Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

One of my mp games is now in turn 111 (Orania). I play Atlantis with Turmoil 3 and Luck 3. I control about 120 provinces in moment.

In my nation there are 2-3 (real random) events each turn. Some give me gems, most decrease unrest. Its really irrelevant in this state of game.

On the other site i would pleased to have some more gold. Every coin is important to me, even in turn 111.

I would wish that the number of events depends on provinces owned. Order 3 would help in every of my 120 provinces. But luck 3 means only that the fixed count of events are more (or less) lucky.

Why not more miracles/catastrophes when controlling more land?

[ May 06, 2004, 10:35: Message edited by: calmon ]

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

I suppose it's a matter of micro-management. Do you really want to have to read through a list of 40+ random events every turn?

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sure! I have to read arround 25-30 battle reports, could read about 50-60 spell results. So yes i would browse over lets say 10-20 random events!

[ May 06, 2004, 15:16: Message edited by: calmon ]

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Most events and Messages are a 2 second glance - not that big a deal. More random events wouldn't be a problem. And it really would help balance Luck (and Misfortune) against Order. Misfortune 3 should hurt more in the end game, albeit ... Losing 1-3 provinces to random attacks can already be pretty nasty, as you either leave them independent or route armies that were better used elsewhere.

It'd also be nice if there was a message for each item forged, and for each empowerment. (A button to go to the next event message would be nice, but hitting 'Esc' and clicking the next isn't a problem as is.)

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

The Last discussion I remember on this topic, had the premise that events did increase with the number of provinces controlled by a nation, but that there was some maximum number per turn. The effects of scales are on a per-province basis, rather than the scales chosen at game start. As I recall, in that thread there were requests to not have a limit.

PvK

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

bump

and some more...

Its really easy to find out when somebody attacks 'anonymous'. It would be rather more difficult with some more events.

In moment there are more then enough good reasons to play Order 3 over Luck 3 except for the people-eating nations Emor Ashen/Ghost and CW.

Maybe the developers will change something in the next patch.

[ May 14, 2004, 13:55: Message edited by: calmon ]

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is especially true when you consider that Order decreases the likelihood of random events. If you start taking Order (and for most nations, why wouldn't you?), then the benefits of Luck decline. And the appeal of taking Misfortune for the extra points (so you can get more Order!) increases. And then there's the fact that random events can be toned down in the game settings.

With that said, maybe Luck/Misfortune just isn't intended to be as powerful as some of the other scales. Sometimes it can be interesting/useful, which is enough to justify its existence.

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

I think luck should just be made to matter for alot more small little things that add up to a big benefit. The benefits of Order are and should be obvious, but luck should do some more obscure stuff, like maybe if you had luck 3 in a province you would get 3 extra random magic levels for the purpose of searching for sites, or armies travelling through a province where you had high luck and they didn't would suffer a penalty in finding supplies, or you would get random attribute bonus's for your units if you had a battle in a province where you had high luck and dominion. Stuff like that. Or maybe it could improve blood-hunting alot, and misfortune could make it alot harder. The possibilities are finite, but there's still alot. =)

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

Small change of adding +1 for Attack-stat of a sacred unit in friendly dominion, made for every hit independently. I don't know if that would be enough, or how much it would slow the game down.

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

Well if it's luck, it shouldn't be a constant effect. It should just occasional flukes in your favor.

PvK

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

I, too, think that raising or altogether removing the limit of events would be nice. Maybe it could be limited to the amount of provinces you have. I have few ideas of my own, too.

New events:
One of your provinces is searched for magic sites (one path and first level only) - national limits would make sense, but it works even without them.

If a province has a lab and a mage, give that province summoning/ forging/ enchantment etc. bonus for that one turn only. Stars and Planets combine to focus Astral power to that province or something...

And small changes to existing events:

Making the amount of gems found a random, open-ended roll. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Giving you some free sacred troops of your nation, amount dependant on power. That is, Flagellants limited to Marignon only, other nations would get Heart Companions, Vanir, _a_ Niefel Giant, Wardens etc... More thematic, but for some nations a really nice bonus too.

