Big Problem - Unbalanced random events

[Teraswaerto]

I think a positive luck scale should eliminate the worst events entirely, but they should still be possible without positive luck. That way order/misfortune would be less of an obvious choice. Maybe order should have less of an effect on random events too, since the income is a pretty big bonus on it's own.

[Raen]

I was playing a game where that random event about heroes liberating one of your provinces occurred in the province where my (rather wimpy rainbow) pretender was searching for sites. Bye, bye pretender.

Random events need to be toned down a bit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif .

[Teraswaerto]

Things like that can always happen unless random events with an attack are completely removed, wich would IMO be a bad solution to a non-existant problem.

[Gandalf Parker]

The random events have already been set to mostly avoid the beginning of the game when it can cost you the whole game.

Luck scale doesnt affect the number of events, only the type (good/bad)

Order/Chaos scale affects how often they happen (with good and bad affected by luck)

The game setting can also affect whether they happen sometimes or alot.

Certain events are more common based on other scales, province conditions, seasons, actions you have taken, etc.

There is no zero. So even if you pile ALL the settings to having as few events as possible then you get maybe a 10% chance in a province that you have not picked on in any way. Everything you do goes up from there.

[Raen]

I think it's very much a problem. In a game against the AI, you could always either play it out for the fun of seeing if you can recover from it or start a new game.

In a PBEM game, however, where I had committed to playing for several weeks, I would be very upset if something like that happened in the first 20 moves.

I think the events happen way too often anyway, even with the rare setting. Perhaps another very rare setting would work.

The way it is now, I play with the rare setting and feel almost forced to take Order +3 so that they happen what I consider a reasonable amount of the time. That's just silly.

[Teraswaerto]

The possibility of losing a pretender to a random attack is not a problem that needs fixing because: A)It's very rare, and B) you can prevent it easily by having retreat orders on your frail pretender. Or you could have him guarded.

[Raen]

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
The possibility of losing a pretender to a random attack is not a problem that needs fixing because: A)It's very rare, and B) you can prevent it easily by having retreat orders on your frail pretender. Or you could have him guarded. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Fine, so pick another random event that can't be defended against.

The point remains there are some of us who absolutely loathe random events and feel they happen way too often in this game.

As I said before, having to set events to rare and setting order to +3 just so I can get what I feel is a *normal* amount of random events seems very silly.

[Teraswaerto]

I've found that with order 3 they are rare even with the common setting. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Anyway, I do think something should be done to make luck a better choice, maybe making the catastrophic events misfortune only.

[Truper]

I've found that with order 3, random events rare, that I get hardly any events at all. So what's "normal"? One event every 30 turns or so?

To me, the real problem with the scales as currently set up is that order is the only one with a serious effect on income. Since order 3 is therefore mandatory, you might as well mine misfortune for the points.

My preference would be to have order, productivity, and growth all have the same effect on cash - that way there might actually be variety in the scales that people chose to maximize.

[Raen]

Originally posted by Truper:
I've found that with order 3, random events rare, that I get hardly any events at all. So what's "normal"? One event every 30 turns or so?<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I find they happen more often than once every 30 turns...more like once every 15 or so. And that would be "rare" in my mind.

But there's really no need for us to argue about it. If they would simply put in a "very rare" or even <gasp> an "off" switch for events, we could all choose whatever we liked.

Many games with random evenets allow you to turn them off entirely since it's pretty well-known that there is a sizeable chunk of gamers who detest them.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Sammual:
I would like to see the larger bad random events limited to Misfortune 3 and scale them down from there. I don't like losseing 1/4 of my capitals population on turn 3 with luck 1.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, I suggested something like that in another thread - a luck system that would classify all events as major and minor, and yield an overall probability like this:

ML=major lucky event
SL=small lucky event
SU=small unlucky event
MU=major unlucky event

Luck scale values and overall event probabilities (assuming an event occurs):

Luck..ML...SL....|....SU...MU
+3......40....40....|....18....02
+2......32....39....|....26....05
+1......24....36....|....32....08
+0......15....35....|....35....15
-1.......08....32....|....36....24
-2.......05....26....|....39....32
-3.......02....18....|....40....40

So with +1 luck, only 8% of the events would by major unlucky events.

I agree that if I spend 40 points on Luck 1, I want a major reduction in barbarian invasions and vineman uprisings... but I don't really expect that to suddenly make me immune to bad weather, for example=)

-Cherry

[Gandalf Parker]

I know that river provinces affect floods. And season changes affect tornados. But most of the ones people complain about seem to be the ones where a group decides to "remove your oppressive rule" or something like that. These arent affected by scales or game settings as much as by your actions apparently. High taxes, blood hunts, pillaging, Im not sure what but it appears that people bring these onto themselves by pushing too hard and too fast.

[Keir Maxwell]

I virtually never see random events with order 3, misfortune 3, rare events. That being the case the only drawback of misfortune is on my chance of getting hero's.

My complaint is with turmoil/luck races and how that pans out - pretty badly in my tests. So yes the bad events do seem rather devestating.

Cheers

Keir

[Chris Byler]

It looks like there's pretty broad consensus that at least the mass-kill events (flood, emigration, probably others) should be restricted to misfortune provinces only (or should be very rare without misfortune).

Really, how many places have catastrophic flooding every year? The Nile valley and...? And the annual Nile floods didn't kill 1/4 of the population of Egypt every year, either. The only disasters I can think of with that kind of kill rate are major volcanic eruptions (Thera, Vesuvius, Krakatoa), which are once in several centuries for the whole world. Hurricanes don't kill 1/4 the population of Florida (or India). Maybe 1/10.

Now, I don't think that disasters should be eliminated from the game entirely, or even that a disaster every few years (note a year is 12 turns!) is unreasonable - for a strong misfortune scale. A God with a fortune dominion shouldn't have his people troubled with constant floods, earthquakes, barbarian incursions, gangs of troll heroes, etc. - or what use is his divine power over fortune?

So what kind of random events should be able to occur (occasionally) in a forune dominion? Poor harvests (temporary decrease in tax or supply), brigand activity, vandalism (costs gold to repair), increased unrest, superstition (decreased dominion), desertion of some normal (non-[pretender | prophet | mindless | magic | demon | undead]) troops in the province (the chance of an individual unit deserting could be based on morale), etc. One-time or temporary bad events, not permanent cripplers.

Also, there need to be more good events with better effects than the current "small amount of gold or gems". The site creation events are a nice start, but if there is a mass emigration event, why isn't there a mass immigration event, for example? Celebrants of the faith could build you a free temple. An independent mage (of some type that would normally only be recruited in a particular site, e.g. metal orders) could offer you his services.

Turmoil/luck dominions usually result in more effect from bad events than from good ones, even though there are more good events. In order to be balanced against neutral scales (given the income reduction of turmoil), turmoil/luck needs to have events be a net benefit (since luck has hardly any benefits aside from events - crossbreeding and heroes are it, IIRC). Also, misfortune needs to not be neutralized by order; it wasn't allowed in Dom I, why was that changed?

I'd just like to see the order and luck scales balanced to a point that most races could reasonably choose most combinations of those scales. It wouldn't be too bad if (as in Dom I) order/luck was usually a waste of points and turmoil/misfortune was horribly crippling but other combinations worked OK for their point costs.

Maybe order/turmoil shouldn't affect event frequency at all, but only allow/disallow certain events (volunteers for the militia or increased tax revenues would be more common in order, increased unrest, vandalism and rebellions in turmoil). Order is powerful enough for its income benefits. Anyway, I don't think an orderly population is going to be much use against a catastrophic flood.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
It looks like there's pretty broad consensus that at least the mass-kill events (flood, emigration, probably others) should be restricted to misfortune provinces only (or should be very rare without misfortune).<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I dont see such a "broad consensus". Most of us seem to say its working as it is. If you dont want events then dont ask for events.

