Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Just for the heck of it, I am considering playing a nation with Turmoil 3 and Luck 3 for a chaotic and fun game.

I was wondering if there was any synergy with some nations. So basicly, what nation has really cool or many heroes. And/or which nation does not require much gold?

I am playing Dominions in single player only, so no need to point out any multi-player disadvantages ;).

On top of that I may also take some sloth and high growth, but if the nation(s) suggested do require production scales, I am fine with that as well.

Just for the record, I was inspired to this idea by my last game playing Eriu when I got Cu Chulainn (a fire shielded (+awe?) trampling guy in a chariot) on turn 1 or 2. That guy was absolutely insane, basicly carrying my whole early game while my lazy pretender was still fast asleep ;).

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Use CBM for that scales. And EA/MA Pangaea.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Fomoria has some nice heroes, but does like having gold. Pangaea's got slightly less wonderful heroes, but synergises well with Turmoil in EA and MA. Try them, perhaps.


Edit: Dammit - ninja'd.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Hinnom has the best heroes, but blood nations have the best synergy with Turmoil.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Thanks, I haven't played either of them. Well, Pangaea I may have, but I don't recall if that was in Dom2 or Dom3.

What's CBM?

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

EA and MA Pangaea is the first thing that will pop in most people's heads.

LA Ermor is also nice for this pick.

I wouldn't take turmoil just for heroes. Neutral order and luck is enough most of the time. Besides, it would suck to take turmoil and be unlucky enough to not get all the heroes, or get them way late in the game, which could happen.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

When I first started playing SP, I was stuck on 3 Luck, and usually took 3 Prod as well.

As was touched on though, there's no necessity if you take Luck3 to take Turmoil at all. If you need the points then go even Order scale, and you'll get a more decent cash flow, and still have plenty of events.

Luck based strategies are fun, but tricky. Sometimes they work brilliantly, other times, not so much. But if you don't actually dip into the Turmoil, then your income should be high enough to do decently with most nations. Just poke around, for example Tir n'An 'Og and Vanheim don't have good infantry for less than 25g apiece, so you need serious tricks up your sleeve to not take Order3. But nations like Abysia and Ulm for example, tend much more towards high resource and low gold cost. That's the kind of nation you want to play with Luck based, most likely, that is if you're not looking to do your typical T3/L3 Pangaea Maenad build. ;)

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

As K hinted, the turmoil/luck combo is really nice with blood nations. The reasoning is that half (or more) of your provinces will be put at 0 taxes to allow for bloodhunting anyway, so any points put towards order will be half wasted, while all those provinces will still generate all the lucky events, money or otherwise.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Rollo:

Conceptual Balance Mod. Try at least part of it with scales [makes luck much better]. In vanilla game you want Order3 95% of the time. At least in MP.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

I disagree. I've successfully used turmoil 3 / Luck 3 in multiplay many times, as have some others in my crew.

I've recently been doing other things not because it doesn't work, but because I want a change of flavour. The sheer windfall from positive events alone seems to make it worth while.

It was annoying back in Dom 1 / Dom 2 when one had to adjust taxes manually all the time, but these days it's quite comfortable.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Abyssia in any of the ages works pretty good with those scales.
If you really want to have fun with it, tack on some death (In description Abyssia is supposed to ignore the income penalty taking death- although I think there was a bug where it was not the case. Not sure if it was fixed) add some Magic 3 and then recruit your sacred/young researchers.

So, Turmoil 3, production 3, heat 3, death 3, luck 3, magic 3.

Abyssia has a really nice hero that can shape change into a demon. And a really nice assasin hero.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

I thought they just didn't suffer from the supply penalty. Go ahead and design an Abysian pretender. You'll note that the supply penalty just isn't there.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Unfortunately death scales make Abyssia's already serious old age problem even worse.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

and you probably want a blood economy with abysia, cept maybe EA, so you'll be more inclined towards growth than death from a pop point of view

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

LOL, I just loaded up an EA Abyssian pretender with those scales and got Malphas(The shapechanging warlock hero) on turn 3, and the crown of death event in an outlying territory on turn4 (netted 27 death gems).

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

EA Tienchi is really nice with all high res med gold units, a Lord of Fortune for even more extra luck, and Turmoil\Luck dominion. It even fits thematically(Three Kingdoms with chaos), and I remember stacking up HUGE rewards from all events, the 3000 Gold event was awesome.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

I played high Luck/Turmoil in the recent Megagame as Jomon. I was roundly thrashed :) But not because of this. In this case I think it was Luck 3 / Turmoil 1 rather than the full 3/3.

