The Virtue

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Heat scales seem to be influenced strongly by neighboring provinces. It's actually quite difficult to maintain heat-3 in your capitol for the first year or two even if that's what you want. It's random, but I've played some games with heat-3 scales on my god, dom 6 at least, where the temp in my capitol stayed at heat-1 for pretty much the whole first year.

Cold-1 can be pretty effective the first year, since you'll very likely have neutral temp in your cap through summer and fall.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by OmikronWarrior

I agree with most of this in theory, but in practice I still insist that misfortune (up to 2) is the cheapest place to pick up additional pretender points, especially if growth (or at least not death) and Order is taken. Turmoil+Death+Misfortune looks ugly pretty fast.

I've gotten lousy events in the first couple turns far too often to think taking misfortune is an 'easy' way to pick up points. I would far rather take temperature scales (where the effects are predictable), or drain scales (again, predictable - assumes nation can handle it) than misfortune scales in most cases. There are nations where death scales make more sense than misfortune. Every time I take misfortune I'm carefully weighing the likelihood of effectively losing the game before i even make contact with anyone else, and the amount of distraction independents attacking me will cause. For someone quibbling about 5% income below, you're awful cavalier about the possibility of suffering things like a 50+% income loss on turn 2 or 3. Ever had your fortress sieged by 100 barbarians turn 2? I have. (Thank god it was SP - i could quit right away).

I find myself rarely having the points for Growth scales, and taking order and growth to offset misfortune 2 is not a way to gain points - better off just taking less growth or order.

Don't get me wrong, there are times misfortune is the right choice. But those times are far from commonplace in my experience.

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This is completely wrong from my play experience. The math works out fine, but I don't think for a second seasonal shifts in the temp scale come close to being in effect "half the time." If you're like me, you probably have a dozen SP games floating around. Check any of them (which have reasonably sized empires with a good Dom spread). How many provinces deviate from the base temp scales? Not many, and those that do are most likely to be on the fringes or only recently fell under your dominion.

Though the mechanics of seasonal temp shifts are unknown to me, I believe they work like this. During certain seasons (summer and winter, obviously, but maybe fall and spring), provinces have a CHANCE to change temps in a certain direction. This chance is not certain, and I don't think even independent provinces under no dom will change temps with any regularity. Now, even those that do change, are now subject to shifts based on your dominion, the same shifts that change Order, luck, and magic. That drastically cuts down the effect of season on temperature. Meaning "half the time" is more like 1/6 the time.

Actually, i've watched my capitol temperature fluctuate up and down. Its a pretty regular occurrence.

Also, new provinces are another area where temperature extremes don't hurt as much. For some period of time you'll have incomplete scales in a province, especially far from your capitol, even in the presence of, say, your prophet or you pretender. Having played a game recently where temperature of contested provinces mattered a lot (Noobs vs. Vets, where I took Cold 3 as Shinuyama because it seemed the most likely to hurt the plausible nearby vets - and had Ashdod as my adjacent vet - so i was watching province temperature anywhere near Ashdod), I can tell you that even with my prophet right there I never saw a cold 3 border province (~5+ territories from my capitol) until the front had moved well past that point, with provinces near or on the border varying between 0-2 cold. And I had a Dom 9 pretender, so poor Dominion rating certainly wasn't an issue.

As I understand it, dominion spread doesn't guarantee scale spread, it just carries the possibility of spreading *a* scale, meaning the spreading of any given scale will be somewhat random. Larger maps relative to number of players will have more territories controlled by players far from their capitols, and thus less influenced for long periods of time by their scales.

Double check that again. Death and Sloth give you a 2% deduction outright, though pop loss might make temp losses more attractive in the long run, I don't think thats where you're going.

Like everyone else except apparently yourself participating in this thread, I'm assuming CBM. Do non-CBM games even happen? I haven't seen one start since I've started playing, so discussing non-CBM is *pointless*.

Let me provide a counter example. Take a nation that prefers Heat-1. Buy Heat-3. Congratulations, you just cost your nation 10% of its capital income for the critical expansion phase. No chance of that going down until winter, and the game starts in summer. Buy the time winter hits, your capital is likely to have a high dominion score, giving you a much reduced chance of going to Heat-2 for any extended length of time. Border provinces also suffer.

I'll admit, this sort of thinking does depend on the nation having a high dominion score, but since we are talking about the Virtue I'd say thats a safe assumption.

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I'd still take Heat 3. Even assuming you take the full penalty the first half of the year, the design points are usually more worthwhile than 5% of your cash.

And yes, 5% is the relevant metric because your heat 1 is going to go up to 2 by summer at the latest. Heat 3 is 40 free design points for that 'critical expansion' phase, because it can't go any higher than Heat 3.

Finally, Heat 3 is insurance against cold dominion spread against you, keeping your provinces comfortable for your units (who are resistant to the effects of heat, but not cold). The more heat you have, the more buffered you are - because every successful spreading of cold dominion into yours will reduce the heat by 1.

[Sombre]

There are still a lot of non cbm games played. Not necessarily those in the AAR subforum though.

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

..... Ever had your fortress sieged by 100 barbarians turn 2? I have. (Thank god it was SP - i could quit right away)....

I have serious doubts about that, as it has never happened to me in 3+ years of playing SP or MP games. If it happened to you then it must have been in one of the very earliest versions of Dominions 3 (v 3.00 / 3.01).

