EA Pangaea strategy

[Endoperez]

Dedas said:
Very good test, kudos Endoperez!

Based on your test it seems to me that in Pangaeas case it would be better to go with turmoil and put those 240 points on something useful instead, maybe a good pretender or boosting other scales. That would boost early expansion even further.

You only say that because it happens to coincide with your strategy.
My earlier test had Order 3/Misf 2 nations, and I think they had more gold by turn 10, because the provinces weren't under the full dominion before that or something. Luck only pays off when you get event with the scale, order pays for whenever there's scale and that's it.

You two should really try out how fast the early expansion is in reality, e.g. do maenad patrollers help as much as harpies, and how much sloth is affordable before your resources limit you too much. Well, they can limit you in later ages, not so much in Early. Any way, Order 3 Misfortune 3 is probably even worse than Turmoil 3 Luck 3. I didn't try it, even for the test, because I didn't even think of it. It's just nasty.

[sector24]

I think both Order and Turmoil have merit. Also if you take Order 3/Misfortune 2 you cut the scale gap down to just 40 points.

I think the weakest part of renojustin's argument (if anything) is the reliance on Nature's Bounty to supercharge Pangaea's economy. You never know if all the global slots are going to be full or if Astral Corruption is going to be up or something. Pangaea doesn't really have the astral income to fight for a spot on the list.

But even without Nature's Bounty, Pangaea and Order is a valid strategy. It's part of what makes it a cool nation.

[Renojustin]

It's true that dispelling is often problematic for Pangaea, but with your huge nature gem income, you can often overpower other globals, get yours up first, and/or recast if necessary. Still, astral gems are easier to come by than any other except perhaps Death, because you only need Astral 1 which is easily achievable with many indy mages, so your territory should be covered by Astral Probes in relatively short order... and you definitely need a pretender with Astral 4 or better for starters just to construct necessary items and cast Dispel.

Just a few turns of Bounty puts you way ahead of the competition. Way, way ahead, with Order scales. With the amount of gems you camp pump it with, it often becomes tough-to-ruinous to dispel. Think 200 nature gems or more on a cast.

And you should probably have Growth with Pangaea, which Order goes very well with indeed, even without Bounty as you say.

[kasnavada]

With all due respect renojustin, I think you need to learn basic statistics, and not to repeat things that have been proven wrong...

6000 + 40% = 10000 ? Woah. In case you do not know, A has 40% more income than B means B got 29% income less than A, not 40%. Then again, you are considering you've already won, since your assumptions take into account 1/3 of the map under your control. By that point most of the game is past and luck can't keep up, only because of the limit of 3 random events per nations. Some other thread about luck had shown that you needed about 15 to 20 provinces for the event to "max out" on most turn, if I recall correctly. That's plenty enough to have a decent magic economy that reduces the influence of gold in the game. Magic can and will reduce armies to rubble, no matter what they cost, in late game.

If that limit of 3 events was raised, however, the results of a test would probably be around what endoperez has shown : there is not much difference, no "better way" : the game is meant to be balanced after all, as much as it can be, and scales are fairly easy to balance...

Another thing, you keep repeating 40% ? Nope, it's more than that actually. Yeah, basic math again... (100 + 21) / (100 - 21) ~= 153%, that's 53% more income. At least, if you're going to say the same argument over and over again, at least check that it's true. Same for events, it's not 15% more events you have, but (100+15) / (100 - 15) = 135% : 35% more events (only considering order / turmoil, not adding 15% more from luck, since I don't know if they add or multiply).

Your failure to recognize turmoil / luck as a more or less equal path than order in my opinion caused by that you either fail to recognise the effects of luck and events, or that you need a predictable environment to play. Both of which are fine, but in that case, say "it's the way I enjoy playing most", not "it's the best way".

For high level magic, especially nature's bounty, a spell that I can't see ever working in a MP game (for several reasons, one of them being that it's a lvl 9 spell, the other one being that no one is going to leave this spell for long). And there are much better uses for 70 nature gems than a spell dispelled in 2 turns, especially since you already seem to think you can easily have others...

You're probably right in thinking that your strategy work, but I can't stand seeing blatant lies like "it's the best strategy", when that statement is just an "educated" guess, based on nothing but some personnal opinions.

Now, if you really want to prove your point, either test completely it and prove it, or just do like all other participants to this post have : show one or more ways to play, the strategies you've thought of, and let them decide whether it's effective or not.

Thank you in advance.

[vfb]

There is no limit of 3 events. I have gotten 5 good random events per turn with Turmoil-3/Luck-3. Has anyone ever had 6?

In games where I have Order-3/Luck-3, I've only gotten a max of 3 random events per turn. Has anyone ever had more than 3 with these scales?

Perhaps the max number of events is linked to the order scales?

[Valandil]

Kasnavada:
Often I must speak other than I think. That is called diplomacy.
* Stilgar

Wasn't that Javid?

