Productive Scale needs some Enhancements

[Baalz]

Yeah, all the scales obviously are strat/nation dependent, but I think the people who "never" take a certain scale is more a testament to the player's temperament and playstyle than anything else.

Luck/Order loses some synergy but can be a reasonable choice in certain situations - say Arcoscephale. You've already got a pretty good magic diversity and great initial expansion, your ROI for investing in a pretender is lower. Though of course others would play it differently I think you have a hard time making the case that Luck/Order is not a competitive strategy.

Similarly, productivity can situationally be very useful. I know everybody is typically down on MA Ulm but leaving that argument aside for a second I can't imagine trying to play them with a sloth scale. Another example would be a Sauromatia strategy with an early/mid game built around the cap-only poison archers which I've personally employed to good effect. Even after you've captured every border to your cap you're still recruiting the max every turn and putting each unit to good use. You've got some great resource intensive heavy cavalry at the rest of your castles. Again, there are obviously other ways to play it but this is a competitive strategy compared to an expansion pretender particularly when you remember the income boost that is bundled with productivity.

Magic/growth vs order, again, situation. If I'm taking a race who's prospects are tied to MR rolls (like, say, R'yleh) I generally consider the magic scale to be more important than order. If I'm gonna have a lot of expensive old mages I usually prioritize growth over order once you consider the opportunity cost of mage replacement and long term population growth.

[CUnknown]

I agree, Baalz. No one is trying to argue that Productivity is never useful.. it's just that it is less so, more often, than the other scales except maybe growth. Especially in the late game where productivity is basically worthless, even for MA Ulm.

Take this example. Order is generally accepted to be the best scale by most people. I'd go so far as to say that any strategy which uses Turmoil is suspect as far as being competitive. I mean, you can't just take Turmoil off the cuff without a specialized strategy (such as Turmoil/Luck, and/or Pangea's menaeds) and expect to compete. The points you get from Turmoil simply aren't worth being spent anywhere else than on buying back your Order again.

Think about Productivity/Sloth again. Imagine if someone said, "Any strategy using Sloth is suspect as far as viability!"

That is just so funny it makes me giggle. Like for 60-70% or more of strategies, you can take Sloth and just spend those points elsewhere and be probably even more competitive.

I'd say Magic is somewhere in the middle. You can take Drain, you can take Magic, it sort of doesn't matter -- I mean it depends on your strategy and your race.

So, it seems clear that Productivity could use a boost. Back to the Ulm situation, if we boost Productivity, Ulm gets boosted as well, cause they always take Prod-3. So, it's a win-win.

[VedalkenBear]

Actually, I'd have to say that even when I play Ulm, I don't generally take Production-3. I certainly don't take Sloth, but I find that I don't need to take Production at all and still do fine.

That should say something about how subpar the Production scale is.

[DrPraetorious]

All of the level-3 negative scales are a *major* drawback.

For most strategies, Sloth-3 is the least major. There are obviously a few situations (Pangaea) where it isn't much of a drawback at all, but that's got to be figured into the game. It's still a huge penalty, though, as EA Ermor, for example, I generally do take Sloth-3, but it's not like I'm happy to get -50% principes out of my forts. If you made sloth-3 any *bigger* penalty it would be completely impossible to play as a sloth-3 nation unless you had an awake SC pretender to expand, and *that* is not desirable either, so I don't think Sloth-3 needs to be made any worse. It's just understood that, for many nations, Sloth-3 is the least-crippling of the major drawbacks you can take.

OTOH, Productivity-3 is taken quite seldom. I take it as LA Ulm, LA or MA Jotunheim, and LA Pangaea, and I take it near-last among the positive scales that I do take.

So Productivity-3 should be better. I think reduced fort construction time and building costs would be an ideal benefit - the fact that a construction time penalty for Sloth wouldn't really come up much doesn't bother me, b/c I actually want to reward Productivity rather than punish Sloth.

[Sir_Dr_D]

I like Micah's suggestion earlier. Since the devs aren't likely to chnage the production scale the only way we can mod it is to make the production scale change the income by 4%.

[Tharsonius]

DrPraetorious said:
For most strategies, Sloth-3 is the least major. There are obviously a few situations (Pangaea) where it isn't much of a drawback at all, but that's got to be figured into the game. It's still a huge penalty, though, as EA Ermor, for example, I generally do take Sloth-3, but it's not like I'm happy to get -50% principes out of my forts. If you made sloth-3 any *bigger* penalty it would be completely impossible to play as a sloth-3 nation unless you had an awake SC pretender to expand, and *that* is not desirable either, so I don't think Sloth-3 needs to be made any worse. It's just understood that, for many nations, Sloth-3 is the least-crippling of the major drawbacks you can take.

Why sloth-3 especially for EA Ermor? How do you expand early? SC pretender? You can use gladiators, but then you need new reenforcements for every indi province you take, that will slow you down too.

[VedalkenBear]

Re: Turmoil and Luck, I seemed to get the best results out of the Void Gate when I have them both. So Rlyeh is quite possibly a nation that can use the scales.

[mathusalem]

but without a lot of gold, you'll have a lot of problem to mass troops with R'lyeh.

[Baalz]

It's kinda funny that so many people are anti-productivity. Without a doubt there are *many* situations where your initial expansion is resource constrained. If you don't have an expansion pretender, and your unit recruiting is resource constrained (a fairly common scenario, pretty much anybody who is relying on heavy infantry/cavalry) then 50% more resources means 50% more troops means 50% more expansion. To those saying productivity isn't very worthwhile, I ask how worthwhile is it to have 50% more provinces on turn 12? Sending out an expansion force every 2 rounds instead of every 3 for your initial expansion is *huge*. The usefulness often does scale back rapidly at that point, but many have argued that the benefits of a strong start often outweigh longer term strengths. Longer term benefits include needing less castles (depending on your commander recruitment needs), and having a heavier mix of units than you'd normally have. *lots* of nations have very heavy infantry who's resource requirements usually relegate them to just being the core of a larger force, with productivity that core is larger.

[vfb]

CUnknown said:
Take this example. Order is generally accepted to be the best scale by most people. I'd go so far as to say that any strategy which uses Turmoil is suspect as far as being competitive. I mean, you can't just take Turmoil off the cuff without a specialized strategy (such as Turmoil/Luck, and/or Pangea's menaeds) and expect to compete.

What strategies would you choose Turmoil for? I'd be really likely to go Turmoil3 & Luck3 in MP with EA or LA Mictlan, or LA Ermor. I'll go Turmoil3 & Luck3 in SP with almost any nation, just for the fun events.

The points you get from Turmoil simply aren't worth being spent anywhere else than on buying back your Order again.

Points you get from Turmoil can be worth it to get a nice double bless when your sacreds are dirt cheap.