The Growth Scale
 

Growth
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com//showthread.php?t=32125

I noticed there is no general discussion on the Growth Scale, so I've decided to start one.

Why is there none? Are the dynamics of the scale simply uncontroversial? Or is there simply no strong opinion (or decisive determinants) one way or the other with it?

When is a Growth Scale good to take? I can edit this post with suggestions. perhaps:
1. when going for a blood economy?
2. to counter old age mages
3. just for extra income?

can growth be used as a sort of 'order' scale by simply exploiting it's population growth with extra taxes for an ultimately neutral growth? (doesn't order and dominion both reduce unrest, also canceling that out?)

is the extra supplies of growth really ever useful? Battles are generally at borderlands, where the effects of any scale is probably minimal.

What about the inverse? When can I get away with Death?
What if I don't Blood Hunt, have no old age, but do want extra income and am taking max order. When can I get away taking death?

And for interactions with other scales (notably Order and Luck)

Doesn't Growth effectively magnify Order since it will increase the population for order's income bonus to effect? I think there's already a math thread out there on this, but the conclusions where foggy. I don't think there are any really good plots of just how much Order and Growth interact to boost the effects of each other.

What Luck events does Growth/Death open up? I know Death will allow plagues to happen more often. Does Growth simply prevent them? Or does Growth actually boost the occurrence of some good events (perhaps makes Pop Growth events more likely. We all know to avoid Death/Misfortune. Are there reasons to think seriously about Growth/Luck?

Lastly, give us some comparisons to provide some datapoints here. When is dumping points in Growth more valuable than, say, opening another path on your pretender, having more dominion, not having an imprisoned pretender, or accessing an extra weak bless. Compared to other options, just how valuable is Growth?

I know it's all dependent on context, so feel free to provide some. (I think that's part of the problem, as I see much discussion on Growth in particular context, but almost none in general. I'm hoping there might be some general rules, or at least I'm hoping to gather all the different contexts under one thread to make indexing easier.)

Re: The Growth Scale
 

I've been toying with the tax and patrol under a growth scale some. I've not run the numbers compared to order (though optimally you take high order as well), but it certainly seems to work for raising immediate cash and providing you some flexibility in allowing your provinces to regrow as you move your patrollers elsewhere.

Ultimately, as you note, it is all dependent on what you are trying to accomplish. If you merely wish to raise alot of money in the first 2 years to boost your castle construction then you can tax and patrol and not even care if your pop comes back (assuming you are not doing massive blood later). For some castles with higher admins, if built in high pop provinces you get that income boost which will help pay back your pop losses from the patroling over time anyway.

It seems that for most nations high pop (meaning over 10k?) long term is just not that important, as you transition either to summons or blood.

Others have run the numbers for growth/death and its effect on old age, and I agree that nominally the supply bonus is largely meaningless, though death can be useful defensively in making supply a bigger issue for invaders.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

It affects the vine spells of Pangaea.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

It affects all the entangles, I think. Something like adds to the DR you have to roll against to break free.

Growth also enables the ancient presence (that takes over the province). And Death (I think) where the guy dies, gives you magic, and a necromancer comes and joins you...

Re: The Growth Scale
 

Ah.... that explains why I get a rash of "guy came in search of long lost love, but instead died. you get all his gold and magic items" (or something like that) when playing with Luck3 Death3.

I'ts a good event. something like 1500 gold and a couple of items.
maybe a good reason to play death luck :D


so... are there any 'growth-luck' events? if not this is sort of a case to take death-luck, it provides just one more nice event. and with all the luck you needn't worry about plagues...

Re: The Growth Scale
 

There are a couple of good harvest events. Maybe those require a growth scale. Oh, and the event where celebrations of a local fertility goddess get you some extra money.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

Well as far as events go, Growth unlocks (or rather, greatly increases the rate) of "good harvest" events and the like. I often play Blood nations with 3L/3G, and I consistently get those events almost every turn (unless they're blocked by Gem events, boohoo). And under high Growth, there are only 2 negative events unlocked - the Ancient Presence (which wipes out ~90% of the province pop, sucks bad), and the lesser Vine Man Attack event, which seems to kill 5-10% pop in the province. Death scale does unlock a few goodies, but this is balanced by some really terrible events. Sometimes with 2D and even Luck scales (which works well for some nations), I'll get a string of events that kill 20-30% pop in the provinces they occur in - and these events are FAR more likely with Death scale, than the Immigration of Population Boom events are under Growth.

