Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

In the current game I'm playing, with a *positive* Luck scale, I have had

2 brigands (+unrest) bad events
3 flooding (25% pop loss) bad events
2 witch's curse bad events
1 plague bad event
3 "adventursome populace" (-20% pop) bad events
1 famine (20% pop loss, -40 gold) bad event
1 heavy snowfalls (-50 gold) bad event
1 locusts (-100 gold) bad event
1 hurricane bad event

7 +gems good events
1 +500 gold good event
1 free Lore Master good event
2 group of zealots good events
2 light winter tax/unrest good events
1 +5 province defense good event
1 winter crops (30 gold/-15 unrest) good event

1 fertility festival neutral event

So, with +1 luck I had 15 bad events, 15 good events, and 1 neutral event. Nine of the fifteen bad events (60% even) carried huge population loss penalties. Only four of them (26.7%) were what I would call "minor" bad events (witch's curse, -50 gold, -100 gold). Of the good events, 2 (13.3%) were what I would call "major" good events (+500 gold, free Lore Master), while 11 of them (73.3%) were what I would call "minor" good events (the small tax/unrest breaks, the magic gems, and the province defense).

So, for comparison, for spending 40 points on Luck 1, I lost 20% of a heavily populated province population 4 times, 25% of a medium to heavily populated province's population 3 times, and an unnamed but signifigant amount twice. In return, I got a double handful of magic gems and a small amount (630) of gold.

To put it bluntly, that *is not worth it*. The huge population loss events need to A) be MUCH rarer with positive Luck, B) be impossible to get with positive Luck, or C) be counterbalanced by an equal or near-equal chance of the +5000 population event (which I *have* seen once, so I know it exists. That was in a Luck 3 game, though). Currently taking extra Luck is absolutely worthless because it has no discernable effect on decreasing your bad luck, and tends to only get you minor increases of gems or gold.

For the record, this is over the course of 30 turns with Turmoil 3. Yes, I realized Turmoil 3 increases the chances of events happening, but with luck +1 I'm supposed to have a 60/40 good luck/bad luck split on events. It actually came out to 50/50 with the bad events being much, much worse.

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I believe this is actually a neutral event, as you get a bunch of gems out of it. The bad side isn't even bad if you have no troops in the province.

But, as you aptly pointed out, +Luck is a very poor investment. The luck scales are by no means balanced at all.

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

If I ever got any gems from the witch events, it was a very small amount of either Nature or Air gems which Avalon gave me a supply of anyway (which would make it hard to track). I'm 100% certain that I didn't get any other types of gems from the witch, and I'm fairly sure that I didn't get more than 3-4 Air or Nature gems either.

Still, you're right that if you do get gems, that would force it to be classified as a neutral event, which would bring the split of good/bad to 15:13 or 53%:47%. It also further dilutes the ratio of "major" bad events to "minor" bad events, from 9:4 to 9:2.

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

By the way, I've also not gotten any of the Man heroes. Considering the odds are 4% per turn with +1 luck, that means I only had a 28% chance of not getting at least one by now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Bad luck is certainly the theme of this game.

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Indeed ...

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

Don't feel bad. In one of my MP games.

Turn2 scale bug + handful of gems
Turn3 rainstorm capital
turn4 earthquake capital (temple destroyed+poploss)
turn5 handful of gems
turn6 brigands and rainstorm (neither cap)
my scales? turmoil 1, luck +3.

The pop as nonrenewable resource thing has to be let up a little, at least in capitals early.

Or have events made symmetric.

It's just silly, and frankly somewhat pointlessly sadistic as it stands.

Rabe the Uninsurable

[ February 15, 2004, 16:30: Message edited by: rabelais ]

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

I have gone to setting random events as rare in my game settings which eliminates the luck/misfortune in the game. I guess it removes some flavor from the game but it sure does eliminate some of the frustrations!

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

Luck pays off nicely for Ermor, which is probably the only nation that should focus strongly on taking it: With luck as Ermor, I get only good events, pretty much: Lots of gems, gems, and more gems. Okay, well, maybe the militia and flagellants thing is bad, I have enough upkeep problems as it is, but they can generally be killed off by using them as front line cannon fodder.

Only two bad things occurred over the course of 60 turns: A lab burned down, and the plague killed 1/5th or so of my 0 population.

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

Well I have regularly taken Luck:2 in my games so far. I frequently get a hero in the first 5 turns, and I cant say that the bad events have crippled my empire in any way. But doesn't the game first determine which province is having an event and then check the Luck scale of THAT province in order to choose which event?

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">AFAIK, yes.

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Are Caelum and one of the death nations in your game? Both of these events are also spell effects.

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If I remember correctly, one of the devs in some previous thread hinted that the 'population just leaving' -bad event would become common bad event (being normally rare) when your turmoil is 2 or more. Or was it barbarian invasion?

