[OmikronWarrior]

Also, take into account your scales. Somebody with generally negative scales NEEDS more territory to simply stay competitive. For example, somebody with Turmoil-3 has their gold reduced to 79% of the base, while somebody with Order-3 get 121% of the base. Thats around a 50% difference. More importantly, the negative scales make it really tough for the player to afford mages, units, and buildings.

So, if you're going to try to turtle to build up something, I recommend Order-3, at least 1-growth, and 0-hot/cold. Drain-2 might be OK depending on the specifics of your nation/strategy, but Magic-1 can make research a lot easier.