Really, how many places have catastrophic flooding every year? The Nile valley and...? And the annual Nile floods didn't kill 1/4 of the population of Egypt every year, either.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Usually when I get that in a game its because the AI is casting spells at me.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
Really, how many places have catastrophic flooding every year? The Nile valley and...? And the annual Nile floods didn't kill 1/4 of the population of Egypt every year, either. The only disasters I can think of with that kind of kill rate are major volcanic eruptions (Thera, Vesuvius, Krakatoa), which are once in several centuries for the whole world. Hurricanes don't kill 1/4 the population of Florida (or India). Maybe 1/10.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Good point. These events shouldn't kill population, so much as make you temporarily lose
income. Rather like the "Good Harvest" events.
Even losing 1/10 of your population to an event is ridiculous for nearly all events.

[Kristoffer O]

The dominion does not only affect the minds of people, it changes the very lands, thus more storms in a land of turmoil, more blizzards in a land of cold and more treasures found in a land of fortune.

The changes in the scales were intended to make the scale effects easy to grasp. At first each scale was to affect one area only. This was not entirely good and now growth and production do increas income for example (not as much as in Dom I though).

Luck and events have not been altered a second time. It bothers me that there is a default setting that everyone feels compulsed to use, but I'm not yet sure what should be done and what effects we wish to avoid and what to add.

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by Jasper:
Good point. These events shouldn't kill population, so much as make you temporarily lose
income. Rather like the "Good Harvest" events.
Even losing 1/10 of your population to an event is ridiculous for nearly all events. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">A valid point when you consider that we at Illwinter are opposed to ridiculous population growth http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Raen]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
I dont see such a "broad consensus". Most of us seem to say its working as it is. If you dont want events then dont ask for events.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Who asked for events? With Order +1 and events at *rare*, I'm still getting at least a brigand lair a year. Sometimes I'll get an event every month....at "rare," that just seems to me absurd.

IMO you shouldn't have to set a scale at 3 to have events actually be rare....that's presumably what the setting is for.

Again, I see nothing wrong with introducing an additional setting. Those of you happy with the way things are don't have to use it.

[apoger]

>It bothers me that there is a default setting that everyone feels compulsed to use, but I'm not yet sure what should be done and what effects we wish to avoid and what to add.

Trying to fidget the system might be difficult from your perspective. I suggest doing work on mod tools. Given a chance the players will create mods galore. These would be put through much more intensive playtesting than you would normally get in house, and if it is poor you get no blame, only credit for releasing the tools. With many well tested mods out there, most players will be satisfied.

There are many disturbingly dedicated players like Gandalf, Saber Cherry, and myself, who will gladly do the work and take the heat... if you get us ANY significant tools to work with.

If we could edit- Scales, Units (including pretenders), Nations, Spells, and Forts, we could produce a beautiful supply of new content. More content would help sell your core game. I don't see any downside.

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by apoger:
>It bothers me that there is a default setting that everyone feels compulsed to use, but I'm not yet sure what should be done and what effects we wish to avoid and what to add.

Trying to fidget the system might be difficult from your perspective. I suggest doing work on mod tools. Given a chance the players will create mods galore. These would be put through much more intensive playtesting than you would normally get in house, and if it is poor you get no blame, only credit for releasing the tools. With many well tested mods out there, most players will be satisfied.

There are many disturbingly dedicated players like Gandalf, Saber Cherry, and myself, who will gladly do the work and take the heat... if you get us ANY significant tools to work with.

If we could edit- Scales, Units (including pretenders), Nations, Spells, and Forts, we could produce a beautiful supply of new content. More content would help sell your core game. I don't see any downside. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There are no downsides and the modding tools exist. They are just not released yet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

As of yet the mod tools are rather simple. For example: Scales can be altered to have higher or lower effects, but unless we reinsert an effect on luck affecting the number of events occuring you will not be able to change that aspect of the events. More moddable variables are of course better, but it might take more work to implement.

The first nation modding beta was finished by JK today. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif The tools will now be tested for a while.

[apoger]

>There are no downsides and the modding tools exist. They are just not released yet.

Excellent! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif


>The first nation modding beta was finished by JK today. The tools will now be tested for a while.

As always, if you need help testing, let me know, as I'd be glad to help.

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by apoger:
>There are no downsides and the modding tools exist. They are just not released yet.

Excellent! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif


>The first nation modding beta was finished by JK today. The tools will now be tested for a while.

As always, if you need help testing, let me know, as I'd be glad to help. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm sure you are http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif , but I think our Shrapnel group is supposed to do the testing. Thanks anyway!

[Sammual]

I just played 3 games in a row where a large random event just lost me the game before turn 10.

I would like to see the larger bad random events limited to Misfortune 3 and scale them down from there. I don't like losseing 1/4 of my capitals population on turn 3 with luck 1. I want to win or loose the game based on how well I played not a roll of the dice.

Sammual

[Gandalf Parker]

There are many disturbingly dedicated players like Gandalf, Saber Cherry, and myself, who will gladly do the work and take the heat... if you get us ANY significant tools to work with.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Disturbingly dedicated? heehee.

Actually Ive always been against mods that change how a game plays. Im more in favor of external additions. Exporting more data, more command line switches, adding more commands for .map files, third party software.

[ November 23, 2003, 01:19: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Chazar]

Umh, I am bringing up an old thread, but what about that:

Include an option that sets luck initially to +3 in a players capitial province, regardless of his dominion scales?

If a player has choosen misfortune, the scale will certainly drop back to it within ~10 turns, but it might protect everybody from severe disasters in their home provinces (only) in the beginning!

I am fine with the random events as they are, but given the importance of your starting province, loosing half of your population, a burned-down lab or a temple swallowed by an earthquake in the first three turns _is_ devastating a multiplayer game - and it still happened to me in V2.08 with Order+3, Luck+0... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Random events for non-home provinces are ok as they are, imho, and they are ok later on when the game is going, but I think that they are not ok within the first few turns in the captial province! It simply ruins a multiplayer game based on strategy.

I know that this point is controversial, hence I am only asking for an option, which might be easy to implement, as it works similar to spells like "WolvenWinter" (Although I have no real ideas about the difficulty of that.)

[ March 24, 2004, 10:44: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Wyatt Hebert:
Couple of questions for Raen.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">...Check the date of Raen's post. Remembering details of four months' old games is not all that common. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[tinkthank]

Um ok this thread is 4 months old, but since it is here....

Those suggestions for the Luck scales that Saber Cherry spelled out in that post back there --- they seem *very* reasonable to me. They werent really commented here.
Does anybody feel that his/her (which?) suggestions would *not* be good? I would surely like to see something like this, even though I disagree that "random events are unbalanced".
If I gather correctly, Saber Cherry seems to have some sort of authoratitive role here -- have the Developers commented upon his/her suggestions? I mean, Luck/Order *was* retooled slightly in the Last patch, but that was also 3 months after the suggestions were given. Any news since then?
merci

[Ragnarok-X]

Im playing a game misfortune 3 and order 3 right now. In the beginning it was VERY hard, but now it becomes less important if a provine is raided. But early on bad luck can prove to be a challenge, if not even the defeat.

[Teraswaerto]

Getting one's temple destroyed on the second turn of an MP with 3 order is not a pleasant experience. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

[magnate]

Heh - when the temple in my capital got knocked down by an earthquake on about turn 10, I got pretty upset and wondered if it happened to anyone else (2.08, order 1, luck 0, events set to rare). Now I know.

I haven't given up, but by golly it's not easy. My prophet is my only remaining priest, and if he dies I will have real difficulty building any temples. At the moment my upkeep is preventing me having 200 to spare for a temple ...

I can appreciate the complexity of balancing the effects of the Order/Chaos and Luck/Misfortune scales ... but I fully support the idea of an Off switch for having no events at all.

