Thoughts on making "luck" equally attractive

[Endoperez]

Nah.
These are the things luck can give you:

Luck gives gold (good early on, not that great later),
random gems (nice early on, good later and is situationally extremely good),
random items (mostly useless),
castles (always good to very good, depending on the province)
labs (usually in bad places)
units (bad if militia or equivalent, some nationals can be decent)
H3 priest + militia (weak)
mages (from decent to VERY good, depending on if it gives new magic)
heroes (poor to very good, see above)
etc etc

Now, what of these are worth more than gold in late game?
Events that give gems, construction 4 or 6 items, castles, mages, some heroes. Out of these, only gems are common. Here are suggestions for changing existing events, and for adding new ones:

Items:
Most luck events that give items give a totally random item.
"Found a magic item" should give random item from levels 2 to 6.
"Tomb of an ancient hero" should give level 2 item.
"Tomb of an ancient king" should give level 4 item.
the third tomb event should give level 4 or 6 item (I don't remember it's description, or if there is one)
"Gift from Shadow Seers/Moon Mages" is random, and could stay that way or become more spesific (only level 4?) if so deemed.
NEW: A mage creating great item: constr 4 or 6
NEW: A magic item and some gems being recovered from a wandering magician: random

"Great Treasures, 3000 gp and a magic item" event should give level 4 or 6 item OR an item that requires at least level 3 in a path to forge. The first is a simple solution, the latter an advanced one.


Mages:
What mages can you get from events? Every scale should allow something. I think Magic allows for astral mages (renegade Moon Mage or Shadow Seer or whatever. Or perhaps that's the Elludian Assassin, I can't remember). Coast provinces allow for Seirens, magic and/or growth might be required. Death allows for Necromancers. Is there an event that creates an Animist and his vinemen followers, or is that a mercenary?

Turmoil should allow for Bloodhenge Druids or other weak Blood mages, and perhaps rebellious mages of various nations. Production could allow for Alchemists and various engineering mages, but I think they're all national (EA Arcos, LA Man). Gnomes being discovered in a cave, Tien Chi mages looking for secrets of immortality in Orderous provinces, a monkey Guru found asleep in a Sloth land, etc.


Buildings:
If laboratory-giving events were only limited to provinces which have recruitable commanders that require a lab, they would be much more useful. Even if most indy mages require a temple in addition to the lab.

Castles are almost always a good thing. If someone is conquering you and happens to conquer an undefended province which happens to get a castle, that's tough, but the castle provinces are already quite rare.

Temples are useful for recruitment, but also for spreading your dominion. The current "your believers have put up a temple" could be restricted to provinces with recruitable priests, and another could be made where you get a priest and a temple in neutral or hostile dominion.


Units:
Better troops with quality commander. National events would be best: Black Lord, Black Knights and some Guardians for MA Ulm, Emerald Guards and Serpent Knights for MA Pythium, Iceclads and those storm fliers for MA/LA Caelum, etc. Events with units normally only available as summons would be good. These would generally require an existing laboratory and some spesific scale, like Production for Mechanical Men and Crushers, Death for wights, banes and similar, etc.
Winter Wolves being imprisoned in labs in midwinter in cold provinces, Scorpion Men guarding ancient treasure hordes in wastes under Heat, etc etc are also interesting possibilities.
These could also work as bad events with little change, of course.

Currently, there are no events that give thug-capable commanders. These could be one answer, since they are more useful in late game than in early, before you can give them proper equipment. The only non-mage thug chassis I can think of is Bane Lord, but I'm sure there are some non-undead ones as well. Especially since you can get units as commanders. A Gargoyle? Sea Troll? EA Atlantis Deep One? One of the less powerful Angels? A Hell Knight? There are lots of possibilities.

[kasnavada]

Here is where a test shows that order 3 isn't better that luck / turmoil. And that there is no need to boost luck at all.

The reason why everyone and his dog takes order 3 is because the game is more predictable that way. I has nothing to do with the benefits it really gives...

Chek post #584132.
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=582740

[MaxWilson]

The link above is broken for me. A correction:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...&Number=582740

Copying & pasting the URL from your browser only works for someone who has the same view settings as you. Use the "Post Link" instead of manually trim the URL.

I'm skeptical of the test anyway. 9 provinces isn't exactly a representative empire. Do it with 40 provinces and I'll start to pay attention.

-Max

[kasnavada]

I'm skeptical of the test anyway. 9 provinces isn't exactly a representative empire. Do it with 40 provinces and I'll start to pay attention.

That's what usually happen when someone proves some other wrong. They say "your test suck, because of 'insert stupid condition here'". Then they ask others to do the test again.

Do that 40 province test yourself and then I'll start to pay attention, until then my test stands, for lack of a better proof ? or because it's true.

Thanks for the link though.

[Hadrian_II]

kasnavada said:

That's what usually happen when someone proves some other wrong. They say "your test suck, because of 'insert stupid condition here'". Then they ask others to do the test again.

Do that 40 province test yourself and then I'll start to pay attention, until then my test stands, for lack of a better proof ? or because it's true.

Thanks for the link though.

Order gives you +21% income in every province, luck will max out on 4 events, so luck looses usefulness on bigger empires.

I personally think that the simplest way to balance luck would be to remove the event limit, or make the limit depending on province count, so that bigger empires may get more events.

[MaxWilson]

kasnavada said:
That's what usually happen when someone proves some other wrong. They say "your test suck, because of 'insert stupid condition here'". Then they ask others to do the test again.

Do that 40 province test yourself and then I'll start to pay attention, until then my test stands, for lack of a better proof ? or because it's true.

Whoa there, calm down. I'm sorry if my tone was unwarrantedly hostile. Luck is known to not scale with empire size. A test which uses a very small empire is not going to give representative results and doesn't prove anything even in an empirical sense about the game mechanics.

-Max

P.S. I'm not sure if I believe in the 3 event cap, but it seems low to me. I'm pretty sure I've seen up to 4 or 5 events on some turns.

[kasnavada]

Then when do you run that 40 province test ?

Until then it proves that with a low amount of provinces the amount of benefits is about the same. Which means that taking order 3 isn't a "best choice".

EDIT : not that it matters lol, boost luck anyway !

[MaxWilson]

Kasnavada,

You're being silly. I haven't made any positive claims[1] and therefore don't require empirical tests to support them. You're being overly sensitive about criticism.

All the same, I've contemplated running a larger test because so many people have done the smaller one and it would be nice to have data on a more representative sample. It's possible that you may have annoyed me into doing so later on this week.

-Max

Edit: [1] Except that "Luck is known to not scale with empire size." If you're disputing that claim, say so and I'll be required to provide evidence. But I think you already know that that claim is true.

P.S. I agree that your test proves that small empires benefit more from Luck than Order.

[Ironhawk]

kasnavada said:
Then when do you run that 40 province test ?

Because there is no need to run a test? There is a cap to events - be it 3 or 5 or 6... it doesnt matter. Whatever it is, at some point Luck stops scaling as your empire grows. Order never does.

Additionally, as the person challenging convention I think the burden of proof is on you, kasnavada.

[dirtywick]

MaxWilson said:
P.S. I'm not sure if I believe in the 3 event cap, but it seems low to me. I'm pretty sure I've seen up to 4 or 5 events on some turns.

Next time you do take a screen.