Luck/Order scales after 2.06 Patch

[Catquiet]

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
My real point is that 9% increase in income does not balance on the order side of the equation what your scales take on the misfortune side. I think most folks would agree with me. We could do a poll if you you'd like. I actually think just the economic effects of that much unluck in terms of tax loss, destruction of equipment, and the like will more than equal the 9% net income in your example. And that's not counting the heroes, population loss, getting Bogus the Troll, gem theft, etc.

My point was that +3 Scales are not supposed to balance with -3 Scales. +3 Order, +3 Drain would be terrible for most nations. The same with Sloth, Turmoil, or Heat/Cold. Some nations are resistant to one or more negative scales, but that is built into their balance.

You shouldn't try to balance +3 Order with -3 Luck. It's like saying Sight is as important as Hearing, therefore making your vision 75% better is worth reducing your Hearing by 75%.

[rabelais]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Growth/death changed from 0.2% population change per scale to 0.3%. Before there was no reason to ever choose Growth 3.

Um, growth 3 has no geometric benefit over growth 2? What's the advantage to growth2 that doesn't scale?

Thanks,

Rabe

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
I notice you reduced the base event frequency. That gives everyone a bit of intrinsic order effect even if they don't take order scales.

Do you think there are "too many" random events on the default game settings of "common" random events?

Actually, I changed the proportion of events that are "major". The total number of events is the same. The reason I did it is because major events are too frequent, and the bad major events are much more potent than the good major events. I would change it back to 15% if I could mod the events themselves, or (ideally) adjust the proportion of major good and major bad events for each scale setting.

Looks great, I imagine I'll switch to the mod for my SP games. Having the mod won't screw up my MP games, will it?

~Aldin

I suggest using the mod only for single player games unless it is agreed ahead of time to use it for all players. I do not know if mod information is set when a game is created or not... so... personally, I am using that mod for single player, but I disable all mods before taking my multiplayer turns. However, I'll have to wait for a dev comment... it'd be nice if games were encoded with the mods used at creation.

Um, growth 3 has no geometric benefit over growth 2? What's the advantage to growth2 that doesn't scale?
Rabe

Growth gives a bonus to supply and gold income as well. Sometimes I take growth 1 to get a 4th gold income multiplier (admin*growth*order*productivity), usually it is for increased supply if I take a negative heat/cold scale, but really... the points would be better spent elsewhere. Growth 3 sounds like it would make things grow like crazy, but in the vanilla game your nation can be eliminated before you even notice any effect. Now it is slightly better. The problem with growth 3 is that while neither growth 3 or growth 1 really help you, growth 3 costs 80 points more

-Cherry

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
However, I'll have to wait for a dev comment... it'd be nice if games were encoded with the mods used at creation.

They are, start a game with Trollheim, then turn the mod off. Start the game back up, turn the mod off, load the game again, and Trollheim will be re-enabled.

[Keir Maxwell]

Just ot repeat some things I said earlier as they seem out of keeping with much of the opinion being expressed and I'd like to know why.

1.Turmoil3/luck3 is not suicidial

As I understand it nothing has changed about this option with the patch and in my experiance it works for some races - just not as well as order/misfortune used to. I have played many test games with this combo using races like Tuatha, BK and S&A and have only once seen my capital hit big time. Thats playing events commen.

2. Order3/turmoil3 may well prove suicidal.

As I understand it this combo is like it was in dom1 and in dom1 it was a killer and Alex warned us all away from anything like it. I would like to hear back from games people have played with this combo, what the events frequency was, and how bad it proved. I find it hard to imagine taking this set of scales in MP yet most seem to assume its still the norm and some have expressed the idea you would be silly not to which I really doubt to be the case. It may be this is a entirely viable option but it needs to be tested.

I would like to hear alot more on this one as I'm working on the War of the Ring mod and have no time for testing.

3. Order3/luck0 would seem the new norm.

If point 2 above is true then this is what alot of people are going to go for. It costs 120 design points more then turmoil/luck and will be stronger even though its not as strong as it was and wasn't chosen often previously.

While Turmoil/luck has not improved order has got worse which makes turmoil/luck stronger.

I'm a little suprised that alot of people seem to have written off the value of the changes to order/luck scales and are working on their own yet I have still seen no sign of a thorough test of the new scales. If the patch has been ineffective I'd like to see this demonstrated not just claimed. Feedback from games played under the new system is the key.

I am not sure the value in moddding the main game features to fix luck unless you are sure it doesn't work and people seem to be guessing on this. They may be right but that will take serious testing to demonstrate not one province runs. Are you playing events commen or rare? If rare then try commen for some better balence. Playing events rare and then insisting the luck scale is weak and something needs to be changed seems odd to me when you have the option of increasing the events frequency. Sure it takes a bit of getting used to putting up with the setbacks you will get but then I'm sure ancient rulers were pissed when they discovered some of their lords had revolted - thats what you get with all that turmoil. On the other hand if you try Luck you will find you do get some real big bonus's and Turmoil/luck costs no design points.