My thinking was that Jomon's troops are cheap but resource heavy so hard to mass produce and they really benefit from getting finds of gems (they are desperate for Death gems). Plus the mages are cheap (but not sacred). I also put some blood on my Pretender and had started a small blood economy which was still at an embryonic stage at the time of my demise. So I had hoped to later be blood hunting on zero taxes in a number of provinces.

I hoped some big money finds would build my extra forts. And to a degree that is what happened.

I did suffer money problems though. Your capital is well down on an order power from turn one and it just gets worse as every province bordering your forts give relatively less gold too. And each subsequent fort is that much less productive moneywise. Nearly all powers require large quantities of mages for research even if not for battle and their cost and upkeep is just too high in the long run.

A bad scales pick for a double bless or awesome awake SC can work because the pay off is you get more provinces in early expansion and so more income that way. But turmoil/luck just doesn't help with that.

So unless you get turmoil freespawn or are LA Ermor I think turmoil / luck is just weak. Everyone, including big blood hunters, need money.

The real problem is luck is just weak, so boosting it with turmoil just isn't that great. You do get money and gems but it hardly compares to the income boost of many provinces under order. Even with Worthy Heroes the heroes are just not enough and you often pick some up with anything other than Misfortune 3. And there are simply too few of the sylph (??) type good events where you get a free mage which may boost you in paths you don't have. i.e. not many 'special' finds that can really turn your game.

I like luck and take it in SP and sometimes in MP. But it is not a power pick and in nearly all cases I take it for style and know the points would have been better spent elsewhere.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

The main problem with Luck is that it doesn't scale. There are a fixed number of events that any nation can receive in one turn. As soon as you've conquered enough provinces that you hit that ceiling, Luck starts to lose its shine.

On the other hand, Order is the gift that just keeps on giving. Go crazy with it. Conquer 250 provinces. Order will boost all of them.

For those reasons, even though the synergy is not as good, I really like to take a neutral Order/Turmoil scale with my Luck. If you're drowning in pretender points, you could even take a little bit of actual Order. No, you won't get quite as many lucky events at the beginning of the game. Just wait. As soon as you've conquered a mid-sized empire, you'll get plenty of Luck to speed you toward ascension.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Also, I will never understand why people use death scales. In small maps it looks OK as Silent Seas is merely a showdown. However, IIRC in huge maps you guys play with as it takes a year to finish must simply have a dead wasteland at the end, as death kills population, the very supply and resource provider.

After all, we fight for the people's hearts except Ermor and R'lyeh, amirite? I want my dominion with fat geese,rich coffee and creamy butter and unlimited Tuna fish sandwiches with sweet pickles!

tl;dr Death is neither helpful nor thematic.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

If you can use those points from the death scales to lever fast expansion and faster growth, your earlier provinces may be a dead wasteland, but you'll have fat new rich ones conquered from your enemies, who have thoughtfully preserved them for you.

And it's certainly thematic for some pretenders and even some nations. A Prince of Death should not be associated with fertility and bounty.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

This is just a myth that keeps raising its head above water again and again, no matter how many times it's debunked, but it's simply not true.

What is true however is that you hit a point where you often get three events quite quickly, and after that you need a really big increase in provinces before you start seeing 4, 5 or more. (And I don't think I've ever heard anyone claim that they were getting 4+ events on a monthly basis, though I'm not completey sure about that. ) So I will agree that this is a spectacular case of diminishing returns.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

So it's not a fixed ceiling, but there is a "soft cap" beyond which it's really hard to improve. Good to know! :up:

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

I am sure that 4 events is the max.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Also some nations get extraneous benefit from Death scale. Specifically, those nations with a +/-3 temp preference.

In a recent game as Caelum, I was attacked by Abysia, who of course had 3H, and also 3D. In most of his provinces, I was getting <20 supplies, and as you know, Caelum hasn't got the easiest access to Nature.....

Needless to say, in short order my entire army was diseased, and then dead, and I had to retreat. :p

The paradox is, if you are using 3D to cripple or scare off attackers - you also need to aggressively expand, AND have powrful enough dominion to push it outwards over all of your territory, including that which you are currently conquering. At the same time, it will bleed over into your neighbors' lands, and really piss them off. :D

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

So that I understand...