CC

[Wyatt Hebert]

Didn't even look at that, Peter http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Part of the point, however, is if he is attempting to use the Order 3/Misfortune 3, and he's complaining about bad events, we have an issue. I did try to raise generally useful questions on the topic. I guess that was my main point.

Wyatt

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
Getting one's temple destroyed on the second turn of an MP with 3 order is not a pleasant experience. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Heh. In my Last MP game as Pangaea (based on the free Maenad principle http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ), I got no random events round 1 & 2, then
#3 Young rebels started creating unrest: My home province rose to 58 unrest from 0 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
#5 A flood wiped out 25% of the population of my second province conquered in turn 4
#7 Home temple destroyed by earthquake

As the map had independents 9, that set back my expansion by 5-8 rounds compared to the opposition as I had virtually no income.

The settings? Turmoil 3, Sloth 3, Heat 0, Growth 0, Luck 3, Magic 3..... I guess I was begging for it with the turmoil and sloth scales, but I sure as hell did not feel lucky - and I might have been luckier (i.e. fewer random events) with luck 0. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

It took over 30 turns before I got a +gold event.

Remember the "luck" blurb in the dominion scales? Seldom has a description of an ability been so thoroughly misleading:
Official description of lands with positive luck
A land of Fortune is a good place to visit. Good events are common, and no one seems to have any bad luck. On the other hand, a land of Misfortune is not a good place to visit. Nails find their way through the soles of your boots, and the fish let go of the bait. No matter how well a project is planned, trouble and ruin will undoubtedly strike. Lands of Misfortune are best avoided<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">"Good events are common, and no one seems to have any bad luck"? Propaganda without ANY base in gameplay, I am sorry to say. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ March 24, 2004, 17:13: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]

[Taqwus]

*shrug* Just wait until you get the Ancient Presence event in your capital -- it kills pretty much everybody, turns them into plant beings, and provides (IIRC) an astral/death/nature undead plant-thingy to lead them. Even after you take it back, that province still is radically depopulated.

[PvK]

I don't know if it's a combination of other scales causing it, or just my good luck or the complaining people's bad luck, but my positive-Luck games have been pretty lucky. No major bad events to my important provinces inside the luck aura, and nice positive events.

PvK

[LintMan]

The imbalance with events as I see it is that the bad events are much more damaging than the good events are beneficial, so even if you have equal numbers of both, you're still much worse off.

In my current game with Turmoil -1, Luck 0, I usually see several events per turn. At best, the good events give me a few gems, some gold, or maybe a new temple or some militia somewhere. I've never seen anything better than those, at all. The bad events, on the other hand, regularly destroy a sizeable fraction of a province population (permanently!), attack a province with a sizeable independent force, or creates a brigand lair that permanently generates unrest in the province. I've seen all those things multiple times, sometimes more than once in the same turn.

Those good things just don't come close to balancing out the bad ones. That means that those who take order 3, misfortune -3 will get very few good events, but it will hardly matter: the good events just aren't that beneficial, and overall with order 3, Misfortune -1, they probably will *still* get less overall bad events than I do with turmoil -1, luck 0.

I liked Saber Cherry's idea of events getting categorized into major/minor classes. I would add a suggestion to that to make sure that the good major events were as good to have as the bad major events are bad to have. (ie: an event that doubles your population should be just as possible as the 1/2 population death event. (Note that to the the fair inverse of the 1/2 pop death, it needs to be a doubling, not a 50% pop gain.))

-LintMan

[Slygar]

Originally posted by LintMan:

I would add a suggestion to that to make sure that the good major events were as good to have as the bad major events are bad to have. (ie: an event that doubles your population should be just as possible as the 1/2 population death event. (Note that to the the fair inverse of the 1/2 pop death, it needs to be a doubling, not a 50% pop gain.))

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">YES!! This is exactly my problem with the event system. The good events dont compare at all the bad events in terms of severity, especially the population gain/loss ones.

[ywl]

Originally posted by Slygar:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by LintMan:

I would add a suggestion to that to make sure that the good major events were as good to have as the bad major events are bad to have. (ie: an event that doubles your population should be just as possible as the 1/2 population death event. (Note that to the the fair inverse of the 1/2 pop death, it needs to be a doubling, not a 50% pop gain.))

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">YES!! This is exactly my problem with the event system. The good events dont compare at all the bad events in terms of severity, especially the population gain/loss ones. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It depends... A lot of the good events are very significant too. Getting a hero is a big boost to some of the nations. You could sometimes get a random Lore Master, Animist or a Stalker (ethereal assasains). If you got lucky, you might get a Ring of Wizardary or Soul Contract from the item events - it did happen. I think the 1500 gold event only happens at Luck+3, but that's equivalent to the income of 3 to 4 turns (plus an item). You can sometimes get permanent increase of resource, gold income and gain an Earth gem site. If you're lucky enough to have a castle in the right province, it'll be 300 or 450 gold saved.

Getting a population loss event is depressing but on the other hand, it doesn't always hit your important provinces.

I don't know. So far, most of the judgement on the lucky event being too insignificant or the unlucky event being too harsh are very subjective. Can anybody suggest a more accurate measurement of their effects?

Unless there is a mirror image between the good and bad events, I don't know how you can balance the good and bad events out.

[Scott Hebert]

Well, I don't want to sound like there's an easy answer to this question, but maybe something to consider for the population events is to change them to fixed amounts. Starting provinces start with roughly 30,000 people, AFAICT. If you made pop. destroying events kill 3000 people instead of 1/4, then the effect on capital provinces would be far less. However, on small provinces, the population might be completely wiped out or reduced by half. This would address the problem of early events severely hampering performance in MP games.

Bayushi Tasogare

[Sandman]

I'd suggest that a fortress in a province should provide some measure of protection against bad events. It would obviously be more difficult for bandits etc to get a foothold in a fortified province, and a fortress could be used as a place of shelter in the event of flood, famine or blizzard. You can't pillage a province with a fortress in it, after all.

This would also open up a new strategy of taking misfortune and a cheap fortress type to 'cope' with the bad luck.

[ March 24, 2004, 23:54: Message edited by: Sandman ]

[Wyatt Hebert]

Couple of questions for Raen.

What is your Luck level? I hear you are taking Order>1, but you aren't mentioning your luck scales (or I haven't noticed). My question about the 'brigand lair a year' phenomenon is to ask how many negative events should you be getting.

Second point, how many Provinces do you control? If you have many, many provinces, you'll get more events, simply due to events checking in each province (as I believe they do).

As a real world example, do you know how many (admittedly minor) geological events go on in the world _every day_?

10's to 100's (I'm talking earthquakes and active volcanoes, btw).

Toning down the events could be interesting, certainly... but if you are playing, e.g., on a huge map (say Orania) with few opponents and Misfortune 3 (for example), I think it's entirely accurate that you have a brigand uprising once a year _somewhere_ in your kingdom.

Just makes sense to me.

Wyatt

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by LintMan:
In my current game with Turmoil -1, Luck 0, I usually see several events per turn. At best, the good events give me a few gems, some gold, or maybe a new temple or some militia somewhere.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, you didn't pay for a luck scale, so you can't expect to get good events any more often than the bad ones.

Those good things just don't come close to balancing out the bad ones. That means that those who take order 3, misfortune -3 will get very few good events, but it will hardly matter: the good events just aren't that beneficial, and overall with order 3, Misfortune -1, they probably will *still* get less overall bad events than I do with turmoil -1, luck 0.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's is extremely unlikely, since they will get only 5% fewer events than you will, and 80% of the events they do get will be bad events. They could expect that about a quarter of their games will be severely impacted in the first 10 turns by their scale choice, and they will have to continually deal with random attacks on their provinces. You get 5% more events in total, and only 50% of them will be bad. You also have 40 more nation points than they do to work with, so you can't expect yourself to benefit as much from the scales as they do.

