If it aint broke, don\'t fix it
 

I'm referring to the scales, of course. The interesting choices in this area available in Dom1 have gone. This element of the game has been effectively removed, as all players make very similar choices.

No-one I've heard, including vets that probably have more playing experience than the devs, thought there was anything wrong with the Dom1 scales.

Please, devs. Run, do not walk, to the Dom1 source code, extract the implementation of scales and apply them with a patch to Dom2.

Everything else you've done with Dom2 is great - thanks for making it.

Re: If it aint broke, don\'t fix it
 

Other than Luck (The events need work) I like the scales and use different scales for different races. Not that I am a master at the game (Starting my first Multi-player game now).

Sammual

Re: If it aint broke, don\'t fix it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Other than the fact that it made order almost useless once you had some patrollers in your home province?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Which would make the order scale completely useless. You can't set tax rates over 100% without losing population, so positive order would be reduced to essentially zero utility.

Re: If it aint broke, don\'t fix it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Other than the fact that it made order almost useless once you had some patrollers in your home province?
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Order was still awesome up to that point. I remember the argument that turmoil/luck was the way to go because in the long term you got more income. The big problem is that a turmoil/luck race facing an order race in Dom1 often had no long term future. A large part of preparing for the long terms is getting the start right.

The clear advantage turmoil/luck races had in Dom1 is that order races cost more as misfortune was not a good option. Now days order costs the same as turmoil/luck as misfortune is no big deal when you have order.

Order was very strong in Dom1.

I do agree with Graham that we can't go back because too much else has changed.

Cheers

Keir

Re: If it aint broke, don\'t fix it
 

>Other than the fact that it made order almost useless once you had some patrollers in your home province?


In Dom1 I almost always used Order +3.
On the other hand many players used Order 0 or Turmoil +3.

In Dom2 nobody will purposely use anything but Order +3 when trying to be competitive.

Obviously you think that Dom1 order was not worthwhile. That's perfect! The scales should inspire different players to do different things.

Altering things now that Dom2 has been released is difficult. I honestly don't know what to suggest. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: If it aint broke, don\'t fix it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What interesting choices are you refering to? In dom1 if you wanted to play in an MP game cranking up your growth and production scales to 3 was almost a foregone choice. There was an awful lot of complaints about the tax/patrol complex, including that order increased viable tax rate rather than taxes thus increasing MM. Also the positive scale effects where so beneficial that there were no reason to invest more than leftover design points into your pretender. While it certainly might be true that some scale settings are not viable options it is my heartfelt belief that more scale settings are viable in MP games than there was before. Also I think it is advisable to wait with tampering once again with the scale settings, at least until more MP games have been played and there is a little more dom2 MP game experience in the player base.

How do you now that all people use the same or very similar scale settings? While there might be a general feeling in this forum that some scales are under- or overpowered I think your claim is a bit premature. I guess that the similar scale design you attribute to all players is order 3 misfortune 3. I believe people tend to overestimate the effects of the bad events. A loss of 20% of the pop in your home province represents a loss perhaps of 30-50gp turn, which is not all that terrible. It would take appr. 13 turns to translate that into a loss of 500gp. Recieving 500gp as an event is not all that uncommon with turmoil 3 luck 3, and if you do recieve such a turn it would compensate for several turns not only of decreased income due to the turmoil but also for potentional loss due to negative events. There is also the fact that you will never recieve any national heroes with misfortune 3. I am not saying that turmoil 3 luck 3 is better than order 3 misfortune 3, just that it is a choice that does not deserve to be dismissed as unplaybale in MP's at this stage.

Finally I just wish to point out that some of the old cspigs crowd (I think George McGinn, at least, requested this although I do not remember if it was on cspigs or on the cgOnline forum) asked for a greater chance of bad events happening even with luck scale +3, because they never got to see any bad events since they were allways playing with maxed luck and felt they were missing out on features.

*Edit: what I do think is a problem, is that the obvious choices are +3 -3 or -3 +3.

[ November 24, 2003, 01:28: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

Re: If it aint broke, don\'t fix it
 

You also lose 20% of your production if the even happens in your capital province as well. Or 20% Production gained through Admin for any outside provinces.