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

I'd like to see more diversity in scale selection and I think that the Order/Luck issue is too one-sided at present.

The most *visible* way to improve luck would be to remove the event cap (or greatly raise it, say 20 events/turn maximum). But if that isn't done (and maybe even if it is), I'd like to see luck have subtle pervasive effects on lots of things.

For example, when a check is made to see if stealthy units are caught, the province's luck or misfortune dominion is applied as a modifier to the patrollers' chances. Luck could also affect patrolling for unrest - you just happened to stumble across that bandit camp.

I also like Cheezeninja's idea of having luck affect blood hunting - after all, blood hunting is highly *random*, and even a skilled mage sometimes *just happens* to find many good blood slaves, or to find no blood slaves.

But I think the best solution is to remove the event cap, or raise it enough that there could be enough events per turn to have a significant impact on even a large, late-game empire (which doesn't really care about getting 25 militia or 3 magic gems). The negative synergy between Order and Luck is a neat idea - but Luck doesn't provide nearly enough benefits to make it a competitive option.

Improving Luck would also indirectly strengthen themes that are forced to take Luck (Last of the Tuatha) or Turmoil (Spring & Autumn, Barbarian Kings), or that benefit from Luck or Turmoil in other ways (standard Pangaea, anything with a Lord of the Wild pretender, anything that expects to use Cross Breeding much).

And if Luck starts to affect patrolling and blood hunting, blood nations might want to take the Luck/Turmoil route - particularly Mictlan, with its sacred low upkeep blood mages and worthless national troops, leading to an almost total dependence on (mostly blood) summons. Right now it's better to take Order/Misfortune and buy more priests to hunt with - but if Misfortune weakens your blood hunting while Luck strengthens it, the reverse might be true. I think that would be interesting and cool and lead to more tradeoffs in god design - because designing a god shouldn't be easy or simple. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Blood hunting is not highly random, it is quite consistent for blood 2 mages of blood 1 mages with a SDR. I would hate to cripple blood nations by forcing them to take neutral or positive luck in order to maintain a blood slave supply.

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Blood hunting is not highly random, it is quite consistent for blood 2 mages of blood 1 mages with a SDR. I would hate to cripple blood nations by forcing them to take neutral or positive luck in order to maintain a blood slave supply. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">well well is it just me or ...
or is there other here finding it odd that a provins hunted down for its virgins could be somehow related to positive luck.

It would absolute make more sense to let possitive bloodhunting numbers be related to misfortune!

If the provinse is affeckted by luck , i would expect virgins to escape and their fathers to kill the hunter!

Offcause such a modifier would need a lot of balance considering! but it would make sense to open up for more random events then.

And offcause there then should be the option to sacrifice slaves to reduce number of random events, or lessen their effeckt.

Like offering blood to get on good terms with fate and all the natural disasters that a high misfortune number could get then!
And it does sound a little more historical right to me that it should be easyer to find blood slaves when there is a need (from misfortune induced natural disasters) that even the peasants can see.

[ May 16, 2004, 20:34: Message edited by: Jondifool ]

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

There's definitely a disparity between Order and Luck in the endgame, but I don't think people are considering the disparity in the beginning of the game.

On turn 2, a +500 gp event can have a huge impact on how quickly your nation gets started, whereas the benefit of +3 Order is not that great.

On turn 2, your positive luck scale turning a random event from a lost temple to a handful of gems makes a huge impact.

The point is that Luck seems to have a larger impact on the beginning of the game, which in turn can help your nation get started faster, which has a trickle-down effect throughout the rest of the game.

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

Some ideas:

- Make the luck scale cost less points at pretender creation than the other scales. If it didn't cost so much, it might be more worthwhile to invest some points in it, and less lucrative to do the Order 3/Misfortune 3/rare events combo that minimizes the badness.

