Scales You Should Never Take?

[Wick]

OmikronWarrior said:
Taking additional hot/cold nets you -5% gold, which ain't good.

Remember summer, winter, and that the scale is capped at 3. Taking your base temperature is -2.5%, one scale adds -2.5%, subsequent but not capped scales are -5% each, and the capped scale is -3.75%, unless it's also the first in which case it's just -1.25%! Being one scale off is usually a good idea.

[Corwin]

I often take Misfortune 3 Order 3 scales. I won about 30%-40% of MP Dominions games I've played over the last few years. Misfortune 3 is not really as scary as many people believe, and sometimes you can even turn it to your advantage.

[Xietor]

I have to disagree with the fast expansion theory in mp games. I think steady expansion may be better. If you top the chart in provinces, you are often torn apart by the dog pile.

And fast expansion with poor defenses really means nothing as you can lose those provinces fairly easily. In a 10+ mp game, the longterm income you throw away by taking death rather than growth is significant.

There is a chart someone made that had the turn when 3 growth provided as much income as 3 order. forget the turn number, but it was not super high.

And I never take an awake pretender(though i am picky of the races i play too), though i will only take an imprisoned one if i am playing a good bless nation. With a sleeping pretender there is almost never a need to take d sclaes.

[OmikronWarrior]

I did the growth and death charts. Search for "Growth and Death by the Numbers." The break even point for choosing Growth-3 instead of Order-3 is turn 43. Coincidently, the fall behind point for Choosing Death-3 to pay for Order-3 is also turn 43, assuming you don't get any plague events, which is an enormous assumption.

Of course, thats just theoretical speaking. The real power of Growth is to combine it with Order to really rack up the multipliers. If you happen to have old mages to worry about, it pays for itself in other ways as well.

[Corwin]

OmikronWarrior said:
I did the growth and death charts. Search for "Growth and Death by the Numbers." The break even point for choosing Growth-3 instead of Order-3 is turn 43. Coincidently, the fall behind point for Choosing Death-3 to pay for Order-3 is also turn 43, assuming you don't get any plague events, which is an enormous assumption.

But in addition to these calculations one should also take into account that extra 200 gold in the beginning of the game "worth" significantly more to the player than the same 200 gold much later.