Petition to change LUCK\ORDER Scales

Catquiet · #1 November 22nd, 2003, 10:11 PM

At the moment taking Order +3 is almost mandatory for multi-player games, while luck +3 is fairly useless.

ORDER needs to be toned down to +5% increase in gold revenue per tick with no affect on random events. A well-ordered society with strong laws is going to get hit by hurricanes just as often as a more relaxed society.

+ or - LUCK should reduce the severity of the random events on the opposite end of the scale. With +1 Luck a nation should be able to avoid the population killing bad events, with +3 Luck bad events should be minor inconveniences at most.

Anyone else want to join me in calling for these changes?

Teraswaerto · #2 November 22nd, 2003, 10:16 PM

Not necessarily those exact changes, but yeah, something should change to make luck more, and order less, effective.

apoger · #3 November 22nd, 2003, 10:59 PM

I'd rather have all the scales back to the Dom1 levels... where they ALL mattered.

Right now Proudction and Death are shadows of their former selves. A land of ultimate production and growth has only 24% better taxes and 60% better production over a land of ultimate sloth and death. Keep in mind the the land of sloth and death gets 560 nation points over the land of production and growth.

I know Illwinter disliked the idea that players wanted Order +3, Prod +3, Growth +3. However it's natural to WANT lots of good things. It was still a challenge to get what you wanted and still be able to make a good nation. Hard choices were called for.

In Dom2 things have been changed to make Prod and Growth much less important. Order was cranked to take up the slack. Luck was largely reduced in potency as well.

I contend that the Dom2 scales are just as imbalanced, if not more so.

I prefer Order being used to influence unrest levels, while Prod & Growth influenced taxes. It made perfect sense. The "simplification" in Dom2 did nothing to help the game. It didn't even stop hiking taxes and patrolling.

This is just my opinion, of course. However I think IW would have gotten much better effect by leaving the excellent balance of Dom1 alone. If they wanted to pump the potency of pretender magic (which seems to be their intent) then it could have been done simply by reducing the nation point costs of magic picks. This would have created minimal disruption to the system that was already working well.

Sorry to drop that long discuusion on the topic of Order/Luck... but the system of scale changes is part and parcel of the issue.

SurvivalistMerc · #4 November 22nd, 2003, 11:09 PM

I don't think they would have to mess with the scales at all if they would just do one other thing....

Make the good (lucky) events as desirable as the bad (unlucky) events are undesirable. In this way, taking order to reduce the frequency of events could prove costly. Taking unluck would cheat your empire of the very amazing things that could happen if you were lucky.

Just changing the random events could make balanced luck and order scales as desirable as order 3, unluck 3, which is my current favorite.

apoger · #5 November 22nd, 2003, 11:21 PM

>Make the good (lucky) events as desirable as the bad (unlucky) events are undesirable. In this way, taking order to reduce the frequency of events could prove costly. Taking unluck would cheat your empire of the very amazing things that could happen if you were lucky.

I agree. However IW seems to have a thing for creating a game where there is downward economic spiral. All their decisions have gone that way. I'm not particularly happy with this philosophy.

In a magic world where gods exude population destroying death, there should also be gods that exude an explosion of life.

If high taxes create death, then low taxes should create growth.

If misfortune creates feared events, then luck should create equally welcome events.

I favor a balanced approach, which IMHO would be logical and fun. Obviously Illwinter disagrees, and it's their game. Still, I paid my 50 bucks, and as such feel that I can ***** and moan about my perceptions of their game, for what it's worth.

[ November 22, 2003, 21:22: Message edited by: apoger ]

Treebeard · #6 November 22nd, 2003, 11:47 PM

I've suggested it before, but I'll do it again, let the intensity of good and bad effects to be regulate by the luck scale, so a flood on a unluck 3 nation be stronger than a flood on a luck 3 nation. That would do wonders to make luck/turmoil more attractive.

Jasper · #7 November 23rd, 2003, 12:40 AM

In Dominions 1 the power of Order was held in check by the fact it let you raise your taxation rate -- but that rate was limited to 200% for everyone. A few extra patrollers and a Order 0 faction made nearly as much money as an order 3 faction. Removing this limitation while simultaneously decreasing the value of Growth and Production was overkill IMHO.

I like the event effects of order/turmoil, but think it's income effects should be 5% rather than 10%. I think it would also be worthwhile to tweak growth and production income changes from 2% to 3%.

Luck on the other hand seems to basically have a "metagame" problem with the kinds of events that exist. Bad events seem to be frequently painfull, while good events seem to be mostly innocous.

As Treebeard suggests, this could be handled by giving all events a +/- rating, and randomly determing the luck level of an event, rather than whether it's simply good or bad. For example, a "d6 - d6 + luck" roll, combined with rating events between +/- 8.

Jasper · #8 November 23rd, 2003, 12:50 AM

One further thought is that bad events are nearly always a problem, but very often good events are unusefull due to circumstance. (e.g. gems, items, or militia you have no use for). In balance then the good events need to be more powerfull than the bad effects in order for them to have the same effect.

Another dichotomy is that bad events truly hurt early (e.g. losing a lab, temple, or population), while good events have less of an effect.

Plus the inherent unreliability of luck will always make it less desireable than Order/Produciton/Growth unless it's more potent, especially since it's effects don't scale with empire size.

Kristoffer O · #9 November 23rd, 2003, 01:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jasper:

As Treebeard suggests, this could be handled by giving all events a +/- rating, and randomly determing the luck level of an event, rather than whether it's simply good or bad. For example, a "d6 - d6 + luck" roll, combined with rating events between +/- 8.

I'm not sure I follow the +/- rating thing. Is this the needed luck or the strength of the event? And how does the dice fit in the system?

Could you elaborate, please.

Treebeard · #10 November 23rd, 2003, 03:18 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
I'm not sure I follow the +/- rating thing. Is this the needed luck or the strength of the event? And how does the dice fit in the system?

Could you elaborate, please.

Well, let me exemplify. A rain event is determined by the game. A d6 roll is made, and the luck scale of the province is used as a modifier.

Result -2 to 0: catastrophic rain (1/4 of the population dies)
Result 1 to 3: extreme rain (1/6 of the population dies)
Result 4 to 6:heavy rain (1/8 of the population dies)
Result 7 to 9: severe rain (1/10 of the population dies)

And so on.