The Virtue
 

I was reading the post on 'Know your Pretender'
and it talked about the Virtue.

I had never thought to even look at it until that thread.

I have a couple of questions to those that know that Pretender.

1. I was told by a very good player that you either go Heat/Cold 0 or you go (all the way 3). Now for the virtue 3 seems extreme and 1 DOES give some points.

So I made 2 builds (feel free to critique them please)

1. E4 S4 A4 Dom 10 O3 S3 H1 L1 M1 Asleep 15 points left over (seems you can't get away from those 15 points).

2. Asleep, E4 S4 A4 Dom 10 O3 S3 H3 L3 (I know but it just seems in this case natural) M1 !5 points left over.

IF you like these builds, WHICH do you like better.

If you would like to critique and perhaps offer some guidance, Please DO.

The Virtue looks like it could be a fun off pace Pretender so i am serious about asking.

Thanks!!!:up:

Re: The Virtue
 

I'd hesitate to go with only S4.
I'd also wonder if D10 is necessary if you're not taking her awake. By the time she wakes up you'll have gear and buffs, she won't be relying only on the awe.

Otherwise it depends on the nation. S3 will be okay for some, but crippling in the first year (with no pretender) for others. I also probably wouldn't take earth on her unless my national mages didn't have access.

Re: The Virtue
 

You forgot to say which nation this is for.

Re: The Virtue
 

You probably should have asked this in the BKaP:V thread, if only to make it easier for prosperity to find. Anyway...

Evaluating a Pretender build without clarifying which nation its suppose to assist is difficult. An awake pretender is a little different, as the assumption is the Pretender will be battling indies with out support from troops or national mages. Furthermore, I rarely play CBM and dislike the changes they made to the Virtue. Sure, having 2 paths is definitely a boost, but it sort of forces builds to focus on Astral. Simply reducing the additional path cost to 50 from 80 would be a much better "fix," but thats neither he nor there.

Anyway, if she's sleeping, she's not fighting indies and hopefully when she awakes your nation will be in better shape to equip her or cast some buffs. So, I'd drop the Dom down to 7 or 8. Earth magic... its pretty potent, especially in combination with Air (best SC buffs in the game and Elemental Staff) and Astral (ton of valuable forging takes place with Astral and Earth). It's an expensive addition, but probably worth while depending on nation. It also improves protection making Dom10 even more unnecessary.

Astral is probably fine at S4 and opens the door to Ring forging, but certainly still vulnerable to Magic Duel and keeps Wish out of reach without empowering. Going S6 fixes both and adds a little extra MR for sacreds that might be handy depending on nation.

Sloth means your nation is going to have trouble expanding... depending on troop types. Really, this is going to be very nation dependent, but I typically think Production doesn't get the respect it deserves.

Now on to temp scales. I don't know who told you go neutral or go 3, but they were lying. Everyone loves order-3 and its 7% per tick income bonus. Yet, temp scales are a 5% per tick penalty. The difference between 5 and 7 is there, but not game changing. In general, I suggest players only pick non-neutral temp scales if the only other place to pick up points is Order. Obviously, the needs of any build is complex. And, some nations have preferred temperatures which players should absolutely take advantage of.

Luck/Misfortune is typically the cheapest place to pick up points. Yeah, it will help your endgame when combined with magic scales creating gem generating random events. But thats a luxury.

Magic once against depends on nation, but any nation planning on recruiting a lot of cheap, low path mages will want as much magic as possible (at least 1, which you have), and avoid drain like the plague. If you're playing a nation with very expensive mages with a lot of paths, then Drain become more of an option.

Re: The Virtue
 

You can assume the nation is arco. its all GB plays ;)

Re: The Virtue
 

Given these two choices, I'd certainly take number 1. In the second scenario you spend 120 design points to get +7% income and +7% chance of good events. It's too small a gain for all those points. Plus you get less supplies and more encumbrance on troops.

I'd go misfortune 2 and neutral temp and get more design points to spend on magic paths. Also I'd take death instead of earth. Mystics cover the earth-astral combo and you have no mages with death. And if you take death go D5 for the fear effect.