[Shovah32]

vfb, could those events have been in provinces you took ownership of on that turn? Whoever owned them would have had the events taken from their 3/turn limit, but you would have recieved the events.

[vfb]

I no longer have a save game with 5 events I think, but I do have one with 4. I do remember getting 5.

In the save game with 4 good events in a month, there were no battles or change of ownership in the provinces receiving events, I owned them at the start of the turn and at the end of the turn. All 4 of the the events were good. Turmoil-3/Luck-3 scales.

Edit: Attached save file with 6 random events in one turn for one nation (Caelum). 4 events per turn were somewhat common, 5 were very rare, and this is the only one with 6. No battles or provinces changing hands at all.

Edit Again: Damned mods starting themselves without my permission again! You need the Kitchen Sink to view the turn, it can be found here:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...ev=#Post582302

[Renojustin]

kasnavada said:
(100 + 21) / (100 - 21) ~= 153%, that's 53% more income.

Nitpicking. Yet it proves the validity of my argument. Here's some more math: 6000 (1.53) = 9180, close enough, even though my initial percentage assessment was 40% or more. Well, the OR MORE happened to be correct, yippee, even better!

The primary thing that Luck scales is dependent on is luck. You only have a chance for these events to be good. Luck 3 = 39% more chance that the event will be good. 50% (1.39) = 69.5% chance of a good event. So you have a 30.5% chance of a bad event; nearly 1/3 of your events will be bad.

Let's pretty safely assume that the Event bonus is additive. So you have a 30% higher probability of an Event with Turmoil 3, Luck 3. (100 - 15 / 100 + 30)... 65%. You have 2/3rds the number of Events with Order 3 as you do with Luck /Turmoil, or 150% as many events with the Luck-Turmoil scales.

Out of 100 rolled Events:

+3 Order gets 85 of them, 42.5 are good, 42.5 are bad.

Luck/Turmoil gets 130 events, 90.35 are good / 39.65 bad.

So in effect, you're getting twice the amount of good events, but the SAME amount of bad ones. An average turn with Order would look like: 1 good event, 1 bad event. With Luck/Turmoil: 2 good events and 1 bad event. Luck/Turmoil will have a smidgen better odds than that, but that representation is extremely close.

You really think that getting one more good event per turn outweighs 53% more gold? You'd need to be getting something like a +1000 gold event per turn above and beyond what the other one is getting. And as anyone who's taken Luck 3 would know, it just doesn't happen that way.

Having 1/3rd of the map is something that occurs regularly. Eventually, it comes down to two or three nations. This is an eminently probable situation. If you're in the running at that point, and you pop a Bounty, it either unites your enemies against you or it wins you the game, or both.

In defense of Nature's Bounty, not that it really needs it, it is a N7 spell, which is pretty straightforward to cast with a Pan once you do achieve Enchantment 9. Many strategies benefit highly from their requisite level 9 spells... this one happens to be probably the most effective one you can cast in EA Pangaea. As I said earlier, with your huge nature gem income, you can almost always afford to pump this spell past an even impressively charged Dispel. It can change the magical momentum when someone puts 100 astral gems into a dispel and it fails, especially against something that is purely beneficial to yourself and not inherently harmful to other players.

All in all, I think the reason that more veteran players prefer the Order scale is that it's more... well, orderly. You can plan your strategy without having to rely on randomness, and be fairly confident that you can execute it in nearly any given map... barring a Knight/Bogus party on your front lawn, of course!

[Renojustin]

In conclusion, I'd just like to say that EA Pangaea is one of my favorite nations in the entire game to play, and here's why:

Recuperation. It's a great relief to not have to worry about getting afflictions, confident that they will heal over time. I only ever worry about losses, not crippled, maimed, diseased, oozing pustules of units. You can concentrate them beyond any other army with your Pan nature mages, and even beyond that, knowing that even if they starve and get diseased, they'll be fine in another month or two.

Units. From the lowly harpy to the mighty minotaur, from the satyr warriors to the centaur archers (the best in the game beside poison bows), this army can do almost anything. And they do it with so little resources that you are almost compelled to take Sloth 3, which is great for your scales. Add to this Stealth AND forest survival, and you have a fast, sneaky, powerful force that is absolutely first rate.

Mages. Both Dryads and Pans can be recruited outside your capital. Dryads are super sneaky H2N1 units that you will find many, many uses for... and Pans are battlemages of the highest caliber. When I first encountered a Storm of Thorns-spamming Pan, I was annoyed. So I fielded 10 of them.

Magic. Earth and Nature are by far the most powerful buff magics, but they can be used for some pretty potent destruction and offense, giving them a lot of versatility. The items are effective and fun to use.

Concept. Old Nature rises to claim the age. Wild, naked women are compelled to join the Pans in their revelry. Pangaea can be anywhere, the dominion can be anywhere. The children of the groves and dark bowers of the land will consume everything in their anger and lust!