Quick Poll: Is the production scale weak?

[moderation]

I'm just wondering about this since I see most experienced players tend not to take much production even with resource heavy nations. Gold just seems like more of a limiting factor most of the time in my experience.

[VedalkenBear]

One issue I would like to point out about the Production scale is that it, unlike almost every other scale in Dominions, is nation-dependent. There are several, if not many, nations in Dominions 3 which don't need resources whatsoever, which makes taking Sloth a comparatively easy decision. (That is, Sloth-2 or -3 still provides all the resources they need.)

By way of contrast, Order provides a very large increase in income, Luck can provide diversification options, Growth provides the same income differential as Production with a more universal ancillary benefit, and Magic is more useful for longer than Production. The Heat/Cold scale is slightly different, but one could argue that the level of income loss from that scale makes it less susceptible to optimization than the Production/Sloth scale.

[Omnirizon]

i've read that sometimes production saves you gold because you don't have to always be building and stocking units to put together your armies; you can raise and use them quicker and so don't have as many just sucking upkeep.

[Hoplosternum]

Very nation dependent. Some nations don't seem to be viable without high Production. Such as Jomon which only has a single shieldless spearmen that costs less than 20 resources. You just can't build armies quickly enough without it.

But most nations - even those with high resource costing troops - seem to be able to take some sloth. Once your capital has all the surrounding lands resources are not usually the limiting factor except for occasiional emergency builds. So while most nations can pick Sloth and spend their points elsewhere there are some nations - like Jomon - who just seem to need maximum production.

Production does allow a lot more independent chaff to be recruited. But I doubt many people (sp or mp) see this as central to their strategy. And of course for the resource expensive stuff like Heavy cavalry and Heavy Infantry you probably have good national alternatives if you have picked a nation needing Production.

[Zeldor]

Hoplosternum:

But then getting awake SC pretender may be much better idea. You conquer provinces around capitol fast that way and get resources. With no provinces around it really doesn't matter if you have Prod0 or 3. And with all provinces around you do not have enough gold to use resources coming from Prod3.

[Endoperez]

Production lets you recruit more units, and units become weaker and weaker as time goes on. Furthermore, to get most out of production you need the provinces around your capital, which are usually enough by themselves. As such, Production is weaker than other scales by definition. It's still important for certain nations and strategies that rely on units that are heavy in resources but cheap in gold. The nations and strategies that benefit from production usually are somewhat less competitive than other options because if you need production you'll lose 120-200 points compared to nation that can go go neutral or take sloth.

There are some more nations coming in the next patch which might want to take production, though, so that might change.

[Aezeal]

Well I just did a SP game start with MA pyth and followed some advice I read... -2 sloth.. that sort of gives you only 5 troops/turn.. which kinda such the first 10 turns

[Meglobob]

I think production scale should have a additional benefit.

That additional benefit could be reducing castle construction times. So prod 1 should reduce castle completion by 1 turn, prod 3 by 2 turns. So, yes that does mean a 3 turn hillfort (or whatever) only takes 1 turn to build with prod 3. Gold cost remains the same.

[Zeldor]

There was discussion about that already and 99% people agree that prod scale is really useless. Just few nations need them and it is just considered losing a lot of design points as a cost of playing that nation.

[ArkhanTheBlack]

I don't like the fact that ressources 'force' you to constantly build units, regardless if you need them or not. This way I get high upkeep costs even if I don't intend to fight (yet). With gold dependent units I can build large reaction forces very fast exactly when I need them. With some nations like Ulm I found production very usefull in the early game, but in mid and late game it looses a lot of its advantages.
I'd prefer it if the resources would stack like gold. It shouldn't be a problem to build large amounts of armour pieces and store them in an armoury.