What nation(s) are best for fire? (Besides Abysia)

[DrPraetorious]

Based on my studies, I strongly recommend Order-3/Misfortune-2.

Misfortune-2 does seem to be a relatively minor penalty - but Misfortune-3 does *not*, you get a lot more of the really bad events than with Misfortune-2. So (if you have order-3), misfortune-2 seems to be worth it for 80 points, but misfortune-3 for 40 on top of that is not a good buy.

[MaxWilson]

Dr. P,

Can you quantify what you mean by "a lot more... bad events"? Even subjectively? Twice as many barbarian attacks? Two vampire count attacks within 10 turns? I love Order-3 but I hate paying points for it, and I haven't felt like luck was a major factor in any of my handful of games so far. Bad luck hasn't even really been an irritant, actually. Large maps, generally 180+ provinces and 4-8 AIs, and I always take Growth scales. (There was one quick little test game where I took Turmoil-3, Death-3, Misfortune-3 and had half my population killed off on turn two. That's the only event I've ever had that I'd feel it was worth spending points to avoid.)

-Max

[DrPraetorious]

I believe that you get about twice as many of the "very bad" events with misfortune-3 as with misfortune-2 - but that's just a guess, the thing I was checking was total money.

For whatever reason - lost income, killed population, unrest from barbarian invasions - you make less money on average (a few %, I did enough samples to get to statistical significance) as misfortune-3/order-3 than you do as misfortune-2/order-3/death-1, at least over the medium haul.

I just ran it again to make sure I had the magnitude right:
setting, pop after 10, money after 10,notes
o3d1m2, 29540, 3740
o3d1m2, 29670, 4585, militia
o3d1m2, 28090, 3892
o3d1m2, 29110, 4129

o3m3, 25780, 4164, no lab
o3m3, 24430, 4077, +death gems
o3m3, 29560, 3686, militia
o3m3, 29410, 4073

That's 345 gold less you get on average - or ~8%, which is a bit larger than the value I got before.

I did a larger sample at one point and got about the same result (but statistically significant, 95% confidence interval of 1-11%, IIRC, but can't find my notes). This isn't a perfect methodology (it was better before, had same armies for everyone) - once I have the kinks worked out I'll post something more comprehensive. I only used nations with temperate preference.

This is from setting your initial army on patrol and hosting for 10 turns with autotax. Without the patrollers the effect is presumably more pronounced, since most of the money lost to misfortune is from increased unrest.

This also ignores the semi-logarithmic effect of fortune/misfortune. The number of events you get doesn't scale linearly with empire size. On very large maps, misfortune-3 is therefore more worth it.

Anyway, the risk of losing your temple with misfortune-3 seems to be significant; with misfortune-2, negligible. If you're a high-roller and inclined to take risks, obviously misfortune 3 would be more appealing on that basis as well.