Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

Just curious what people think about that combo. Obviously it's more effective for some nations than others, but I'm curious to see if anyone unexpected shows up on the list...

So far some good comments in general on those scales, here's the listed nations:

Kailasa
EA/MA Pangaea
Mictlan
Ermor (all ages?)
LA Ermor and R'lyeh
and...
Blood nations generically.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

I won't play Turmoil/Luck anymore. I know others will defend it but I have never been able to deal with the lost income from Turmoil over the long run. I do like Luck, and every now and then will play some Order / Luck despite the lack of synergies, usually in a graphs on game where I want some hidden gem/gold income, but even that I do less of these days.

A recent MP game I am in with Order 3 / Misf 2 - first turn got a +750gp event. Thats what I am talking about. Misf when things go bad, you say hey at least I got some design points out of it, when things go right, you feel like you worked the system. Luck is kind of the opposite feeling and when you get a string of bad events you are like wtf, I paid for these scales!

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

I'd say, a viable idea for everybody with a so pityful PD which won't stand barbarians/knights attacks without being doomed to lose the province. And nations which benefit on the long run way more from gems than from gold.

Given this, Kailasa truly comes to mind, to begin. I'll think about others :cool:

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

EA/MA Pangaea are a classic reference here, so I'll get them out of the way early on.

Mictlan is a classic turmoil/luck nation.

Low resource troops.

0 gold cost summons for mid/late game.

Order is useless when blood hunting with tax 0, as you should be with Mictlan.
You after be careful managing upkeep with Mictlan, for example with a, 'normal' nation you may end up with upkeep 1000 - 3000+, with Mictlan your upkeep should never really be much over 500 - 1000 gps. I am talking about 40 - 100 provinces here.

Always be on the look out for gold mines with Mictlan or any other turmoil nation. Tax / patrol / pillage to 0 population, then leave permanently at 200 tax to maximise income. Nice side effect of inflicting some nasty starvation effects on any invading armies.:)

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

I agree with you. But what people seem to miss is that you don't have to take 3/3 scales all the time. I've been playing around with turmoil 1 and luck 2 and it's a good balance.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

Definetly EA/MA Pangaea.
You can also take low production. Using the extra points to push Magic, or Growth can be a useful build.

There are others where you can play without much reliance on armored troops. Nations which have a high capablity for stealth, or assassins, or seducers, or mages. Anywhere that the protections are more likely to come from gems than the equipment that comes on purchased units.

--
per peer-pressure preoccupation
My maps, mods, and mullings can be found at
http://www.Dom3Minions.com

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

The worst misconception, in my eyes, is that if you are taking 3Luck, you MUST take 3Turmoil in order to "maximize" your events.

You may be maximizing your events, but you are killing your baseline income to do so, and this is why the Luck vs Order debates always seem to point in favor of Order.

I find that you can optimize the benefits of 3Luck by (depending on if you are going to go Blood later, or other factors) taking between 1Turmoil, and 1Order. Your base income hit is much lower, and you don't have to get huge to get all of your events, like with 3Order/3Luck. Compare 0Order/3Luck against 3Order/0Luck, and point cost is the same - so if you don't absolutely need a constant income, it's often better because of items/gems/heroes that you get for free, and can't really put a pricetag on.

That said, the nations that can get by best with a Luck build, are often the heavy Blood, or heavy Bless nations. Honestly I think it would be easier to compile a list of all the nations that it's almost suicide to not take 3Order, such as Vanheim and Tir n'a n'Og, whose glamoured troops are so horribly gold expensive.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

A small maps can potentially make turmoil/luck good for any nation, since one of the main arguments against luck is the cap on the number of events per turn.

Ermor might be another candidate since you'll lose the taxable population soon anyway.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

LA Ermor and R'lyeh are classic examples of a Turmoil/Luck nation.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

I liked playing EA T'ien Ch'i with turm3/luck3, the extra gem income was great, and with the not-so-good human-infantry it's more or less worth it. Just spam clams and work up your national summons, which are quite good with a little blessing and buffs (At least in CBM).

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

Heh, the only thing LA R'lyeh is a classic example of these days is the devastating power of the Nerfbat.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

EA Pangaea, I'd frankly say it depends imho. If you're going for maenad factory and foul spawns (one requiring turmoil, one luck, both lotsa Pans - so good synergy), feel free - but if you're going the Gorgon-blessed White Centaurs-Minotaurs-Satyrs way, I'd not suggest T/L at all.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

Id say EA Pangaea has 3 options that would work with these scales.
The maenad factory, the vine monster factory built around their national spells, or the stealth armies.

But of course it should be obvious that none of the suggested nations are going to work for anyone who isnt looking to slide off the standard warfare "purchased-army meeting purchased-army"

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

Kailasa has rather expensive troops and mages. How are you going to mass them with turmoil? ^^

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

Try, you'll be surprised :D

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

I think EA Arcoscephale is actually quite a good luck nation. Prophets - with sloth and magic scales - are almost ridiculously cheap and effective researchers, meaning that you have the option of using very little gold in the beginning of the game, where the sparseness of gold is most felt.

And Arcoscephale can make very good use of the extra gems.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

I'm guessing that you aren't suggesting that turmoil should be taken along with the luck. Arco has some fairly gold-intensive recruits. If you are also taking some sloth for the Philosophers, then I think your ability to raise an army would be quite impaired. I guess it depends on how much of each scale you take though.

