I know doubt the tools for modding scales will allow even 10% of what I mention here, but unless you speak up, you never know=)
Things I would like to add:
Rebalance scale design point costs, if possible, like this:
+45,+40,+35,0,+35,+40,+45 for Heat/Cold
-35,-40,-45,0,+45,+50,+55 for Magic/Drain
-45,-40,-35,0,+35,+30,+25 for Luck/Unluck
This rebalance would make the currently attractive endpoints of luck/unluck less attractive, and the unattractive magic/drain and heat/cold endpoints more attractive. Note, these are the INCREMENTAL costs, not cumulative. Currently all the scales cost 40,40,40,0,40,40,40 (with the 40's positive or negative, depending on the scale).
Luck scale affecting afflictions using this algorithm: (Damage*(10-Luck)/(10*HP))=chance of affliction. That's a 10% difference per scale. For example, a 25 HP unit taking 5 damage in a +3 luck scale province would have a (5*(10-3)/(10*25))=14% rather than default 20% chance of gaining an affliction.
Magic scale affecting gem production, with randomized gem output, with sites getting +-10% average output per magic/drain scale. Production would be like this: Every gem would change to 2 coin flips. So, a 1-gem site would have a 25% chance of making no gems, 50% of 1 gems, and 25% chance of 2 gems, each turn. Magic/drain would unbalance the coins, so that a neutral scale coin would have a 50%-50% head-tail chance, and a +1 magic would have 55%-45% head-tail distributions.
Example: A site makes 2 Earth gems, 1 water gem, and is in Drain-2. Coins are thus 40% heads, and 60% tails. This generates 4 Earth coins, and 2 Water coins.
Using these unbalanced coins...
4 Earth coins flip for:
13% 0 Earth Gems
35% 1 Earth Gems
35% 2 Earth Gems
15% 3 Earth Gems
2.5% 4 Earth Gems
2 Water coins flip for:
36% 0 Water Gems
48% 1 Water Gems
16% 2 Water Gems
This generates an average of 1.6 Earth, and .8 Water gems, max of 4 and 2 and min of 0 and 0. Note the average 20% reduction from the original 2 Earth, 1 Water due to the drain scale unbalancing the coins.
This coin-gem system would also be great for use with a potential map gem-richness setting...
Note that the player never sees coins, or knows about coins, they are all behind the scenes.
Also note that if +-10% seems too drastic, +-5% could be used instead... or the scale could simply be made more costly.
-Cherry
[ November 23, 2003, 07:59: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]