these events happens. Luck/Misfortune biasses the die up or down the list.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

There are standard combinations:
O3M2: O3 is obvious why, M1 would be better but M2 still reasonable.M3 - too small probability to get heroes if any, and, the most important, with this build taking DEATH scale is very risky because you switch on some events like plague, which can be gamechanging if happened in your capital early turns.
But you will anyway take this combination if you do not benefit too much from turmoil like pangaea or gem income events, like Kailasa or you have dominion which kills your population, like LA Rleh and Ermor and order in a long run has no much sense for you as you are not going to have population.

If you play nations were you can afford taking Turmoil, you can generate much more points.

You usually take Turmoil 3 Luck 3. It is 40 points better then O3M2.It is one plus. The second plus - you can take a risk and take Death , even Death 3. Which would be VERY risky in first scenario. So you can potentially get 80-120 more points from death.(80 because with 03M2 you can still take D1 without fatal risks).
So you can generate 120-160 points more points which can be spend anywhere.

Some people like to invest it in Magic1 or Magic3. My favorite builds for some nations and some game settings include Drain 3.

I like T3S3L3D3 for some bless nations.

You get A LOT of points, and you can have awake sorceress , with research 30-40 from first turn (idea is taken from Baal'z helheim guide), and perfect sitesearcher later, with any kinds of bless you need. dominion usually will be low, so if you have a neigbour with high Dom , you should kill him faster then he domkilled you. But with yuor advantage in points and early research you are usually stronger then anyone around in early game.

As result your dominion is not very useful, it's minus.But it's weak,it's a plus. You build a castle where you find good enemy dominion (Magic1 or Magic3). And send your mages there (through flying boots or anything else).
Enemy magic dominion makes the land more magical, and it works for your mages very well. For free. Your first mages you produced in capital you use for expansion instead of researching almost from the very beginning, as you have good early research and in your dominion doing research with mages may be not the best idea,though sometime you do this as well.You also can forge items with mages.

O0L0 is a strange combination, I would never take that- you either need money critically from beginning , then you always take O3. Or, in very special cases (which are especially rare because its very popular to in MP to play with rich settings which make difference between order and turmoil even deeper) you take turmoil with luck. Maybe I would take O0L0 in case I would want to take death scale for points, but still needed money for early expansion (Order/misfortune is risky with death as we remember). But I don't remember a situation from real life I would do it.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Surprised to see people arguing over this instead of just spending the two minutes it takes to test it. And yet again my pet hate of someone making a claim about a game mechanic without any test data to back it up. Even worse in this instance as the test game I already provided showed the date required for this. As Misfortune 3 is -39% Luck, so 140 Fortune Teller ability would be needed if the Luck scale stacked with Fortune Teller ability, and not the 100 that is successfully preventing all bad events in the test game I posted.


Anyway, attached is yet another save file that shows, as I said, the Luck scale and Fortune Teller ability do not stack with each other as they are two separate mechanics. Which is as Verjigorm and Squirrelloid pointed out in more detail in their posts.

The save game attached shows a Luck 3 province (so 39%) plus a total of 70 Fortune Teller ability, for a total of 109. Yet as the message log shows, an Earthquake just occurred. Which I'm pretty sure we can all agree on is a bad event.

Could you give some more details please? Particulary about the nations, bless and ingame experience. The idea is interesting, but I can't tie some things together in my head:

1) Why sorceress? Great sage is cheaper and has a larger research bonus (if that's what this all is about).

2) You'll have really little money and resources, so your sacreds should be really cheap and naked, so Mictlans and MA Ermor are first nations coming to my mind.

3) It's really expensive to get domstr of a rainbow pretender above 6, which means no more then 6 cheap sacreds per turn. Will it be enough to get required critical mass fast enough for a rush?

4) Rainbow pretenders are good for taking multiple minor blesses, but getting a heavy bless with such a pretender is really expensive. With all the points from the negative scales you offer you can have either minor bless in many magic pathes or heavy bless in one path and minor blesses in couple of others (if I'm not mistaken, don't have access to the game right now to check). Will this bless be that effective so small ammount of cheap sacreds could roll over your closest neighbor fast enough and without heavy losses in the early game?