Anyway, what I'm getting at, is that I keep having this feeling about a deeper synergy between luck scale and other scales than meets the eye. That is, with positive other scales luck brings more goodies than with negative other scales. I've had some SP's with a zero-cost pretender and all scales about +2, and local landlords just line up to give me free provincial defenders, mines and fortified cities. All the yummy stuff. But that's nothing sure, just a feeling I've got.

Been thinking trying sometime a nation that prefers heat/cold 3, taking a minimum cost (viable) pretender and maxing the scales. Don't know where to start, though. Caelum with earth3/4 Natajara, maybe?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'd think so also. Makes invading all those order/misfortune nations a very interesting chore if you're with turmoil/luck. In one SP I was playing S&A theme of T'ien Ch'i and invading deep into misfortune-Ermor's territory. Thought I'd be safe with two provinces to retreat, but what do you know. The same turn undead horde forced my army to flee, both retreat provinces suffered a bad luck event. One was barbarian horde, other invading knights. There goes my army...

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">So in other words, luck costs twice as many creation points as any other scale (at least), but misfortune doesn't give back twice as many.

Luck needs to be stronger *independant* on other scales. It's cool that some events are based on your scales, but it's not cool that good luck vs bad luck is so unbalanced. A positive luck nation should never be put into the position where they're looking at those 40 points and saying "I wish my magic was higher instead of having luck +1". They should be able to point at it and see a tangible benefit. Right now having a small, erratic extra gem income - which is what positive luck has amounted to for me so far - is nowhere even close to being a match for 9 population loss events.

EDIT: To further clarify my point, every other scale has a quantifiable effect that you can count on game after game. Order raises your income 7%, Growth raises supply and income and population growth rate, etc. The only quantifiable for Luck is that you get more events total - but there's no guarantee that the events will be good or bad, and there's no gaurantee whether the events will be major or minor. Obviously the nature of the beast defies *some* quantification, but there should be some kind of definable effect. Maybe luck could influence something else about the nation? Decreased unrest, for instance - people are happy when they feel lucky.

PS. Yes Caelum was in my game, but the hurricane was on a pretty early turn. I'm fairly confident it wasn't a spell from them.

[ February 16, 2004, 02:57: Message edited by: Zurai ]

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

Personaly I like that "Luck" works just like... hmmmm... could it be .... luck?

There is an implicit sense of chance. Perhaps the one game you are using for reference here is not indicative of all the "Luck" that you might have?

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Luck is Luck. It fits some people and other people it does not fit. Personally I don't take Luck unless I take it all the way. And I don't usually take Luck unless I feel the need to, because as it has been said, luck is luck.

I much prefer this system of luck to the previous system, as it makes misfortune more of a detriment than it was previously with Order.

I wouldn't take any amount of Turmoil without 3 Luck, as it's just asking for a beating. (Unless of course you are Ermor)

I still believe the weighting of the events need to be adjusted and perhaps the % given a minor tweak (more in line with Cherry's Scale 13 vs 10).

And just for reference. I often get very bad luck in MP games, same as everyone else http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Often times I think Luck has it out for me when I don't give the ol' horseshoe a kiss.

[ February 16, 2004, 05:13: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

I've been having a very lucky luck+3 (IIRC) game as Mictlan.

I've had a few population hits, but only on pretty low-population provinces (which is mostly all I had except my capital for most of the early game). I got attacked by knights and barbarians on my frontiers a couple of times. Then just some unrest events, IIRC.

On the plus side, I got:

A soul contract worth 80 gems, which has provided the backbone of my army, and my main means for defeating miasmatic C'tis and then Caelum.

Two other major magic items I had no means to forge.

Bunches of gems, usually without curses, including a useful number of gems which I had no other source for, and which let me cast the seeking spells that found income-bringing sites to get them.

Two increases of +10 in provincial defense, one on my home province, and one on my main chokepoint province, which brought it from 18 to 28 - very nice.

Several gold windfalls, which I could really use.

Three national heroes (very useful for Mictlan).

One milita army with Holy-3 priest (they were welcome, especially the priest).

Some other good stuff - celebrations, etc., and probably some things I'm forgetting.

In other words, especially with the soul contract, but also for the heroes and other stuff, I think luck actually tipped the scales and got me out of a dead-end stalemate battle and put me in #2 position.

No doubt this is my own actual good fortune in this game, too.

PvK

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If it happened after turn 10, then it probably was a spell. Caelum can easily have level 4 in any given school within 10 turns of the start.

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

After getting killed as R'lyeh with Turmmoil3/Luck3 due to getting lots of pop reducing events I am looking at Order3/Luck3 in my current R'lyeh game and have to say that I like the results till now.

Once I finish my current AAR with those scales I will count the good/bad events. But at the moment I have the feeling that I get more events than I would have thought I would.

CharonJr

Re: Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I've had pretty decent results myself with R'lyeh and Order+3/Luck+3.