Productive Scale needs some Enhancements

[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.

[Sombre]

If you're looking to have fun with crossbreeding luck-turmoil makes sense too.

[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.