[PvK]

It's very difficult to evaluate fairly without knowning the actual numbers. Anecdotal evidence only goes so far to objectively appraise luck. Someone can have a couple of very unlucky games with Luck +3, and decide Luck is worthless, or the other extremes.

This can also be greatly slanted in cases where players cop out and "dump" a game early because things didn't seem to be going well, start a new one and just get annoyed and pretend it didn't happen. That playstyle is incompatible with (doesn't like / is incompatible with) the whole Luck/Event mechanic and I'd say should probably be campaigning for a game setting that removes all major disasters from the game, instead.

A couple of people have mentioned losing entire games due to disastrous events within the first ten turns while taking Order +3 with Luck -3, so if that turns out to be a relatively high chance, then it may be priced OK overall. On the other hand, I wonder if they lost because they gave up, or did they play as hard as they could to the game's end and still lost, and was it then because they were playing against multiple AI at Impossible, etc.?

All in all, it sounds like the really savage events (i.e. population down in home province by greater than 10%) might be best if they were made more rare than they are. Perhaps all population death events should have a maximum % and a maximum number of people, the lower effect being taken, and the max percent never greater than 10%. Losing 25% population even to catastrophic floods is awfully high.

Personally, I've played two games to unsuccessful conclusion, and two games out to turn 40- and 80- something, and about six short test games, all with either average or positive Luck, and my personal results have seemed fine to me, except for the one game (with Order zero and Luck zero) where I did lose 25% population and my home lab, but neither event was really a major contribution to my loss in the whole game. I don't recall any particularly important bad luck events in any of the other games, though the population losses do seem to outweigh the minor bonuses of most events, except when I played Mictlan with Luck +3. In that case, I've had no major bad luck (there have been population blitzes, but they've fallen on cruddy provinces with very low population), and the good luck has had three very important positive effects for my struggling nation (two unique-awesome-free national heroes, and a Soul Contract that has become the backbone of my military, without which I might've been wiped out by now).

Still, from a logic point of view, I think the argument is still compelling that:

1) if there are events which can permanently mess up your most important provinces, and

2) if they still occur with some frequency, and

3) if Order gives gold, resources, reduces unrest and reduces the chance of events, then

4) Order seems like it's likely a good idea.

However I can't attest at all to point 2) myself, and I really haven't cared enough to investigate point 3), since I'm still happily playing single-player without a thought to trying to "game the scales system" and having a bLast, not noticing any particular problems. So, I'm not really qualified to do much more than offer what I've seen, and some ideas.

PvK