refuting common wisdom on scales everybody knows

[Ballbarian]

A very thought provoking topic Baalz.

Gandalf Parker said:
One of the things I love about this game is that even in years of debate, no absolute winning strategy has been agreed on.

I would be quite surprised if this was the case for any game of significant complexity.

I wish there were more games of significant complexity, but I can think of very few compared to the number of 'tank rush' style rts's that have been on the market over the years.

[Baalz]

MaxWilson said:
The one thing that troubles me about your post is that your refutations all have the sound of knocking down straw men.

I'll go ahead and let QM refute this point. At any rate, I've no problem if nobody disagrees with me, I'm refuting sentiments that I feel are common. I'm not referring to the really odd scenarios like LA Ermor (order) or MA Ulm (drain), but the fact that it seems to me plenty of people take the scales I mention 95% of the time.

quantum_mechani said:
Many of your points are valid- lots of gold without a good outlet doesn't do much good, taking sloth is not the best option for some nations, drain is useful mine when you need points - but I absolutely cannot agree that order 3 is not optimal in all but the most unusual of situations. While it's true it is possible to find yourself in a situation without a good gold outlet, that is very rare. Almost all nations can channel gold to immediate and significant effect- either buying the better mages that can boost research and provide an ace in the hole in battle magic, or simply worthwhile troops (this applies even for nations that benefit from prod- they benefit even more if they can afford more heavy troops). And as other have pointed out, even when supposing you have sufficient gold for your mages and troops of choice, building forts with gold is an almost universally worthwhile application.

This is not to say you cannot be quite successful with turmoil 3, with any nation. Obviously the gold available to each nation can vary a great deal, regardless of scales, but that in no way implies that stacking the deck against yourself is a good idea. The bottom line as I see it is that order is such an all purposely useful scale, that realistically there are very few things you could sacrifice those points for a better return.

Yes, in a vacuum more order is always good, no argument. My point is not that you ever have 'enough' gold, and I certainly never meant to imply that not having a good outlet for gold was common. My point was rather that there is a opportunity cost to everything and 'automatically' taking order-3 in every build you do is not always the most optimal choice. This is amplified by the 'expand at any cost' mentality where you burn gold to get as many (perhaps more lightly armored than optimal) troops out as fast as you can. Don't get me wrong, that's an obviously valid strategy. My assertion is it's not always the only competitive one.

To reiterate, my point is that you can, in lots of situations end up with more gold in hand by taking ie. production scales rather than order. You can, in some situations have more gold in hand by taking a higher bless rather than order, or an awake pretender.

[quantum_mechani]

Baalz said:


To reiterate, my point is that you can, in lots of situations end up with more gold in hand by taking ie. production scales rather than order. You can, in some situations have more gold in hand by taking a higher bless rather than order, or an awake pretender.

Ironically, the key advantage of a prod scale, bless or awake pretender is... expanding faster.

Your own argument about reckless expansion seems to work against you here, taking order is the safe way to keep parity with fast expanding nations without spreading yourself too thin. And that is beside the fact, there are almost always something less important to dredge points from than order, given the large degree of diminishing returns where pouring more points into bless/pretender does not speed expanding.

[Xietor]

In alpaca I had 3 order and 3 luck, with 2 drain. With ma Pangaea no less. So yes unusual scales, with a plan, can prevail over traditional thinking.

[dirtywick]

quantum_mechani said:

Your own argument about reckless expansion seems to work against you here, taking order is the safe way to keep parity with fast expanding nations without spreading yourself too thin. And that is beside the fact, there are almost always something less important to dredge points from than order, given the large degree of diminishing returns where pouring more points into bless/pretender does not speed expanding.

If you're taking turmoil, you're taking equal or greater parts luck. Nations that have cheap mages/nationals or that can take advantage of gem diversity makes it an appealing choice.

But to free up points for a bless or something and not take luck, I think you'd doom yourself to death by random events.

[quantum_mechani]

dirtywick said:

If you're taking turmoil, you're taking equal or greater parts luck. Nations that have cheap mages/nationals or that can take advantage of gem diversity makes it an appealing choice.

But to free up points for a bless or something and not take luck, I think you'd doom yourself to death by random events.

