Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.

[Foodstamp]

Concerning Pangaea and Luck:

I've found l3/t3 to be great in MP if I survive to the late game. I prefer the many gem events to the lost income. The great thing about Pangaea is that even though Maenads are a one trick pony, they can carry you through the early game. It's not uncommon to be able to eliminate a nearby opponent with Maenad swarms, especially if the map is crowded. This doesn't guarantee survival into the late game, but it does give you some early game strength.

Also, if graphs are turned on, it has been my experience that people tend to shy away from attacking you if your army is many times the size of theirs, and Pangaea is not seen as a big threat in the late game depending on era.

That being said, going the opposite direction with Pangaea and cranking out tons of Minotaurs sure is sexy as well .

[DonCorazon]

Originally Posted by Edi

Luck by itself does little. Luck in conjunction with some of the other scales does a hell of a lot more. If you have otherwise all neutral scales, taking luck is just a waste of design points.

To be clear, the scale of Luck I mentioned above was with Order and Magic scales (not just 1 Luck and all else neutral...)

[Foodstamp]

Originally Posted by DonCorazon

To be clear, the scale of Luck I mentioned above was with Order and Magic scales (not just 1 Luck and all else neutral...)

I second this. I LOVE luck 1 with order and magic if you have the spare points.

[Squirrelloid]

optimal scales for maximizing the output of Luck scales are Death 3 and Magic 2 (although might as well take 3 at that point). This unlocks all the really good events.

[Calahan]

I took Order 3 / Luck 3 in a few games last year and I never once got close to having a decent reward for the design points I spent. Since them I'm pretty firmly with Don C's opinion . Since as I see it now..

Order / Misfortune = Win / Lose, sometimes Win / Win.
Turmoil / Luck = Lose / Win, sometimes Lose / Lose.

Turmoil / Luck is at best Lose / Win, since you will always 'lose' from having less income due to Turmoil, but can sometimes 'win' from the good random events you get from Luck. But when you get bad events, it really is a case of 'Lose' 'Lose' on both fronts.

Order / Misfortune is usually Win / Lose, (Win from income boost, Lose from bad events). But it can also be Win / Win when you get good events from the Misfortune scale.

And for me at least, it is the Win / Win and Lose / Lose scenarios that is the real deal maker for 90% of nations when choosing these two scales.

[sector24]

There was a very long thread about this awhile back and the reason turmoil / luck is a sucker's bet is that there is a cap on random events, typically 3 per turn. If you have enough provinces you can hit the 3 event cap, even with order, plus get the consistently high income. Basically you shouldn't take scales based on the % chance of random events, which means you should always take order except for Pangaea.

[Verjigorm]

TTYTT, I don't even, generally, take Turmoil with Pangaea, though I have tried it a few times and always end up disappointed. I hate waiting for a money event to build a castle when I could have a sure thing with Order. This is why I say that when taking Turmoil, you have to be able to absorb the loss with relative ease and that means that it's really only good for nations with cheap mages and Pangaea is not one of those nations.

Pangaea's mages are very expensive--from basic researcher (dryad) to the various Pans, while Maenads are only useful as fodder and even then, not particularly good fodder.

Why would I want to put up with Turmoil for all that time just to get some crappy free units?

I think that (now upon looking at the event list), that even if I wanted to go with Luck, I would either go with neutral scales or Order-2, though I always feel it necessary to balance out the income reduction with Production/Growth which means it's still probably the most expensive scale choice both in terms of gold loss and design point cost. (Order/Luck is obviously more expensive, but if you're going for a scales nation, you probably have a good national unit strategy that doesn't rely heavily on your pretender).

The most successful Pangaea strategies I've used involve Order--forsake the Maenads for more Pan! I don't need crappy Maenads... I can summon better fodder or just let it crawl out of the Carrion Woods.

[pyg]

I'm just posting to increase the size of my, err, reputation. Thank me for it and be rewarded in the afterlife.

[rdonj]

And this thread's existence is why I suggested that CBM increase the likelihood of rare events occuring, to reward taking luck more and be a greater punishment for playing misfortune. That didn't go over so well though.

[Edi]

Originally Posted by Calahan

I took Order 3 / Luck 3 in a few games last year and I never once got close to having a decent reward for the design points I spent. Since them I'm pretty firmly with Don C's opinion . Since as I see it now..

In the current game I'm playing I took Order 2, Luck 2, Growth 2, Magic 2 with Machaka and by turn 40 I've had at least 20 750+ gold events and a host of others.

I bought some of those scales with sloth and heat and a sleeping pretender with rather unimpressive magics but decent dominion.

I could have gone with magic 1, but would probably have had less good events. The growth scales with the others have guaranteed freedom from barbarian invasions and plague events, all of which cause poploss and if you have death or misfortune (or worse, both), those pile up fast and wreck your empire.

Not that this build would work in MP, but that's one anecdote against the other negative ones.