Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.

[legowarrior]

Is there a Thread about this topic already?
Anyway, I would to hear some pros and cons about going Luck/Turmoil Route rather than just leaving everything blank.

With Luck/Turmoil you get access to heroes sooner, you get more magic crystals then you would other wise, but I assume you get less gold despite the events and you get events that could hurt you.

On the other hand, a lot of nations have fortune tellers, so that should help with many of the problems.

How does the forum feel about either of these?

[Gandalf Parker]

Like many things in the game any answers which sound absolute, like its true every time, should be suspect.

There are nations where this is less of a problem than with other nations. Such as the fortuneteller thing you pointed out. There are also nations who can benefit from turmoil such as Pangaea. On the other hand, some nations could be severely crippled by it. Especially if trying to use it in combination with other extreme scales.

As with many things in Dom3 the nation, type of game, size of game, size of map, call all affect whether this is a good route or not. But from what you say I think you have a good grasp of the pros/cons of it.

[Hoplosternum]

Agree with Gandalf.

But as a further point re Fortune tellers. They won't save you from misfortune issues usually and I would largely discount them from your luck/misfortune calculation. This is because one of the main problems with misfortune is the regular barbarian and unrest events that crop up causing income and province losses. Even if you have enough Fortune Tellers to stop bad luck they only affect the province they are in. And as they are usually mages you want them concentrated at your research centres rather than spread out stopping bad events happening. So they don't stop the 'cost of misfortune' much.

They mainly help the Capital. There are some very serious bad events that can all but kill you (especially in multiplayer) if they hit your capital very early. The Vampire Count, Bogus or some other serious attack on your Capital. The big population killers striking your capital (sometimes multiple times). And the loss of your capital's Lab very early on. Any of these can be fatal or at least lead to you falling back too far to recover.

The problem with fortune tellers here is that when these events really hurt is in the first couple of turns or at least the first half year of the game. And at that stage you are unlikley to have enough Fortune Tellers even in your capital to make sure these can't happen. By year two your fortune tellers may have made your capital safe from bad events. But by then none are fatal by themselves.

[legowarrior]

I am a fan of the Jomon, and Onmyo-ji is one of the first purchases I make (in the future it will be the second). I realize that they only make up for a small amount of what can go wrong(PD probably helps as well), but you also have a lot of good things happening as well, hopefully more good things then bad. So, it's just a small amount that tips the scale a little more to turmoil/Luck rather then nothing, just like conscription tips the scale to use order a bit.

[RadicalTurnip]

I'm not certain, but I also believe turmoil leads to unrest being more of an issue? This is just a rumor I heard, not necessarily true.

But luck does keep you from the nasty events (as mentioned) and somewhat help alleviate some of the pain of other bad scales (namely death scales) though they don't get rid of all the plague events.

[Gandalf Parker]

High misfortune can be a real pain. Yes it raises unrest and it brings bad events. But it also can be a pain to others who are trying to push their way into your dominion. If you use something like fortunetellers to protect important provinces, its possible to use misfortune as a tactic against others.

Consider Bogarus (in the late age).
Fortunetellers for home, sneak commanders that cause misfortune and unrest and spy and stealth-preach. Sneak units to go with the sneak commanders that cause additional unrest. And 4th lvl summons for misfortune (0-lvl if cbm is used). Do you think all that is just coincidence? The also have national summons for 2 raise-fortune units and 4 seducers. A strategy of turtling while using these to lower the combat resources of your neighbors would seem to me to be almost pre-written into this nation.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

High misfortune can be a real pain. Yes it raises unrest and it brings bad events. But it also can be a pain to others who are trying to push their way into your dominion. If you use something like fortunetellers to protect important provinces, its possible to use misfortune as a tactic against others.

Consider Bogarus (in the late age).
Fortunetellers for home, sneak commanders that cause misfortune and unrest and spy and stealth-preach. Sneak units to go with the sneak commanders that cause additional unrest. And 4th lvl summons for misfortune (0-lvl if cbm is used). Do you think all that is just coincidence? The also have national summons for 2 raise-fortune units and 4 seducers. A strategy of turtling while using these to lower the combat resources of your neighbors would seem to me to be almost pre-written into this nation.

SP maybe gandalf, but in MP bogarus is going to have be a huge target, due to the incredible research of the starets. You're going to be spending your time and attention either with an awake pretender or churning out blood research to get past the mid game.

[rdonj]

Generally if I want to take luck, I try to take it with neutral order. Otherwise, with turmoil you lose out on a lot of gold potential. On the other hand, if what you really want is just a lot of gems, and you're not that worried about gold, then turmoil can be worth it. That said, I would really only play turmoil/luck with pangaea.

[13lackGu4rd]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Generally if I want to take luck, I try to take it with neutral order. Otherwise, with turmoil you lose out on a lot of gold potential. On the other hand, if what you really want is just a lot of gems, and you're not that worried about gold, then turmoil can be worth it. That said, I would really only play turmoil/luck with pangaea.

and EA+LA Mictlan and any other nation that you go to a quick blood economy/strategy. I guess MA+LA Abysia and some other nations can also work well for it, though taking them with Turmoil does raise some difficulties...

[rdonj]

True, if you plan on relying on blood hunting, turmoil luck makes a lot of sense.