Balance issue: order-luck, a no brainer?

[Kristoffer O]

Lucky you! Scale effects will be moddable in the upcoming patch.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
Lucky you! Scale effects will be moddable in the upcoming patch.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GO GO GROWTH 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
As Saber pointed out on another thread, if you focus mainly on preventing bad events, order is better for this than luck (which seems wrong to me, especially since order has other benefits).

Hate to correct you there, but actually +3 luck prevents 60% of bad events, while +3 order only prevents 30%. So this is also a bit off:

Turmoil 3 luck 3 should get more good events and less bad events than order 3 misfortune 3 - both cost 0 points and the former has much less steady income. Currently it gets more good events, but also more bad events

The numbers here are: With Order-0 Luck-0 as a relative 100%, T-3 L-3 gives 52% bad event frequency (.2*1.3/.5), and O-3 U-3 gives 112% bad event frequency (.7*.8/.5). So the turmoil one has double the bad event frequency of the order one, but is barely different from the default neutral scales, other than a high income boost. And almost no good events.

That said, I agree with you that because bad events are dominant, the second scale is preferable to the first, in general (unless you rely on heroes and luck-based crossbreeding, etc). If luck scales had one additional component, the problem might be solved... like this:

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

Luck scale values and relative event probabilities:

Luck..ML...SL....|....SU...MU
+3......50....50....|....10....90
+2......45....55....|....15....85
+1......40....60....|....20....80
+0......30....70....|....30....70
-1.......20....80....|....40....60
-2.......15....85....|....45....55
-3.......10....90....|....50....50

Those percentage values would be multipliers, cumulative with the current system. So, with +3 luck, an event still has a 80% chance of being lucky and 20% chance of being unlucky. But if it is lucky then there is a 50% chance of it being major, and 50% chance of it being minor, and if it is unlucky, there is a 90% chance of it being minor and 10% chance of it being major. The net results for +3 luck would be 40% major good events, 40% major bad events, 18% minor bad events, and 2% major bad events. This way, luck would affect severity as well as frequency. The above scale is just a random proposal - it might be too strong, and might even make +-3 scales even more dominant, but it feels like when you choose +3 luck you should be relatively immune to major bad events like barbarians in your capitol (or else why did you spend those 120 points?), and with -3 you should virtually NEVER get 1500 gold randomly.

-Cherry

P.S. The resultant cumulative scale, showing total event probabilities for each luck scale, assuming an event occurs. KEEP IN MIND that this is NOT how the game works, just a proposal that I have, that may or may not be a good idea.

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

P.P.S. This kept getting messed up, the charts are correct now=) If you can't read this line, hit refresh

[ November 19, 2003, 17:41: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

I've played quite a few games in the Demo and now in the retail with Order 3, Misfortune 3. It has less impact on the game and the bad events don't make as much of a gamebreaking difference than Order/Turmoil Even , Luck 3. And even Turmoil 3, Luck 3.

By far one of the worst combinations right now is Turmoil 3, Luck 3. Even with the greater chance of good events; earthquakes, floods and rebellions sneak in very very early (Turn 10-20) and for the most part target your fotress provinces, leaving them crippled while you get a "Handful of gems" every few turns.

Maybe I'm missing something.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Zen:
I've played quite a few games in the Demo and now in the retail with Order 3, Misfortune 3. It has less impact on the game and the bad events don't make as much of a gamebreaking difference than Order/Turmoil Even , Luck 3. And even Turmoil 3, Luck 3.

By far one of the worst combinations right now is Turmoil 3, Luck 3. Even with the greater chance of good events; earthquakes, floods and rebellions sneak in very very early (Turn 10-20) and for the most part target your fotress provinces, leaving them crippled while you get a "Handful of gems" every few turns.

Let's hope you've just had bad luck ( ) because that's not the way it's supposed to work, according to the official numbers... a systemic bug in the highly random luck system would be very hard to find!

[SurvivalistMerc]

I have only played the demo Version. But I have to agree with Zen. Order 3 (but without any misfortune) reduces random events to a very manageable level.

And if I can reduce negative random events while getting income with my scales, I'm all for it.

Whatever the percentage chance of a random event is...let us call it X.

Order 3, misfortune 3 reduce the likelihood by 30% but increase the likelihood that it is negative to 80%. Whether that is good or bad depends on the initial likelihood of an event, which as I understand it is non-public.

If the initial likelihood is 100%....
70% chance of event, 80% negative...56% negative event. Not good.

If the initial likelihood is more like 50%,

20% chance of event, 80% negative or 16%

With even scales, 50% likelihood of event, 50% negative, would be 25%.

However, even if the initial likelihood were 100%, the 56% you would have with order 3, unluck 3 is not noticably worse than the 50% you would have with even scales.

I totally loved my game with order 3, balanced luck scales, though.

SaberCherry, can you tell me how my reasoning is invalid (if it is)?

[Saber Cherry]

SaberCherry, can you tell me how my reasoning is invalid (if it is)?

Hmmm... yeah, that's invalid. The intital event probability based on all neutral scales is assigned a unitless 100, no matter how common events actually are. This does not mean there is a 100% chance of events, it just means that by default, we're calling the frequency of events you get with neutral scales "100" for convenience, because it makes the math work out easily. You could call it "1" or "50", but that would not change the results.

So taking Order-3 lowers your relative event probability to 70, or 70% of the probability compared to neutral scales. If you normally had a 30% chance of an event per turn with neutral scales, Order-3 would reduce the chance to 21%, NOT to 0%. Turmoil-3 would increase it to 39%, not to 60%.

If neutral scales have a relative "100" event frequency, then it also has a relative "50" good event and "50" bad event frequency. Order-3 Unluck-3 has a 100*70%=70 total relative event frequency, with a relative 70*20%=14 good event and 70*80%=56 bad event frequency.

Thus, if every (for example) 40 turns you got 100 events with a neutral scale, 50 of them should be good, and 50 bad. But with an order-3 unluck-3, you should only get 70 total events in the same time, of which 56 are bad and 14 are good.

So you get a tiny (12%) increase in bad events, a huge decrease (62%) in good events (which is OK, because they aren't as potent), and a 21% (or maybe 30%) increase in income. For free. ASSUMING all the published formulas are correct. And the income boost can be even greater if you take a good castle, growth, or productivity.

-Cherry

[SurvivalistMerc]

Productivity increases gold income? I thought it just affected resources?

(Sorry if I'm asking mickey mouse questions...still don't have my game. )