The most dreadful (random) event?

[Agema]

I think he means balanced in the sense that luck is as good for you as misfortune is bad.

I'd certainly say I found Misfortune 2 rather aggravating, mostly for repeated rebellions and the occasional demolished building. You'd be surprised how beneficial it is to not only have a stream of extra gold/gems/PD but be very unlikely to have disruptions across your empire.

[Edi]

Originally Posted by Agema

I think he means balanced in the sense that luck is as good for you as misfortune is bad.

I'd certainly say I found Misfortune 2 rather aggravating, mostly for repeated rebellions and the occasional demolished building. You'd be surprised how beneficial it is to not only have a stream of extra gold/gems/PD but be very unlikely to have disruptions across your empire.

True, and depending on what nation you play, even the militia events might actually be big boosts, especially early in the game. LA Abysia comes to mind, they get some of the light Abysian infantries from a militia events, so getting something like 70 of those in one go in the first few turns for example is an awesome boost.

[Edratman]

Herode, that is a very useful analysis of luck/misfortune. I've never encountered a post that even vaguely quantified good/bad events.

That is a study worthy of its own thread.

[VedalkenBear]

Re: the Kirke-Skogu event, KO, I assume this is a negative event, and can thus be stopped by Fortunetelling?

I say this because I've had Kirke and Skogu in the same province for many many turns (my capital) over many games (I like Sauromatia), and I've never ever seen that event.

Also, isn't one of the Partholonians (I think it's the relatively new Queen hero added to Sauromatia) also related to Skogu somehow?

[Kristoffer O]

> Re: the Kirke-Skogu event, KO, I assume this is a negative event, and can thus be stopped by Fortunetelling?

Aha. Most likely. How clever of you

Skögu was born in the swamps of Pythia ages ago. His mother left him in the swamps to die, but he was found and nurtured by a Pythian serpent. When he returned to his tribe, he could still not speak a word. He was not accepted and wandered the land until he came to a strange island and met a beautiful enchantress. She took him as her lover and taught him three languages that are spoken today, three languages that are dead and finally the language spoken by the dead. She must have loved or hated him greatly, because she also taught him the dark art of necromancy. When the witch finally got tired of her young lover and banished him from the island, Skögu was maddened by rage and turned his dark arts to practice. He returned to his tribe with a host of ghosts and slew and ate those who opposed him. He sacrificed women as he would his former lover, should they meet again, and made his tribe do the same and he made his tribesmen eat those they defeated in combat. Soon the Horror of the Androphags spread across the steppes. He took seven wives, three living, three old and one no longer living. The sons of his wives were taught the dark arts and he called them Witch Kings. Skögu has since retired into the swamps of Pythia where he feasts upon the flesh of men, awaiting the arrival of his former lover. Skögu rides a Pythian serpent reanimated by vile magic.

Once, long before the arrival of the Amazons and the Witch Kings, there lived a highly magical race in the Sauromatian steppes. They are called Partholonians by the few who still remember them. With the emergence of the Witch Kings, the few remaining Partholonians were driven from their lands and the Witch Kings stole their knowledge and ate their flesh. Delgnat, daughter of Sera and an able sorceress, stayed and witnessed the passing of her remainingin kin. With growing despair, she watched her last kinsman die. In defiance of the old traditions, she turned to dark sorcery and reanimated her brothers and sisters and created a court of the living dead deep in the misty swamps of Sauromatia. Here she was approached by Skögu, who wooed her, slew her and ate her. Her dark practices had prepared her for this and she returned in flesh to haunt the Witch King. Skögu was enamoured and took her as his seventh and final wife and together they built a castle for the dead. Delgnat is immortal, but her body slowly withers if she leaves her castle of dead memories.

[Zeldor]

Unrest events early on should be more balanced though, especially multiple unrest. Being unlucky is 1 thing, getting eliminated by it is another thing. And no, that risk is no reason to go for Luck.