One year (12 turns) under 3 Growth will yield a population 107.5% larger than the start of that year - so it is important to note that in Vanilla Dom3, your capital (and some neighbors) will already be generating ~112% of the income after the first year, that it would have if you had even Growth scales. Some nations are very gold hungry, and if that is combined with Old Age mages, and troops that can expand well enough on their own, makes 3O/3G (very hard to afford with an Awake pretender!) quite attractive in the long term.

Just a quick chart here, comparing relative populations in the capital under 3G vs 2D, starting from 30k even:

1 Year - 32,232 / 28,591
2 Years - 34,631 / 27,248
3 Years - 37,209 / 25,969
4 Years - 39,978 / 24,749
5 Years - 42,953 / 23,587

So after ~60 turns, as the late game mounts up, the 3G player will have over 40% more income from their core territories, resulting in a tremendously increased ability to train/upkeep more high end mages, and (in the case of Tir/Van/etc) expensive elite units, if they so choose. Meanwhile, if the 2D player is using a nation that maybe has cheaper mages, can rely more on summons/freespawn, or is able to make many powerful thugs - they will have a relatively pathetic income by that late stage of the game, but will have had 200 points to leverage into a better bless, or an SC pretender (Awake or otherwise), or any combination of tools applicable to their strategy.

Also bear in mind, "turtling" nations will tend to do proportionately better under Growth, while Death is made most useful as a point sink if you can maintain constant expansion to feed your dwindling economy.

Also, even with 3L, I can't see 3D being viable for anyone but LA Ermor, as the rapid baseline poploss compounds too powerfully with the random Plagues and such to reliably sustain any strategy that involves ever needing money. You'll just get lucky sometimes, but sometimes you're probably twice as lucky to have your game ruined by early bad events, as if you had 2D - plus if you do the math, population decline from 3D erodes your income far faster than 2D.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

When I'm considering Growth I simply think of old age mages as another bit of +% income from growth since you don't have to replace as many mages that would die to the diseased affliction from old age.

Jazzepi

Re: The Growth Scale
 

There's the O3G3 synergy (maybe G2 too) - there's still some growth (or at least minimal pop loss) without unrest at 110% tax.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

I have played D3 fairly often - I don't think its that bad - its the d3L-3 that sucks bad.

Just in terms of events, generally speaking, turmoil and barbarians are worse than the death plague events.

*if* you are playing a Turmoil/Luck approach, you can also play death, it is not as bad as many other alternatives. Luck will give you sufficient income to support an SC or mage based strategy - although probably not a non-sacred army.

*IF* all or most of your magaes are death mages, you can take a death scale with virtual impunity, as very few of your mages will get death afflicted. by death mage I mean at least d2, and preferably d3/d4.

Also, I don't think ancient presence wipes out 90% consistently. Its bad - but I don't recall it being that consistently bad.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

Old age considerations and maintaining provs at >5k while blood hunting aside, I think growth scales are really a subjective trade-off between current and future gain. Can you grow fast enough from the extra points to justify a death scale? Are you confident of surviving long enough for growth 3 to pay off? It's just personal preference

Personally I like taking growth one quite often, for the old age benefit and because I just hate to see my income base declining - but I know that's a psychological comfort rather than a real advantage, as I am paying for it in design points and could probably be further ahead with another scale in order, luck or production.

Certainly one thing I've learnt is that if you take death 3 you'd better be primed to expand quickly, or you will fall behind.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

Also, Abysia suffers a *little* less from death scales.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

Why?

Re: The Growth Scale
 

National trait: just like how MA Ulm isn't affected by the Drain scale.

That being said, you still generally don't want death on Abysia.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

EA and MA abysia don’t suffer the income penalty for death, the population suffers as everyone else. LA cop it all

Re: The Growth Scale
 

Yep. Income and supplies won't decrease. The problem is, they're a blood nation, need high resources for their armies, and their mages suffer from a severe lack of youth. That being said, Growth is kind of necessary with Abysia.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

A nation with a Growth scale is kinda like a turkey.

Things are really great for a while...your armies are fat and your treasury is happy. Maybe you coughed up too many design points to fly, but heh, life's good, right?

Then someone drops a couple Thanksgiving Armageddons on your ***.