5) Wouldn't your dominion start to drag you down in midgame and later on? Researcher pretender is a good thing but Drain-3 would really slow down your research comparing to others at some point, and heavy turmoil and sloth would make hiring mages more difficult. I know money may come as a good event, but again they may not.

Don't get me wrong, I do not try to mock you, or play know-all. I really find the idea interesting, and want to learn more about particular ingame experience, and, perhaps, use it in my future games.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Perhaps he's looking to bless his commanders. This could make sense with Niefelheim (I've done a fairly successful run with T3 S3 C3 Death3 L3 Drain2 dormant pretender with a somewhat low dominion (I think it was 4).

The key was that my 500-a-pop giants could take on pretty much any indie province (we were playing with Indies set to 9). Sure I didn't get one every turn, but every 3rd turn was fine, and that would have been more if I didn't build some researchers early. For research (eventually) I build Skull Mentors (2-a-turn for...a very long time) from all the death sites my expansion netted me (after killing a neighbor), while I researched up the Alteration tree so my giants could quicken themselves (I didn't take a water bless).

I wouldn't recommend my exact strategy, even though I ended up winning through some tricky use of a few giants up front guarding hoards of indy necromancers that I got lucky to find, each with a shroud and a skull staff (E10 bless), so they could summon skeletons for a long time. And spamming Wolven Winter. At least 5 a turn, everywhere I was getting ready to attack or feared being attacked that was outside my dominion.

RadicalTurnip

Thanks, building heavily blessed jarls, while pretender researches buffs really does ring the bell. That could work.
Never played Niefel. :)

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

This might be a good place to mention that Nief needs a strat guide in the wiki. the only one there gets ridiculed (altho its not that bad if people will notice that its a solo guide, not an mp one)

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Nief doesn't need a strategy guide. A drunk monkey could play Nieflheim. I mean, unless you're going to follow Baalz (and he wrote a great alternative strategy guide for them, even if it isn't wikified yet), the strategy guide is simply summed up as follows:

E9N4+ bless, build giants.

What else do you need to know? (Ok, I prefer Baalz's choices, but he already wrote that guide).

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

I in no way consider myself good enough to write a strategy guide, I just got Dom III for Christmas, and am still playing around a lot with it. I would likely get eaten in a real MP game (I've only played with a group of up to 6 friends, and none of us have played any other MP Dominions besides each other).

Still, the E9 N4+ is pretty good for it...Nief, to me, is sorta a "See if we can kill them before they get counters" game, along with a slight "If I get way more territory, I can springboard into late-game before anyone else" kind of game. They feel weakest mid-game to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Squirrelloid,there are 2 reasons not to play E9N4:
1.Fun. It is always nice to play builds which ALSO work.
2.Niefelheim is a strong nation, but if it would be possible to have two Niefelheims and one would be with T3S3L3D3 build and another with standard, on normal game settings and 12 provinces per player map, I believe T3S3L3D3 would win. Nations with small sacreds or sacreds with 2 attacks , which benefit heavily from S9 or W9 or F9 or even A9 can benefit more. For Niefels you can add W6, + minor blesses or 1-3 points in paths which you don't have natural access through mages for sitesearching and summons.

If it would be possible to play "standard" niefel build and T3S3L3D3 niefel build on a map with 12 provinces, I think player with standard build would have less chances to survive.

So the question is not "is the standard build is good?" but in what situations T3S3L3D3 build is preferable, or does this build create enough power initially to cover longterm looses (some if them can be managed though).

WingedDog, as classical example with this build with enchantress (not sorceress :))can be Kailasa. Enchantress is good for strong or average E,A,S bless. Your sacreds are cheap, you can summon sacreds, bless benefits your sacred commanders.

As for great sage. I play only CBM. It's all about points. I like enchantress because is all most of my games I take E9, and enchantress has basic E and S points.E is the most popular 9 bless, S is good for lategame, for opening astral for some nations, S4-S6 bless is useful for any kind of sacreds, S9 is also not so bad, for such nations like Atlantis, Lanka (helps Lanka against tramplers as well!) and many small size sacreds.

And better bless, or better sitesearching abilities which gives you sitesearching path in paths you don't have natural access to, are more important then extra 5-10 points of research.

Any nation which can bet on summonable sacreds or sacred commander thugs is a good candidate.