I liked Saber Cherry's idea of events getting categorized into major/minor classes.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They already are, and always have been classified as such. This is an _old_ thread, and much of the information is not correct. It dates back to considerably before the first patch was even released.

[LintMan]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by LintMan:
In my current game with Turmoil -1, Luck 0, I usually see several events per turn. At best, the good events give me a few gems, some gold, or maybe a new temple or some militia somewhere.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, you didn't pay for a luck scale, so you can't expect to get good events any more often than the bad ones.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm not saying that I expected to get any *more* good events than bad events. What I was saying was that the *negative impact* of the bad events was stronger than the *positive impact* of the good events, so that the *net impact* of Luck 0 was overall negative.

Intuitively, I would expect that at Luck 0, over the long run, you'd more or less expect to pretty much break even on good things vs bad things happening to you; the good outcomes would more or less offset the bad ones, and the bad outcomes would more or less offset the good ones.

I'm not talking about the number of good vs bad events, but the effects of those events.

As an exagerated example, lets say I played 10 hands of poker at a casino, and tell you I won 5 and lost 5 hands. You say "So you broke even, then?", and I say "No, I lost $750: on the hands I won, I got $50 each time, but on the hands I lost, I lost $150 each time". That's sort of what Luck 0 feels like to me: about even numbers of $50 wins and $150 losses.

This is all subjective, of course, but I've seen posters in other threads make similar comments, so I don't think it's just me.

(Note: I don't expect things to work out perfectly evenly, but it's not even close. At luck 0, I'm seeing what I'd consider major misfortune events *regularly*, while I've yet to see even a single lucky event of the same magnitude.)


</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Those good things just don't come close to balancing out the bad ones. That means that those who take order 3, misfortune -3 will get very few good events, but it will hardly matter: the good events just aren't that beneficial, and overall with order 3, Misfortune -1, they probably will *still* get less overall bad events than I do with turmoil -1, luck 0.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's is extremely unlikely, since they will get only 5% fewer events than you will, and 80% of the events they do get will be bad events. They could expect that about a quarter of their games will be severely impacted in the first 10 turns by their scale choice, and they will have to continually deal with random attacks on their provinces. You get 5% more events in total, and only 50% of them will be bad. You also have 40 more nation points than they do to work with, so you can't expect yourself to benefit as much from the scales as they do.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Four steps on the order/turmoil scale only amounts to a 5% difference in number of events? So for my 100 events at turmoil 1, they'd have 95 at order 3?

I'm no expert, but from the postings I've read on these forums, I'd gathered that order had a much stronger effect on events than that. (I'd also gathered that Order 3/Misfortune -3 was a fairly common choice among players, with the misfortune paying for the order benefits, while the order scale reducing the misfortune pains).

Is there anyplace that explains the current system of how the luck/order scales tie into events? I searched and found a lengthy thread from January, but didn't see any exact descriptions of the way it works.


</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I liked Saber Cherry's idea of events getting categorized into major/minor classes.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They already are, and always have been classified as such. This is an _old_ thread, and much of the information is not correct. It dates back to considerably before the first patch was even released. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Doh!

Even so, my suggestion that the good events should be as good as the bad events are bad still holds. My suspicion is that if you compared good and bad events side by side, either the good events will look fairly pale in comparison to the bad ones, or some bad events that I consider "major" are actually getting classed as "minor" ones.

-LintMan

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by LintMan:
I'm not saying that I expected to get any *more* good events than bad events. What I was saying was that the *negative impact* of the bad events was stronger than the *positive impact* of the good events, so that the *net impact* of Luck 0 was overall negative.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sure. But it's overall negative for just about everybody since everyone has a similar set of events to draw from.

Four steps on the order/turmoil scale only amounts to a 5% difference in number of events? So for my 100 events at turmoil 1, they'd have 95 at order 3?<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">(Mis)fortune affects event frequency by 5% per step.
Order/Turmoil affects event frequency by 5% per step.

I'm no expert, but from the postings I've read on these forums, I'd gathered that order had a much stronger effect on events than that. (I'd also gathered that Order 3/Misfortune -3 was a fairly common choice among players, with the misfortune paying for the order benefits, while the order scale reducing the misfortune pains).<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Order 3 misfortune 3 is asking to have your game plan ruined by negative events. If you want to test it, you have to consider that a MP game doesn't usually start over if your temple is destroyed on turn two.

Originally posted by LintMan:
I'm no expert, but from the postings I've read on these forums, I'd gathered that order had a much stronger effect on events than that. (I'd also gathered that Order 3/Misfortune -3 was a fairly common choice among players, with the misfortune paying for the order benefits, while the order scale reducing the misfortune pains).
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I do not feel this is the case. But I may not be the majority. Previously to Patch 2.08 you may have been correct. There was no reason not to take Order 3/Misfortune 3 because it was free 21% Income increase with no real drawback.

However now that the scales have been modified I can only think of one game I have played since then that I have dared take Misfortune 3 while trying to compete. And I was burned by it.

That isn't to say I take more Turmoil than I ever did (since the only times I play Turmoil are for the hell of it, trying ideas, not with any serious intention) but that I tend to think of the Luck scale less on it's coupling with Order, but more on it's own merit and what level and frequency of events I am trying to avoid/gain.

Order3/Misfortune3 can still work like it used to, due to the factors of luck in general. But that is part of the game, if you play with Luck you tend to play with the dice. Sometimes it likes you even when you are playing Misfortune and other times it hates you even if you are playing Luck.

[ March 25, 2004, 06:30: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Chazar]

Hmm, the discussion seems to go back to its former topic... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif which was not my intention when I brought it up again:

I know that random events are controversial, and I dont see that there is even necessity to agree upon that! All I was asking for is whether there are more people like me who like severe random events after turn 10, say, but not before turn 10...

Of course, I can avoid the impact of early random events by setting a high number of starting provinces, but this is also a slight disadvantage for research-based strategies...

[ March 25, 2004, 09:37: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Zen:

Order3/Misfortune3 can still work like it used to, due to the factors of luck in general. But that is part of the game, if you play with Luck you tend to play with the dice. Sometimes it likes you even when you are playing Misfortune and other times it hates you even if you are playing Luck. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Which is my major issue. 120 points is a LOT to invest in a scale in return for something that makes you a bit luckier on average in the NUMBER of lucky to unlucky events while still hitting you with extremely unfortunate random events every now and again. It certainly does not fit with the description of a land with a high luck scale: "Good events are common, and no one seems to have any bad luck". I can assure you that flooding, brigandry, and violent earthquakes feel like bad luck to most of the population http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Make luck 3 have 0% chance of major bad events and an exceedingly low probability of minor bad events, that's what I say. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif


On a related issue, it seems from a limited amount of tests that the number of random events per turn is limited to 3? (a small number, at any rate) no matter how large the country is? If that is true, it certainly favours misfortune over luck, as the worst misfortune events are those that affect single provinces, and the more provinces you have, the greater chance that a poor irrelevant one is targeted, while the best luck events are those that give gold and/or gems, which are not tied to specific provinces and which lose relative value the longer you play. In other words, the larger the country, the less negative effect from choosing misfortune and the less positive effect from choosing luck.... That just seems so.. wrong.

I hope I am mistaken on this issue.

[ March 25, 2004, 10:07: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]

[Zurai]

Actually the *best* Luck event is the one that adds population to a province. Unfortunately it appears to be tied to Order scale, and is already rare... meaning you're not very likely to see it at all. IMO, that event should be at least as common under high order as the "restless population" even is under turmoil (ie very frequent).