Something like:
Dom 10, O3 S3 Misf2 Magic1
A4S5D5

Re: The Virtue
 

Talk about things that don't get enough respect - Luck is hugely underrated imho.

Luck provides extra income, gems, and occasionally better things (magic items, etc...).

Luck causes imprisoned pretenders to break out earlier. Possibly sleeping pretenders wake up earlier, but I haven't noticed a difference.

Luck increases the chances of a hero showing up.

Misfortune drastically increases the chances that you will suffer a game losing effect early (lab burns down early year 1, early plague, bandits in your capitol turn 2 or 3, etc...). Eventually misfortune becomes liveable, but its negative effects in year 1 can be truly awful.

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I'd argue you either take 1 tick or 3 ticks in temperature, and never 0 or 2.

H0 - half the time at H1 or C1 = 2.5% average income hit.
H1 - half the time at H2 or H0 = 5% average income hit.
H2 - half the time at H3 or H1 = 10% average income hit.
H3 - half the time at H2 = 12.5% average income hit.

Note that its only a 2.5% increased hit from H0 to H1, and from H2 to H3, while H1 to H2 is a full 5% income hit. 2.5% is less than the income hit from sloth or death scales per tick. Sold.

Now, if you have a preferred temperature scale it is *always* worthwhile to max out that scale, regardless of what that preference is. C+1 preference? C3 every time.

Re: The Virtue
 

Well, they said inthe other Forum that AECO was the best suited for Virtue and I play Arco alot and was thinking I would mess around in SP with it but needed a good start on Pretender design.:)

Re: The Virtue
 

C3/H3 affects combat too by adding +2 enc for any units which are not resistant to Cold/Heat. That can be a nice fringe benefit or a significant hindrance to your troops. E.g. Vanheim or Helheim go from enc 4 to enc 6 on their expensive sacreds, which could mean you need 20% or 30% more troops to kill the same amount of enemies in C3 dominion. Conversely, if you're fighting expensive, elite troops with a fairly weak attack and great Prot/Defense (Blindfighters, Lord Guardians, etc.) it may be quite advantageous to be in C3/H3 dominion even if your chaff suffers an enc penalty as well.

-Max

Re: The Virtue
 

I agree with most of this in theory, but in practice I still insist that misfortune (up to 2) is the cheapest place to pick up additional pretender points, especially if growth (or at least not death) and Order is taken. Turmoil+Death+Misfortune looks ugly pretty fast.

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This is completely wrong from my play experience. The math works out fine, but I don't think for a second seasonal shifts in the temp scale come close to being in effect "half the time." If you're like me, you probably have a dozen SP games floating around. Check any of them (which have reasonably sized empires with a good Dom spread). How many provinces deviate from the base temp scales? Not many, and those that do are most likely to be on the fringes or only recently fell under your dominion.

Though the mechanics of seasonal temp shifts are unknown to me, I believe they work like this. During certain seasons (summer and winter, obviously, but maybe fall and spring), provinces have a CHANCE to change temps in a certain direction. This chance is not certain, and I don't think even independent provinces under no dom will change temps with any regularity. Now, even those that do change, are now subject to shifts based on your dominion, the same shifts that change Order, luck, and magic. That drastically cuts down the effect of season on temperature. Meaning "half the time" is more like 1/6 the time.


Double check that again. Death and Sloth give you a 2% deduction outright, though pop loss might make temp losses more attractive in the long run, I don't think thats where you're going.

Let me provide a counter example. Take a nation that prefers Heat-1. Buy Heat-3. Congratulations, you just cost your nation 10% of its capital income for the critical expansion phase. No chance of that going down until winter, and the game starts in summer. Buy the time winter hits, your capital is likely to have a high dominion score, giving you a much reduced chance of going to Heat-2 for any extended length of time. Border provinces also suffer.

I'll admit, this sort of thinking does depend on the nation having a high dominion score, but since we are talking about the Virtue I'd say thats a safe assumption.

