Bandar Log advice

[K]

Misfortune 2's only real problem is no free gem events from luck and barbarian attacks. The attacks are aren't a big deal as long as you keep an archer army around home for that.

[secretperson]

So what's generally considered the safest bad scales to take? Sloth? Heat/Cold? Drain?

Death seems pretty heavy to me and I don't think I've ever take it in a long game unless I was playing an appropriate nation ie Ermor.

Misfortune seriously scares me. Maybe I haven't had enough experience with it but nothing annoys me more than a temple being destroyed or a lab burning down or barbarians! But that brings up another question- I remember reading that random events may be tied to what scales you take, is that true?

[Zenzei]

Heh, I honestly think misfortune is the best bad scale to take because it doesn't give you any "hard" penalties such as minus to income. Sloth is pretty good pick too but once you play with misfortune a bit, you don't even notice it's there. With heat/cold one step further than the nation preference is also my standard procedure.

[MaxWilson]

I think most people would go with Sloth. Aside from the minor hit to income all it does is force you to build more fortresses--most nations are more gold-limited than resource-limited anyway.

Yes, events are known to be tied to what scales you take. An (incomplete) list from Dom2: http://www.freewebs.com/dominions2/events.html

-Max

[Kuritza]

Bad troops, weak mages, weak pd, expensive castles. Great summons. I think what you need is lots of luck, and I dont mean scales here.
Expansion-wise, with a strong bless you can put 4 of your starting atavi up front with a 'guard commander' order, and attach them to your big monkey prophet who's in the upper left corner. Then enemy archers wont kill your sacred troops and they should be able to kill the indies.