Edit: You censored ***? Really? What if it's used properly, like: The cart was hauled by the ***.

Edit2: I'll be damned.

Edit3: What?!?

Re: The Growth Scale
 

Has someone compared Growth with Order already?

The main point is that Growth based income bonus grows exponentially while Order stays the same.
So with CBM and assuming that the province has the scales all the time a province with Growth 3 should break even with a province with Order 3 on about turn 18.
100.6% ^ 18 * 109% = 121% (vs 121% gold income from O3)
On turn 37 the province should have generated more gold over the whole game than an order 3 province. That's hardly the point where gold gets useless or someone drops several Armageddons (and after that O3 is useless as well).

Also if you spread your dom into provinces you can't take already (knights, elephants) growth benefits you but order won't.

So I'd say if you want to take luck and need money G3Lx isn't a bad choice instead of OxLx.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

It really depends on the situation, doesn't it? If a nation is in desperate need of gold to fund an early expansion and to put up fortresses fast, Order would be a better choice in the short-run. If your nation doesn't need gold for expansion or doesn't have a need to build fortresses (*cough* MA Oceania *cough*), growth is more beneficial in the long run.

That being said, O3/G3 would give you the best result overall. But, you're going to have to look for the design points, after all. :p

Re: The Growth Scale
 

FYI, the numbers you have for growth are compounded continuously (Dominions *should* compound on a per-turn basis, I believe). I ran up the numbers on a spread sheet (non-continuous and with 11 months in the first year) and here they are (a little less dramatic):
+Growth or -Death
The point is still the same, double population after 5 years.

Now, as for Patrol & tax. According to the manual (which seems to be accurate here) every 3% above 100 results in -0.01% population directly. Every 5% results in 1 point of unrest. Each point of unrest eliminated by patrolling kills 10 population. So we get:

-0.01% per 3%
AND
-10(flat) per 5%

So at 110:
-0.03% (or -0.04%?) and another -20

At 120:
-0.06% (or -0.07%?) and another -40

At 130:
-0.1% and another -60

As is clear from this, only 110 can be sustained indefinitely at growth 3 (and, in my tests, still results in a small growth!). 120 seems to result in a slow decline, and 130 is a little faster decline (about -0.4% or less).

Disregarding the unrest (which has less effect the larger the province), here is the comparative total income in a province with 30000 population, full growth and no other scales, with the various tax rates (assuming adequate patrolling but discounting the cost):

So, depending on how cheaply an "adequate patrol" can be obtained (otherwise the ramping unrest will quickly kill your profits), any of these may be useful. Of course, Order would help with all of this, but it would help in an equal percentage so I think it is a moot point.

As an interesting side note, Temp3 (either will do), Order3, Growth 3 yield interesting results here:

-5% overall supply, +0.6% population, and +12% tax income. Combined with 110 (123.2% total) or 120 (134.4% total) and cheap patrolling the results can exceed order3.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

Geez, didn't you read the strategy index? My Growth and Death by the numbers is there.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=35801

As the question itself, when do you get growth? Here's my answer:

1) When you want to pursue a high gold strategy and already have Order-3. Growth and Order are great together.

2) When you plan on recruiting a lot of old age mages.

3) When you plan on doing a lot of blood hunting (not some, but a lot).

4) When you've already taken misfortune, especially if you've picked up Turmoil for whatever reason.

Note, note all of these reasons require Growth-3, just some Growth. However, due to exponential population increases, you get more for your points buying the third point of growth than the first.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

Nothing can take away gains that you already made due to growth. Extra income from growth translates to more research/armies/mages - which in turn can translate to controlling more turf and getting more income. The beneficial effect on blood hunting must also be considered.
So now on turn >60 someone dropped a few armeggedons. Your population dies. But you still have your research and gems and territories. And by turn 60 you will be much less income dependent. And less so with every passing turn.

I like the G scale. I won't take it always of course. It depends on my game plan but usually for big maps and with a non-rushing nation I'd tend to favor the G scale.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

You're also (under 3G) somewhat likely to even have a little disposable income after a couple of Armageddons, whereas most other people will already be solidly in deficit. Sure if they do 5-6 you'll certainly be in the hole as well - but your population will still be proportionately higher, providing more supplies for your existing troops, and allowing more robust Blood hunting in the aftermath.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

Except that one of those Armageddons picked off your pretender because you had to choose some crappy 10hp Master Druid or something.