Re: The Virtue
 

Heat scales seem to be influenced strongly by neighboring provinces. It's actually quite difficult to maintain heat-3 in your capitol for the first year or two even if that's what you want. It's random, but I've played some games with heat-3 scales on my god, dom 6 at least, where the temp in my capitol stayed at heat-1 for pretty much the whole first year.

Cold-1 can be pretty effective the first year, since you'll very likely have neutral temp in your cap through summer and fall.

Re: The Virtue
 

I've gotten lousy events in the first couple turns far too often to think taking misfortune is an 'easy' way to pick up points. I would far rather take temperature scales (where the effects are predictable), or drain scales (again, predictable - assumes nation can handle it) than misfortune scales in most cases. There are nations where death scales make more sense than misfortune. Every time I take misfortune I'm carefully weighing the likelihood of effectively losing the game before i even make contact with anyone else, and the amount of distraction independents attacking me will cause. For someone quibbling about 5% income below, you're awful cavalier about the possibility of suffering things like a 50+% income loss on turn 2 or 3. Ever had your fortress sieged by 100 barbarians turn 2? I have. (Thank god it was SP - i could quit right away).

I find myself rarely having the points for Growth scales, and taking order and growth to offset misfortune 2 is not a way to gain points - better off just taking less growth or order.

Don't get me wrong, there are times misfortune is the right choice. But those times are far from commonplace in my experience.

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Actually, i've watched my capitol temperature fluctuate up and down. Its a pretty regular occurrence.

Also, new provinces are another area where temperature extremes don't hurt as much. For some period of time you'll have incomplete scales in a province, especially far from your capitol, even in the presence of, say, your prophet or you pretender. Having played a game recently where temperature of contested provinces mattered a lot (Noobs vs. Vets, where I took Cold 3 as Shinuyama because it seemed the most likely to hurt the plausible nearby vets - and had Ashdod as my adjacent vet - so i was watching province temperature anywhere near Ashdod), I can tell you that even with my prophet right there I never saw a cold 3 border province (~5+ territories from my capitol) until the front had moved well past that point, with provinces near or on the border varying between 0-2 cold. And I had a Dom 9 pretender, so poor Dominion rating certainly wasn't an issue.

As I understand it, dominion spread doesn't guarantee scale spread, it just carries the possibility of spreading *a* scale, meaning the spreading of any given scale will be somewhat random. Larger maps relative to number of players will have more territories controlled by players far from their capitols, and thus less influenced for long periods of time by their scales.

Like everyone else except apparently yourself participating in this thread, I'm assuming CBM. Do non-CBM games even happen? I haven't seen one start since I've started playing, so discussing non-CBM is *pointless*.

[/quote]

I'd still take Heat 3. Even assuming you take the full penalty the first half of the year, the design points are usually more worthwhile than 5% of your cash.

And yes, 5% is the relevant metric because your heat 1 is going to go up to 2 by summer at the latest. Heat 3 is 40 free design points for that 'critical expansion' phase, because it can't go any higher than Heat 3.

Finally, Heat 3 is insurance against cold dominion spread against you, keeping your provinces comfortable for your units (who are resistant to the effects of heat, but not cold). The more heat you have, the more buffered you are - because every successful spreading of cold dominion into yours will reduce the heat by 1.

Re: The Virtue
 

There are still a lot of non cbm games played. Not necessarily those in the AAR subforum though.

Re: The Virtue
 

I have serious doubts about that, as it has never happened to me in 3+ years of playing SP or MP games. If it happened to you then it must have been in one of the very earliest versions of Dominions 3 (v 3.00 / 3.01).

KO has stated previously on this issue that very bad events, such as a barbarian attack, can not happen in the first few turns. So if KO is correct, then barbarians shouldn't be showing up on turn 1 or 2 as you say has happened to you. KO may be wrong, but my experience of the game to date is that he isn't wrong on this one.

Here is the link to KO's statement.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...675#post634675

Re: The Virtue
 

Does he also consider lab burning down, plague, etc... to be very bad and to not occur on turn 2?