If you take Luck 3 there is NO cap on the amount of events in a game that you get?

I thought there was a finite number you would get and then you where thru.

What I am hearing is that there is a finite number of events PER TURN with no ceiling on the number of game events.

Could someeone clear this up please?:confused:

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

I don't think I like this idea. I prefer orderly expansion with powerful dominion and lots of temples to push infidel faiths. 3 Death nations piss me off to no end, as my army mostly dies from lack of food, but they also fail to expand as my PD keeps their starving swarms from invading.

I have a grievance as well. The AI is too foul, and hoards over 400 units in a desert to swarm me in Mighty mode, ending up in a diseased,starving legion that breaks in and spills in my territories, only to be painfully rounded up and cleaned. I get hurt greatly, but AI fails likewise, and I hate lose-lose scenarios, leaves a very bitter taste in mouth.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Ive played with Turmoil and Luck. It can be a fun game. Mostly I think it appeals more to tacticians who like to roll with the punches and make best use of random events than it does with the strategists who like to have things planned out 10, 20, 100 turns in advance.

Low order, and even low production, can be used effectively by some nations that have the right units. Pangaea being one of my favorites for this. Getting supplies boost from their god and mages can be helpful also.

Another fun thing to try is taking turmoil and unluck. I had a really rough time against one of those recently. He had a +luck god and +luck units to combat it deep in his territory but pushed the dominion ahead of him strongly with stealth armies and stealth preachers. Many of my plans were foiled when I would take one of his outer provinces and then immeadiately start getting hit by random events and attacks from independents. I ended up having to shift gears and fight him with a dominion push as if he was Ermor. Its not a strategy that would work often but it sure made an interesting surprise in that game. If he had been allied better with someone who could make good use of me having to shift to priests then I probably would have lost.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

As I understand, the rough consensus is that there is no firm cap on the number of events due to luck, but that practically speaking you will get fairly rapidly to 3/turn and then as you expand get an occasional fourth or even more events.

So it does appear to scale up, but not linearly as the results of the other scales do.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Death scales work great when paired with extreme temp scales. So,death for Abyssia is fine. It highly discourages attack and if you do get attacked they better have a plan to survive the heat 3, death 3. Death hurts the old age mages but that is why you take magic3 and research with your young, sacred (cheap up keep) mages. After you hit construction 6 you can makes boots of youth to prevent the aging. You really don't need gobs of the older mages unless you get into an early war and need some marching with your armies. Later in the game its all about gem income so don't worry about that death and blood hunting. So you may have to move to a different province sooner than if you had death.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Nop, there definitely have been screenshots posted of 5, and I'm almost positive also of 6 random events in one turn. (With assurances from the poster that none of those provinces were newly conquered, and none were of an event type that could also be caused by remote spellcasting, two things that can confound the issue )

I also seem to remember getting 5 events on several occasions myself, but with the mysts of time and all that things do tend to get a bit foggy on occasion, so I won't swear to it.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Another difficulty with finding the "max number of random events" is that most of them are tied in to certain scales and other factors. I think that people tend to form rock-hard opinions about the number of events but they tend to be the same people who play on the same types of game on the same size of map.

Not only would you need to randomly get a high number of events, but a high number of events that happen to match your provinces. Late game, where someone owns many provinces, on a really large map, and is getting many variable dominions pushing on them from all sides, would be the best bet to push the limit. Few people tend to play games where that can occur.