As for little money and resources..If game settings are not too rich, and game fits to play with turmoil, the main minus of turmoil is a risk not to have enough income on early stage, when you NEED guaranteed income to buy commanders and sacreds each turn.
Ideally you should play test game to see what you can get and what Sloth you can afford.
As for money - it's a question of game settings, early heavy taxation of capital, and, of course, look if the nation you choose

As for domstr, I take 2-6 domstr. 2 is rarely, it's risky, and needs very heavy justification. But alive pretender compensate your early risks somehow, generating dominion from 1st turn.

As for using rainbow pretenders for level 9 bless..If you have at least 1 point n the path you want to be lvl 9, I believe it has a sense.

As for research - you will almost never research in magic negative land. You dominion is weaker then your neigbors, so you will usually have access to at least Magic-1 lands. And dues to faster expansion you will have more lands, more capitals, more gem income and more money. They should compensate lack of magic scale even if you are not very lucky with finding good magic land in a place, where you can produce mages or where you can transport them to without sacrificing too many turns on movement. But even transporting your mages to magic+ land can be not so bad, getting to account that you will have your mages on the border with one of your neighbors, creating a threat and peace of mind for thought about defense. You will ALWAYS have access to Drain-1-2 (which means magic minus 1) lands, which is already doesn't sound so frightening as drain 3.

As for dom 6 for early rush - 6 is definitely enough for most nation for early rush (especially in games where settings are not rich). If you can rely on thugs with 1-2 sacred bodyguards, you can live with lower, even very low dominion. Don't forget about early usage of your mages - with researching pretender you have early access to body etherial, destruction, wind guide and other early spells which will change a lot for your wars.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Its why I said pretty sure, rather than represent it as fact. I do try to distinguish. But thanks for the test = )

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Niefl with turmoil strikes me as a really bad idea because you really need cash early. Death is pretty sketchy too, since you want to run a blood economy later.

Don't get me wrong, I prefer Baalz's build, but Baalz's guide is all about ditching the bless for more lategame options, not about taking painful scales for a bigger bless.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

I don't say Niefelheim is a best nation fitting for turmoil, I absolutely agree. It's really expansive nation. I wouldn't do it either. I just explained how it also could work, but I agree that example is not the best for trying turmoil builds.I defenitely didn't try to make a new Niefelheim guide.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

you dont' get a magic bonus under enemy dominion.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

If you are going for a triple major bless 9x9y9z
a rainbow pretender can work;

You save 8x8x3 points,
versus the usual standard of the oracle which is saves you (6+7+8)*8 points, but would cost you 100 points for the extra 2 paths.

However, this is only true if you only need a relatively few sacred units, for the differential in dominion score starts to factor in.

ie., the oracle starts with 3 picks advantage in the number of sacreds, worth anywherefrom 21 to 24*7 points = 168 points.


Ie., what I'm trying to say, is in most cases an oracle or fountain of blood is a better choice for a pretender so long as the pretender has the paths you want and you want to use a 9/9/9 blessing.

That doesn't however take into account the utility of a rainbow pretender for site searching. Still generally if you have a triple bless, the goal is to get as many of these sacred warriors out there as you can- site searching becomes much less important.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Its easy to shoot holes in guides. But a guide doesnt have to be perfect for every game played by every person. Just a guide. As long as it avoids the pitfalls applicable to a nation its worth plugging into the hole. If it works for many people most of the time against average players, even better. IMHO

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Chrispedersen you are right, you don't get +, you only negate your -.In positive (and, probably,neutral) magical enemy dominion you don't have your drain effect as well(I don't know what's happening in negative enemy dominion, would be good to check). So, you just have 0 bonus which is still worth it, as it means you got 120 points for free. And it is still better then taking M1, which becomes very expencive (because taking M1 for 40, add 120 you've lost not taking drain = 160 ).

Actually my rule is if I have weak dominion , I'm always looking towards possibility to take Drain3. Drain 3 gives you 120 points, which is almost the price of having awake pretender instead of something between sleeping/imprisoned. But it's pretty beneficial in early game, and if you like early rushes, it's not bad at all. I think with very strong sacreds, like lanka you can also try drain 3 with sleeping pretender, to maximize your points and start research after the stage early expansion. Or even with imprisoned, if you can survive early game with no magic- just start researching in enemy dominion by usual mages.
If you got turmoil in this situation or just limited in $ by any other reason, you just can maximize hiring sacreds, ignoring standard for many 1 mage per turn rule. Your sacreds, blessed so heavily definitely will do much more than mages with early spells.