I'll admit, i've played a lot of turns 1-12 because i like to repeatedly kit-bash a nation through the first year to test indie expansion strategies and research strategies. And at least the lab burning on turn 2 happened in the latest version. And I've seen a capitol plague on turn 2 or 3. (In fact, I had Luck 3 when i had the lab burn on turn 2...). Either of those are game enders.

I can't remember if i'd patched yet when i got Barbs on turn 2, but i've definitely seen the AI be hit by barbs on turn 2 in the latest patch. (Poor Agartha never got to do anything!)

(Reports in that thread of turn 2 indie attacks are no more than a year old, so it can't be that many patches ago... They say turn 1... i use turn 2 to mean events you see at the start of turn 2).

Re: The Virtue
 

If you have actual example games that can be attached of these things happening on turn 1-2 as you say, then myself, and I am sure many other experienced players, would be very keen to see them. Since they would go against the generally accepted knowledge on this issue.

Until then I'm afraid I have to remain very sceptical on your observations of these events happening on turn 2.

Re: The Virtue
 

Unfortunately I routinely delete/overwrite my SP test games so I don't have pages of games to scroll through. If I see such a thing again I'll make a note and copy the .trn file.

Re: The Virtue
 

Pretty sure I've had Bogus on a very early turn. Possibly not turn 2 though. And that's more or less a death sentence.

Re: The Virtue
 

Knowing that the pretender will be used with Arcoscephale helps, but to get the most out of her, you need to consider how you want to play the nation - and there are different strategies to chose from.

Scales are very dependent on how you want to develop your strategy, but since heat and luck have been discussed, I will comment on that.

When it comes to temperature scales, my observations so far have been that it is much more usual to have your chosen scales in provinces with reasonable dominion, than it is to have it off by a level. I remain very sceptical to claims that temperature deviates half the year.
For this reason I am not particularly fond of paying for another scale with temperature for monetary reasons. In the case of Order, it could of course be warranted if you want the extra event reduction as well, but if you have positive luck scales that is more of a detriment.

However you choose to go here, I strongly advise against going for H3. Arcoscephale has both heavy armoured units and tramplers available, none of which manage especially well under additional encumbrance.


As for luck, I also think that it is somewhat underrated. You do not know exactly what you get and when, but in the end it all adds up rather nicely. Still it depends on the nation and strategy, but I happen to think that positive luck works very well for Arcoscephale. Especially the extra gems are very useful as it saves valuable mage time in the early game. I have never played a game as Arcoscephale with positive luck where I have not received enough gems to start an economy with them without having to send out a couple of mages to manually search for an initial income. This together with all the rest you get out of it, makes it well worth it.


When it comes to paths on the pretender, I think you should consider removing the earth levels. It is very expensive and your national mages can already cover earth adequately. It is a nice path for SCs, but it can be covered for by equipment. In MA I could see an argument for nature instead, but otherwise I think going to S6 and adding a couple of extra scales instead would work better. The S6 will make her more resilient agains Mind Duel and make a lot of high level astral spells easier to cast. And you will be able to use wish without empowering.

Another way is to keep her at A4S4 and have her awake. Even if you are not used to her you can take easy independents with her from the start and once alteration 1 is researched, personal luck makes her more resilient.



And lastly, a bit off topic:
I want to second this.

Moreover, though I do not use CBM in my games, I have managed to learn a lot from posts on these boards that were about CBM. I very much doubt that the converse could not be true.

I need to keep a copy of CBM for evaluation purposes, of course, but everyone using CBM does automatically have access to the ordinary game, so that cannot be a problem.

In short, discussions about non-CBM are not pointless.

Re: The Virtue
 

Ok, having just played 15-20 LA Ulm games through turn 12 with C3, it always dropped to C2 by summer. *Always*. I won't comment on the spread of cold, because my dominion was generally low (4-5).

Also, C3/H3 is a great way to afford O3, rather than taking Mf. And elephants are not going to fatigue out that fast against independents, which is the only place they're useful.

