[Scott Hebert]

I'm sorry if people have already suggested this.

I had an idea about the Scales. Instead of good costing you points, and bad gaining you points, why not simply remove the point cost (or gain) from the Scales?

Naturally, you would have to balance each part of the scale to each other part of the scale. You simply can't let everyone take '3 good' in every scale. Instead, you would change the modifiers so that each choice is as good as any other choice.

Take, for example, the 'Order/Turmoil' scale. You can rename it to 'Centralization/Decentralization' or keep the name the same. The idea, though, is that the more you choose on one side of the scale, the more tilted you are towards that idea. Same as before. However, now 'Order' is not clearly better than 'Turmoil'. Let us think of some ways that Order/Centralization can be good:

Affect/determine Admin% of Fortification.
Affect/determine effectiveness of preaching.

There could be others, but this is enough to start on. Basically, the idea with this scale would be how 'inward-focused' your nation is. A high rating in this scale would give you a higher Admin% on your Forts, and possibly raise your priest level when preaching (a la that Order-specific 25pt. special in DomII). But what would be the drawbacks? Well, what are the drawbacks to an inward-focused nation? Perhaps worse scouting reports. Perhaps a reduction/elimination of the Supply moving outward from your fortifications. Perhaps a reduction of Dominion moving out of the provinces it's generated in.

You get the idea, however. It is a self-controlling thing. The 'Turmoil' part would get all of the opposite traits. Less/no Admin%, Less/no preaching ability, but better scouting reports, better Supply generation from Forts, and a bonus on moving Dominion out of generated Provinces.

The only concern I'd have for doing things this way is to make sure that you don't just have 'all Order, none, or all Turmoil'.