refuting common wisdom on scales everybody knows

[Radio_Star]

This is speculative on my part, but I'd imagine that you could leverage strong 'undesirable' scales diplomatically, forestalling an invasion by convincing a potential opponent to choose a more profitable target.

[CUnknown]

Baalz, I agree with you on most points. However, production/sloth is pretty clearly the weakest scale and the best bet to sell off for points, imo. It's the only scale that is pretty much obsolete towards the mid-late game. I mean, I take prod-3 as Ulm, but for most other races I'd probably take somewhere slothy, if not all the way to sloth-3.

It's not that prod is never useful, or that sloth will never hurt you, but in general there are better ways to spend your points than prod and no better ways to get points than sloth.

Edit: Oh, I also wanted to say that I agree with you 100% about Drain, it's a great scale to take for points, imo. Not only does it help to protect against Mind Hunts, but it only subtracts 1 research (in base game) and gives you 80 points! 1 research is really not a big deal, although it may make some cheap sacred researchers no longer worth it.

In CB mod, it's not quite as worth it.

[Baalz]

CUnknown said:
Baalz, I agree with you on most points. However, production/sloth is pretty clearly the weakest scale and the best bet to sell off for points, imo. It's the only scale that is pretty much obsolete towards the mid-late game. I mean, I take prod-3 as Ulm, but for most other races I'd probably take somewhere slothy, if not all the way to sloth-3.

It's not that prod is never useful, or that sloth will never hurt you, but in general there are better ways to spend your points than prod and no better ways to get points than sloth.

This is exactly what I'm talking about, most everybody "always" takes order and "never" takes production despite the fact that this is suboptimal in several situations and a judgment call in several more. Obviously there are situations where order/sloth makes sense. There are other situations where production/turmoil will give you more gold in hand than taking order - I give an example with C'tis but you don't have too think too hard for more. More gold and a faster expansion. Yes, obviously the usefulness of production declines over time but that argument hardly stops most people from taking awake pretenders - those design points are completely wasted by the end of year one.

[Omnirizon]

how come everyone is stuck on (over)analysing order/turmoil and luck/misfortune?

what about heat/cold scales?

3 cold can fund 3 order with a net return in gold, and you have a great built in defense against C'tis and Hydras. The only reason I see never to take 3 cold is if I need to maximize gold income and can't afford to lose it on the cold scale, or if I'm playing a nation with cold-bloods I plan to use. You can also take 3 cold 3 order and 1 growth and have a small net gain on gold, but also get the long term gain of growth, and help alleviate the supply reduction of cold (if that is a problem, typically it is not). Lastly, consider that random fluctuations in the temp scale will often put your provinces at 2 or even 1 cold, helping to remove that gold penatly. However, you can never fluctuate above the cold 3 you already have. Thus there is an actual increase in return for taking cold 3 (ei. the points you get from taking it are worth more than the penalty, relative to when you take only cold 1 or 2, becuase the cold 3 cannot fluctuate any higher, whereas cold 1 and 2 will often fluctuate up to 3.)

[Endoperez]

Omnirizon said:
how come everyone is stuck on (over)analysing order/turmoil and luck/misfortune?

what about heat/cold scales?

On the other hand, all your troops and mages have +2 encumberance in Cold 3, while cold-resistant opponents (Jotun, Caelum, undead, LA Atlantis and perhaps few more) won't. It's only when you are at full Cold 3, of course, so not all the time.

[Ironhawk]

Radio_Star said:
This is speculative on my part, but I'd imagine that you could leverage strong 'undesirable' scales diplomatically, forestalling an invasion by convincing a potential opponent to choose a more profitable target.

An interesting idea, but it won't play out in a real game. All the other player has to do is wipe you out and then your dominion vanishes, to be quickly replaced by thier own. The only nations that have dominion which makes invasion a serious pain are the pop-killers / insanity ones.

[Radio_Star]

Ironhawk said:

An interesting idea, but it won't play out in a real game. All the other player has to do is wipe you out and then your dominion vanishes, to be quickly replaced by thier own. The only nations that have dominion which makes invasion a serious pain are the pop-killers / insanity ones.

I was specifically thinking of heavy death scales here. The population loss from death coupled with the pop killing events, even with luck 3, will significantly reduce your population pretty quickly.