Thinking about this some more, I like luck scales, but arco has a fortune teller unit. That makes misfortune more tempting - so long as you're willing to accept you might just get shafted early.

Also, production is over-rated as Arco because their units suck. Seriously. I'd poor my money into mercenaries or independents over that crap. Elephants are about your only national troop worth buying, and then only early for expansion - and you're going to be cash limited more than resource limited. I'd take Sloth 3 every time.

So, if i were playing Arco, my scales probably look something like O3 Sl3 H/C3, which is +120 points, and then it depends on pretender design. An awake Virtue with minimalist paths (A4S4), dom 10, and Gr1 Lk2 Mg1 looks reasonable. (17pts left, but there's nowhere good to spend them). Tweak scales to taste. In CBM, that's basically net-neutral on income in *worst case* scenario (ie, if your temp scale is actually maxxed out on the turn), and has reasonably good luck events, strong research, and an awake SC to help with expansion.

Re: The Virtue
 

With Arco, what about awake Virtue O3S3H3G3Mf1Mg1 Dom 7 A2S4D5 (CBM)?
A2 allows Cloud Trapeze and Mistform. S4 gives you RoW. D5 gives fear and access to every path but Blood. Also, have someone by Turn 3 to forge helmet/black steel plate.

In vanilla, I'd go with A4D5.

Re: The Virtue
 

D5 over Dom 10 is almost certainly a mistake. Awe +7 is virtually impenetrable by indies, and hard for most players through the midgame. Also, increase the chances you're fighting in dominion =)

I also dislike the points necessary for an extra path, although death is certainly the right one if you do it.

I see no reason to take Mf1 to pay for G3 either. G2 Lk0 is fine.

Re: The Virtue
 

And how long did it stay there?
As mentioned by vfb, cold is a bit safer than heat through the first year. As far as I can tell, the likelihood for temperature change is influenced by dominion level and difference to surrounding provinces as well as season, which means that a low dominion, extreme cold temperature is rather likely to change during the first summer.
I ran half a dozen games with LA ULM cold 3, dominion 5 and the temperature does tend to rise during summer, but in none of those games did I have less than cold 3 for more than 5 of the first 12 months. Having a higher temperature 3 months were just as common as having it 5. (For reference, 5 months at cold 2 and 7 at cold 3 means an average gold cut of about 13% per month for a temperature neutral nation, 3 months an average of 13.75%. There is, however, the possibility to have the temperature go to cold 1 if it stays at cold 2 for a while - I have seen it happen in other instances - and that would make the loss a bit less.)
And in the following years, when your dominion has established itself and the surrounding provinces are going to have at least some cold, you will see higher temperatures less often.

Just for fun I ran 2 games (not much, I know) with an awake dom10 pretender and in neither of those did the temperature budge from cold 3.

And we are talking about a high dominion pretender in the case of the Virtue.

Look, I am all for taking luck, but the fact is that if it is steady gold income you are after, you get a lot more of it by paying for order with luck instead of temperature scales.
Ask yourself why you want O3.
Even going by your calculation of C/H 3 just representing a 12.5% cut (something that my observations do not support) O3 C/H3 would net you a 8.5% gain. O2/Misf2 will net you 14%. Understand that the effects other than income might influence quite a bit. In case you go for O2/Misf2, it makes very much sense to pay for O3 through a step in either direction on the temperature scale - not primarily for the income, but for the reduction of events.

In a similar vein the loss of supplies can hurt a lot. It all depends on how you want to play the nation.

As far as elephants and encumbrance is concerned, I tend to need an extra elephant in extreme temperatures when it comes to taking independents. I am not a very good player, so we can probably chalk it up to that, but however that may be, I need that extra elephant.

Hm, as I said before, I find luck quite beneficial for Arcoscephale and capital only fortune tellers do not really convince me otherwise. Moreover, only LA has decent fortune tellers. The MA Astrologer only has 5% fortune teller and EA does not have any fortune telling at all.

