Productive Scale needs some Enhancements

[Sombre]

Turmoil - Luck is more attractive when running something like Worthy Heroes 1.8, which makes Hero units well worth having. But it isn't a major factor I guess.

I went with turmoil 3 luck 3 in a recent game using pythium MA and did very well - I got virtually all good events about gems, gold and items, while qm got bad events + freespawn events with the same build using Pangaea (for the screaming women).

[vfb]

LA Ulm has 3 nice heroes even without the WH mod, I'll take Luck-3 with them just to get a shot at snagging the Blood Marshal.

[CUnknown]

Yeah, you would never take Turmoil without Luck. That would pretty much be suicide. But taking Sloth without ... what? is perfectly viable and is just about no problem whatsoever, especially in the late game.

Taking Turmoil, more than any other negative scale imo, requires that you do x, y, or z to be viable. Taking Sloth requires you to do not a whole lot of anything to be viable.

I would never take Turmoil for the purposes of a double-bless. Just take a single 9 bless and throw in a 4 and keep your cash money. I almost can't imagine a situation where that wouldn't be better, unless you were planning on Turmoil/Luck anyway. And in that case you pretty much bought Turmoil to pay for Luck, not for your bless. But of course this is just my opinion.

I disagree that Sloth shouldn't be made worse. It should hurt you as much as any other negative scale, as much as Misfortune-3 (which can be a killer), Drain-3 (no research sucks), Turmoil-3 (we already went over that one), etc.

Sloth shouldn't be made any worse than Productivity is made better, though.

[Wokeye]

HotNifeThruButr said:
I would prefer it if Resources were given a whole different function to fulfill that is unique to it and can't be subsituted by gold or research.

What about increased weapon/armour stats for troops, thus making regular troops 'upgradeable'? This way they'd be more useful in the midgame too?

What about training for troops? Using a general's turn + resources to give experience to lesser troops?

[Tharsonius]

DrPraetorious said:
For most strategies, Sloth-3 is the least major. There are obviously a few situations (Pangaea) where it isn't much of a drawback at all, but that's got to be figured into the game. It's still a huge penalty, though, as EA Ermor, for example, I generally do take Sloth-3, but it's not like I'm happy to get -50% principes out of my forts. If you made sloth-3 any *bigger* penalty it would be completely impossible to play as a sloth-3 nation unless you had an awake SC pretender to expand, and *that* is not desirable either, so I don't think Sloth-3 needs to be made any worse. It's just understood that, for many nations, Sloth-3 is the least-crippling of the major drawbacks you can take.

Why sloth-3 especially for EA Ermor? How do you expand early? SC pretender? You can use gladiators, but then you need new reenforcements for every indi province you take, that will slow you down too.

[VedalkenBear]

Re: Turmoil and Luck, I seemed to get the best results out of the Void Gate when I have them both. So Rlyeh is quite possibly a nation that can use the scales.

[mathusalem]

but without a lot of gold, you'll have a lot of problem to mass troops with R'lyeh.

[Sombre]

If you're looking to have fun with crossbreeding luck-turmoil makes sense too.

[Baalz]

It's kinda funny that so many people are anti-productivity. Without a doubt there are *many* situations where your initial expansion is resource constrained. If you don't have an expansion pretender, and your unit recruiting is resource constrained (a fairly common scenario, pretty much anybody who is relying on heavy infantry/cavalry) then 50% more resources means 50% more troops means 50% more expansion. To those saying productivity isn't very worthwhile, I ask how worthwhile is it to have 50% more provinces on turn 12? Sending out an expansion force every 2 rounds instead of every 3 for your initial expansion is *huge*. The usefulness often does scale back rapidly at that point, but many have argued that the benefits of a strong start often outweigh longer term strengths. Longer term benefits include needing less castles (depending on your commander recruitment needs), and having a heavier mix of units than you'd normally have. *lots* of nations have very heavy infantry who's resource requirements usually relegate them to just being the core of a larger force, with productivity that core is larger.

[Kristoffer O]

Tharsonius said:

Looks like I'm one of the few people who did it - in 2 of my MP games running

Still learning the game...

And you learned it well. I have Turmoil 1 and Death 3 in my current game. Luck and some magic as well. Edit: and some prod.

The problem with all these forum fan boys is thet they don't know how to relax.

Death 3 id fun! Everyone will succumb to Unity, He Who Is At The Center. Everyone will get old (particulary my abysian mages). This is democratic. No mages will stay in power for more than a year! Take that Putin!'

In other words. Winning doesn't have much to do with your scales. It is your feel and flow that makes you a winner! Scales are mostly there to annoy and encourage you.

Edit: Also, there is a lot of considering going on here. Just relax and let the considerers consider themselves to death while you win the game. Works fine. And when it doesn't, just sign up for a new game