Illwinter you could do yourselves a real favour on this one by removing things like gaining militia from the good list as many, many, players have pointed out this is generally a very minor bad event and very seldom useful. That events like this are still in the game is, I think, one of the issues heightening people irritation as its been complained about for a long time, without a counter argument I've heard of, yet it remains. Militia "good" events ranks up there with Abysian fire mages precision in a list of the mean things Illwinter inflicts upon us. I have read many times how annoying people find such features and never read a defence of them yet they remain. Features like this bias people against you.

Cheers

Keir

ps. Saber don't take this as aimed at you as I realise what you are trying to do is make a major change in how the scales work not just fix luck. As such your mod represents an alternate way of playing not just an attempt to provide a new norm.

[ January 14, 2004, 21:15: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

[licker]

I kinda agree with Keir here, its a bit early yet to write off the Illwinter change as ineffective in fixing the percieved (though I percieve it) imbalance in order/misfortune.

I don't think the proper solution can be had by just tweeking the existing numbers anyway, I think that the effect of luck on the actual events should be changed. Such that there is no longer a bias toward good or bad events, but with luck good events are better and bad events are not as bad. With misfortune the opposite. Others have suggested this before as well. Assigning a straight % or having a set of 7 levels for each event depending on your luck level. The latter makes luck a bit less quantifiable, which I think it should be anyway

edit- Spelled Kier wrong

[ January 14, 2004, 21:25: Message edited by: licker ]

[SurvivalistMerc]

I am just very happy that they gave us the mod tools we already have. Everyone can make the scales the way they like the scales in SP. Whatever feels right to you.

So no one loses any of his toys. And the old order/misfortune combination can still be used in SP just by making events rare. Except that that feels like cheating just a bit.

I'm going to try order/misfortune in a SP game with events set to "common." But I'm not looking forward to all of those bad events. I suspect it will be worse than a death scale of 3. Because we're talking no overall reduction in events (which was formerly at least half the benefit of taking order) and 80% of the events will be bad.

I'm starting to think that Order0 Luck3 might be interesting to play. Because it will increase events some though not too much.

If anyone uses the Cherry Mod and takes misfortune-3, I would love to hear their tales of woe. Because with events increased by 21% (assuming order zero) and 89% of them bad, I think you will be in dire straits.

What I love about the ability to mod is that we will be able to gain experience with the game and then change the scales to our own points of indifference. This would be especially true if we were allowed to give them non-linear effects. How much turmoil will you accept for 120 design points? Unfortunately, changing the scales will have unintended consequences for how some of the nations with forced turmoil play if the scales were lessened to one's point of indifference. I guess I will just use default scales when I play around with tien'chi.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
ps. Saber don't take this as aimed at you as I realise what you are trying to do is make a major change in how the scales work not just fix luck. As such your mod represents an alternate way of playing not just an attempt to provide a new norm.

No problem=) I just don't like 2 scales being strongly aliased, so that moving one makes some settings of the other unviable... A minor influence is OK, though. I want fortune+order and misfortune+turmoil to be serious possibilties. With my changes, the first one is now useful, but the second one is only a little more viable than before...

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
If anyone uses the Cherry Mod and takes misfortune-3, I would love to hear their tales of woe. Because with events increased by 21% (assuming order zero) and 89% of them bad, I think you will be in dire straits.

The main problem with unluck is the major events (population loss), and those have been reduced, so overall it should prove safer than before...

...and I did not feel safe taking Luck 3 with the default 2.06 scale effects, because with luck 3 you get more events than luck 0... and thus, probably more bad events, but I can't say for sure because I don't know how event probabilities are calculated. "+21%" event frequency does NOT give you 21% more events - more like 100% more, I think.

[ January 14, 2004, 22:05: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:

Illwinter you could do yourselves a real favour on this one by removing things like gaining militia from the good list as many, many, players have pointed out this is generally a very minor bad event and very seldom useful. That events like this are still in the game is, I think, one of the issues heightening people irritation as its been complained about for a long time, without a counter argument I've heard of, yet it remains. Militia "good" events ranks up there with Abysian fire mages precision in a list of the mean things Illwinter inflicts upon us. I have read many times how annoying people find such features and never read a defence of them yet they remain. Features like this bias people against you.

Bowing to popular demands runs against the long and proud tradition of swedish paternalism. Being a swede carries with it certain responsibilities, one of them is telling people what they should think, and you Kier, you should think that militias are a good event. Also Kristoffer is a teacher, so the burden of paternalism rests even heavier on his shoulders.

[ January 14, 2004, 22:12: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
Just ot repeat some things I said earlier as they seem out of keeping with much of the opinion being expressed and I'd like to know why.

1.Turmoil3/luck3 is not suicidial

2. Order3/turmoil3 may well prove suicidal.

3. Order3/luck0 would seem the new norm.

IMHO:
1. Is a clear handicap, because of the lost income.

2. Looks Dangerous to me too, although perhaps for nations with Misfortune averting mages.

3. Order 3 + Misfortune 1 has been working pretty well for me so far. This feels like the new min/max strategy to me.

I look forward to seeing Alex's scale mod.