Luck/Order scales after 2.06 Patch - Page 2

SurvivalistMerc · #11 January 12th, 2004, 08:37 PM

I am a bit with apoger on this one, Kristoffer.

I wouldn't mind if the events were very bad, such as loss of half your tax revenues for the turn or something like that. Even a single-time loss of 500 (if you have 500 more than troop cost) would be ok with me. Because that corresponds to a good event. I think to some folks, "balancing" these scales would mean that for every bad event that can happen to you at luck-0, there is a corresponding good event that is equal in benefit to the detriment of the bad event and equal in permanence to the permanence of the bad event (and vice versa).

Maybe you lose 100 gp, some gems, and a magical item. Or you lose your best item in the lab.

All of my suggestions have one thing in common: they are very temporary. It's nothing you can't recover from. You haven't lost 1/4 your population in your home province due to flooding.

An alternate idea would be to let your luck scale affect where a bad event occurs or the extent of the bad event. Example: Unless you are -3 luck, you can't have a population loss event in the most populous 20% of your provinces. Unless you have -2 or worse luck, Bogus the Troll, if he comes, won't come on top of your largest army or in your most "valuable" 20% of provinces.

I think what has a lot of folks "turned off" to luck is that even with beneficial luck scales some really horrible events occur. And luck costs a lot of nation points. So you sort of figure you've bought some sort of "insurance" at a price and then something really bad happens and you get unhappy about it. On the other hand, if you took misfortune and got those 120 points from luck-0, you figure that you deserve for things like that to happen to you in your game. Or maybe that's just me.

Saber Cherry · #12 January 12th, 2004, 08:41 PM

OK, on turn 45 Abysia (Luck Turmoil) had the ancient presence event. Even though hundreds of militia had joined my army and the province defense had been boosted 3 times to 55 (HUGE defending army of abyssians, humanbreds, and militia) the invading mandragoras won and captured the capitol. And of course the population was reduced to 1000.

Atlantis (Misfortune Order) had fewer events, no major bad ones, and was much better off. Population was still 30K (rather than Abysia's 22k and later 1k), gold in the bank was 6.1k (abysia has 1.9k), and they had still gotten 14 random gems rather than Abysia's 69 random gems.

In conclusion:

Unless positive luck scales are immune (or highly resistant) to major negatives, I think turmoil-luck is too unsafe to consider except for Ermor / Pangaea.

ywl · #13 January 12th, 2004, 08:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Wow, I was testing luck 3, chaos 3 with Abysia... 2 good events until turn 6, then on turn 7 I got a magic item, hero, celebrant, AND... 1/4 of my population died from rain. So far, not good at all.

..then a witch cursed some units, then a quake destroyed the temple (by turn 19).

Witch cursing some units is a mixed event. You get gems out of it.

Saber Cherry · #14 January 12th, 2004, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
I think what has a lot of folks "turned off" to luck is that even with beneficial luck scales some really horrible events occur. And luck costs a lot of nation points.

Yes - the problem with paying for good luck is that you still have bad luck. If I pay for a lucky domain, I don't expect my capitol to collapse from bad luck without any enemy action

I'd pay for good luck if it protected me from that sort of thing, but I suspect that turmoil/luck has more catastrophies than order/misfortune... I just can't analyze it for certain because I don't understand how the luck percentages work.

SurvivalistMerc · #15 January 12th, 2004, 08:50 PM

SaberCherry,

It may be that as an underwater nation Atlantis was immune to flooding.

The ancient presence event may require magic scales. I find that a number of unlucky events are averted by taking no magic or drain in your scales.

Of course, I'm still a relative novice at the game compared to most of you.

apoger · #16 January 12th, 2004, 08:57 PM

>Can you tell me what you are doing to test it?

I make a set of pretenders, 3 with Order-3 luck-3, 3 with Order-3 Luck-0, 3 with Order-3 Misfortune-3, ect... all the combos.

Then I make a game with a bunch of these gods.
I set the starting army/pretender on patrol (undoes unrest, defends versus random attacks).
I name a prophet.
Then I host 15,30, and 60 turns.
At each stop I note the population, income, and treasury. On turn 60 I also check for items, and heros.

It's not conculsive, and yes having extra territory would help, but it gives me a good idea of what will happen.

apoger · #17 January 12th, 2004, 09:04 PM

>So your solution to misfortune being a no brainer is making it better?

>I take it you would prefer to leave misfortune without effect so you could have high incomes and many events that are mainly good

No, but I see luck/misfortune differently than you guys.

Good Event: Gain a lab
Bad Event: Lose lab

On the surface these look equal and symetric.
However the lost lab will often happen at a protected location where mages are being produced and research is being done. The gained lab occurs at a random spot that is vastly less likey to be helpful. Effectively, losing a lab is much more hurtful than gaining a lab is helpful. The luck tables you are using don't account for this at all, and this skews things towards bad luck.

Furthermore there are events like losing 1/3 of a population or being attacked by powerful armies. These events are much worse and more common, than their opposite effects.

Honestly, we could agrue forever about this.
What I'll do is play with the mod tools and see if I can make a formula that make me happy. That way everyone wins.

SurvivalistMerc · #18 January 12th, 2004, 09:11 PM

I agree, apoger. And it will be nice if the mod tools eventually let you decide how to limit the unlucky and lucky events.

And just in real estate, it's all about location, location, location with regard to luck and unluck events.

If you were really "lucky," that new lab would be discovered at a location where it will enable you to recruit a new type of mage that you don't already have access to. (Early in the game, it might be in a druid province.) Location is an element of luck that isn't affected by the scales. For instance, the Bogus event is supposed to be unlucky, but if it happens in the one border province you share with a mighty nation that just declared war on you, then maybe it's not such a bad event after all.

SurvivalistMerc · #19 January 12th, 2004, 09:23 PM

Has anyone gotten heroes with -2 luck? I don't seem to, even though folks say you are supposed to. I just figured I'd ask since folks are doing lots of tests right now.

ywl · #20 January 12th, 2004, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
Has anyone gotten heroes with -2 luck? I don't seem to, even though folks say you are supposed to. I just figured I'd ask since folks are doing lots of tests right now.

In Dom 1, I heard that you don't get any below luck -1. Some people said luck -2 is the limit in Dom 2. I don't know.