Luck/Order scales after 2.06 Patch

[apoger]

>I really have a problem with the "mix" between O/T and L/M : as it stands now you have to take Order to limit Misf effect, or to take Turmoil to amplify Luck.


I'm working on a mod that will take care of this (for those that want to use it).

It should be done shortly, however I still need to know if there are mod commands that affect magic scale. They are missing from the docs, and I'd like to know if they are part of the available tools. It's hard to do balancing when one scale can't be modified.

[ywl]

Originally posted by PDF:
Back (more) on-topic :
I really have a problem with the "mix" between O/T and L/M : as it stands now you have to take Order to limit Misf effect, or to take Turmoil to amplify Luck. But Order is a rock hard good investment, whereas Luck is a gamble...

In the end you have a 0 net Design cost in both case, but with O+M have +20% income, +6% res and *very few* bad events, in the other you have -20%, -6%, and may have unpredictable good events...(BTW getting 100's of Militias is just a waste of upkeep gold, not really a good news !)

Who will be foolish enough to go for the second option ? Maybe for fun in SP, but no way in MP.
THAT'S the issue IMHO..

Why can't you go for Order 0/Luck+3? You spend 120 nation points. But you get a moderate income, get insured from the major unluck events and have access to the occasional major luck events. The major boost from Cross-Breeding, Void-Gate and Transformation are not bad for some nations neither. Or you can go for Luck +1 or +2 using a lesser amount of points. Points are important but how else are you going to use it? Boosting up a combat pretender who might die frequently. It's always a balance of the overall design.

To me, Order+3/Luck-3 is usable but it is risky. You can get hit by something *very* nasty, even though the chance is smaller. And for some nations, you will definitely miss the heroes. Chao-3/Luck+3 is indeed stupid because of the disabling income. But it just show that negative scale is bad and you can't get something for nothing. It'll be more to my tastle if the effect of Order scale on random events decrease from +/-5% to +/-4%. But as what stands now, I don't think that it's such a no-brainer for Order+3/Luck-3.

[Catquiet]

Apoger,

For your mod I would suggest reducing Order to +/- 5% gold to balance it against all the other scales.

Giving Luck a +/- 2% gold effect would be a quick fix for that scale.


Kristoffer O, could you list all the population destroying events and the scales they require?

[SurvivalistMerc]

I wonder what folks would think about these effects:

Order: 6% income, -13% events per tick
Turmoil: -6% income, +13% events per tick

Luck: 1% income, +13% chance that event will be good per tick
Misfortune: -1% income, +13% chance that events will be bad per tick.

Order 3, Misfortune 3 would eliminate almost all random eents but only yeild 15% gold, and you wouldn't get the heroes.

Turmoil 3, Luck 3 would only be a 15% monetary loss, but you would have lots of luck, and 89% or almost all of them would be good.

Under Catquiet's scales, order3, misfortune 3 nets only 9% additional gold. And I assume you would still have 80% of events bad, normal numbers of events, and you don't get the heroes? That doesn't sound all that viable to me.

I still want them to let us mod the events. Because I want to make some really good events, like getting 20 units you would love to have in the late game rather than militia or flagellants. Some of the lucky events don't strike me as all that great right now, and I would like to fix that and go back to the pre-patch luck-order scales. But that's just me.

[Catquiet]

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:

Under Catquiet's scales, order3, misfortune 3 nets only 9% additional gold. And I assume you would still have 80% of events bad, normal numbers of events, and you don't get the heroes? That doesn't sound all that viable to me.

Is it as viable as +3 Order , +3 Death ?

[apoger]

Adding income to Luck scale cannot be done with the current mod tools. Only % changes to affects that already exist.

I have been testing my new scales pretty heavily and I like what I see so far. Once I have a bit more testing done I'll release it.

Also I'm still waiting on any indication of whether there is -any- cabability to alter the affects of magic/drain scale.

[Saber Cherry]

Oooh, my modified scales got put up here: http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/mods.html

Make sure to tell me if you think the banner is cute! That's really the most important part, since it took 99% of the time.

-Cherry

P.S. I think it makes all the scales useful, and reduces catastrophic event frequency. Certainly Growth was made more useful; it was nearly worthless before. The scales cannot be adjusted perfectly (or even very well) until a couple more factors are added, like cost nOnlinearity, magic scale adjustment, and some additional effects, like scaling of major good and major bad events wth luck scales. A 3-tier event system would be nice: minor, moderate, major... and even a "maximal event severity" setting in game-setup, like in Space Empires IV. And for the magic scale... having it affect site gem output, and giving mages occasional extra randoms, would be nice. These Last two are not currently doable and would require major reprogramming=)

[ January 14, 2004, 18:22: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]