Balance issue: order-luck, a no brainer?

[Wendigo]

Maybe these scales should be tweaked a bit, right now it seems that order is the most valuable scale for living nations because of the snowball effect of a healthy early economy, and its trade-offs with luck obviously influence the choices regarding this 2nd scale.

Nobody seems to invest in luck, and experienced players are claiming to go for high order & neutral luck or even missfortune regardless of the event rarity setting, which seems to point out to the existance of some imbalance in the respective value of the scales.

Is there any solid incentive to invest in luck apart from the heroes? Order offers too much of a protection vs bad events, or too much of a reduction of good events regardless of the luck setting IMO.

IMO the scales should be modified as follows (regarding events):

Order: +/- 5% chance of event (instead of the +/- 10% current)
Luck: +/- 15% chance of event being good/bad (instead of the +/- 10% current)

[MStavros]

I guess luck affects some spells as well..examplessbreeding. Any more spells affected by luck?

[Gandalf Parker]

I tend to take +3 Luck and -1 Order. But then Im a random luck kindof guy. The formula players who know every algebraic equation for the game wouldnt tend to like luck because of the randoms it tosses in. I avoid order because with it I tend to be too cheap adding protections to my provinces.

Originally posted by MStavros:
I guess luck affects some spells as well..examplessbreeding. Any more spells affected by luck?

I'm told that Transformation was affected by Luck too but I never checked that by myself.

[apoger]

>The formula players who know every algebraic equation for the game wouldnt tend to like luck because of the randoms it tosses in.

I consider myself to be one of those guys, and in Dom1 I was a huge advocate of luck +3. I didn't mind the randomness. I just considered that the effects would naturally even out statistically over time.

Sadly in Dom2 it looks like I am now an advocate of Misfortune +3. It's my opinion that IW was too heavy handed in their treatment of the scales. There is just as much imbalance now as there was before. Just the emphasis has shifted.

[ywl]

I don't think it's a good idea for taking luck-3 for some of the nations. If it has not been changed, you still cannot get national heroes with luck less than -1.

For some nations, the heroes are very significant.
Among our old friends, R'lyeh gets the Aboleth and the other mage and Jotun gets the Great Hag.

An extreme example is Tien Chi, all three national heroes are *immortal* mages. One of them can even heal afflictions. With them or without them can make a big difference to your game.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by apoger:
in Dom1 I was a huge advocate of luck +3. [...] Sadly in Dom2 it looks like I am now an advocate of Misfortune +3.

Same here. Although for me the real no-brainers in D1 were Growth+3 and Prod+3. In D2 that's Order+3 and Misfortune+3. I probably wouldn't pick anything else in MP now (although I may revisit this when I've tried all the nations combos).

[Kristoffer O]

Lucky you! Scale effects will be moddable in the upcoming patch.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
Lucky you! Scale effects will be moddable in the upcoming patch.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GO GO GROWTH 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
As Saber pointed out on another thread, if you focus mainly on preventing bad events, order is better for this than luck (which seems wrong to me, especially since order has other benefits).

Hate to correct you there, but actually +3 luck prevents 60% of bad events, while +3 order only prevents 30%. So this is also a bit off:

Turmoil 3 luck 3 should get more good events and less bad events than order 3 misfortune 3 - both cost 0 points and the former has much less steady income. Currently it gets more good events, but also more bad events

The numbers here are: With Order-0 Luck-0 as a relative 100%, T-3 L-3 gives 52% bad event frequency (.2*1.3/.5), and O-3 U-3 gives 112% bad event frequency (.7*.8/.5). So the turmoil one has double the bad event frequency of the order one, but is barely different from the default neutral scales, other than a high income boost. And almost no good events.

That said, I agree with you that because bad events are dominant, the second scale is preferable to the first, in general (unless you rely on heroes and luck-based crossbreeding, etc). If luck scales had one additional component, the problem might be solved... like this:

ML=major lucky event
SL=small lucky event
SU=small unlucky event
MU=major unlucky event

Luck scale values and relative event probabilities:

Luck..ML...SL....|....SU...MU
+3......50....50....|....10....90
+2......45....55....|....15....85
+1......40....60....|....20....80
+0......30....70....|....30....70
-1.......20....80....|....40....60
-2.......15....85....|....45....55
-3.......10....90....|....50....50

Those percentage values would be multipliers, cumulative with the current system. So, with +3 luck, an event still has a 80% chance of being lucky and 20% chance of being unlucky. But if it is lucky then there is a 50% chance of it being major, and 50% chance of it being minor, and if it is unlucky, there is a 90% chance of it being minor and 10% chance of it being major. The net results for +3 luck would be 40% major good events, 40% major bad events, 18% minor bad events, and 2% major bad events. This way, luck would affect severity as well as frequency. The above scale is just a random proposal - it might be too strong, and might even make +-3 scales even more dominant, but it feels like when you choose +3 luck you should be relatively immune to major bad events like barbarians in your capitol (or else why did you spend those 120 points?), and with -3 you should virtually NEVER get 1500 gold randomly.

-Cherry

P.S. The resultant cumulative scale, showing total event probabilities for each luck scale, assuming an event occurs. KEEP IN MIND that this is NOT how the game works, just a proposal that I have, that may or may not be a good idea.

Luck..ML...SL....|....SU...MU
+3......40....40....|....18....02
+2......32....39....|....26....05
+1......24....36....|....32....08
+0......15....35....|....35....15
-1.......08....32....|....36....24
-2.......05....26....|....39....32
-3.......02....18....|....40....40

P.P.S. This kept getting messed up, the charts are correct now=) If you can't read this line, hit refresh

[ November 19, 2003, 17:41: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

I've played quite a few games in the Demo and now in the retail with Order 3, Misfortune 3. It has less impact on the game and the bad events don't make as much of a gamebreaking difference than Order/Turmoil Even , Luck 3. And even Turmoil 3, Luck 3.

By far one of the worst combinations right now is Turmoil 3, Luck 3. Even with the greater chance of good events; earthquakes, floods and rebellions sneak in very very early (Turn 10-20) and for the most part target your fotress provinces, leaving them crippled while you get a "Handful of gems" every few turns.

Maybe I'm missing something.