Gandalf Parker

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

I don’t think there is an event CAP. I am not sure there is even a soft cap where it gets difficult to get more after 3. If your empire is large and expanding unless you are doing a dom kill strategy you often have large areas not under your dominion or not heavily. So whether you have picked Luck or Order you are not actually benefiting from your scales everywhere all the time.
<?xml:nam
But there are many problems with Luck from a raw power rather than interest/theme point of view.
<O:p
I probably fall in to Gandalf’s play the same size maps with similar scales trap but I have noticed something about Luck. It tends to give in most cases what you have.
<O:p
When I was testing Jomon builds I often tried Production & Luck. The former being something I seldom play with even with resource hungry powers, whether I am playing SP or MP. I got lots of Iron mine finds and even more of those province production improvement events (Merchants?). Far more than with any other scales I have played. The net result is having paid a lot for extra production in scales I got even more.
<O:p
Most of the Heroes, even with Worthy Heroes, give you what you already have. I am not saying that the Heroes are not nice. They are. But when I played Pythium I got a nice mage that was similar to a good Arch Theug. Great, but I could recruit one. Likewise I got a few Master of the Games. A potential Thug but soon eclipsed by Pythium’s national summons of flying, sacred, mage Thugs. Plus some Snake Rider chappie who seems to be marginally better than one of my recruitable err Snake Rider Commanders.
<O:p
Jomon gets a nice Assassin to go along with the recruitable Assassins and a Red Devil General who appears to just be an extra commander.
<O:p></O:p>
The Giant Powers – Fomoria, Utgard etc. often get decent Giant Commanders. But they can already recruit these. One of the Jotun /Utgard ones gives Air Magic which is very nice but this is the very problem with luck. Far too little is of this nature, something different that can open up new options for you.
<O:p
Luck would be far better if there were not National Heroes but simply Heroes that you had a better chance of getting.
<O:p></O:p>
Even the gem and gold bonuses seem to fade. Later in the game when you have enough provinces under luck to be having a Gem find and a Gold bonus (100-200 usually) each turn, while nice, is not that big a deal compared to the large boost in income Order gives. Plus there is often a sting in the tail with Gem finds. Sometimes some units are cursed in return. That’s fine if it is a mundane unit but eventually your Pretender or a valuable SC/Thug gets caught.
<O:p
Even with high luck you still get some bad events and even with minor misfortune you still get some Heroes. I like Luck and do use it. For the same reasons others have posted. Sometimes I want a bit more chaos and fun that it can bring. It really gives too little Chaos and Fun and its opposite just isn’t that bad.
<O:p
Whether you play SP or MP it is easy to write off a game if you get a bit of killer bad luck early. This isn’t real life; you can just give up and restart. Once you get past the early game luck just doesn’t do enough and misfortune hurts too little. There is nothing wrong with having a choice that offers you a different if less powered nation. We can all play nations and produce too many of the weaker units by choice or by mistake and it doesn’t necessarily doom us. But sadly luck is a frustratingly weak pick it doesn’t seem to be powerful or even interesting enough. Yet a few extra good and interesting events and some extra bad ones could make this scale more of a real choice.
<O:p
Can events be modded at all?

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

IMHO Tum3/Luck3 picks works good only in short game. Small map, quick rush - you can use gem/cash bonuses, mighty special heroes and other stuff. Long play - I`d better summon more powerful hero (e.g. Kings, undeads, sleepers) and receive Order bonuses (income, res)

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

I quite like it, but then I don't really minimax my games. I experiment and set challenges for myself, even when playing against other humans.

Interestingly, in our current 6 player multiplay (with 6 AI's for spice) the only person to go for high production & order scales is the guy who is newest to the game. Going for maximum army output. The old hands like me are messing about with complex magical plans instead.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Hoplosterum:

That topic was here many many times. There are max 3 events you can get + spells that look like event + conquering enemy provs, where events happened. If that combo was good people would take it often in MP. But it just isn't worth it.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Adept, I usually use high magic boost instead of productivity - and long casting/summoning/enchanting/crafting instead of brutal meat rush. But if I choose Order OR Turmoil- first pick looks more useful :)
-
Zeldor, "...conquering enemy provs, where events happened"- how it works? I can "capture" enemy event and bonus, or just message about it?

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

3 hard cap. Other events are either rituals, or having conquered someone else's province and stolen their event. ie, as Zeldor said.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

I agree.

Every time I take turmoil 3 / luck 3, it's just complete garbage compared to Order 3 / Misfortune 2.

Misfortune is hilarious, actually, it's so /good/ for you. Misfortune's bad events generally are either "something terrible happens to a province" like everyone gets eaten, or "some neutrals attack your province". Mid-> late game the second category type of events you can easily remedy with a modicum of PD if your PD is good, otherwise you can just dump 20 into a province and have basic immunity from those events in that province.

The nice part about misfortune in this case is that it increases the number of events that occur. This means that you have a greater chance for neutral events and good events as well.

Jazzepi

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

I disagree. I think I've seen four non-spell events on a "stable" turn, i.e. I didn't get any provinces, didn't lose any provinces, didn't do anything funny. This is in the "I think" and "if I recall" category, but I still disagree.