[Chazar]

Originally posted by Peter Ebbesen:

On a related issue, it seems from a limited amount of tests that the number of random events per turn is limited to 3?<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I am pretty sure that I have read it somewhere here in this forum that the number of random events per player is limited to 3, but I dont know where. Nevertheless I am happy that way... :-)

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Zurai:
Actually the *best* Luck event is the one that adds population to a province.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I must disagree. It takes an awful number of rounds for a population boost to generate more money that the +500 gold event (and three times as many to beat the +1500 gold). Of course, there is the added impact on resources, the utility of which is highly dependent on exactly which province is targeted.


Unfortunately it appears to be tied to Order scale, and is already rare... meaning you're not very likely to see it at all. IMO, that event should be at least as common under high order as the "restless population" even is under turmoil (ie very frequent). [/QB]<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Which is where we part company. To my mind, bad events should not be very frequent under turmoil IF your domian is lucky.

[tinkthank]

Just thought I'd repeat this, since I really would like to know and no one replied:
Saber Cherry made some amazing suggestions back there, has anybody (especially: the devs) taken that into consideration?

[Teraswaerto]

Luck scale can be good if you get lucky. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Sometimes I've gotten several gold 500 events with just a few turns in between at the start of a game, and nary a negative event in sight.

I still think getting one's capitol hit with an earthquake (or something similar) during the first 5 or 10 turns should be impossible.

[BkWyrm]

Even when searching for sites always have a squad of guards and make sure your pretender has some scripted commands.

[Wyatt Hebert]

Hey, Lintman, check the math. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

If you lost $150 in each of 5 games, and won $50 in each of 5 games, you'd have lost $500 total, not $750.

The only way you'd come out with $750 lost overall is if you won $50 in each of 5 games, and lost $150 _more_ (in terms of absolute magnitude) in each of 5 games, i.e. you won $50 5 times, but lost $200 5 times.

Also, I'm going to start testing and taking note of a bunch of different luck scales and the testing of what happens where in my games, to try and get a possible track on what's happening.

Also, one Last note, with only 3 events possible, you might want to take the Lady of Fortune pretender with misfortune, if she triggers before normal event checks, as she would cut down on the number of bad events. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Just a neophyte's observations.

Wyatt

[jaif]

Well, count my vote for keeping random events in pretty much as-is. I like games with random events: makes all my puzzle-solving, aquarium-owning, control-nut friends work for a livin'. :-) More seriously, I don't mind losing a game to an event - I'll get them next time. Besides, there's oodles of luck in combat, but because we don't see the 'die rolls' we don't complain.

I would ask one thing, though - killing off population by 1/4 or even 1/10 is pretty dang harsh in a game where population growth is tiny. Those events should kill a very small number of people (like 1%); the huge numbers don't seem consistant with the rest of the game.

-Jeff

[Inigo Montoya]

Jaif, I totally agree. It's the 1/4th population disaster that frustrates me to no end. I pick +3 Order and +1 Luck and still have my capital hit with the 1/4th nuke...

Incredible fury is generated which completely contradicts my otherwise adoration for Dominions II.

Either nerf the 1/4th event or add a 1/4th population growth event. The way population works now, you can easily eliminate population, but there is no easy way to increase it.

[Stormbinder]

I would like to add my two cents into discussion. For some reason in about 75% of MP games I've played so far people seem to prefer "rare" random events settings. Obviously in the MP game with such settings combo Order3/Misfortune3 is more attractive than on "regular events". So far I choosed it in pretty much every MP game that I've played on "rare" random event settings, and I like the results so far - the bad events are rare enough to be of rather minor annoyance, but 120 free scale points from "misfortune 3" can go a long way toward imporving your dominion and/or your pretender.

Thus being said I reilize of course that such situation deals with game settings different from "normal", therefore it probably should not be considered for balance purposes. The reason why I meantioned this is that based upon my (still somewhat limited) MP experience so far "rare" events settings seem to be pretty common there.

[LintMan]

Originally posted by Wyatt Hebert:
Hey, Lintman, check the math. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

If you lost $150 in each of 5 games, and won $50 in each of 5 games, you'd have lost $500 total, not $750.

The only way you'd come out with $750 lost overall is if you won $50 in each of 5 games, and lost $150 _more_ (in terms of absolute magnitude) in each of 5 games, i.e. you won $50 5 times, but lost $200 5 times.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Doh! I had the math correct originally, but at the Last second before posting, I changed the numbers without double-checking and screwed it up! Sorry about that.

[Teraswaerto]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
The reason why I meantioned this is that based upon my (still somewhat limited) MP experience so far "rare" events settings seem to be pretty common there. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Depends on the crowd I guess, since all the MPs I've been in thus far have been with common events. Generally "common" is probably more common http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif , since it's the default setting.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Inigo Montoya:
Jaif, I totally agree. It's the 1/4th population disaster that frustrates me to no end. I pick +3 Order and +1 Luck and still have my capital hit with the 1/4th nuke...

Incredible fury is generated which completely contradicts my otherwise adoration for Dominions II.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You think losing 1/4 population is bad? On one of my mosehansen games, turn 10, with Luck _3_, I get a random (Tidal Wave) that wiped out 40% of a province, leaving it with 9500.

I'm sure the people of the province are thankful they live in a land of such wondrous luck: "Ayup, half my family and neighbors were wiped out - but I'm lucky - I ain't got a nail in my boot."

Like you, I'm immensely bothered, upset, frustrated, by the random events and so-called "Luck" in Dom 2.

[Inigo Montoya]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by Inigo Montoya:
Jaif, I totally agree. It's the 1/4th population disaster that frustrates me to no end. I pick +3 Order and +1 Luck and still have my capital hit with the 1/4th nuke...

Incredible fury is generated which completely contradicts my otherwise adoration for Dominions II.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You think losing 1/4 population is bad? On one of my mosehansen games, turn 10, with Luck _3_, I get a random (Tidal Wave) that wiped out 40% of a province, leaving it with 9500.

I'm sure the people of the province are thankful they live in a land of such wondrous luck: "Ayup, half my family and neighbors were wiped out - but I'm lucky - I ain't got a nail in my boot."

Like you, I'm immensely bothered, upset, frustrated, by the random events and so-called "Luck" in Dom 2. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">ROFL! Love the comment about the nails. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by Inigo Montoya:
Either nerf the 1/4th event or add a 1/4th population growth event. The way population works now, you can easily eliminate population, but there is no easy way to increase it. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the population growth event would have to be higher than the population death event, or it's not even. In the case of a 1/4th (population goes to 3/4ths of original), you would need an event that increase the population to 4/3rds (an extra 33%, IOW) to even it out.

Bayushi Tasogare

[SelfishGene]

Well now that ive seen the light im not all -that-certain the luck scales are imbalanced.

Remember, and just by the descriptions if not actually experience, the Magic and Luck scales go together. Ive seen the light i think http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif . 1500 free twice makes a horse's mouth very attractive.

Remember population is just income. Its worse to endure if you get hit with a 1/4 loss in your capital (which happened to me early in a multi game, bleh) but its just income lost. So you lose 50/turn in your capital. 30 turns? Does this equal or surpass the bonus resources given during the same time with high luck? I don't have enough data to make a judgement.

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
[QUOTE]You think losing 1/4 population is bad? On one of my mosehansen games, turn 10, with Luck _3_, I get a random (Tidal Wave) that wiped out 40% of a province, leaving it with 9500.

I'm sure the people of the province are thankful they live in a land of such wondrous luck: "Ayup, half my family and neighbors were wiped out - but I'm lucky - I ain't got a nail in my boot."

Like you, I'm immensely bothered, upset, frustrated, by the random events and so-called "Luck" in Dom 2. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You have a 4:1 luck to unluck ratio with luck +3. While it doesnt make you immune it certainly alters the odds significantly in favor of luck events. And as you can see from some Posts in this thread not everybody agrees that the badluck effects hurts more then you benefit from goodluck. In dom 1 you could make yourself practically immune to bad luck events by choosing the correct scales, then people complained that they never got to see any bad luck events because because everybody allways played with those scales and there were requests for an adjustment of the scales so more bad luck events would hit you even with optimal scales. Now when that change has been made people are complaining for the opposite reason.

