What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?

[PvK]

Hmm, has anyone checked how much more gold you can get if you don't max out death, turmoil, and sloth? Seems like Ermor is gold-poor and does have some good uses for gold (temples, for one). I guess the theory is you can get so much extra pretender magic for it, that that's better?

PvK

[Teraswaerto]

Originally posted by PvK:
Hmm, has anyone checked how much more gold you can get if you don't max out death, turmoil, and sloth? Seems like Ermor is gold-poor and does have some good uses for gold (temples, for one). I guess the theory is you can get so much extra pretender magic for it, that that's better?

Ashen Empire dominion kills population really fast even if you took growth scale, so any any scales that depend on population to be useful are pretty much wasted.

[mivayan]

One fun random event is the one where an foreign visiting prince (or something) dies and leaves 1500 gold and a magic item. Luck can pay for a lot of temples if you are lucky

I think that particular even is only available to people with high luck and death scales.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Always pick max Turmoil, Sloth, Cold, Death.

Magic +1 gives you decent research, and avoid the MR penalty you get with Magic +2/+3.

Luck, pick 0, and push that up to +3 if you have spare design points after buying the essentials.

Dominion 8+.

Castle, depends. I often go with the smaller one, but the 60-points citadel is a tough nut to crack with 100's of ghouls to defend it. Add a BVC to one of your leaders here and storming your citadels will be a very painful experience to most other nations.

[Taqwus]

With castles, bear in mind that the Citadel is significantly more expensive gold-wise, if memory serves. Gold may well be in short supply unless the map's filled with high-valued fire and earth sites, or you outrace your own dominion and pillage like crazy -- which might be an argument against picking a very high dominion, as your neighboring pop might die well before you get a chance to exploit them.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
Ashen Empire dominion kills population really fast even if you took growth scale, so any any scales that depend on population to be useful are pretty much wasted.

Ashen Empire requires a minimum of Death-2. You couldn't take Growth if you wanted, and with Death scale, in for a penny, in for a pound. A single point of Death scale kills everyone, so you may as well get the points for all of it.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
Luck, pick 0, and push that up to +3 if you have spare design points after buying the essentials.

I went luck+3 in my Last game. But... it's worthless! There are no good events. None. Good events depend on your scales, and if all your scales are -3, the only "good" event is the necromancer showing up (due to death 3, I imagine). However, because "free" "volunteers" still demand pay, that's a major negative. Sometimes militia show up, too - that can be crippling... they die of disease, and cost you a good 128 gold in so doing (25 units * 7 gold each * 11 turns to die from disease)/15.

So - DON'T choose luck! Luck is worthless to ashen empire. You don't even get many gems, due to the drain scale.

Next time I design an Ashen god, it will be -3 all scales, cheapest (gold-wise) castle, Dominion 9, an undead - possibly immortal - god, and the rest on magic paths. Don't worry about bless effects, BTW... knights are super-rare no matter what you do, and only have 6 or 7 HP (any fire spell annihilates them).