It's silly to favour the scale combination that costs more. Luck 2/Turmoil 1 might be (or might not) be competitive against Order 3/Misf 2. Money is so important I wouldn't take Turmoil 2 without also taking money-making scales besides luck.

And finally, while misfortune increases the number of events compared to neutral luck, it skews them towards bad events more than it increases their amount. I'd guess that in average, you get at most as many good events as neutral luck, probably less - and many more bad events, of course. How is that nice?

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

You're missing the point. The decision for me is binary, the reason I'm comparion those two scale choices is because they're the most efficient choices for that slot. Either you take O3/M2 or you take T3/L3. There's absolutely no reason to take something in between, unless you enjoy throwing away points for the anti-synery of Order and Luck, in which case you need to rethink your design because you've reached a point where you're wasting points.

I avoid taking misfortune 3 because it creates the potential for really, really large barbarian events, which you can't easily defend against with PD, and go beyond the normal annoyances, of having to send a middling force to recapture the province.

To explain what I was trying to say about the misfortune actually being a benefit, think about it this way. If misfortune only increased the good/bad of an event, then we wouldn't have this conversation, but since it increases the *amount* of events at the same time, something different is going on.

Because of the fact that /most/ events from misfortune 2, and decent scales, are negligible in effect compared to their luck counterparts (I've yet to run into a -1,000 gold event, and even running O3/M2 in all my games, even with death scales, I've still yet to run into any really bad plague events) you don't really care about the skewing of events towards bad, since you can basically ignore the effect of most bad events.

For example, if you go from 10 events, to 15 events because you have M2 instead of a neutral luck scale, then you have more random events. More chances for you to find arcane labratories, to hang witches from trees and get their gems, etc. etc. While you also increase your chances of getting a bad event out of those 15, most of those events you can simply ignore anyways with a little preparation, so the increase the # of events is actually a benefit.

And let me add one last thing. /Really/ bad events early in your capital, are generally devastating, but they happen so infrequently (mind you out of all of your territories they have to happen in your capital to really ruin you) that you're running a minuscule chance that you might get knocked out of the game. Unlike with Luck, you can easily bow out of the game that your Misfortune has knocked you out of. Whereas with Luck, you need to consistently get good events early. Sure it might pay off over the course of 100 turns. But you don't have 100 turns to sit around and wait for those gold events to build up, and make your income match that of a player who had O3/M2, who unlike you with L3/T3, knows what his income will be, and will have a /huge/ advantage over you patrolling on the first turn, as well.

Jazzepi

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

The only moment misfortune can kill you are first 10 turns. Talking about O3/Mi2 you can get some ugly unrest events. Like really ugly events that shouldn't exist at all - for example 60 unrest from one event [it is possible to get over 100 unrest in one turn, 2 events]. That can really screw you. But that is quite small risk compared to what you get for that points [and you can always join a new game, instead of slowly losing].

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

Grmbl. I was just going to post the quotes and nothing else, but apparently you have to write something new, or the site won't accept your post. :)

Anyhow, I am completey certain there's no hard cap at 3 or 4 (and would be surprised if there was one at 5, though it is possible there is one. ) Anyone not wanting to believe it can feel free to search the forums, someone posted a screenshot + turnfile sometime, to prove the multiple random events weren't in a newly conquered province or the like. Or keep believing as they do of course...

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

well, please post some proof then, since you are so sure of it... :)

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

That's a silly supposition. By the time you climb past 20 provinces you are often hitting the cap we're all discussing, even with scales that are not optimal event generators.

Also, Misf2 can be more painful for certain nations with exceptionally poor PD. I've seen 20-23 PD get spanked by barbarians a few times as monkey nations, or Nief for example. So what you are saying then, if the only viable combos are O3/Misf2 or T3/L3, and you find the Misf to be too painful with that nation, then you MUST go T3/L3 with those nations to be efficient and competitive.

Also worthy to note that while Misf is exceptionally painful for some, it's much less painful for those with cheap and accessible fortune tellers. The relative value of scales will be different for all nations, depending on what tools they are given. Therefore, it's a far too sweeping generalization to state that these 2 scales must be maxed, and must be maxed in opposition of eachother.

Just as an example also - the 3000g event is only possible through O3/L3, as well as I believe Oleg's Alchemical Machine, which gives a permanent 100g boost to a province.

