Abysia and Death Scale
 

Abysia seems to be one of the better choices of a race with which to take death scale since your income and supplies are not directly affected by death and growth.

However I find that taking death still kills all my population and this has a very negative effect on income long-term. Also, once the population has died, it becomes difficult to do blood hunting.

I can somewhat make up the income shortfall by alchemy with all of my fire gems. But even with alchemy, I still have a hard time coming up with enough money for all the expensive mages and priests. And this is no solution for the blood shortage.

Is Abysia's death-resistance just interesting flavor, but not really usable? Or is there a trick I am missing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

You're probably not expanding fast enough: When you've taken a death scale, this sort of forces you to get off your *** and get moving. Outrunning one's own dominion is a popular choice when one's scales are detrimental.

Most of the figures of authority, however, believe that death scale's kill rate is insufficiently quick as to make a difference in your income when you expand fairly aggressively. Your loss of income is likely due to other factors, such as poor neighboring provinces, high unrest levels caused by your blood hunting, or savage patrolled hunting which, under a death scale, tends to kill quickly. You may also be lacking in other income-enhancing scales, in particular Order, and to a lesser extent, Productivity, both of which are vital if you wish to afford Abysia's expensive troops.

Unfortunately, I am far from an Abysia expert - They just don't mesh with my style.

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">How does Heat scale hurt Abysia? Basic theme gets three scale's worth of points free by taking Heat+3! Are you thinking of the theme Blood of Humans, which is not allowed to take Heat +3, or do you mean the effect of colder seasons?

Quote:

Plus the fact that you need to establish "slave hunt grounds" with controlled unrest and not too much pop loss, all this go rather toward a Growth scale !

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You still pay full price for Growth, but get only one of its effects... Abysia does not lose as much from Death as most other nations, and gains less from Growth as well. Small population growth is not enough to pay 40 points, IMO. And you don't need toestablish blood income, as Abysia can fare nicely even without. In the early game, at least. And if you expand fast enough, you can just hunt some provinces and then move to the fresh ones after population goes under 5000.

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

I tend to agree with Endoperez.
Death is ok, especially if by taking it you can then afford to purchase Order and Productivity, both of which I NEED as Abysia.

Sheap, is your cash flow problem in this game only or in all games you play with Abysia? I get a cash problem sometimes, but this can often be due to bad luck -- the provinces you take may be wastelands or other low-income provs. I find in the majority of games I play with Abysia, taking death pays off when you trade it for productivity. (I always go 3 Order no matter what with Abysia, easy to get with 3 heat.) I tend to go 3 Prod 3 Order always, and depending on my opponents, map, situation, etc. like to go with a low-cost high-dominion pretender with very little blessings and magic (I like to get an air 4 or 5 virtue), this lets me purchase high magic, high luck and high death with 7 dominion, and I only run into cash problems when I get bad population provs. Then I try to go low on blood and switch to Thaumaturgy until I get my income up.

In one respect, I disagree with Norfleet. Even with death2 or even death3, I dont want to outrun my dominion, I want to keep it as high as possible. Keeping dominion high is important because of heat -- you need to keep your heat up, or else your income really will suffer more than under the (relatively small IMO) death effects. (Additionally, heat is nice for the additional bonuses to your heat-sensitive troops and if you use fire magic.)

Alternatively (or also -- I had some ok success with a Cyclops), if you are having chronic (in all games) cash problems, try getting some earth magic ASAP and search hard ASAP -- not primarily for additionally alchemizing or for the gems and stuff you'll need for forging (hammers), but for the Gold Mines -- you'll still pull in income even with negligable pop then, although unrest will still hurt (dont hunt in provs with gold mines in them).

Well I hope this helps, but I am no master Abysia player (just like them quite a lot, and have had some fair success with them as well).

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

OK I'm missing something here... how does Abysia favor death over other nations? Does it not kill the same percentage of pop as the other nations?

[ June 06, 2004, 16:51: Message edited by: DeathDaemon ]

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

Abysia does not lose supplies with Death scale, or gain any with Growth, and if Growth/Death affected income that is negated too. IIRC

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

I'm an Abysia fan http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif , never took Death scales with them... Abysia really need cash, then more cash, and Heat scale already hurt its income.
Plus the fact that you need to establish "slave hunt grounds" with controlled unrest and not too much pop loss, all this go rather toward a Growth scale !

