Re: Misfortune 3 Death 3 scale
 

Turmoil + Misfortune sounds like a high probability of getting sieged by 100 barbarians or something turn 2, and not being able to do anything the rest of the game because you're stuck in your fort with insufficient forces and can't buy anything. Followed shortly by your lab getting destroyed so you can't do research, and your temple not too long after. Ie, unplayable. I've even seen it happen to the AI in SP games! Mf is risky enough without adding turmoil to it!

Mf3D3 sounds like perpetual plague events. Pretty sure no one can survive very long after 2-3 capital plagues in year 1, and I've seen that happen with scales that weren't quite that bad.

Re: Misfortune 3 Death 3 scale
 

The game defines small, medium, large as 10, 15, 20 per player (altho that is a really old definition) but for most discussions here Im willing to accept those. With a 1 or 2 dominion pretender you can operate for awhile outside of your dominion for purchasing new units for your armies.

And yes, in such games the capital population can get dropped fast. Ive had some games wipe me out quick but not "high probability". I usually manage to get outside of the capital province.

Both of the thematic pretenders appear to be for pushing a non-gold strategy. But yes, Pans are the biggest problem with that. Sometimes you have to stop an army at a high pop province to partol/high-tax a turn or two. Pushing a stealth army far to start a new foothold far from home helps also.

Its definitly fun for diversity play Granted Im abit more worn out on regular play than most.
I didnt say it was preferable :) just not unsurvivable.

Re: Misfortune 3 Death 3 scale
 

How high a probability would you call high for 'catastrophic disaster'. Because even 10% sounds pretty high for a turn 2-3 indie siege of my capital. Even 5% sounds high.

Re: Misfortune 3 Death 3 scale
 

My math sucks. Doesnt 10% equal 1 in 10 chance? And 5% 1 in 20 chance? How many games would I have to play to have that happen? Isnt that the definition of "high probability"? If Im looking for a game variant to play around with then having it be playable in 9 out of 10 games seems ok. Especially for something that will happen quickly if at all so that I can just start another (in solo play). Even in MP if its usable with other options and can be a surprise tactic then having it work or fail soon in the game would be a plus so that you can move on to another game.

And as an example Im not sure that indie seige is a good example for these. Both carrion and maenad can eventually break free of an indie siege. Especially since both those gods are fairly helpful in such a combat. Still not preferable, but playable.

Re: Misfortune 3 Death 3 scale
 

Fair enough. I think most advice given here covers all three (10,15,20).
Nor do I see that the size changes the early strategy drastically here.
Distance between capitals likely only changes by a province or two for each step. That slows rushes, but only by a few turns.
Since early expansion tends to speed up quickly as everyone sends more expansion groups out, the large game only gives you a few more turns before indies are gobbled.

You may break out of the indy siege or recover from unrest and be ready to start growing again, but by that time there's going to be a lot less to grow into.

It may be recoverable in SP, but I've got my doubts in MP. Quit & start over is fine in SP, but it seems kind of obnoxious in MP. That's more of a problem with the way Luck/Misfortune works though, since it becomes less and less important throughout the game. If you survive the early game without a catastrophe you've essentially got free points. If you don't, Oh well, just start again.

Re: Misfortune 3 Death 3 scale
 

High is a relative term. When you're talking about absolutely catastrophic events, the bar on high is pretty low.

For example, when the CERN super-collider was about to be turned on, what P(CERN creates a mini-blackhole that consumes the world) would have been too high to actually turn it on? How likely is too likely for absolutely catastrophic disaster?

Now, sure, its only a game, but I like to actually get to play the games I start. That its only a game increases my threshold for catastrophic failure tolerance, probably by a couple orders of magnitude, but as the acceptable P for the CERN scenario is somewhere in the 10^-6 or smaller range, many orders of magnitude larger is still pretty small.

So yes, i'd call 5% chance of catastrophic failure 'high', even in a game.

Re: Misfortune 3 Death 3 scale
 

Just to be clear, CERN is a wonderful device, and radiation for outerspace often hits the Earth with more power than it can drive, and likely cause these black holes that we want to study. The Earth must simply be more stable, and these black holes less so. The physics, further, follow, because black holes are actually less massive than the star they came from and lose energy and mass as they move through space...

Anyway, I often get the awful event of plague on my first turn with turmoil, misfortune, death.

I find it a challenge to be dealt with. This dominion is only bad in the begining, it is and end game dominion that protects you and attacks your opponents. Select magic to summon things with all the paths, and expect to do a lot of gem prospecting. I have won with this in two player, but it is a bit different with more than one opponent. (You don't need his provinces, for instance, you just need to make sure he doesn't enjoy them, by pillaging them, for instance, more like some end games end up).

Re: Misfortune 3 Death 3 scale
 

It seems to me that after the latest patch with the changes to horrormarking and insanity .. it .. seems...
that the incidence of really horrible events in the first 5 turns or so has dropped a lot.

any one else note that as well?>

Re: Misfortune 3 Death 3 scale
 

No.
But I haven't played with awful scales in the latest version that much ...

Just wanted to mention, than misfortune-3 gives you zero chance to get national heros, what can really detract from the fun with some nations ;)

Re: Misfortune 3 Death 3 scale
 

Nah, you get plenty of "neutral" events too like stealing a witch's gems. The biggest factor IMHO is game scale, since the event cap doesn't scale with empire size. Misfortune-3 is fine once you have 40+ provinces but it's really painful when you have 9 provinces.

-Max