Edit: Not that I'm disagreeing with you. I've played extensively with 3 Turmoil, 3 Luck in SP but MP only 3 times; but I haven't had the best of luck in either scenario. As well as trying to use the Jade Emperor and Lady of Fortune.

Maybe if a good event gave you 200 gold and 50 Production points for that turn, it would be equated.

[ November 24, 2003, 01:30: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: If it aint broke, don\'t fix it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Exactly. Which is clearly wrong.

Re: If it aint broke, don\'t fix it
 

Many of these discussions arent going anywhere anyway. Its not whether they are right or wrong, its just that they dont seem to know how to suggest changes to an artist. Any of them that seem to start from the basis of "this is whats wrong with your product" are going to fight a heavy battle to get on a "do list" IMHO

Re: If it aint broke, don\'t fix it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Exactly. Which is clearly wrong. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I dont see it as quite that absolute. There are nations which have uses for chaos beyond the benefits that Order would give them. Ermor, Ctis, Pangaea? But if it seems like an automatic pick after we play all the nations abit then we should ask the devs to look at it again

Re: If it aint broke, don\'t fix it
 

As Johan stated; there is nothing obvious right now except for the fact that if you do pick one, more than likely you choose a scale of 3. Because for the negative effecs on most of the scales you discount/counter whatever the effect is to balance it.

If someone can show me a race that plays with Turmoil 3, Unluck 3 and can get away with it; that isn't Ermor I'd like to see it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif And be competitive.

Re: If it aint broke, don\'t fix it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree - well, except for Magic/Drain, where +-2 is probably better than +-3. But graduating the scale costs, the way high pretender magic costs are graduated, would help.

Re: If it aint broke, don\'t fix it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Of course I don't. I'm speculating that this is what will happen if everyone draws the same conclusions as myself and many other posters to the forum. Excuse me if my tone was more provocative than is warranted, but it did get your attention http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Could be (although I didn't). To fix that, and the more general problem of people always choosing +3/-3, make the cost/bonus of +/- 1,2,3 rise in a non-linear way, e.g. 20 for +1, 20+40=60 for +2 and 20+40+60=120 for +3. The effects should still change linearly, though.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think the idea of trashing the overtaxed population was a good one, dealing with this issue well IMHO.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">See my suggestion above. If +3 is expensive enough, points will go to the pretender.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Perhaps. But I think single-player experience, of which we have a fair bit now, will prove to be an accurate guide to what we conclude from MP. But yes, we can wait.

Re: If it aint broke, don\'t fix it
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree - well, except for Magic/Drain, where +-2 is probably better than +-3. But graduating the scale costs, the way high pretender magic costs are graduated, would help. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think it's only order/luck that this applies to, and only because of the way they interact: your order setting can greatly magnify or diminish the effect of your luck setting, but doesn't affect its cost. Since order 3 misfortune 3 doesn't cost any more than order 1 misfortune 1, and may actually have LESS bad events (I don't remember; although certainly less good events too, and no national heroes) in addition to higher income, there's no reason not to go all the way.

Maybe the effect of order/turmoil on random event frequency should be diminished (perhaps simultaneously with bringing back the DomI effect of luck on event frequency). Order 3 misfortune 3 would still give you extra income for 0 nation points, but you'd actually have to worry about negative events. Turmoil 3 luck 3 would give you about as many events as it does now (assuming half the event frequency modifier is taken away from order and given to luck), the same bias toward good events, and the same income hit. (Therefore it would remain non-viable if very very bad events aren't prevented by sufficiently high luck.)

But intermediate and/or mixed settings would have their good points too. Turmoil 1/luck 1 wouldn't give you as many events as turmoil 3/luck 3 (or as much of a bias toward good ones), but you'd have more steady income and not be so reliant on good events to keep the cash coming in.

On the other hand, with temperature you generally want to take your race's preferred temperature (or occasionally a more extreme Version), there are valid reasons for any level of growth/death depending on race, theme and strategy, and we already discussed (on this or another thread) the low appeal of high magic. (I don't think the -1 MR is a benefit worth the points; it applies to both sides. I have no hard information about the effect on fatigue costs, but again, both sides benefit, so the benefit to the god spending points on it isn't that great.)