Been said before, but... luck vs misfortune

[Zurai]

In the current game I'm playing, with a *positive* Luck scale, I have had

2 brigands (+unrest) bad events
3 flooding (25% pop loss) bad events
2 witch's curse bad events
1 plague bad event
3 "adventursome populace" (-20% pop) bad events
1 famine (20% pop loss, -40 gold) bad event
1 heavy snowfalls (-50 gold) bad event
1 locusts (-100 gold) bad event
1 hurricane bad event

7 +gems good events
1 +500 gold good event
1 free Lore Master good event
2 group of zealots good events
2 light winter tax/unrest good events
1 +5 province defense good event
1 winter crops (30 gold/-15 unrest) good event

1 fertility festival neutral event

So, with +1 luck I had 15 bad events, 15 good events, and 1 neutral event. Nine of the fifteen bad events (60% even) carried huge population loss penalties. Only four of them (26.7%) were what I would call "minor" bad events (witch's curse, -50 gold, -100 gold). Of the good events, 2 (13.3%) were what I would call "major" good events (+500 gold, free Lore Master), while 11 of them (73.3%) were what I would call "minor" good events (the small tax/unrest breaks, the magic gems, and the province defense).

So, for comparison, for spending 40 points on Luck 1, I lost 20% of a heavily populated province population 4 times, 25% of a medium to heavily populated province's population 3 times, and an unnamed but signifigant amount twice. In return, I got a double handful of magic gems and a small amount (630) of gold.

To put it bluntly, that *is not worth it*. The huge population loss events need to A) be MUCH rarer with positive Luck, B) be impossible to get with positive Luck, or C) be counterbalanced by an equal or near-equal chance of the +5000 population event (which I *have* seen once, so I know it exists. That was in a Luck 3 game, though). Currently taking extra Luck is absolutely worthless because it has no discernable effect on decreasing your bad luck, and tends to only get you minor increases of gems or gold.

For the record, this is over the course of 30 turns with Turmoil 3. Yes, I realized Turmoil 3 increases the chances of events happening, but with luck +1 I'm supposed to have a 60/40 good luck/bad luck split on events. It actually came out to 50/50 with the bad events being much, much worse.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Zurai:
2 witch's curse bad events

I believe this is actually a neutral event, as you get a bunch of gems out of it. The bad side isn't even bad if you have no troops in the province.

But, as you aptly pointed out, +Luck is a very poor investment. The luck scales are by no means balanced at all.

[Zurai]

If I ever got any gems from the witch events, it was a very small amount of either Nature or Air gems which Avalon gave me a supply of anyway (which would make it hard to track). I'm 100% certain that I didn't get any other types of gems from the witch, and I'm fairly sure that I didn't get more than 3-4 Air or Nature gems either.

Still, you're right that if you do get gems, that would force it to be classified as a neutral event, which would bring the split of good/bad to 15:13 or 53%:47%. It also further dilutes the ratio of "major" bad events to "minor" bad events, from 9:4 to 9:2.

[Zurai]

By the way, I've also not gotten any of the Man heroes. Considering the odds are 4% per turn with +1 luck, that means I only had a 28% chance of not getting at least one by now Bad luck is certainly the theme of this game.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Zurai:
By the way, I've also not gotten any of the Man heroes. Considering the odds are 4% per turn with +1 luck, that means I only had a 28% chance of not getting at least one by now Bad luck is certainly the theme of this game.

Indeed ...

[rabelais]

Don't feel bad. In one of my MP games.

Turn2 scale bug + handful of gems
Turn3 rainstorm capital
turn4 earthquake capital (temple destroyed+poploss)
turn5 handful of gems
turn6 brigands and rainstorm (neither cap)
my scales? turmoil 1, luck +3.

The pop as nonrenewable resource thing has to be let up a little, at least in capitals early.

Or have events made symmetric.

It's just silly, and frankly somewhat pointlessly sadistic as it stands.

Rabe the Uninsurable

[ February 15, 2004, 16:30: Message edited by: rabelais ]

[Pirateiam]

I have gone to setting random events as rare in my game settings which eliminates the luck/misfortune in the game. I guess it removes some flavor from the game but it sure does eliminate some of the frustrations!

[Norfleet]

Luck pays off nicely for Ermor, which is probably the only nation that should focus strongly on taking it: With luck as Ermor, I get only good events, pretty much: Lots of gems, gems, and more gems. Okay, well, maybe the militia and flagellants thing is bad, I have enough upkeep problems as it is, but they can generally be killed off by using them as front line cannon fodder.

Only two bad things occurred over the course of 60 turns: A lab burned down, and the plague killed 1/5th or so of my 0 population.

[Demosthenes]

Well I have regularly taken Luck:2 in my games so far. I frequently get a hero in the first 5 turns, and I cant say that the bad events have crippled my empire in any way. But doesn't the game first determine which province is having an event and then check the Luck scale of THAT province in order to choose which event?

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Demosthenes:
But doesn't the game first determine which province is having an event and then check the Luck scale of THAT province in order to choose which event?

AFAIK, yes.