Productive Scale needs some Enhancements

[Twan]

I don't think magic or growth need a boost. For many nations magic 3 changes the main researcher type (allow to use a very cost effective mages instead of expensive combat ones for research and stay in the race for uniques items/summons ; and you gain lots of gold with the smaller cost/upkeep). And growth is teh endgame scale (of course less usefull in games of short duration but the best to have if you plan to play 60 or more turns).

Also the two have synergic effects not only with order (more mages or more income/pop) but with luck (awesome events adding pop or regular income with growth ; luck 3 growth 3 even with turmoil 3 beats order 3 by far in the long run).

[mathusalem]

I disagree with you Twan, when you said "luck 3 growth 3 even with turmoil 3 beats order 3 by far in the long run".

It's depend first of the map's size : luck is more useful in little map, but the game will be shorter.

And *if* you are right and the combo T3G3L3 beats O3, you have paid 3 scales more for what ? a probability. I prefer certitude

[vfb]

I just got 6000 free gold this turn from two provinces, plus one of the items was a clam. Woo hoo! Of course, I'll never get a double-3000 gold event month in MP .

Turmoil-3 Cold-1 Growth-1 Luck-3 Drain-3 in one province.
Turmoil-3 Growth-1 Luck-3 Drain-3 in the other province.

[mathusalem]

and you never get a 3000 gold when you need it

[Sir_Dr_D]

Twan said:
I don't think magic or growth need a boost. For many nations magic 3 changes the main researcher type (allow to use a very cost effective mages instead of expensive combat ones for research and stay in the race for uniques items/summons ; and you gain lots of gold with the smaller cost/upkeep). And growth is teh endgame scale (of course less usefull in games of short duration but the best to have if you plan to play 60 or more turns).

Also the two have synergic effects not only with order (more mages or more income/pop) but with luck (awesome events adding pop or regular income with growth ; luck 3 growth 3 even with turmoil 3 beats order 3 by far in the long run).

But magic and growth are concidered secondary to order. After someone has taken order, and they have points left they may take magic or growth. But how many people would take growth or magic, but have not put anything on the order scale.

[Tharsonius]

Sir_Dr_D said:
But magic and growth are concidered secondary to order. After someone has taken order, and they have points left they may take magic or growth. But how many people would take growth or magic, but have not put anything on the order scale.

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

Still learning the game...

[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

[CUnknown]

Baalz, I trying not to disagree, honest!

But..but.. are you really saying that Productivity is worthy, is the same way that Order, or Magic, or even Luck are worthy?

I agree that early expansion is extremely important. Productivity can certainly help with that, but so can other things: an awake combat pretender, cheap bless troops, good archers like Longbowmen, low-resource effective troops like Ilithids or something like that, etc.

If I had no low-res cost units, no longbows or Marignon crossbows, no cheap bless troops, and I still felt the need for a good early expansion, I would invest my points in a good combat pretender -- and that's a gift that keeps on giving past turn 12. And of course rapid early expansion is not always even necessary.

There are other, better ways to get what Productivity gives you.

[Baalz]

Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I might argue that there are *other* ways to get what productivity gives you. I'm not saying productivity is "da bomb", just that it is a viable alternative in a lot of situations to going with an expansion pretender or taking order-3. If you're going with lower resource troops (certainly a viable strategy) you'll often need more of them to be effective so you're spending more gold and have more upkeep whittling away the benefit of order over productivity. Sometimes you don't have the option of recruiting elsewhere - cap only troops or good indies so your recruitment is permanently resource constrained. Sometimes you are both gold and resource restricted - ie you can afford 10 infantry but if you had more resources you'd get heavy infantry rather than medium. How much more effective is a LA Arco heavy elephant than 10 light infantry? It's not a linear progression, sometimes the sweet spot just requires a certain amount of resources.

Order-3 vs Prod-3, 15% more gold and lower randoms vs 50% more resources. Does the higher resources combine to boost your expansion, reduce your troop cost, and reduce your castling needs by 15%? Perhaps, as I said it's a situational decision. Perhaps I want to take luck scales. Perhaps I need an imprisoned pretender for other reasons. Perhaps I've got really crappy non-cap national mages and don't plan to put up many castles to recruit them. Do I always take productivity? Of course not, but I think the people claiming it's never a competitive choice are silly.

[calmon]

Thanks for all the responses!

Well different strategies always play a main role in building the pretender with his dominion. I agree that with some stragies and special nations productivity 3 makes sence.

However for most nations this bonus is to small for the invest in my eyes. Maybe a small/medium buff can help this scale being more used in a positive way.