What Are the Drawbacks of High Misfortune?

[Tuidjy]

I believe Order 3, Life 1, Misfortune 2 is safe. When I need the points,
I even play with O3L1M3. It's not the end of the world... But Misfortune
and Death scales, in combination, are a disaster.

In any case, it very much depends on what kind of PD you have. A good
PD like Pythium, Tir-Na-Nog or Arco laughs at invaders. Niefelheim,
on the other hand is savaged by barbarians until turn 30ish, when they
become training dummies for your Jarls.

[Randvek]

Main thing I experience is my temples dropping left and right. Man that gets annoying.

[Meglobob]

What Are the Drawbacks of High Misfortune?

Annoyance mainly, will increase micromanagement because you need to have 1 or 2 mobile armies to take care of barbarian (most common), knight, vine men, troglodytes and troll(least common) attacks. Those attacks can occasionally really hurt, especially when you are at war.

Also, no heros with misfortune 3 and a remote chance with 2.

To be honest the chances of losing your lab on the 1st turn is very, very, very rare and remote. But I always buy a mage on the 1st turn just in case, as otherwise its virtually game over.

Other misfortune events like raising unrest, plagues and whatnot are not really that bad, just minor annoyances.

I usually play all my SP games with luck 3 as its far more fun but in MP to be competitive order 3 misfortune 3 is a must for alot of nations.

I am currently playing a game with scales of turmoil 1, sloth 3, heat 3, misfortune 2, drain 3 and doing fairly well. So its 'manageable'.

[Zeldor]

Not annoyance. Misfortune, even 1-2 can eliminate you from the MP game. If you survive long enough with that scales you are fine. But you take HUGE RISK. You can get some nasty events during first 10 turns and you have no chance to win the war.

Examples:
- lab/temple lost without mages/priests
- huge unrest in capitol [you can get even over 100 in one turn], takes some time and money to get rid of
- Bogus, if you are unlucky he can attack your capitol, he beats 125 strong PD
- huge hordes of barbarians - you can get a group of almost 200 barbarians attacking at once

And if you mix it with Death 3 you will probably have population 10-15k in capitol after around 10-15 turns.

[Twan]

All these events may happen with low misfortune and some even with luck 1 if as a player you are unlucky, so taking misfortune 2 or 3 has no real special drawback.

I like to play with luck scale because it's fun, but I don't think it's actually balanced at all.

I think the main problem of the luck scale is the cap on the number of events coupled with the fact you usually own some provinces where your scales aren't maxed. So if you play a big empire with luck 3 turmoil 3 and are conquering new lands at the fronteer of your dominion, you will often get bad events from provinces where you have only turmoil, and these events will count in the maximum of 3 events per turn in your national provinces, limiting the benefits of luck.

[DrPraetorious]

The drawback to misfortune is that, on average it costs you a big pile of money and gems.

- You *don't* get a number of beneficial events (trade routes, so-and-so found a pile of gems, etc), which costs you money and gems.
- If you also take Drain, you get a lot of events where you lose gems.
- If you also take Death, you get a lot of events where you lose piles of population (as has been mentioned.)
- Regardless of what you take, you get a lot of events that raise unrest - hurricanes, that star that curses people, etc. These events can cause 40 unrest or more, which is (at least for a turn) a bigger income hit that 3 levels of Order.

Most of the effects of Misfortune are not, it is true, game-breakers.

However, as an income scale, in the short turn, Fortune is a better deal than Growth.

[Ironhawk]

Misfortune has its drawbacks, but its not that bad when coupled with Order. I take Misf 2-3 in every MP game. Its a gamble for the first couple of turns, until you capture 1 or 2 provinces, because you could get slammed in your cap. But once you get those provs the chance of a bad event in your cap drops drastically - and the truth is that bad events in the majority of your empire really dont effect gold output that much. They are only a problem if they happen in capitals and awesome farmland provs.

So, on the whole, unless you have a strong reason to take luck, I think that Order + Misf is always the way to go.

[capnq]

Meglobob said: To be honest the chances of losing your lab on the 1st turn is very, very, very rare and remote. But I always buy a mage on the 1st turn just in case, as otherwise its virtually game over.

I always buy a priest first. There seem to be a lot more mercenary mages available than mercenary priests, and I've never used a pretender with no magic paths.

[Endoperez]

You can always get a propet, though.

[sector24]

My favorite part about misfortune is when you've besieged a fort and you get the lab/temple destroyed event, but it destroys your opponent's building.