refuting common wisdom on scales everybody knows

[MaxWilson]

Baalz,

The one thing that troubles me about your post is that your refutations all have the sound of knocking down straw men. "Never take drain, always take Order-3, always take Sloth-3." I think the conventional wisdom is that most things do have niches, and to the extent that Production, Drain, etc. are looked down on it is because the niche is small.

To take a specific example: Ashdod is my current flavor of the month, and the first thing I said when I looked at it was, "Whoa, if anybody ever needed a Prod scale, Ashdod does. 88-resource sacreds??? 50-resource Archers?" In actual practice Prod did not seem to be worth its points. In the early game, expansion works fine with sacreds even if you're using Sloth (+ human slingers if desired). Later on, I find supply problems much more of a problem than resource constraints, even if I'm playing with Sloth. Low Prod simply means that I have to plan my wars a few more turns in advance (building for 4 turns instead of 2) and/or use slightly cheaper troops, but once a campaign is in progress it's mostly limited by other factors. You could give me Prod-infinity and I still probably wouldn't pay 240 points for it, given how tight my point budgets tend to be. It would speed up early game expansion by a factor of 1.5 or 2 at most, and it would make it easier to pump gold onto the front lines in the form of troops in the midgame. (Well, I guess Prod-infinity would also give me +infinity to gold, and I'd pay points for THAT.)

So far I haven't played a nation that could really benefit from Prod scales, although there are a couple that should probably stick with Prod-0. (Ashdod may be one of these.)

-Max

P.S. I don't look down on Drain though, actually. I think 80 points for Drain-2 is potentially quite a good deal for certain nations/builds.

[DonCorazon]

I have been a big fan of luck to make money over order. Order takes a while to get rolling – it also depends on what types of provinces you are in. Surrounded by wasteland or mountains – enjoy that +20% on a 12 income province (assuming your dominion has even gotten ramped up). I know people will point to tests and algorithms that show order is better. But as a finance guy, I am all about the time value of money and hitting a lucky trade fair that adds +1000 gold early on, or gets you a free hero/mage (think +8 RP in the first turn over 60 turns is ~ 500RP) is well worth it. Not too mention the gems, which are invaluable in the late game and often the only way to get a diverse gem income ramped up.

As for Drain, I have not had any luck taking Drain scales yet, but am hoping to find a way to make them work.

Not a big Production fan either, probably due to my innate love of Sloth.

[sector24]

I feel like the balance in a lot of games is heavily swayed by a single pivotal event, like finding Mount Chaining, or getting a great indy mage that diversifies you into 1 or more new paths. Getting a national hero like Baba Yaga or Angrboda on the 2nd turn is just so amazing, which is why I like luck.