Scales for forced turmoil...

[Cheezeninja]

I was just wondering what most people do with their scales when they are forced to take turmoil by the theme they want to use (Diabolic Faith, etc...). I find myself leaning towards maxing out luck and taking as little as possible turmoil, but I was wondering if it was statistically better to take max turmoil and max luck once you are forced down the turmoil path... not to mention the extra design points you can get from this. Opinions, experiences?

[anatoli11]

I offen take the max turmoil, max luck - I think I read somewhere that turmoil causes more events, while the luck helps make more of them positive.

[alexti]

I go for minimal turmoil and for neutral luck scale. It works well in SP, but I've never tried it in MP.

[Cheezeninja]

more turmoil does cause more events but it has been statistically demonstrated by people alot more dedicated than me that it is more beneficial to take 3 order and some amount of misfortune than visa versa. I was just wondering what the ideal scales were once the turmoil factor had already been introduced... i.e. is it best to take minimum turmoil and maximum luck, or minimum turmoil and minimum luck, or maximum turmoil and maximum luck... or whichever.


(this post may or may not be +/- alcohol)

[Zen]

Alcohol 3 Enviroment.

Personally I take as little Turmoil as possible. Since the primary drawback of these Turmoil forced nations is their starting power. The need for gold is universal while some of the other scale effects (like Growth, Death, even Productivity) can be bypassed gold is always a looming factor since even blood mages cost money that you can try to supplement your income with blood.

[Endoperez]

I don't know if it has been calculated, but full order and some misfortune probably is better than turmoil/luck, in the long run at least. You can only ever get three events per turn, and with 50+ provinces getting more money from all of them is better than getting +100 - +500 pieces of gold every two or three turns. In the early game luck can be great, though, and even in the late game if you happen to get the 1500 gold + gems + item many times. The problem is, Order is *always* great in the late game. Less so in early game, but still good (you won't have enough money in the early game whatever scales you take, and order affects every province, so more provinces makes order better).

Luck can give you a nice boost every now and then, but order gives you a nice boost all the time. Order/turmoil has effect on all your provinces, but luck/misfortune only three provinces at maximum. Because of this, order gives you more money than luck.

[Zen]

This is also correct, since the difference between Turmoil 3 and Order 3 is 42%. You do also have to apply a gold attribute to gems (say 10g per gem, for the sake of arguement) and account for the cost of free troops.

This doesn't even account for the fact that out of 30 Events with 10 Provinces you will more than likely have 10-15% Bad (depending on ... luck

Also don't forget National Heroes.

Even with all of that, I'd probably say that Luck 3, Turmoil 3 is about 25% worse than Order 3, Misfortune 3. Since even if bad events do a number on you, it won't impact the total gold bonus.

[Wauthan]

The pointlessness of luck is one of the reasons why the national heroes could use a bit of a boost.

The scales on the whole are a bit odd in my opinion. Order/turmoil should not influence events. Why would an well organised society get less freak accidents and beneficial coincidences than an anarchy? This scale should influence unrest and income (but since unrest already has an impact on income this might be redundant).

Heat and cold seems balanced enough. Perhaps it's because it's a loose-loose scale that you don't want to mess with.

Growth and death should influence population growth and supplies but not income, since population already provides income. Since the scale seems to reflect how pleasant your dominion is to live in, and not birthrate, a higher percentage seems appropriate. In a realm of death no sane man dwells for long eh? People should pack their things and leave for a dominion with more growth.

Luck/misfortune is a bugger since it also increases the odds for something happening. I would rather have the scale have a direct influence on income since this luck/misfortune would also have a direct effect on trade, merchandice and travel. I would not want more events, just higher odds of a more "powerful" event by tampering this scale. Heroes should reflect the investment in points and be the equivalent of atleast a 1000 gp investment.

Magic/drain should have an effect of the frequence of events since it's lacking "teeth" at the moment. Altering the balance of magic should have dire consequences in such a magical world.

It's odd no? The more you like a game the more you find to complain about. It's like finding a gem that's almost perfect and now you're looking for way to polish it the rest of the way. Trouble is that I am well aware of that the changes I want is not at all what other people want.

[DeathDaemon]

Nice post, I totally agree that heroes are only good to keep in the capitol to say, cool I have a hero - most do not add much more than a typical unit/cmdr and almost never do i feel like my nation is in a better position now that my hero showed up.

Your description of how scales do not really affect the game (other than thru gold income) are something that i feel is imbalanced. Many Posts and arguments can be found for doing so and so with the scales, but almost everyone agress that gold is good and that means order. Magic seems to be the key of this game and not necessarily money, so why do things like magic/drain and luck/misfortune play a minor factor?

[Endoperez]

Order does not increase money and make events more rare just because the people live organised lives. It's because the land is watched by divine power, because the land itself repulses change, because every day is the mirror of those before it. Well, even Order 3 is far from being that drastical, but Order scale of maybe 10 or 15 would probably be enough...

It would be interesting if the good events scales enable were boosted in power and increased in numbers. Taking Turmoil 3 and Luck 3 alone wouldn't be worth it, but if you were able to take Turmoil 3, Luck 3 and Growth 3 with some Magic you would be swimming in nature gems, your mages would catch small Groups vinemen from the forests, magical beasts would be found and charmed, even occassional Fay Boar would be caught and food problems would be just a distant memory. Maybe even event in which an old witch agreed to heal wounds of your soldiers so that they would leave her cottage alone.

I think heroes should be more like the titles your pretender can get. They should be more powerful, there should be more of them and the best ones would need certain expensive magics and scales. To get Spornsjarl, Vaetti Lord riding the white wolf, Luck 1 would be enough. To get Angerboda, Hag of the Iron Woods, Mother of Monsters, Luck 3 and Magic 3 maybe coupled with Death 2 would be fine. I also think heroes should not come alone. Raterik of Ulm, the Ultimate Knight who never lost in duel, should come with few Black Knights, Spornsjarl should have dozen of his elite Wolfriders with him, Rago the Rage Lord of Abysia should be accompanied by some Lava Warriors mentioned in his description.

It would also be nice if heroes brought gifts to their nation when they came. Not gold or gems, but items, maybe even new spells... Heroic bard for Man, bringing new spell-song with him!

I would also like to see some more unique or atleast non-forgeable items that could only be gotten from events. Head of Mimir, the seer, made to tell its owner what he sees in the world; Lion-skin Cloak, made from the hide of Kithaironic Lion which no weapon could harm; Bolt of Lightning, the weapon of Titans... Artifacts lost by ancient heroes in ancient battles, items that cannot be crafted by the mages of today.