refuting common wisdom on scales everybody knows

[Endoperez]

Sombre said:
That test doesn't make a lot of sense to me. 9 provinces is not the average size of a dom3 'nation'. It doesn't factor in the difference in the early game. It isn't fair in that order 3 costs points whereas turmoil 3 luck 3 doesn't. It ignores a major disadvantage of luck turmoil (that it doesn't scale to large territories) and ignores a major advantage (that early gold event that lets you double your expansion rate).

I just don't see what it really tells us.

I think the point is that Turmoil/Luck can come near Order in gold income, even though it costs 120 less points, and comes with all the perks of Luck.

I know that the test if flawed. It's the only test that is easy to run, though, and that's why I have run it (or similar ones) and I think that's why others have done the same. If I can bother, I could modify my test map so that two nations start the game own equal, unconnected areas of about fourty provinces, temples in all provinces. It would only provide two samples at a time, so generating data would be very slow and very boring.

[JimMorrison]

Endoperez said:

I think the point is that Turmoil/Luck can come near Order in gold income, even though it costs 120 less points, and comes with all the perks of Luck.

I know that the test if flawed. It's the only test that is easy to run, though, and that's why I have run it (or similar ones) and I think that's why others have done the same. If I can bother, I could modify my test map so that two nations start the game own equal, unconnected areas of about fourty provinces, temples in all provinces. It would only provide two samples at a time, so generating data would be very slow and very boring.

The test is flawed as far as trying to extrapolate the long term benefits yes, but the more "long term" you try to look, the more static your situation becomes. We'll take a quick example, between an O3/S3 nation starting with 428 gold income and 44 resources, as compared to a T3/P3 nation starting with 310 gold income and 116 resources. Regardless of later options, the beginning of the game will be shaped by the dynamic of this balance, and how it relates to indy strength and other factors. I think it could be argued that most non-bless nations (and some bless, as well) are forced to make highly inferior troops at game start with such low resource income at the capital. For the same gold cost, they get to upgrade to much more durable troops, and can produce a very low attrition indie clearing force in less turns, that requires less upkeep.

Sure, it can be argued that a strategy like this will generally leave you overextended, with a small economy compared to your massive size. Yes and no, because you must remember that not only do you produce your elite heavy infantry much more quickly than the Sloth player, but with the huge resource income, you can cherry pick indies to get what you need in times of crisis. This perspective holds especially true for some bless nations with non-cap sacreds who may not swing 6 points on both scales, but who could potentially benefit from leaving the scales even. I would be willing to argue that even scales can be leveraged to even more strategic benefit, as you will have no glaring weaknesses.

I will wholeheartedly agree that Order is an easier scale to maximize in your strategy, but I am such a fan of the "luck" factor that for a long period after I got Dom3, I went T3/P3/L3 with almost every nation (didn't know what I needed for a good SC, or to work a bless strat, so I mostly used troops). I'll tell you, I sure miss the days of virtually 0 barbarian attacks..... It's easy to overlook how much of a dent those can make in the first year economy. When I take Misf2-3, on my faster starts I often end up with 1 army that could be working my borders, but is instead stuck running around my interior, mopping up barbs/villians/knights/trogs/etc.

Also, much of a big deal is made about these initial lab burning down events and such. How painful is it when as an aquatic race you have a thief "steal some of your magic gems" and lose like half your water gems a turn or two before you get Tiamat? How about the temples and under construction castles that are occasionally lost when there is a random event that makes you lose the province?

Order really is the late game winner, not the early game builder or the mid game developer. It helps with those phases of the game, but early has far more factors in play than brute cash flow (and what it can and can NOT provide for your nation), and mid is more defined by Magic, and its exploitation pushing you ahead of the competition one useful spell at a time. But looking at it that way, is suggesting that the vast majority of players are not looking for gaining a decisive advantage in the early game most of the time, but would rather have a guaranteed modicum of early performance, and then rely on diplomacy to survive to the late game, where their actual strategy unfolds.

I think I'm going to set up a poll, to see the difference in scales that someone takes when they are rushing to make a kill as early in the game as possible. (may be worthwhile to note that a single 30000 pop capital should net you as much gold as six provinces averaging 5000 pop apiece, plus the admin bonus, plus the castle to build troops in, plus the lab, plus the gem income - not to mention it eliminates a nearby rival, potentially giving you more room to grow afterwards).

[kasnavada]

I think the point is that Turmoil/Luck can come near Order in gold income, even though it costs 120 less points, and comes with all the perks of Luck.

I know that the test if flawed. It's the only test that is easy to run, though, and that's why I have run it (or similar ones)

I couldn't have said it myself any better... Now, I wish that 9 provinces times 30 turns meant the same amount of events that 270 provinces in a single turn does. For some reason, many people seem to believe there is a cap number of events... and that it doesn't scale because of this. Probably because there is a cap.

Just removing that cap would make turmoil / luck and order about equal.

[Lingchih]

Man, I am getting tired head on this topic. Can't we just fight it out? I'll stick with Order 3 Misfortune 2.

[Omnirizon]

Lingchih said:
Man, I am getting tired head on this topic. Can't we just fight it out? I'll stick with Order 3 Misfortune 2.

