To JimMorrison:
>>or "some neutrals attack your province". Mid-> late game the second category type of events you can easily remedy with a modicum of PD if your PD is good, otherwise you can just dump 20 into a province and have basic immunity from those events in that province.<<
I'll just quote myself because I'm a giant elitist douche, and it's fun to pretend like you haven't actually read what I already wrote.
I think Bandar log has /exceptionally/ terrible PD. I mean, there was a huge thread with a guy on here who was convinced that Bandar log's inability to win was based solely on the awfulness of their PD alone. Now, he might have been a big jerk, but he was probably right about how bad the PD was.
Because of this Bandar log doesn't fall under the net I was trying to cast because they can't simply dump money into PD, and become immune to the majority of the invasion bad luck events. It's probably poor wording on my part. I'm tired, and now I have to go buy TEN POUNDS OF GROUND BEEF.
So in general, for most races in the game, your only choices are O3/M2 or T3/L3. In the same vein, I always start my scales off with Magic 1, and I rarely change that anymore. You'd have to find a good reason to make me waste a tick to get to M2, and I think Drain 2 is terrible unless you have a race that is resistant to it.
Oh, and JimMorrison, I will kill you with an ice pick.
Jazzepi
PS. I think your contention that at 20 provinces you start hitting the 3 events a turn most of the time is incorrect, and makes you a poopyface.