Many players tend to overvalue losses compared to gains (and I would argue that both Mr Cainehill and Mr Montya in this thread are guilty of this), a 25-40% poploss of the home province in one of the early turns is from time to time lauded in this forum as a reason to quit a SP or maybe even giving up in MP. That is obviously a setback but it does not come close to approaching the loss of income you will incur by choosing order 0 or even -3. Starting with order -3 instead of +3 represents a permanent 33% income loss in the home province, well on par with many of the worst events. And this income loss will come to affect most if not all of your provinces. The occasional poploss events is unlikely to ever come close to having such a negative impact on your overall economy. If anything both bad and good luck events should be cranked up.

EDIT: On pop loss in general: It is not an oversight that population decreses it is a design choice, there is a global war between would be Gods going on, people die. There is also game mechanic reasons why opportunities to farm population are sparse. We did not want dominions to have the sort of population farming and herding mechanisms that many civ like games have suffered from.

[ March 28, 2004, 20:56: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

[SurvivalistMerc]

Fortunately, the devs have given us the ability to mod the scales.

As I understand it, the scales can be modded such that no unlucky events ever occur in luck 3 dominion. But keep in mind that some of your provinces will not be in your full dominion effect. And one thing that makes misfortune somewhat attractive is that "hostile" lucky dominion I believe still prevents certain unlucky events.

Even when I take luck 3 I have yet to see the 1500 gold event. Maybe I need to take other scales too. I don't know.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
Fortunately, the devs have given us the ability to mod the scales. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">True enough. You can alter them for your own enjoyment as you play. Maybe even offer the mod to others who feel the same way. (someone asked in another thread if this game had any chaeat codes. One of the answers was MOD)

But I wouldnt expect it to get general acceptance. Especially not to the point that you will ever be able to play using it in a multiplayer game. As I understand it ALL of the games players have to run the same mods. Still I think some mod changs have been useful in convincing people that the original settings were a pretty good idea after all.

[SelfishGene]

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:

Even when I take luck 3 I have yet to see the 1500 gold event. Maybe I need to take other scales too. I don't know. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm almost 100% certain you need some +magic scale as well. Remember the description of the scale talks about luckily finding magic objects. Although whether its 2 or 3 magic i can't say.

[alexti]

I think many underestimate +500 gold event in the early game. You can buy a lot of extra troops or hire couple of mercenary bands. Either way, it's 1 turn bonus to your expansion plan. Comparing to that 1/4 population loss is not that bad. Even it happens in your home province, the impact is not felt immediately and by the time income loss has accumulated (to let's say 500 gold), you already have many other provinces, so probably getting +500 gold and 1/4 population loss in the capital on the same turn is a good event.

Those extra gems events also may be underestimated, if you get right gems it boosts your plans a lot (making important item one turn earlier or summoning one turn earlier). Considering, that these extra gem events are happening quite often, they have significant positive effect.

The really bad event, probably worst I've seen is to lose the lab. Early in the game you lose 200 gold and one turn worth of research. And this even can't happen in unimportant province, because you don't have labs there. Even later in the game when the importance of the random events is much smaller, losing a lab in the research center is quite bad. Again one turn research loss http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

But if you get really good event (+1500 gold) and loss of lab on the same turn, is it positive or not? I'm not sure, maybe it depends on the nation.

So far, it luck/misfortune seem to be balanced to me, but whether the perfect balance is achieved or not, nobody probably knows.

[Mandalore]

The worst event possible is this.

I was playing Ulm during the demo and on my first turn, an earthquake struck and obliterated my temple. Now normally temple losses arn't really bad, but it was my only temple. Thus I could build no preists to build more temples, and my pretender could not build temples either. My dominion was 3 luck as well so it was simply the luck of the draw I guess. Needless to say I restarted. But by far that is the most crippling event I have had happen early in game.

Thanks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ March 29, 2004, 03:13: Message edited by: Mandalore ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Mandalore:
Now normally temple losses arn't really bad, but it was my only temple.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You could have appointed your starting commander as the prophet, and had him build your temple.

[Mandalore]

You could have appointed your starting commander as the prophet, and had him build your temple. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Your right, I could have. I didn't think of that at the time, but if it ever happens again I will remember that.

Thanks! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[PrinzMegaherz]

Another thing to consider is the definition of luck.

If you play ermor, you wont mind population loss events that much. However, getting Militia units that demand upkeep will quickly reduce that 200 gold you saved for a temple to zero. Definitly no luck.

Anyway, everyone complains about those money gain/population loss events. So what would you like? Population gain/loss events or money gain/loss events? Money loss events can easily be avoided by having no money at the end of the turn. On the other hand, Illwinter already said that population gain events are out of the question.

So, what do you propose?

[ March 29, 2004, 13:44: Message edited by: PrinzMegaherz ]

[Wyatt Hebert]

With all respect to the designer (and I'm actually on your side for this one, honestly), I think a real issue involved is simply that if I pay 120 points for Luck3, it is still possible (if not likely) that I will take a 25% Income loss in my capital first turn, which means that my start is slower and, from what I've heard, can be a death knell in MP.

To rephrase, if I'm taking Turmoil 3, I've worked that into my battle/strategic plan. Taking Luck 3 and getting too many negative events early (especially if they are nasty ones) can really skew the battle plan. And, please note, that if I don't spend those points, it is a case that it's more likely to happen.

Just my thoughts.

Wyatt

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by johan osterman:
Many players tend to overvalue losses compared to gains (and I would argue that both Mr Cainehill and Mr Montya in this thread are guilty of this), [/QB]<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, maybe. Turn 10, I lose 40% population (around 9000). Turn 11 - my VQ doesn't attack. Turn 12 - +1500 gold, magic item, and "huge amount of XXX gems".

I admit, that luck event overshadowed the population loss - and my population _still_ doesn't have nails in their shoes. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[PvK]

I think the events are ok. Another thing to keep in mind is that even if you buy high Luck and Order scales, you also have to keep those scales active over your important provinces, since the provinces scales determine what happens - not your base dominion scales.

Some possible ideas though:

* Since the random events are partly supposed to be the side-effect of a war between the gods, it would make sense, promote fairness, and reduce frustration, to limit their occurrance during the first year or so of play.
For example, two checks could be made for each potential random event:
1) If the event severity number is greater than the current turn number (or perhaps, half the current turn number), the event doesn't happen.
2) Roll 1d10 or 2d7 (or maybe 2d7 plus event severity * 2 ) against the current turn number - if the roll is higher, the event doesn't happen.

* The "rain kills 25%" event seems odd because rain isn't generally that deadly. Rain of infected blood, yes. Rain of molten lava, yes. Asteroid strike, yes. Unprecedented monsoon rains causing massive uncontrolled floods, yes. Plague of [random color] death, yes. But just rain? No. Dull but deadly? I'd suggest replacing the plain rain with a random dozen other very-deadly-sounding descriptions, for variety and so it sounds more appropriate.

* The "population are leaving the province" would be nice if some of the population would also arrive someplace else.

PvK

[jaif]

I could think of a few things that could be done here:

1) Like I said, reduce the percentage of pop hits. It feels out of place to me.

2) Why can't "travellers from afar" decide to settle in a province? It needn't be a big number, but plopping down 500 new settlers from off-map into a province would be neat.

3) An at-start moratorium on *all* events as an option from 1 to 10, with events starting on turn X.

Just some thoughts.

-Jeff

[Peter Ebbesen]

The most important point as I see it is that the real level of luck, what the player will feel as lucky or not is not really determined by the luck scale at all.