I've been reading this thread, watching ppl beat the dead horse, rez it and beat it some more; wondering when they would start talking about something different. I did learn some things about opinion on Order/Turm and Luck/Mistfort; but in the end nothing said was really something I didn't already know, and didn't see anything that was going to change the way I think about scale design. I tried starting a convo about heat/cold analysis, but only one person bothered to comment. I was going to comment back, but it felt pointless because the convo would simply get buried underneath piles of dead horses.

its nice to see someone else feels the same way.

but hey!!

on heat/cold, like Endo said, it causes encumbrance. I think the upside to taking cold3 is worth it. you have a harder time with cold resist nations, but they would be using Murdering Winter anyway, and you have an easier time with cold-blood nations, and I do not think there is a heat version of MurdWinter.

In addition, you can build a strat around the temp scales. If you have a nation with chaff-type units and/or light armor/encumbrance units available, the encumbrance aint such a drawback. And you would benefit in battle against players who are depending on fewer, but heavier armored and robust, units. It affects everyone on the battlefield, and provides just one more way to stack the deck in your favor by designing around it.

[Endoperez]

kasnavada said:
I couldn't have said it myself any better... Now, I wish that 9 provinces times 30 turns meant the same amount of events that 270 provinces in a single turn does. For some reason, many people seem to believe there is a cap number of events... and that it doesn't scale because of this. Probably because there is a cap.

Just removing that cap would make turmoil / luck and order about equal.

I'm sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about.

Think of it like this: Growth gives a static precentage bonus to population, every turn. To test Growth scale, you can run a test with 9 provinces for 30 turns, or a test with 270 provinces for 1 turn. The results will be different.

Growth/Death affect late game more than early game. Production's main effect, more resources, is static but importance of resources goes down as more magic is researched. Order is good, but Production or at least non--Sloth, non-Misfortune may be better in early game for some nations.

Why, then, should Luck's bonus be static? Luck is random, but it CAN give huge bonus in the early game, much bigger than Order, and the rare events where everything goes right that are game-changing (getting a single path-booster may enable you to forge more of them, especially for Air or Death, and sometimes you get Staff of Elemental Mastery or a Ring of Sorcery)... But Luck can also give militia, or a lab in an unimportant province or as many gems as you get from your capital every turn, and these are useless in early, middle AND late game.


If more events happened, you would get more actually good events, and more actually pretty useless events. It would be BORING to read through them, every turn. IMO, a better solution would be to directly increase the quality of events in middle/late game, not their quantity.


Giving all nations some national troops and restricting labs to provinces with recruitable mages would help. Adding in events that are too good for early game would help a lot. Whether they are limited by the number of provinces you own, amount of research you have done, or the availability of a spesific unit (an ancient mage's soul being bound in one of your mechanical men, giving you air/fire/nature mage), it doesn't matter.

[Twan]

The problem for me isn't the cap itself but bad events "stealing" event slots when your scales aren't maxed everywhere, so you need a very strong dominion or to be turtling to have reliable effects.

It's very rare to have luck 3 everywhere when you are expanding, you often have provinces with luck 0-2, or even worse with your turmoil scale but not luck (or with the misfortune of a neighbour). Then you may get an half of bad events, replacing same number of good ones, and these events can nullify the positive effect of the scale.

Order of course only give bonus where the scale has been developped, but provinces without order don't steal the income bonus of provinces having it.

Tests don't represent that well, as they are usually based on strong dominion + temples everywhere + no expansion.

I think the best way to reevaluate luck scale would be to check provinces by decreasing order of local luck (so you'd get events in provinces with low/negative luck scale only if the total number of events of your lucky provinces didn't have reached the event cap).

[Endoperez]

johan osterman said:
Number of luck events are determnined by homeprovince scales and number of provinces, IIRC. The events are categorised as either bad luck or good luck events, the ratio of which are dependent on your home province luck scale. Once the general nature and number of events are determined the will be randomly assigned to provinces. There they will be randomly generated if the province does not have the requirements for an event the event will be rerolled. For the purposes of what events might occur enemy dominion luck scale in a province will be coniderewd unluck, unluck scales will still be unluck. So in order to get the 3000 gold event you will have the event occur in a province where you have your dominion and a plus 3 luck scale.

edit: source http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...&Number=612131

[Twan]

I should be really unlucky if it's the real mechanic.

[kasnavada]

Think of it like this: Growth gives a static precentage bonus to population, every turn. To test Growth scale, you can run a test with 9 provinces for 30 turns, or a test with 270 provinces for 1 turn. The results will be different.

You don't know what you're talking about. What you just did was a perfect example of a strawman argument : the events you get from luck or misfortune from turn n do not affect turn n+1. Growth from turn n affects turn n + 1, therefore as you justly said, you can't compare growth that way. But you can compare luck effects since they are independant from one turn to the next. Same with order and production (and negative counterpart).

That's the reason why the only difference between testing luck for 30 turns on 9 provinces and testing luck in 270 province is the cap limitation for events... which should be gone.

Your ideas are interesting though, but a better solution would be to group the events :
Example : your followers found some water gem in provinceA, fire gem in provinceB instead of 2 messages. Even more since it doesn't matter where the gems are found.

Same for gold : it could be summed. For the loss of gold, it should also be. I always found strange that losing 200 gold in a province that gives 14 gold result in a loss of 14 gold...

Luck should scale with territory since more territory means more chances for luck to happen.

And, as far as militia events being useless, they've been mostly replaced by national troops events AFAIK... so your wish has been heard.