We all know that biggest problem is that Luck does not work well with Order 3. And 90% people take O3. So they naturally take misfortune as it also does not scale with size and is useless if you conquer enemy provinces [and well, that is your goal, isn't it?]. It can of course work nice on smaller maps, when you take a risk of lower income for a chance to get nice gold/fort/gem events instead. Hard to build any strategy on it though.

[Aezeal]

I agree Zeldor misfortune gives bad events... sure, that is known and accepted and the whole point, but getting ruined by it on the first (or first 3-5) turns is not balanced

[Edi]

Bad events are the whole bloody point of misfortune. If you take it, then you run the risk of being ruined by that misfortune early on, tough luck. Even if it does cost you the game in the first few turns. On the other hand, with Misfortune 3, you just got 120 points extra to spend on dominion, magic paths and/or other scales which should presumably offset the problems of the misfortune scale.

Misfortune is already one of the most widely used scales, so why the hell should it be nerfed just so people can feel they can safely take it? Can anyone give me any actual viable reason why this should be?

The best solution I can see is increasing the maximum number of possible events per turn, as that would scale both luck and misfortune a lot better, especially in large games.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Edi

Bad events are the whole bloody point of misfortune. If you take it, then you run the risk of being ruined by that misfortune early on, tough luck. Even if it does cost you the game in the first few turns. On the other hand, with Misfortune 3, you just got 120 points extra to spend on dominion, magic paths and/or other scales which should presumably offset the problems of the misfortune scale.

Misfortune is already one of the most widely used scales, so why the hell should it be nerfed just so people can feel they can safely take it? Can anyone give me any actual viable reason why this should be?

The best solution I can see is increasing the maximum number of possible events per turn, as that would scale both luck and misfortune a lot better, especially in large games.

The problem is edi, as I tried to point out before, is that other people pay the price for *you* taking unluck. I'm not talking scales.

If a player takes misfortune 3.. and gets knocked out of the game on turn 1 - or even in the first year - it unbalances the game for the remaining players.

[Meursy]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

The problem is edi, as I tried to point out before, is that other people pay the price for *you* taking unluck. I'm not talking scales.

If a player takes misfortune 3.. and gets knocked out of the game on turn 1 - or even in the first year - it unbalances the game for the remaining players.

I've got to say I don't really see the logic in this argument, that taking Misfortune costs all other players in the game. I mean players can get knocked out early for any number of reasons, including a host of real-life issues cropping up causing a withdrawal, simple incompetence (you know, damn, my uber-Markata rush tactic just didn't work out this time!) and, of course, bad luck of the regular kind (having one's expansion force wiped out early next to a powerful early-game nation through an inadvertent meeting, for instance).

So what to we do against these other things? Soul Contracts for all MP participants promising infernal retribution if they ever ever leave the game? Application of The Sickle Whose Crop Is Pain to the scrotums of those whose early game is considered inadequate?

I mean people get knocked out relatively early in nice normal no alarms no surprises games (at least I gather from reading the forums).

In a current game of mine three players including myself ganged on one, and when his resistance broke one of the three was in position to sweep up the bulk of the rushee's provinces while we were recovering from the fighting.

The rushee himself had expanded beyond all other nations early in the game, possibly due to the fact my own expansion had been less than optimal (I refer you to the 'incompetence' point made earlier).

Both these events were quite 'unbalancing' in the sense that one player set up a massive empire far outstripping the other players in the game.

But so what? That's every game!

Perhaps the most unbalancing thing about early misfortune events (again taking this from comments earlier in the thread) is that the people getting such events decide to go AI, when a bit of elbow grease could at least make them competitive and stop those lucky bastard neighbouring nations from sweeping in for easy pickings. This obviously doesn't apply when you get your cap sieged by indy's before you own another province (which must be horrendously unlucky; how often does that happen anyway?)

It's a lack of respect for 'game balance' that's the real problem! Play it out misfortunteers!