With +3 luck and other negative scales, the player is going to see a veritable horde of catastrophes as many good events are prevented from happening and many negative are made possible. It may be that the player overall gets more positive than negative events, but the door is open for all but the most nasty events while many positive are prohibited.

Contrariwise, at -3 luck and very positive scales, while bad events are more frequent, some bad events cannot happen because the country's other scales are too positive.

As such, luck is a magnifier on the other scales, not a scale with an inherent worth (unless you are into void summoning or cross breeding).

And that is a LOT to pay 120 nation points for (luck+3) if it means that your other scales are less fabulous.


The issue is compounded by the 3 random event limit, as it means that, unlike all other scales, the effects of the luck scale does not scale with the number of provinces owned.

If you invest in order, production, or growth - you are benefiting all your provinces each and every turn with a tangible benefit. Likewise heat/cold for those that use it. Even magic, as it affects the MR and research of all creatures whereever your domain holds sway. And it works the other way as well, take negative scales, and you suffer in each and every province each turn.

Only luck is an exception.

Whether you have 3 provinces or 100, you will only get 3 random events. As such, the larger your country grows, the less relative negative impact you get from misfortune and the less relative positive impact you get from luck. Once you reach the threshold where you receive 3 random events per turn, the effect of luck peters out with further expansion - which makes those 120 points for luck+3 even less worth, if you expect to run a big nation.

In other words, luck is not just an exception, its functioning principle is very nearly the opposite of the other scales'!

Get rid of that 3 event cap, please. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[PvK]

I thought there was an immigrant event - just apparently rare. Am I mis-remembering?

EDIT: Good points, Peter. That probably has a lot to do with why I haven't seen lots of bad events in my Lucky games compared to others. I didn't lower my other scales much in those games, and probably the people who got nailed by bad events did. Though, I think Luck does also increase the odds and/or possibility of some of the best positive events, so there would still be some effect even after the "threshold" is reached. I agree though that it'd be nice to remove or tweak the 3-event maximum.

PvK

[ March 29, 2004, 22:18: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by PvK:
I thought there was an immigrant event - just apparently rare. Am I mis-remembering?

EDIT: Good points, Peter. That probably has a lot to do with why I haven't seen lots of bad events in my Lucky games compared to others. I didn't lower my other scales much in those games, and probably the people who got nailed by bad events did. Though, I think Luck does also increase the odds and/or possibility of some of the best positive events, so there would still be some effect even after the "threshold" is reached. I agree though that it'd be nice to remove or tweak the 3-event maximum.

PvK <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Oh, it certainly does. Having good scales in general AND a good luck scale will regularly give you some VERY good events. It is just that the way it seems to be working currently, unless you are cross-breeding/void-summoning or already have maxed most other scales, it is almost a no-brainer on any decent sized map not to invest in luck but to invest in other scales instead - or to take an extra magic path to 3 or 4 for the 120 points.

There are exceptions to this rule, such as the -3/-3/-3/-3/+3/+3 Ermor setup, which funnels nearly all good events into gem events (which is exactly what Ermor needs) and where the majority of the bad events (and you will get many bad events) don't really matter because people are already dead anyhow, but they remain rare exceptions to the general case.

[ March 29, 2004, 22:37: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]

[Argitoth]

has anyone suggested that random events be totally disabled for the first 10 turns of the game? or 5 turns or 15 turns? maybe that could be a new game option. feel free to twist, add, subract, deform, and/or reform this idea.

[ March 30, 2004, 01:46: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Argitoth:
has anyone suggested that random events be totally disabled for the first 10 turns of the game? or 5 turns or 15 turns? maybe that could be a new game option. feel free to twist, add, subract, deform, and/or reform this idea. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If I remember correctly most of them are. For 10 turns I think. And the ones that arent are downplayed to the point that you almost have to take the extreme settings which could translate as "just plain asking for it" to get the worst ones to kick in. But this is foggy memory stuff.

And we do have a game setting for random events. Isnt there a thread somewhere here that tested all that?

The only test I ever did on this stuff was turning ALL scales to the worst possible settings to make maximum use of blessings (achieving all 4's and a couple 9's) and being very surprised that my capital didnt totally crumble in the early part of the game.

[ March 30, 2004, 02:02: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Argitoth]

there are still events like labs burning down during the first 10 turns. One time I used a pretender with no magic, and before I could recruit my first mage, my lab burned. I just quit the game after that. (this was an MP game)

[PvK]

Just remember - people who wimp out and quit games as soon as something goes wrong, don't get to complain later that the game is too easy or predictable. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

A game can be completely fair in its odds, and some players will still think otherwise and/or get upset and cheat the odds by quitting, if there is any chance of luck playing a major part. Even if the major loss events were removed, there would probably be people quitting because they didn't get the event they wanted early enough, or complaining about unfairness in MP games. Ah well.

PvK

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Argitoth:
there are still events like labs burning down during the first 10 turns. One time I used a pretender with no magic, and before I could recruit my first mage, my lab burned. I just quit the game after that. (this was an MP game) <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Gee that would be a setback but there are plenty of merc mages that show up early in the game.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by PvK:
* The "rain kills 25%" event seems odd because rain isn't generally that deadly.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Rain not deadly? Rain is very deadly. It'll burn holes through solid stone and eat away flesh and bone on contact, in some areas. If you go outside in the rain, you can be reduced to a dissolving skeleton in seconds.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
If I remember correctly most of them are. For 10 turns I think. And the ones that arent are downplayed to the point that you almost have to take the extreme settings which could translate as "just plain asking for it" to get the worst ones to kick in. But this is foggy memory stuff.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have had the unrest in my capital go from 0 to 58 in my capital in turn 3 due to the "Young raging rebels" random event in a luck 3/turmoil 3 setting. Turmoil 3 might be asking for it - luck 3 is not. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

(That was the same game in which my capital temple was wiped out and 25% of my #2 province's population lost within the first 8 turns. With independents 9 slowing expansion, that really, truly, hurt. Sometimes, you are just plain unlucky - no matter what your luck scale)

[SurvivalistMerc]

I have also toyed with the idea of having an option in game creation to tweak the scales rather than using a mod, which may be too complicated for some players.

Also, I wonder if it is possible to dispense with the luck/misfortune scale completely (so it can't generate points) and have no random events. That would be interesting to try a time or two.

[PrinzMegaherz]

Luck 1, Order 1, Turn 5

Random Event: Some local lord reveals himself to be a vampire and attacks your province. My home province of course.

I wonder why he did not bow to my vampire queen?

Thank you, new game please.

[ March 31, 2004, 18:22: Message edited by: PrinzMegaherz ]

[PvK]

There are so many players who quit as soon as they run into some serious bad luck. It's really too bad. Against the AI, these events provide unique and difficult challenges which players will never face if the they just quit whenever something really tough happens. In a multi-player game, quitting when something bad happens is, well, quitting on the other players. Serious bad events are part of the game and can happen to everyone. Any low scales increase those risks - that's a big part of why they are worth creation points, and restarting whenever those events actually happen is like trying to gamble but refusing to pay up on a loss. Especially against the AI or in a large MP game, there are plenty of opportunities to overcome such problems.

Many players though do seem to have a hard time getting this, so for them it does seem like they would benefit from more scenario options and/or nation options that would severely reduce the possibility of bad events. Also it might help if the documentation had some more explanation of how serious random events are part of the game, and how all the scales (not just Luck) impact them.

PvK

[Chris Byler]

PvK, I see your point, but having your home province beseiged by a vampire lord on turn 5 isn't a "unique and interesting challenge"; it's instant game over. You have no realistic chance of *ever* breaking that siege. You can't even raise an army to do so: your only fortress is beseiged!