Hint: water nations , even with dominion 10, always have access to enemy dominion.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Mil,

I agree with you generally. I love to play "pocket dominion" its one of the fun things about mictlan, arco, and a few other nations. I did this strategy very effectively in NAV.

You get no benefit in neutral dominion either.

However, you don't need to have triple blessed lanka in order to rock with lanka.
I do consider drain with lanka, just to increase the mr vs banish.

You'd have a hard time convincing me that an awake pretender is worth more than a higher dominion score and better scales.

Essentially your power curve is number of sacreds you can pump out times the power of those sacreds. In terms of point buys, going to a Dom9 is always cheaper than going to magic path 9.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

I agree that Niefel is usually a huge candidate for Order over Turmoil, but I was trying a niche strategy, and it was on a medium map against 5 people (so a fairly small map), which meant that I had the game won within a few years. If anybody would have been focused on researching or figuring out how to beat my bless, they would have had an easy time with it, but everyone happened to be in-fighting, so my 2 30-giant armies steamrolled all the castles, and my 7+ thugs raiding into enemy territory bought me most of the other provinces.

I guess this got a bit off-topic, but what I was trying to say is that no pretender build is the best 100% of the time, there are niche uses for everything, even things which seem counter-productive sometimes.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

No pretender choice will be the best for all situations - but some pretender choices are optimal or near optimal, and will allow you to both maximize your positives and have a shot at winning the game.

Sub-optimal designs, conversely will lower your chances.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Unless of course you get deep into game theory and everyone is planning on playing against you. The the optimum choice is to pick a sub-optimal build that maximizes a different style of play.

But, that wasn't the case. I agree that certain pretender choices are sub-optimal (Sleeping pretender on LA Ermor?), and that a given pretender may be optimal or nearly optimal in many to most situations, but I don't think this is a game where one can play like in a vacuum, you have to look at your opponents and the situation.

I guess that's all pretty obvious stuff...I'm probably preaching to the choir, so to speak.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

It seems from today's independent test that you were right. Thank you for pointing out. I'm sorry but it was said to me by someone among old-timer players, so I assumed that it was true.
By the way, the same test also shown that total Fortuneteller 100 seems to prevent all bad events regardless of Misfortune. (Turm 3, Misf 3 - and only good events for 10-15 turns in several provinces).
Of course, my thesis about Fortuneteller being useful with both Luck and Misfortune still stands.
And, by the way, one current game where I have Misfortune 2 gave me 2 or 3 burned temples and 1 burned lab by the end of year 2. Are those who want to use Order/Misfortune strategy ready for such? ;)

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

"By the way, the same test also shown that total Fortuneteller 100 seems to prevent all bad events...in several provinces "

That's interesting..Does it mean that your can have fortunetellers only in your capital and they work on all your territory? If it is so, it would be a revolution in my valuation of fortunetellers.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Has anyone done any tests on whether fortune-telling can prevent bad events that were cast at you? Like Murdering Winter, or Volcanic eruption, or anything like that?

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

No, it just means that as soon as you have fortunetellers to a total of FT 100 in a province, it stops to get bad events regardless of Misft score. Several provinces just allow for better statistics (and make running hundreds of turns tests unnecessary).

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Unlikely as they are generated by different mechanism. You may test it, though. I'd advice using Debug mod.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Please give that old-timer player a slap from me :D

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

I'm afraid that would be physically impossible for some time. :)

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

To give up the scales of 3 order/2 misfortune that dominated mp when i used to play, I think the heroes should be pretty nifty/exciting when you actually get one. Not be old, and less useful than many commanders other nations can buy in their castles. Which is why i always play with Throne of heroes(Middle age only) or Worthy Heroes.

Aside from the heroes, nations that NEED gold for a good start to survive in mp can rarely rely take turmoil. the loss of income is just too much.

While many here will bash this strategy, I have taken 3 order/3luck in large mp games with good players and won. The theory being that even with 3 order once you get a decent size area you will get 2-3 events a turn anyway. This strategy should not be tried with every race. In those cases i took 3 sloth 2 drain to offset the scales.