So it takes you longer for that combination to spool up to maximum effect, but while it does, you are somewhat insulated from disruptive events, and when you are finally getting 3/turn, you are going to be seeing constant and consistent income boosts. Of course, you may argue that such scales are nearly impossible with an awake SC - to which I can only say, "So?". ;)

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

As I said, proof has been posted on this boards several times before. I don't feel the need to go searching for it again. As far as I'm concerned anyone who is dead set on believing there's a 3 event cap may continue to do so. I'm just being moderatly insistent for the benefit of newer player who might be reading this thread.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

[quote=JimMorrison;640818]If this is a recent change, then maybe. AFAIK the only requirement is Luck +3, and order has nothing to do with it. I've had this several times, and I never go with maxed out order and luck.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

[quote=Adept;640836]
Odd, it was stated as such in another thread. After I learned of the scale restrictions on events, I started paying much closer attention. I can't say about previously, but since I learned that, I've only seen that event in a massive scales build, and otherwise the largest I ever seem to get is the 1500g event.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

I'm not quite sure, but I think there are two different 3000g events, one restricted to O3, but the other unrestricted. (Or at least with other restrictions)

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

To JimMorrison:

>>or "some neutrals attack your province". Mid-> late game the second category type of events you can easily remedy with a modicum of PD if your PD is good, otherwise you can just dump 20 into a province and have basic immunity from those events in that province.<<

I'll just quote myself because I'm a giant elitist douche, and it's fun to pretend like you haven't actually read what I already wrote.

I think Bandar log has /exceptionally/ terrible PD. I mean, there was a huge thread with a guy on here who was convinced that Bandar log's inability to win was based solely on the awfulness of their PD alone. Now, he might have been a big jerk, but he was probably right about how bad the PD was.

Because of this Bandar log doesn't fall under the net I was trying to cast because they can't simply dump money into PD, and become immune to the majority of the invasion bad luck events. It's probably poor wording on my part. I'm tired, and now I have to go buy TEN POUNDS OF GROUND BEEF.

So in general, for most races in the game, your only choices are O3/M2 or T3/L3. In the same vein, I always start my scales off with Magic 1, and I rarely change that anymore. You'd have to find a good reason to make me waste a tick to get to M2, and I think Drain 2 is terrible unless you have a race that is resistant to it.

Oh, and JimMorrison, I will kill you with an ice pick. :angel

Jazzepi

PS. I think your contention that at 20 provinces you start hitting the 3 events a turn most of the time is incorrect, and makes you a poopyface.

Re: Turmoil 3 / Luck 3?
 

I never knew that you were so horrified by ground cow meat, that you could erupt into such a display of..... eruption! :shock:


Anyway, the wording of your quote was really weird, it makes it sound like you are saying "if your PD is good, *otherwise* you can just dump 20 into a province". I think you were trying to say if you get good PD, 20 will save you from almost any indie events. Which is probably true.


This is the quote that I was more trying to address though:
Because taken together, you're basically stating that there are only 2 options worth ever taking at all. Therefore if poor PD makes O3/M2 unattractive, your only other option is T3/L3. So my first argument being that you only have to look at it that harshly if you are married to an awake SC, as they are expensive, so your points on scales must be carefully spent. But beyond that, I'm just saying that if you don't want Misf, you're not killing yourself by going L3, and you're not killing yourself by not going O3, either. ;)


Im not sure that the comparison with M2 is really fair either (I think you are in a bit of a frenzy here, over this ground beef!). M1 gives a measurable and valuable benefit, M2 does not. Meanwhile, M2 does not even give much of any abstract or indirect benefit, whereas all gradations of the Order and Luck scales give you a quantifiable change in variables.

Granted, I would agree that it's unwise to have both Order and Luck scales left at even. One or the other should certainly be boosted at all times (and I'd still agree that usually it should be Order first), but I am pretty sure that if you can afford it, O3 or L3 with the other scale set even, can be a good way to go in some cases. I recently did a game with Caelum with 1T/3L, and it was chugging along great until my Virtue got a disease (that little **** :shock:) which brought the whole machine to its knees.


And I will see your icepick Jazzepi, and raise you a wooden spoon. O.O


Oh and beyond that, I think by 20 provinces, the T3/L3 build should get 3 events almost every single turn. Less maximized builds maybe don't peak until about 30 provinces. But when I take O3/L3 I get plenty of events, and even with O3/L- I seem to get quite a lot of events. Maybe this is something worth plugging into a test game..... Hmmmmm.