What Are the Drawbacks of High Misfortune?

[Jazzepi]

capnq said:

Huh? Other than H3->4 getting you Divine Blessing, I don't see why it "only works" at that level.

Because turning a commander into a prophet who has H0-H2 raises him to H3. Turning a commander who is H3 into a prophet gives him H4, and the ever elusive fanaticism which is quite good in large battles.

Basically there's no reason to convert a H1-H2 priest into a prophet when you could just do it with a commander, or a scout, or some one else.

Jazzepi

[Endoperez]

Yeah. As Ulm, for example, I could make either my starting commander (shield, armor) or my starting spy (good stealth) into my prophet. A priest-prophet is just worse than either.

[Agrajag]

EDIT: Whoops, didn't notice the question was already answered (I failed to notice the existence of a third page :S)
So, you can just ignore what I already wrote earlier, which is:

Because "boosting him further as my prophet" is only a real boost if it is from H3 to H4. Since any prophet gets H3 anyway, it is completely pointless to make an H2 priest into a prophet, you might as well boost a mage or a good commander all the way to H3 by making him into a prophet.

[capnq]

Endoperez said:

Because turning a commander into a prophet who has H0-H2 raises him to H3. Turning a commander who is H3 into a prophet gives him H4, and the ever elusive fanaticism which is quite good in large battles.

Basically there's no reason to convert a H1-H2 priest into a prophet when you could just do it with a commander, or a scout, or some one else.

OK, that makes sense. I never really looked that closely at it, and I'd assumed that making someone a prophet just increased H by 1.

I've only been playing the demo so far, and just ordered the full game yesterday. Once I have the manual to look at, I should know these things.

[Wyatt Hebert]

It happens, capnq.

As for Endo's comment, I've actually seen the Ulmish Commanders knock themselves out if prophetized, simply due to the very high Spellcasting encumbrance of his gear. Otoh, he's very durable, and his only real job is to cast Sermon of Courage.

So it goes...

Wyatt

[Micah]

Problem is that NOTHING is very durable at 100 fatigue. =)

[Baalz]

Drawbacks of high misfortune:
You never can take turmoil
You very rarely can take death
You get no (or very few) national heroes
It costs you gold/gems/population both directly and as a hidden cost (the positive events you never get)
It costs you labs/temples/castles, both directly and as a hidden cost
You regularly get attacked by indies
It can cripple you in the first few turns if you're unlucky
It increases your micro

Outside of (obviously) reversing the above, benefits of luck:
Increases your magic diversity, through random gem events and random mages joining you (your national heroes can often help with this as well)
Lumpy income can make it easier to fund larger projects (ie you just got a large gold event so can afford that castle you were having trouble saving for)
Possibility of getting items/boosters you can't forge
A significant portion of your income can't be hit by spies, pillaging, or unrest causing rituals. True, there are some spells which raise misfortune, but to significantly impact your overall income they'd have to hit a significant portion of your kingdom rather than a handful of your best provinces.


One choice that I think is overlooked by the "gold is king, I only take Order/Misfortune" crowd is Order/Luck. True, the synergy is against you, but as your nation grows you start hitting that 3 event limit anyway and have the best gold income possible. I haven't dug into it, but I'm assuming some really good events are tied to order/luck scales. I find order/luck/death to be a very competitive setup...

[Ironhawk]

Thats a really interesting scale combination, baalz. Wouldnt have thought to use that - might give it a shot in my next game. How do you keep all your mages from dying?

In the past I've always used Order/Misfortune. Really you are only in danger for like the first 2-3 turns of the game and after that it pays off very well. And you get attacked by Bogus often which is, outside of the early game, a positive event since it nets you a lot of equipment.

Turmoil/Luck is nice in the early game when a big gold boost can almost double your economic power in a turn. But once your hit the event per turn limit, your bonus becomes static. This is a very serious flaw when playing in medium/large games because nations who took Order will have a strong relative advantage over you since thier income scales faster as thier empires grow!

[Zeldor]

Ironhawk:

You can get attacked by Bogus even in Luck 2-3

[Baalz]

Ironhawk said:
Thats a really interesting scale combination, baalz. Wouldnt have thought to use that - might give it a shot in my next game. How do you keep all your mages from dying?

In the past I've always used Order/Misfortune. Really you are only in danger for like the first 2-3 turns of the game and after that it pays off very well. And you get attacked by Bogus often which is, outside of the early game, a positive event since it nets you a lot of equipment.

Turmoil/Luck is nice in the early game when a big gold boost can almost double your economic power in a turn. But once your hit the event per turn limit, your bonus becomes static. This is a very serious flaw when playing in medium/large games because nations who took Order will have a strong relative advantage over you since thier income scales faster as thier empires grow!

To be sure, I don't always take those scales, I very seldom take death scales when old age is an issue. For many nations though it's not.

Order is nice, to be sure, I don't think anyone will argue that. I do think it's a bit misleading though to just look at the gold value and say luck's advantage is static. Whats the value of getting a necromancer who starts casting dark knowledge? Without trying to pick a value that's arguably an exponential advantage as your death income grows over time. What's the value of losing the lab at your capital? I'm not talking about during the first few turns, I'm talking about at the point you've got a bunch of researchers and rituals being cast - again this value grows over time even assuming you didn't miss out on critical support for your military. How valuable is it to be able to prime the pump on site searching spells without having to alchemize - potentially from non-astral gems? What's the value of a national hero?

Luck is definitely *not* the most efficient way to gain gold, but gold alone does not win a game.