If you have trouble surviving the start of mp games, having 3 luck/3 order is also not going to be much use to you. I also sleep(not imprison) a tough pretender for the extra points.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

I've heard Order-3 Luck-3 is a good combination, but that costs 160 points all by itself which presumes that you're going to take a less powerful pretender. I'm assuming you go Rainbow or Fountain with that?

With the Sloth-3 Drain-2 that would indicate your going to be looking for a strong research nation with crappy national units and the non-awake pretender also means you have to be able to survive early game... which leaves very few possibilites... I would be looking at Bogarus with an early rush to Spined Devils and a sleeping Fountain of Blood or a similar build with Mictlan.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Yes, I've seen it preached by Baalz for some nations. AFAIU, though, such a build requires quite tough, costly units, mostly non-sacred. And this I'd say precludes taking Sloth in most cases. Though costly castles, which also require Sloth, would offset it somewhat...
Would you give an example of such a nation? I can think only of elephantes (and exclude LA Arcos) and maybe Vans/Tuatha here... Pythium is too resources-dependent...

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Off the top of my head...

Any nation with skinshifters (including giant nations).
MA R'lyeh.
Yomi
Baalz shinuyama.
Mictlan
Monkeys

I could go on, but I think that's a good start :) All of those should work with heavy sloth.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

I would say that MA/LA Ermor could also handle it, but you probably just left them out because no one ever picks them. :(

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

I think both those nations are fine in strength.

I don't remember my usual LA - Ermor strat - I'd have to look it up - but by guess I would say the isuse isn't luck with la ermor, its order.

Since population is killed so rapidly, you benefit more from turmoil getting you luck events early, plus projected dominion.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

As chrispedersen said, the popkill effect of LA ermor (and the complete inability to buy mages other than indies) makes turmoil a real no brainer for them. I can't really imagine them not taking t3. MA ermor can probably handle it, yes, since shadow vestals should take you through the early game and then you'll be reanimating most of your troops. Mostly I didn't name ma ermor because I felt I could keep coming up with more examples ;)

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

With LA Ermor I usually take:

Turmoil-3 Sloth-3 Cold-3 Death-3 Luck-3 Magic-3 Dominion-10 Lich Queen or Rainbow Master Lich

I don't care about extra money because I pillage provinces to create corpses and get money that way. I don't need to hire or maintain troops, so very little upkeep, and my money is generally used to put up buildings, and the Luck events see to a good bit of that. The plague events create free corpses which is good because I can either Raven Feast them if I have air magic or raise them from the dead if I have priests nearby.

Before I would always take low dominion and then worry that my advancement wouldn't outpace by dominion spread and I was depending on Order to get money, but once I decided to just say "F! it" and go all balls on the nasty dominion, I was much happier, since it is both more thematic and interesting to play.

Mines always produce money, so you can jack the taxes up to 200% once all the people are dead (mining with ghouls ftw), "Mrrrhhhrhrhrrh!!!! Goooollld!!!", and pillaging expecially if you can get your hands on some Implementor Axes is really easy with Ermor--this in fact is the best use for crappy hordes of useless dead guys! They may suck at killing troops, but they sure don't suck against peasants! "Go ahead, eat dem brains, but make sure you dig through their pockets for spare change while your at it!"

I've never tried all-balls negative scales with MA Ermor, though... too much reliance on the Grand Thaumaturgs.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

well the race i actually played 3 order/3 luck and won with was ma pangaea. Gorgon.
drain helps their mr. My research sucked but i had a good bless on the white centaurs, used stealth armies, and a lot of blood.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Yes, forgot MA R'lyeh, thanks. Monkeys were covered under my elephant hypothesis. Mictlan maybe, but they use strong bless, so would probably be better with either Order or Luck (better with Luck, I think), especially as they usually use massed sacreds, so high Dominion is also good. Yomi - maybe, as their oni troops are resources-light.
About Baalz "antsy" Shinuyama I'll just point out that it uses CBM feature which would probably be removed in time (namely Size 1 for units which are both stronger and tougher than normal humans). And their other troops aren't light in resources at all.

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

Ko-oni? or the lovely goblins?

Re: Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.
 

If you ask about which Yomi troops are resource-light, yes, I meant oni in general. Goblins are cleverer and put some armor on. :)