Meanwhile, your neighbor that took Death-2 and invested his 200 design points in a proper Turn 1 Super Combatant still has his 7-star demigod, who laughs menacingly from atop the Hall of Fame, accompanied by his Artifact-clad SC cohorts...Artifacts afforded through mages hired from the half-dozen capitals he single-handedly captured before your Druid stopped hitting the snooze-bar...or ripped from the bodies of his foes.

Uses for the extra 200 gold/month your post-Apocalyptic populace is contributing:
1) Hurl it against the invincible hide of the Future Pantokrator.
2) Bullet purchase.
2) Gun rental.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

I have to disagree with your priorities here Cleveland. SC's are vulnerable to numerous spells and counters: Frozen Heart, Soul Slay, Stellar Casscades, anti-thug with AN weapon, etc. Growth and high gem income (enabled by a rainbow pretender) give a boomer the tools to handle an SC rusher quite handily.

Basically, armies proper > SCs > armies w/o support.

By midgame, using mages to spam elemental damage spells does more damage per turn than anything an SC can come up with.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

I would disagree with Cleveland about purchasing a bullet, since it seems more efficient to just rent one. The rest of his statement seems accurate though.

The 120 points that you spent on growth can go a long way towards the purchase of a shiny new SC pretender. This will let you take an extra province per turn, greatly increasing your first year's growth (e.g. taking 2 provinces on turn 2 instead of 1, taking 4 provinces on turn 8 instead of 3, taking 5 provinces on turn 12 instead of 4). Besides being invaluable in early wars, a well managed SC is going to grow your empire at a lot more than 0.6% per turn, and that early growth can then be leveraged into all sorts of new opportunities. I think it was KissBlade who said that in most games the winner is decided by turn 20. While I don't think that is entirely right, I do think that by turn 20 you certainly know who is not going to win. You need early expansion if you are going to be competitive in the mid-late game, as even a high growth, high gem income nation with 20 provinces won't be able to compete with a high death, low gem income nation with 60 provinces.

I would also point out that in the early game, when I am evaluating who to attack, growth scales are a great indicator of who is stocking away points for late game efficiency at the expense of their early game survivability. :)

Re: The Growth Scale
 

Well there are gambits to be had here apparently...

High growth does not in any way preclude SC type pretenders, even awake ones, even with decent other scales (of course this is entirely nation dependent).

As is always true for dominions, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

OW took the words out of my mouth :)

And I want to add on licker's observation.

SCs do not contradict G3. You can take a 4S or pathless Wyrm and make it a fine SC with or w/o G3.

SCs have their uses but IMHO they are mostly orthogonal to the G3 vs. D3 decision.

I still think G3 is better when you have a long term plan on a big map. In case you have a death dom nation or playing a small map or planning for a strong rush that won't end until complete victory then by all means take D3. Just don't be too surprised you won't be to most popular guy on the block b/c if you have death dominion and if you are rushing and leading the score graphs (which is your ideal with D3) you will be hard pressed to find friends.
OtoH a G3 peaceful nation would have that much more income and research that could jump it much faster to endgame research.

So when you make the G/D choice you better have a well thought of game plan :D

Re: The Growth Scale
 

I don't think a death 3 dominion is going to make diplomacy any harder than a growth one. It just isn't much of a factor. It isn't like you're Ermor or Rlyeh or anything, it will at most mean some lost pop on your borders.

Re: The Growth Scale
 

The point wasn't so much about taking death in and of itself, it was about how most nations need to play when they take death, which is to paint a gigantic bullseye on their *** ;)

Re: The Growth Scale
 

Honestly, I wish there were a setting to modify Domininion projection.

The actual effect of dominion is too weak in my opinion - it would be nice to be able to balance it.

So for example, just like we can adjust the effect of luck, or heat I'd like to propose:


Spread: This is a modifier to every dominion spread modifier. It would be a % modifier to temple checks, priest checks, VP checks and Home Ter Checks.

InqSpread: Same thing, only the chance of modifying enemy dominion.

You could also have a few other variables, probably not as important.

GodSpread: Number of automatic increases.
ProphetSpread: Number of temple checksb for Prophets
VP spread: Number of temple checks for VPS
HomeSpread: Number of templechecks for HomeTer.