Petition to change LUCK\ORDER Scales

Treebeard · #1 November 22nd, 2003, 11:47 PM

I've suggested it before, but I'll do it again, let the intensity of good and bad effects to be regulate by the luck scale, so a flood on a unluck 3 nation be stronger than a flood on a luck 3 nation. That would do wonders to make luck/turmoil more attractive.

Jasper · #2 November 23rd, 2003, 12:40 AM

In Dominions 1 the power of Order was held in check by the fact it let you raise your taxation rate -- but that rate was limited to 200% for everyone. A few extra patrollers and a Order 0 faction made nearly as much money as an order 3 faction. Removing this limitation while simultaneously decreasing the value of Growth and Production was overkill IMHO.

I like the event effects of order/turmoil, but think it's income effects should be 5% rather than 10%. I think it would also be worthwhile to tweak growth and production income changes from 2% to 3%.

Luck on the other hand seems to basically have a "metagame" problem with the kinds of events that exist. Bad events seem to be frequently painfull, while good events seem to be mostly innocous.

As Treebeard suggests, this could be handled by giving all events a +/- rating, and randomly determing the luck level of an event, rather than whether it's simply good or bad. For example, a "d6 - d6 + luck" roll, combined with rating events between +/- 8.

Jasper · #3 November 23rd, 2003, 12:50 AM

One further thought is that bad events are nearly always a problem, but very often good events are unusefull due to circumstance. (e.g. gems, items, or militia you have no use for). In balance then the good events need to be more powerfull than the bad effects in order for them to have the same effect.

Another dichotomy is that bad events truly hurt early (e.g. losing a lab, temple, or population), while good events have less of an effect.

Plus the inherent unreliability of luck will always make it less desireable than Order/Produciton/Growth unless it's more potent, especially since it's effects don't scale with empire size.

Kristoffer O · #4 November 23rd, 2003, 01:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jasper:

As Treebeard suggests, this could be handled by giving all events a +/- rating, and randomly determing the luck level of an event, rather than whether it's simply good or bad. For example, a "d6 - d6 + luck" roll, combined with rating events between +/- 8.

I'm not sure I follow the +/- rating thing. Is this the needed luck or the strength of the event? And how does the dice fit in the system?

Could you elaborate, please.

Treebeard · #5 November 23rd, 2003, 03:18 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
I'm not sure I follow the +/- rating thing. Is this the needed luck or the strength of the event? And how does the dice fit in the system?

Could you elaborate, please.

Well, let me exemplify. A rain event is determined by the game. A d6 roll is made, and the luck scale of the province is used as a modifier.

Result -2 to 0: catastrophic rain (1/4 of the population dies)
Result 1 to 3: extreme rain (1/6 of the population dies)
Result 4 to 6:heavy rain (1/8 of the population dies)
Result 7 to 9: severe rain (1/10 of the population dies)

And so on.

Catquiet · #6 November 23rd, 2003, 05:14 AM

I have come up with a second suggestion for Luck/Order that might be easier to implement.

ORDER scale gives +/- 6% gold per tick. +/- 10% chance of random events.

LUCK scale gives +/- 4% gold per tick in addition to it's current effects.

GROWTH and PRODUCTIVITY scales would give +/- 3% gold per tick to make them more attractive.

So at +3 ORDER, -3 Luck you would have +6% gold with rare bad events.

At +3 Luck, -3 Order you would have -6% gold with more common good luck events.

What do you think? Would you consider these scale effects more balanced than what is currently in the game?

Jasper · #7 November 23rd, 2003, 05:47 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
I'm not sure I follow the +/- rating thing. Is this the needed luck or the strength of the event? And how does the dice fit in the system?

Could you elaborate, please.

Give all events an Ars Magica style +/- rating for how good or bad they are. 0 events would be neutral, the more positive the better, the more negative the worse.

When an event happens in a province roll a d6 and subtract from it another d6 to get a "luck roll" that centers around 0. Then add the province's luck scale to skew results, and pick an event with that luck level. You'd also need to filter out inappropriate events based upon other scales, etc.