I do not advocate any extra production with Arcoscephale, but calling its units crap is going to far. In every era Arcoscephale has decent units beside tramplers. Certainly better than other than very special independents.

I want to second this.
D5 is nowhere near as effective as dom 10 in case of the Virtue.

Re: The Virtue
 

What is the recommendation by the last two posters of Dom 10 over D5 based on?

As far as I can tell the choice between dom 10 and D5 seems to depend if you want Death access or stronger Dom, and both are valid. From what I can tell it works out about the same in terms of combat effectiveness, at least before soul vortex is researched. (The D has a higher deviation on the morale rolls, which is bad, but also makes the combat shorter, which is especially good vs indies.)

Re: The Virtue
 

At least my recommendation is based on my direct experience with the Virtue both with dom 10 and no death and with dom < 9 and D5.

A D5 Virtue without extra dominion is hit more often by indies than one with dom 10. (This is allowing for the fact that fights tend to be shorter with fear.) Without equipment or a couple of levels of magic researched she cannot afford that.

If you use her asleep and can give her appropriate equipment when she wakes up, this might change, but then she is not nearly as useful for expansion into independent provinces as lot of those will be gone.

It is also a matter of costs. D5 costs 45 points more than dom 10, and while I can often do quite well without death on the pretender I consider dom 4 rather risky.

As a general rule I would recommend to go for a sleeping Virtue if you want D5 on her. If you can find the points to have her awake with dom 10 and D5, I am all for it of course. As the game and research moves on, a Virtue with a number of death levels will be more powerful than one without, dom 10 or not, but the initial cost is much higher.

In CBM there is also the problem of the astral levels. If you want to use her as a SC, you need to add quite a few levels here, or she is unusable against anyone with reasonable access to astral mages some time into the game. This increases her cost even more.

If death access in general is the reason you want death on the Virtue, you could consider simply going with another pretender.

Re: The Virtue
 

My perspective is mostly based on points:effectiveness payoff.

A pretender which doesn't get hit wins combats. Awe +7 is really hard for virtually all independents to hit, and you have air magic for air shield. Its also pretty cheap to get Dom10, and has other benefits (each point of your dominion in the province you attack is +1 to all stats!). (7+14+21+28+35+42 = 147)

Fear +0 isn't *that* much fear, and its really expensive. D1 is 80 points right up front, and its another 16+24+32+40 = 112 points to get to D5, for a total pricetage of 192. That's an extra scale you just lost, and you haven't even bought any more dominion yet. And as the above poster pointed out, you'll take more total hits vs. independents even with the shorter combats.

Basically, I can't justify buying another path with Virtue because its so expensive. And you get perfectly good combat buffs with astral (personal luck, body ethereal) - which you're going to want to make S4+ for protection from mind hunting anyway. You don't need the death to be an SC later (although its inarguable you'd be stronger with it), but A+S is a good combination for buffing as is. (And if you take A4 you can also do things like drop Fog Warriors with a booster or extra gem - a booster you can forge yourself).

Edit:
In non-CBM I'd just take Air, or more likely, wouldn't take Virtue at all.

They're crap for their high resource cost. Might as well get the free 120 points for Sl3 and buy the much more reasonable indies who may be less effective, but also don't require tons of resources to build. I mean, its not like your national troops are going to win you any midgame wars, and you have an indie expansion unit, so they fill no niche except chaff. Indies are perfectly acceptable as chaff.

Re: The Virtue
 

Ah, fair enough, testing does show that the extra awe is the way to go for early combat effectiveness, I stand corrected.

That being said, MA Mari might still be justified in going for a fear build, since they don't have any SC chassis with innate D magic. The Cyclops is still likely a better choice, but a D virtue could at least be considered.

Re: The Virtue
 

Nah, MA Mari needs a Dom-10 D5 Wyrm!

Re: The Virtue
 

I experimented with it some time ago and it worked decently, but I have not had any opportunity to test it in a real game, so take it for what its worth.