KO has stated previously on this issue that very bad events, such as a barbarian attack, can not happen in the first few turns. So if KO is correct, then barbarians shouldn't be showing up on turn 1 or 2 as you say has happened to you. KO may be wrong, but my experience of the game to date is that he isn't wrong on this one.

Here is the link to KO's statement.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...675#post634675

[Squirrelloid]

Does he also consider lab burning down, plague, etc... to be very bad and to not occur on turn 2?

I'll admit, i've played a lot of turns 1-12 because i like to repeatedly kit-bash a nation through the first year to test indie expansion strategies and research strategies. And at least the lab burning on turn 2 happened in the latest version. And I've seen a capitol plague on turn 2 or 3. (In fact, I had Luck 3 when i had the lab burn on turn 2...). Either of those are game enders.

I can't remember if i'd patched yet when i got Barbs on turn 2, but i've definitely seen the AI be hit by barbs on turn 2 in the latest patch. (Poor Agartha never got to do anything!)

(Reports in that thread of turn 2 indie attacks are no more than a year old, so it can't be that many patches ago... They say turn 1... i use turn 2 to mean events you see at the start of turn 2).

[Calahan]

If you have actual example games that can be attached of these things happening on turn 1-2 as you say, then myself, and I am sure many other experienced players, would be very keen to see them. Since they would go against the generally accepted knowledge on this issue.

Until then I'm afraid I have to remain very sceptical on your observations of these events happening on turn 2.

[Squirrelloid]

Unfortunately I routinely delete/overwrite my SP test games so I don't have pages of games to scroll through. If I see such a thing again I'll make a note and copy the .trn file.

[Sombre]

Pretty sure I've had Bogus on a very early turn. Possibly not turn 2 though. And that's more or less a death sentence.

[Amorphous]

Knowing that the pretender will be used with Arcoscephale helps, but to get the most out of her, you need to consider how you want to play the nation - and there are different strategies to chose from.

Scales are very dependent on how you want to develop your strategy, but since heat and luck have been discussed, I will comment on that.

When it comes to temperature scales, my observations so far have been that it is much more usual to have your chosen scales in provinces with reasonable dominion, than it is to have it off by a level. I remain very sceptical to claims that temperature deviates half the year.
For this reason I am not particularly fond of paying for another scale with temperature for monetary reasons. In the case of Order, it could of course be warranted if you want the extra event reduction as well, but if you have positive luck scales that is more of a detriment.

However you choose to go here, I strongly advise against going for H3. Arcoscephale has both heavy armoured units and tramplers available, none of which manage especially well under additional encumbrance.


As for luck, I also think that it is somewhat underrated. You do not know exactly what you get and when, but in the end it all adds up rather nicely. Still it depends on the nation and strategy, but I happen to think that positive luck works very well for Arcoscephale. Especially the extra gems are very useful as it saves valuable mage time in the early game. I have never played a game as Arcoscephale with positive luck where I have not received enough gems to start an economy with them without having to send out a couple of mages to manually search for an initial income. This together with all the rest you get out of it, makes it well worth it.


When it comes to paths on the pretender, I think you should consider removing the earth levels. It is very expensive and your national mages can already cover earth adequately. It is a nice path for SCs, but it can be covered for by equipment. In MA I could see an argument for nature instead, but otherwise I think going to S6 and adding a couple of extra scales instead would work better. The S6 will make her more resilient agains Mind Duel and make a lot of high level astral spells easier to cast. And you will be able to use wish without empowering.

Another way is to keep her at A4S4 and have her awake. Even if you are not used to her you can take easy independents with her from the start and once alteration 1 is researched, personal luck makes her more resilient.



And lastly, a bit off topic:

Originally Posted by Sombre

There are still a lot of non cbm games played. Not necessarily those in the AAR subforum though.

I want to second this.

Moreover, though I do not use CBM in my games, I have managed to learn a lot from posts on these boards that were about CBM. I very much doubt that the converse could not be true.

I need to keep a copy of CBM for evaluation purposes, of course, but everyone using CBM does automatically have access to the ordinary game, so that cannot be a problem.

In short, discussions about non-CBM are not pointless.

[Squirrelloid]

Ok, having just played 15-20 LA Ulm games through turn 12 with C3, it always dropped to C2 by summer. *Always*. I won't comment on the spread of cold, because my dominion was generally low (4-5).

Also, C3/H3 is a great way to afford O3, rather than taking Mf. And elephants are not going to fatigue out that fast against independents, which is the only place they're useful.

Thinking about this some more, I like luck scales, but arco has a fortune teller unit. That makes misfortune more tempting - so long as you're willing to accept you might just get shafted early.

Also, production is over-rated as Arco because their units suck. Seriously. I'd poor my money into mercenaries or independents over that crap. Elephants are about your only national troop worth buying, and then only early for expansion - and you're going to be cash limited more than resource limited. I'd take Sloth 3 every time.

So, if i were playing Arco, my scales probably look something like O3 Sl3 H/C3, which is +120 points, and then it depends on pretender design. An awake Virtue with minimalist paths (A4S4), dom 10, and Gr1 Lk2 Mg1 looks reasonable. (17pts left, but there's nowhere good to spend them). Tweak scales to taste. In CBM, that's basically net-neutral on income in *worst case* scenario (ie, if your temp scale is actually maxxed out on the turn), and has reasonably good luck events, strong research, and an awake SC to help with expansion.