I'm not sure we disagree here - turmoil without luck is a bad move. But my argument is that turmoil, even with luck, is still a suboptimal choice.

[Micah]

Interesting thought experiment Baalz, but the problem comes from QM's basic assertion that order scales are pretty much always worth taking. If you take this as a base assumption then a lot of your following analysis doesn't hold up.

For example, taking drain, even with 10RP mages, means you lose 10% research, as opposed to gaining 10% with magic 1 (your analysis also didn't include taking the obvious magic-1 pick, which is a bit disingenuous) So, a 20% swing in RP for 3 scales. If order isn't assumed to be maxed out then sure, you could get 21% more gold...seems even, aside from having to build a ton more forts and labs to pump out mages, but since you can't have order-6 you end up being forced to take growth or production instead. 6% more gold doesn't look nearly so hot all of a sudden. Nations with weaker researchers obviously have an even easier call to make there.

Similarly O-3 blunts the effects of luck and misfortune, so taking some misfortune seems to be a good choice. That being said, you'll then want to avoid death, since that's when the really nasty events come in.

Yes, I realize this is kind of a ridiculous chain of effects, but it's actually how things work out, for the most part, and why the common wisdom is the way it is.

This leaves temp scales and production...sacrificing production to have an awake SC is pretty much always a good idea in terms of efficiency, and temperature scales aren't as important as they seem due to seasonal fluctuations, so I usually plunder them for points as well. The other problem with relying on production scales is that you could get a start with crappy neighbors...3 provinces, 2 plains and a woods isn't uncommon. Pulling in under 200 resources to your cap with high production is a pretty big hit. Perhaps a minor concern, but still, it's there.

Anyhow, I will admit everything is situational, but there's a chain reaction from the order scale being so good, which is why a lot of the other scale choices get set how they are so often.

[AdmiralZhao]

One common case where Luck is a better choice than order is in provinces that you are blood hunting. If you are playing one of the Mictlans, and you have blood hunters on every province from 2000 to 10000 pop, then Order is almost useless. And in general, as the game wears on and more and more disasters, pillagers, and spells hit your provinces, the value of Order becomes less and less. Plus, Luck makes the various Cross Breeding spells potentially worthwhile.

I would also point out the player morale benefit of Luck. When your neighbors are declaring war on you left and right, it is good for your spirits when a random gift of 1000 lbs of gold arrives at your capital.

[Xietor]

Order 3 does not block the effects of luck indefinitely.

It depends on how much you need the luck in the early game. In time, even with 3 order, you get 3 lucky events a turn.
The better your expansion, the sooner you hit the max lucky events even with order 3.

Order 3 does block the luck effects in the early game, but luck3 does double the chance of a worthy hero every turn starting on turn 1, and if you happen to be playing with worthy heroes that can be worth something.

In alpaca that was the only mod used, and i Luckily got the harpy queen and access to air magic on turn 3 or 4. And likely in year 2 i was getting a steady diet of diverse gems
that Pangaea normally does not get. Before my 1st war was over, I had 3 of the worthy heroes.

[Baalz]

Well, let me lay out an example to illustrate my point. I'll stick with C'tis since I started with Sauromancers...

MA C'tis is a nation many people would immediately take order/sloth with as they've got several good low resource troops. Expanding with groups something like 15 city guards and 30 slave warriors at a cost of 510 gold + 190 resources. Compare to production/turmoil expanding with something like 20 swamp guards (17 protection + falchion) for 260 gold + 420 resources. The swamp guards are going to take significantly less attrition against most indies as well. Who has better cash flow?

I think maybe the sticking point here is that you guys are arguing: "ok, so production can be a good idea, but you'd be much better in these situations going with production AND order!". Ok, again, I've got to say there's the opportunity cost, what are you giving up? Sure, it's best to take order, production, an awake pretender, a positive magic scale and the kitchen sink as well. Do you take the extra gold from order at the expense of losing some magic diversity? At the cost of slowing down your initial expansion and putting yourself more at risk of a rush? At the cost of slowing down your research? Suck the points our of luck, of course - though I think I've made a point that that's not a no-brainer. There is a cost, and IMO its not always better to take order.