Based on my experiments I recommend having her asleep. As mentioned earlier I just cannot get the performance I need out of her for indie expansion purposes without dom 10. And an awake dom 10 A4D5 Virtue is point-intensive enough that I had real troubles a bit into the game.
The pretender is powerful enough herself, but she cannot be everywhere and she really does not help winning fights when she is not there. You need her to start a death economy and summon chain, which may take quite some time. In all probability she will also need to help with developing an air economy and since you have nothing but the occasional mage with a single earth pick you have to pay premium for everything you forge if you are not able to trade for a hammer. Essentially I was playing Marignon with crappy scales and an absent SC for stretches of the game. Late mid-game or so everything came on-line nicely, but I very much doubt I would have gotten that far against real opponents.

Having her asleep saves me from having to take too much of a hit in the scales-department and though indie expansion is slower, it is no catastrophe, as Marignon can do decently without pretender help against indies.

I would be very much interested to see what a better player could do with it, though.

I really do not understand this.

First off, nothing prevents you from going for S3 and buying national troops. Sure, you will get less of them, but you will get less indies also.
And if you just want a lot of cheap bodies, your Peltasts are light infantry with shields and javelins for 6 resources. If you want something heavier in MA or LA you have the Hypaspists. They are like indie heavy infantry only with better stats all around - including mapmove 2 and insanely high morale for a non-sacred unit. They are expensive gold-wise, but you were complaining about resources, so that should not be a problem.
In EA there are the Icarid warriors that you have a hard time finding something equivalent to in indie provinces. They do cost a hefty amount of resources, but then again, they are hardly just chaff.

My point here is that resource-wise Arcoscephalean units are not especially expensive for what you get. Of course, if you just look at Myrmidons and Hoplites everything seems to cost a tonne of resources, but those are elite heavy infantry units without widespread equivalents in independent provinces. You do not have to buy those if you do not want them, as there are lower resource national troops to buy.

Re: The Virtue
 

Re: Amorphous
Maybe I'm thinking of LA Arco. I could swear I looked at an arco line up and it was all high resources. (Except for slingers of course, which are worthless compared to indie archers).

Attached (assuming i'm doing this right) is an plague hitting Lanka on turn 1 (message start of turn 2). O3 Sl3 H3 D3 Mf2 Mg1 scales, non-CBM.

I also saw a vampire count attack my capitol on turn 3 about 4 test games ago, although I remembered just after I overwrote it with a new test game that I was supposed to be saving such things. (Amusingly, said attack was chased off by monkey PD! Poo fling powers, activate!)

Re: The Virtue
 

Let me quickly point out that Plague events are much more a product of Death Dominion than Misfortune. Fortune certainly makes them rarer (and possibly less severe like barbarian attacks), but having growth eliminates them outright. I'm not sure what Growth/Death neutral does.

I'll take your word that bad events can happen to the capital within a few turns. I myself maintain after playing what must be hundreds of SP games to turn 12 with O3Mf2 (though usually with Growth as well) that such occurences are rare or just not "crippling." And even if they truly are a knock out blow such as a capital under siege... better to loose early before you invest a lot of time in a game so you can start another.

Re: The Virtue
 

According to this http://www.freewebs.com/dominions2/events.html, Death-3 makes plagues common, so if you do get a random bad event, your chances of it being a plague are much higher.

Re: The Virtue
 

In Momentum2 Mictlan had unrest in capital on first turn. Bad things happen.

Thanks for this Squirrelloid. I'm in work so I can't check it yet, but I have just scanned the zip archive though and it only contains a .2h file. For others to be able to access a game you need to archive everything in that games folder. So that is basically the .trn and .fatherland (something like this it is called) files. And also the .map file if you used a custom map. The .2h file is actually the only file not needed to 'see' the game, as that is only needed to see/know the orders for that turn, which is why that is what gets sent to the llamaserver :) But I'll be certain to check it out once you attach everything that is needed.

A plague event on turn 2 would be borderline crippling though, and would indicate that there is at least one very bad event that can happen at the start of turn 2. So I would certainly have to re-assess the theory that there are no very bad events possible that soon if your example game shows it happening.

