[Lokean]

Actually, the Luck/Misfortune scale is the one I tend to pay the most attention to depending on nation.

MA Ermor, for example, would seem like it would have problems with Misfortune, since you pretty much need a temple and lab with every fort for it to be useful, but I am usually happy to set Misfortune-3 on MA Ermor. The reason being, the most common bad events are population killers and attacks by independants; MA Ermor's PD is good enough to stop barbarians with 10 and has a reasonable chance of stopping knights with 14 and while gold is very handy stuff you'll usually have magic to fall back on by the end of the first year. Losing labs is certainly a problem, but you generally lay down more labs and temples than other nations, so losing one or two in a turn has less chance of crippling you, after the first year.

Yes, misfortune is a gamble, but it's not as clear as people make it out to be. High Misfortune and high Luck both call for strategic considerations on the part of the player to adapt their playstyle to the situation. Always taking Misfortune 3 is a common preference, but doing so makes you more vulnerable to players ready to exploit it, since you're probably putting less thought into how Misfortune changes your tactics.