Early loss of temples, labs, 50+ instant unrest, and even killing 1/4 of your population aren't necessarily instant death (although if you're in a MP game where the abilities of the players are anywhere near close, they're very likely to doom you). But having your home province beseiged by an immortal ethereal undead on turn 5? That's just ridiculous.

I thought certain events were supposed to be Banned from the first few turns - maybe Illwinter just forgot to put that one on the list.

IMO, the following should be Banned from capitol provinces only for at least the first 10 turns:
* Anything that attacks/beseiges the province (the aforementioned vampire lord, vinemen, the 5 heroes, etc.)
* Mass population killers (flood, emigration, hurricane)
* (maybe) Temple destruction - it's possible to recover from this by appointing a prophet to rebuild the temple, but I wouldn't mind seeing it added to the list anyway; prophet selection is crucial for some nations and this can force you to create the wrong prophet.

I'd also like to suggest some new bad events that I think are less severe than some of the existing ones:
* Some of your troops in (province) have contracted a deadly disease. (Immortals, undead and inanimates exempt, requires growth 0 or less)
* (Commandername) the (commandertype) has died of a sudden illness. (Pretenders, immortals, undead and inanimates exempt, requires growth 0 or less)
* Some of your troops in (province) have deserted your armies. (Pretender, prophet, sacred and mindless units exempt, chance of desertion depends on morale, requires order 0 or less)
* The province defense in (province) has become lax in its training and its effectiveness is reduced. (can only occur if there is some province defense there, requires order 1 or less)
* A thief has stolen (number) (type) magic gems from your treasury. (requires order 1 or less)
* [(Commander)'s] (magic item)'s power has dwindled and it is no longer effective. (artifacts exempt, requires magic -1 or less)
* (Province) has revolted against your rule and declared independence. (Requires high unrest but no scale requirements, the province generates a new set of independent forces which then attack your armies there; province defense fights on the side of the locals and if your armies win anyway, it is eliminated as if you had just conquered the province.)
* An unemployed mercenary commander has decided to set up his own kingdom in (province). (Requires the presence of an unemployed mercenary company in the mercenary list. It attacks the province and if it wins, becomes the garrison of the now independent province.)

Basically, anything that attacks your *present* power would be (IMO) less severe than the mass population killers which seem to be one of the most common bad events currently, even with high luck scales. Provinces attacked by neutral forces are fine - except if it's your home province very early - because you can always fight them and get it back relatively unharmed. But a province that has been torn down can't be built back up - at all, ever - and that makes pop hosers, especially early, very very bad for nations that aren't dead Ermor.

Taking away some troops, gems or items is clearly a bad event - even for Ermor, although some of the troop events I mentioned don't affect undead - but it isn't permanently crippling. And it's more in line with the good events, which give only one-time benefits (although some of them are fairly large one-time benefits, they still don't stack up to losing 50+ income *every turn forever*).

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
PvK, I see your point, but having your home province beseiged by a vampire lord on turn 5 isn't a "unique and interesting challenge"; it's instant game over. You have no realistic chance of *ever* breaking that siege. You can't even raise an army to do so: your only fortress is beseiged!<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's only an "instant game over" if both your pretender and already produced troops are also dead, as the count's army isn't that hard to dislodge. You only need to make them rout after all.

Early loss of temples, labs, 50+ instant unrest, and even killing 1/4 of your population aren't necessarily instant death (although if you're in a MP game where the abilities of the players are anywhere near close, they're very likely to doom you). But having your home province beseiged by an immortal ethereal undead on turn 5?<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's not certain to doom you, since the other players also likely had similar events, or they paid the nation points to prevent them. The vampire count's immortality means nothing in this instance, since he isn't in friendly dominion.

* A thief has stolen (number) (type) magic gems from your treasury. (requires order 1 or less)
* (Province) has revolted against your rule and declared independence.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">These two already exist.

[Chazar]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
PvK, I see your point, but having your home province beseiged by a vampire lord on turn 5 isn't a "unique and interesting challenge"; it's instant game over. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I entirely agree! Luck is a part of the game, but it shouldnt decide a strategy game in an instant. I my opinion, a MP game is only interesting if all players are on an equal level:
A crippled development can hardly be recoverd quick enough in MP, hence that player is an easy prey, but not a challenge for the other neighboring players!

Please: include an option to disable severe random effects on capitals for the first 10 turns. Thats all that is required to settle the issue in my view.

[ March 31, 2004, 15:11: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[PrinzMegaherz]

It's only an "instant game over" if both your pretender and already produced troops are also dead, as the count's army isn't that hard to dislodge. You only need to make them rout after all. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, of course not, unless the vampire count refuses to rout after killing his mindless peasants and begins to flood the field with soulless which, after a long battle, even kill my vampire queen.

I dont mind it, it was SP after all.

[PvK]

It's still not really game over, especially in SP. In MP, it's time for diplomacy and secrecy. Independent attacks never assault a castle, so you should have some units that can be mustered to relieve the seige, while perhaps you summon some creatures or forge magic weapons (bye bye, ethereal protection) and/or research appropriate spells inside the castle. Also, if you were prudent, you have some cash reserves and can hire mercenaries, and even without a castle, troops can be hired in other provinces. This is a good situation in which to use the so-called "useless" low-resource light troops, because for a single battle like this, strength can really lie in numbers.

Still, I agree it'd be nice to have limits on the early-game disasters, and I do like Chris' suggested events.

Oh, and I think it was earlier on this thread I mentioned I wasn't sure, but there is a "large numbers of immigrants arrive in province Q" event.

PvK

[PvK]

Originally posted by PrinzMegaherz:
...Well, of course not, unless the vampire count refuses to rout after killing his mindless peasants and begins to flood the field with soulless which, after a long battle, even kill my vampire queen.
... <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Does your immortal queen then immediately come back to your castle, allowing you to endlessly keep trying to break the seige using her?

PvK

[PrinzMegaherz]

Does your immortal queen then immediately come back to your castle, allowing you to endlessly keep trying to break the seige using her? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">She did.
To be honest, I just took her to find out why most people in this forum agree on her being a good SC. She did not match my expectations however, and so I ended this game

[Gateway103]

Originally posted by PrinzMegaherz:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana"> Does your immortal queen then immediately come back to your castle, allowing you to endlessly keep trying to break the seige using her? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">She did.
To be honest, I just took her to find out why most people in this forum agree on her being a good SC. She did not match my expectations however, and so I ended this game </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">From my experience, Vampire Queen is a good SC, as long as she has some decent equiptment. Without equiptment, however, she lacks sufficient fighting power to defeat anything substantial by herself, unlike a Dragon or Wyrm could. Therefore, VQ is more of a mid-game SC, rather than an early-game land-grabing SC.

-Gateway103

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Gateway103:
From my experience, Vampire Queen is a good SC, as long as she has some decent equiptment. Without equiptment, however, she lacks sufficient fighting power to defeat anything substantial by herself, unlike a Dragon or Wyrm could. Therefore, VQ is more of a mid-game SC, rather than an early-game land-grabing SC.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I could not disagree more.

For me, a Vampire Queen is THE early-game Super Combatant as the only item she needs to make her a nearly unstoppable force against living independents up to level 9 is a piece of decent armour and the order attack rear. Most any nation can have her attacking and taking provinces from round 3 and onwards (though only in her own domain as much as possible, just to be safe. Her attacks do glitch, very rarely). She doesn't need spells, she doesn't need swords, shields, &etc (in fact, she is better without ANYTHING in her hands) - she just needs armour in the early game. (Okay, adding a cheap Horror Helmet asap helps against the very toughest independents and as and when you develop booster magic it is nice to set her to cast it before attacking - it just is not needed against any but the very strongest types of independent units appearing in great numbers)

[Vicious Love]

Machaka, Order/Turmoil 0, Luck 3, Turn 3, 1/4th of capital killed by rain/mass shaving accident.

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I second the motion to buff the fortune scale.