I'll agree that Arco can generally make good use of the extra gems, but if you are cranking out Mystics and an Oreiad or two and have researched Thaum-2, then you should be able to site search for steady, rather than sporadic, incomes in earth, fire, nature, and air - and water if you have the Voices and astral with Evo-2.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

Nations with troops where resources constrain recruitment before gold does might manage turmoil. However, I suspect most would find it's more effective to turn the extra gold into more castles and hence more recruitment rather than get by with fewer troops and castles.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

I did, and the lack of gold was a very nasty surprise indeed. :)

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

Turmoil 1 is absolutely fine with EA Arcoscephale, but I find that turmoil 3 works very well, too. Of course, you have to factor in gold shortage in your overall strategy.

It is not a good idea to combine it with death or drain, but something like Turmoil 3, Sloth 3, Growth 3, Luck 3 and Magic 3 works quite well.



It is not an either-or situation. With luck you get extra gems on top of what your excellent site-searching provides. Also, luck is quite good at providing the starting gems necessary to start using the site-searching spells. In all probability you will have to send a mage or two searching manually, but luck will save you the trouble in one or more paths.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

HAha, yes, that's what I was thinking myself. >.< Surprised at how much of a bag of crap Turmoil/luck can really be.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

I'm not criticizing your scale choices, but have you had success attributable to these scales in MP games? Also, would I be correct to assume that you use an awake SC pretender to aid early expansion, since Turmoil 3, Sloth 3 is going to make it difficult to raise armies rapidly enough?

You make a good point about luck sometimes providing gems to get your site searches going. But, you also need the right Mystics to perform the site searches. I agree with Agema that, with order, you will be able to raise forts quickly. Ergo, you will be able to recruit Mystics (as well as raise an army under sloth conditions) more rapidly. The more Mystics you recruit, the sooner you are likely to get the ones you need for site searching. Also, insofar as you have heavy research but difficulty fielding strong armies, you'll probably want Mystics on the battlefield sooner rather than later.

But, hey, it's all about trade-offs and different playing styles. If the scales you mention work for you, then great.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

I suppose if it was limited to MP then it might change some of the answers.

I tried Kailasa and didnt do too bad. Their cheap units can take some indept provinces to give you a start.

EA Yomi has many low-priced units, and many low-research summons which can allow gem-cost units to fill in for lack of national units.

Bogarus might do surprisingly well also. It has some fair 8 gold units, and many low-research summons.

Also keep in mind that along with this scales setting you can do fast expansion with low domain to stay ahead of the scales while you build indept armies

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

For what its worth I actually did fairly well in MP some time ago with this (tie with Niefelheim). Be advised, however, that none of us were very good, so I do not think that it means all that much.

That said, an awake SC is certainly an option, but I went with an awake S9 sacred statue. Thing is, expansion into independent provinces can be done very cheaply with peltasts, slingers and a minor contingent of chariots. Peltasts are cheap and carry javelins, so they are very good at routing independents - especially with the help of slingers. Chariots help with the heavy cavalry provinces, where peltasts have trouble doing enough damage. I do not get stellar expansion rates with this, but nevertheless it tends to land somewhere around 15 provinces late winter the first year.

And feel free to criticize my choice of scales as much as you think warranted. As I see it, it is a good way for me to learn.


It is all about trade-offs, but it is not necessary to wait especially long for castles. You cannot count on being able to start a castle turn 4 with these scales, but there is absolutely no reason not to be able to start one turn 6. And when it is ready you can start pumping out mystics. There is also no reason not to be able to start building at least one additional castle during the first year. Your capital will build perhaps one Oreiad the first year, but other than that, it is philosophers all the way till year's end. And philosophers are so cheap they are almost free.

Of course, once you have two or three castles in addition to your capital (should be late year one or early year 2), mystic upkeep cost start becoming a problem, but here the high magic scales help. Priestesses provide 5rp/turn with this so they are quite cost effective - not very fast, but not excessively slow either. Mystics cast rituals, craft and fight. Other than possibly those with 5 magic picks, they do not research. This allows you to buy a reasonable number of mystics and an Oreiad each turn.

And this is without considering what you can get from luck-scales beside gems - heroes, magic items, gold, population, troops, extra mages and so on.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

The idea is to get something for nothing. +3 in luck and +3 in turmoil will give you a base-line for "free" design wise. So it's not a "must" but it's a recommendation starting point.

I myself play Luck with order often and it works well if you can afford the design points. Lump of rock astral pretender usually works well if you are going for the income heavy nation but you must have a good "plan" for trying to up your magic elsewhere as you might be limiting yourself.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

What about MA C'tis ?? what does people think and why? would really appreciate some thoughts on this since I'm having a hard time deciding myself...

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

Ma Ctis should be played with order 3 growth 3 with 9 or 10 dominion in my humble opinion. You get a gold bonus with Ma Ctis, so order, growth and high dominion make you the richest nation in the entire dominions universe.

Re: Best Turmoil Luck Nations
 

I've played MA Ctis with Luck3/Turmoil3 and Dom9, and I don't quite agree with the above. MA C'tis with high dominion should IMO have any shortage of money ever, while the Dominion spreads like the plague (making offense so much easier), and the mancers get all the gems needed to get a jump-start on the random paths.

The bad thing is people seem to get a bit itchy when the Miasma dominion start spreading over the borders. Or rather, they seem to get a bit itchy *before* that happens :(