[Zenzei]

Here's my take on the scales
Order: Sweet.
Turmoil: Passable with Luck 3, anything less is not hot.
Productivity/Sloth: I take sloth very often in order to get more design points.
Heat/Cold: I almost always take one scale more than the nation's preference.
Growth: I'm starting to think this is the most useless scale, it just doesn't give any tangible benefits soon enough.
Death: This, on the other hand, starts to feel like a no brainer. I think death is good choice for every nation except for those with heavy blood element but even blood nations can get away with it in small game.
Magic: If the nation I'm playing has cheap sacred researchers, I always aim for magic 3. Magic 3 also has a very significant effect on spellcasting fatigue. Magic 1 is my default setting for nations with no cheapo researchers.
Drain: I think this a very very bad choice, unless your mages are immune to the effect (MA Ulm, LA Man).
Luck: Good but it's hard to get points for it except by taking turmoil.
Misfortune: Is BAD. I never take it because I always seem to get some bad unrest event on turn 2, which slows my early game very seriously and therefore has long-reaching consequences (this happens even with order 3).