But as others have said, the Plague event is linked to Death3 scales. And anyone who takes Death3 and Mistfortune is asking for trouble (although I realise you probably did so just for demonstration purposes)


Edit: Changed the post title to enable it to be found with the search function.

Re: The Virtue
 

Every bad event can happen on early turns. There was a wish to disable worst events for early turns, but I don't think it was ever granted.

Re: The Virtue
 

But there are 'early' turns, and then there are turns 1-3. Bad events in the 'early' turns are rarely game ending, but getting one in the first 1-3 turns can be.

KO has stated that no really bad event can happen before turn 3-4, as linked and referenced by myself in one of the above posts. But it would be useful to establish if there are any potentially crippling events that don't follow KO's statement, or if KO's staement is just incorrect. For example, I am 99% certain that in three years of playing, I have not ever had my capital attacked by Indy's at the start of turn 2. Which does follow KO's statement.

What Squirrelloid has attempted to do with his attached save game is show that there is at least one exception to KO's statement. And it is something I am interested in seeing once he attaches everything required to access it.

Unfortunately, I am not someone who readily believes statements about the game mechanics unless I can be shown my understanding is incorrect. So just saying "Every bad event can happen on early turns" means almost nothing to me personally. No offence intended to anyone of course, I just always like things backed-up if they go against my knowledge :)

Re: The Virtue
 

I tested turn 2 (the very first hosting of the game) events in EA and MA for a bit with some bad scales and saw:

- Brigands (30 unrest)
- Hurricane (30 unrest)
- Ill Omen (30 unrest)
- Gadite rebel set your slaves free
- Frost has destroyed the crops. -80 gold, 10 unrest
- An assassin has tried to eliminate one of your commanders
- People are restless and on fifth left (-20% pop), 0 unrest
- Famine struck the land (-20% pop, -100 gold, 100 unrest) <--- Ooh, nice! :)
- Plague struck the land (-50% pop, 10 unrest)
- People led astray (-dom)
- Heavy snowfalls (-100 gold)
- Blight (-5% pop, -80 gold, 10 unrest)
- Magic is fading
- Lab destroyed
- Demon possessed a herd of swine (30 unrest)
- Sharks caused panic (30 unrest)
- Thief stole gems
- Trolls ate some travelers (-50 gold, 10 unrest)
- Vampire Count attacked province <-- he killed Ashdod's PD

So, it looks like barbarians and knights are out, I would have noticed them. Caspar is pretty rare, so I probably need to test more. Same with the Ancient Presence.

But on the very first hosting, you can get the (-20% pop, -100 gold, 100 unrest) famine event, and also the Vampire Count can attack your home province, and your lab can burn down.

Re: The Virtue
 

Many thanks for the turn 2 event list vfb. I knew most of the unrest and minor pop killings events were possible on turn 2 (although I don't consider them game ending), but the Plague, Lab Fire and especially Vampire Count event are new to me I must say. Since I thought all of those were only possible from turn 3 onwards. One day someone (me if I get time) will nail down a precise list of just what scales are related to allowing specific events to happen. Since I've never seen a complete/accurate list of this anywhere.

And I guess all those posts I've seen in the past advocating to always recruit a mage on turn 1 are right then :) Unless you gamble on Merc mages to re-build your lab.

Re: The Virtue
 

Or get reduced to half pop in your capital. In mists of time, i was hit by the half pop plague event on turns 2,3, and 5, all in my capital. That slowed me down a bit.

Re: The Virtue
 

Yes, half pop is the plague, and it's in my list.

But just to let you know, the list is by no means complete, it's just a sample of bad events I got on the first turn hosting.

Re: The Virtue
 

Ok, this should be the right uploaded file. Map is Aran, which is a standard map as i recall.

Re: The Virtue
 

Many thanks for that example game Squirrelloid. Short term that Plague will probably be the same as a few unrest events, but long term the income loss will certainly be painful.

I could now make a joke about how I've always avoided taking Death3 and Mistfortune like the Plague. But I won't :p