- Make the luck scale have some (fairly small) impact on combat dice rolls. Perhaps +/- 1-2% per scale? Or maybe randomly some of your units will receieve the luck spell effect in combat? Something like this seems like it would fit well with the idea of a lucky domain, and it would make Misfortune less of a no-brainer for the death-domain races/themes

- Make the luck scales affect province unrest. A lucky province is a happy province! A happy province can be taxed slightly higher or blood hunted slightly more easily...

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Misfortune is hardly a no-brainer for the population killing themes. Everytime you lose a temple, you lose 200 gold that's extremely difficult to replace.

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

It comes as a surprise to me that a huge empire with many provinces does not have more random events than a 1-province fledgling empire. There should be a chance of random events for each province, not for each nation. If your dominion is strong and you have luck (if your empire is lucky), this will pay off; if not, your misfortune will also spread. It seems to make sense to me.

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It does. The frequency increases, but there is a maximum of three events per turn.

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It does. The frequency increases, but there is a maximum of three events per turn. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Make sense, I had the feeling that it max limit is about 3 indeed. Do you know at what size of dominion this limit is typically reached? (on normal random events settings)

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It does. The frequency increases, but there is a maximum of three events per turn. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Which in essence means that a huge empire with high disorder + Luck / Misfortune won't have more events than a fairly small empire with the same scales.

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">On common random events, the 3 event limit is generally reached around the time you have about 10 provinces.

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is most certainly not true unless you've chosen turmoil 3 and an extreme luck scale. Even then, it's a major exaggeration. With a combination of the order and luck scales that results in a net-zero modifier to event frequency, you will probably only see an event once every two or three turns on common event frequency.

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">On common random events, the 3 event limit is generally reached around the time you have about 10 provinces. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmmm, I don't think so. I am playing MP game right now with standard random events settings, have empire of 25+ provinces, and more often than not I have less than 3 random events per turn. 10 provinces definetly sounds too few to me. Anybody else can comment on this?

[ May 18, 2004, 20:46: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

Perhaps there could be some more lucky events you only get with luck 2 or 3.

A new event giving a magical trinket.

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is most certainly not true unless you've chosen turmoil 3 and an extreme luck scale. Even then, it's a major exaggeration. With a combination of the order and luck scales that results in a net-zero modifier to event frequency, you will probably only see an event once every two or three turns on common event frequency. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">"A net-zero modifier to event frequency" - I suspect this means you take Order most of the time, possibly getting the Order scale for "free" via Misfortune.

If so, this doesn't make you the best judge of how often small, Turmoil or Luck/Misfortune tilted nations hit the 3 event mark. Nowadays I tend to use at least Luck-1; with Turmoil I tend to go higher. For instance - turmoil 3, luck 2 (Carrion Woods) - with just 3 provinces, I was already hitting 3 events quite often. (I don't want to give a ration, because I wasn't paying close attention, but definately more than 1/10th of the time, possibly significantly more often.)

Personally, I shudder at the thought of going with a high turmoil, high Misfortune setup again, even
with the 3 event cap. But frankly, Turmoil / Luck (quite common with, mmm, 2 of Pangaea's themes, at least one of T'ien C'hi's, and possibly Ermor and some others) gets the screw, while I suspect Order3/Misfortune3 gets a big break in the end game.

This is both because of the 3 event limit, quite often seen even in the early game, and also because Luck-3 doesn't keep you from having 40% of your capitol's population wiped out on turn 3, or other such "lucky" catastrophes.

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">In the games I'm currently playing, the scales are order 3/misfortune 3, turmoil 3/luck 3, and turmoil 3/luck 3. I personally almost never start games with more than misfortune 2.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There is a very large difference between having 3 events every few turns and having 3 events every single turn. The first can happen on a fairly regular basis with even a small nation. The second requires much more than 10 provinces before it will occur.

Re: Order vs. Luck in End Game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Unfortunately, even with Luck-3, you _still_ lose your temple on turn 2, have a tidal wave wipe out 40% population in your only big province, etc. If luck did something to eliminate the really bad events at least for the first 10 turns, I might agree with you.