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Abysia immune to Heat effect on income and Death effect on supplies ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif Are you sure ? I didn't know that !! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Abysia immune to Heat effect on income and Death effect on supplies ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif Are you sure ? I didn't know that !! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No.
Abysia is immune to the effects of the Death scale on supplies and income. Heat effects on income etc. are normal.

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

But Abysia favours Heat +3, so it could be argued that the income effects of Heat +3 are negated... People still die under Abysian Death-dominion, but the supplies etc. are not affected. Wasteland Survival implemented in Dom:PPP, IIRC.

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

It's the deviation from the "prefered value" that's results in a income reduction ... .

So Abysia is at 100% at heat-3.

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

On a small, quick map Abysia can probably tolerate death more than most nations. But taking death of a large, slow map is rarely a good choice for anyone.

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's a bad move to boost Magic Scale beyond +1. Since then chanse to get Horror increases seriously. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, didn't know that either ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif
Do you have the chance/formula ?
It has to be seriously high to make Magic+2/3 not good for Abysia - they sooo desperately need RPs in early game ... For BoH it ain't a problem, they can't have positive Magic scale ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

Even with +3 magic Horror attacks are rare enough not to make any difference.

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's not so important on site-rich maps. By the time the income loss due to your deathrate becomes significant, your gem income should more than make up for that. Now consider that a player who chose a death scale will have more design points to magically enhance his pretender just so he can use these gems to good effect.

It's even less important for Abysia who, as a blood nation, has an extra form of income in bloodslaves, and this one isn't affected by any game setting.

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

Mmmm here one of the reasons because I often got bashed with Abysya ...

I take growth to compensate a little blood hunting ...
Well if I take death1 unless than growth1 I've 80 points more, 120 with Death2 ^^

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I always pick Death +3 religiously with Abysia. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Striking difference from my Last game my Slayer hero was attacked by horrors 4 stright turns, when he was in magic +3 province, for +1 magic provincies he wasn't touched by horrors for more then 30 turns!
I can't tell exact numbers but high magic -> much higher chanse of horror attacks.

As for growth/death i'm taking +0. It's not a wise choise to take growth with abysia obviously, but i don't like death eather. Blood hunting reduces population pretty fast and with standard richness/magic freq. settings on the mid sized maps you do have to have gold for mages and temples. (It's pretty important to have high dominion). And with diminishing population it's not as easy task as it seems.

[ June 07, 2004, 15:27: Message edited by: mnoracle ]

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

Well perhaps horrors were sent by someone else, or you gave him a magic item attracting horrors?

I never heard about magic scale attracting horrors.

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sure it was due to attracting item, but isn't it pitty to lose your hero with soul contact due to horror attack?
As for sent by some one else - Slayer has very high Stelth rating http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Just for comparision, Horrors loves Kugi so IIRC all my heroes with Kugi Gifts Lasts no more then 5-6 turns even in +1 magical scale. I suppose for +3 scale it'll be instant death!

[ June 07, 2004, 15:33: Message edited by: mnoracle ]

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

I've had several commanders with Soul Contracts in a province with magic +3 for 60+ turns without a single Horror attack.

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Blood hunting doesn't have much of an effect on population, patrolling to reduce unrest does have a huge effect.

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Blood hunting doesn't have much of an effect on population, patrolling to reduce unrest does have a huge effect. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you put 3 blood hunters in the same province it does. IIRC 1 slave - 10 pop.

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Strange, may be luck comes into play.
I just checked provinces where my hero was attacked every turn: misfortune -2, magic +3.

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

Have you checked if that province hasn't some strange magic site like Vale of Infinite Horrors?

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

I've tested it (only at start in capital), indeed Abysia has same income and supplies with Growth3 than Death3, and a better income with Heat3 than 0. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
With vanilla game settings I now suppose Death1 or 2 is a viable choice in order to boost Magic scale.
I fear that Death3, and Death2 with Cherryscales (that I use in all games, SP and MP) may still be dangerous in the long term.

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

Oh I didn't know that!
I've tested too ... sigh it's true.

[ June 07, 2004, 12:34: Message edited by: Cohen ]

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's a bad move to boost Magic Scale beyond +1. Since then chanse to get Horror increases seriously.

[ June 07, 2004, 12:51: Message edited by: mnoracle ]

Re: Abysia and Death Scale
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It was 3 different provincies, where my hero was attacked.