Random Events and Balance

[licker]

Ok I know they arn't supposed to be completely balanced, but in my Last few tests with C'tis I got some extrememly bad events early that effictively crippled my expansion attempts.

For the record all the tests were done with a neutral luck scale and at most a 1 turmoil. The frequency of random events was the default.

Ok, so in one game on the 2nd turn I lost 1/4 of my pop in my home province, then 2 turns later I lost the temple! If that won't cripple you I don't know what will, not only did I lose my ability to recruit priests, but I also had my income shafted so that it was harder to rebuild the temple.

In another game I lost 1/5 of my capitals pop in the first 5 turns, then had 2 consecutive turns of increases to unrest, again completely shafting my income.

On the flip side in a game where I took the luck scale at +2 I wound up with ~500 gold in 4 turns from improved taxes and whatnot, its crazy I tell you. Especially when these things happen in the first 10 turns.

I'm wondering what other peoples opinions on this subject is, I think that these 'extreme' events need to be looked at again, especailly in light of what they can do in the early game.

Now I know there are solutions to this, turn down their frequency, restart (SP only), and take points to luck (not a real solution really). Its really more of a problem in MP I guess, but it'd be nice to see some of these events toned down, I mean losting 8000 people in one turn is just crazy.

[Pocus]

Perhaps the x first turns should have only events tagged as minors. I lost too my temple in a pbem on the first turn. Bad, very bad
(but my Pan enemy lost 1/4 of his pop some turns later, hehe!).

The other things to consider is that taking anything below luck +1 is playing lottery, unless you take order. Cautious (or not so cautious) players in MP dont take order 0 and luck 0, this is simple too dangerous.
The thing is even more important now, because in dom2 the events are on common by default (and were in rare in dom1).

On a related topic, I would have liked to have 3 scales for events : common, average, rare.

[PvK]

Great suggestions, Pocus!

I wonder if there is a bias in the random events generator, where it is something like a chance per player instead of per province, so that when a player has very few provinces, their home province is much more likely to suffer a catastrophe, than when they control more provinces. That would tend to make these early-game problems much more likely.

At any rate, as you wrote, an option to specify an "only minor events" period for a game would nicely handle it.

PvK

[licker]

I like the suggestion of providing some protection from the major events early on (though maybe taking misfortune should negate that protection).

My concern is more that it is so impractical to take turmoil and or misfortune though that no one will do it, so there is an imbalance here. The benefit of 40 or 80 design points is nothing compared to the serious consequences of an early catastrophy, its more than likely game over for that player. That is the imbalance I percieve (though maybe it's not that bad, you tell me )

I hope Illwinter will take another look at this and maybe rework the chances of a bad event being a 'big bad event'

[Gandalf Parker]

I particularly like playing with luck. It fits my addiction for wild randoms. On the one hand I would like for the luck scales to mean more. At the moment Im not sure how much affect they have.

On the other hand I also agree that random events early in the game are not good. Not just the bad ones. Id like to see the good ones also held back from early-game. I like the idea of taking the number of provinces info account since it would mean that the events would be held off until it has less chance of majorly changing the game-flow. But that would also mean that late in the game I couldnt hope-hope-hope that my +3 luck might actually pay off for me when Ive been shoved back into my castle by someone.

Maybe we could ask for a modifier based on provinces+turns? If (province + turns) is less than 12 then skip the random event roll?

[ November 06, 2003, 16:47: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Yeah, I posted on the same topic in csipgs yesterday (thread: Luck = pure randomness?). I ran some "luck" tests, most of them with turmoil +3/luck +3, and my conclusion so far is under such conditions the bad and good events balance each other. So instead of lots of "neutral events", why not choose no events at all and get full benefits from order? BTW, so far in my Doms 2 experience order +3/misfortune +3 netted me only 1 event, and it was a good one! While I got destroyed buildings, vampire invasions and huge pop losses in luck +3 provinces (never seen that in Doms 1).

So either luck is broken (doesn't increase the chances for events being "good" enough, if at all) or turmoil increases the chances for events being "bad", thus cancelling luck.

I think I won't play anything but order +3/misfortune +3 in MP until this gets fixed. How sad, I really hoped we'd get more choices wrt dominion scales in Doms 2, but the more I play, the more I feel desillusioned about this.

[licker]

Yes, my intention is not to nerf the luck scales, well it is, but only in the beginning of the game. Some formula like the one proposed by Gandalf could work, though perhaps the provinces+turns number should be effected by the amount of luck scale (and maybe order scale) taken. Thus some one with 0 in both would be protected for longer than someone who took points in either direction of either scale.

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
Yeah, I posted on the same topic in csipgs yesterday (thread: Luck = pure randomness?). I ran some "luck" tests, most of them with turmoil +3/luck +3, and my conclusion so far is under such conditions the bad and good events balance each other. So instead of lots of "neutral events", why not choose no events at all and get full benefits from order? BTW, so far in my Doms 2 experience order +3/misfortune +3 netted me only 1 event, and it was a good one! While I got destroyed buildings, vampire invasions and huge pop losses in luck +3 provinces (never seen that in Doms 1).

So either luck is broken (doesn't increase the chances for events being "good" enough, if at all) or turmoil increases the chances for events being "bad", thus cancelling luck.

I think I won't play anything but order +3/misfortune +3 in MP until this gets fixed. How sad, I really hoped we'd get more choices wrt dominion scales in Doms 2, but the more I play, the more I feel desillusioned about this.

Luck scales should tip badluck/goodluck 10% per scale step. So Luck +3 80/20 goodluck/badluck. Turmoil should not affect the goodluck/badluck percentage anymore, just the total frequency of events. There is however certain other factors that impacts on this, most notably other scale settings. If an event is generated in a province where the scales preclude it occuring the event will be discarded and a new generated until a possible event is generated. The 1500gp event is for example only possible in luck 3 provinces, plague exists both as a rare and as a common event, the common event has a death 3 scale as a requirment etc. After a certain number of attempts to generate a viable event the game stops trying. So it might be a possibility that you have stumbled on scale settings that will in effect change the ratio between badluck/goodluck simply because the game doesn't manage to generate events that fits your settings often enough to reflect the ratio suggested when considering the luck scale alone. Also note that events has a tendency to become more powerfull the higher/lower the luckscale.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by johan osterman:
Luck scales should tip badluck/goodluck 10% per scale step...

Thanks for all these clarifications Johan. I forgot to mention my nation had turmoil +3, luck +3, the Restless Worshippers theme and a dominion of 10. Every other scale was left at zero. I did this to maximize the benefits of luck, while avoiding the potential pollution from other non-default scales. I set events to common. No AI, the only opposition came from a similar nation that was left idling. I ran 2 full 40 turns games with this nation, and a 3rd attempt stopped after ~20 turns. I also set magic sites to zero (except in the first game when I forgot to remove a #features 100 in the map file I used).

Despite all this I noticed way more unlucky events than I've been used to in Doms 1. The lost temples and labs all happened in my capital. The plagues and vampire invasion happened in luck +3 provinces. Of course I had more good than bad events, but the nature of the latter was more consequential on average. Therefore I'm left with the feeling that luck +3 is less "safe" in Doms 2 than it was in PPP.

[Pocus]

I ran a quick test on Apoger map (10 provinces held), for 10 turns. Got 5 events, 2 were good, 3 were bad (and one was the infamous rain killing 1/4 of pop).

my scales were Order (turmoil) -3, heat 3, growth 3, productivity 3, luck 3, magic 0

Not very convincing this combo turmoil/luck. Further tests are needed, but either we have stroke of bad luck, or something is buggy.