refuting common wisdom on scales everybody knows

[Omnirizon]

Gandalf Parker said:
Ive found it fairly playable to take negative luck with nations who have plus-luck gods and units available, and low domain.

Ive also found it playable to take low production with nations where Im concentrating on non-armored units (such as Pangaea). And low growth or high temperature for nations with lots of nature magic.

Usually not the most extreme settings +3/-3. Those I rarely use. But then again thats probably what +3/-3 should be.

interesting. why is nature magic a contingent for extreme temps? for the spell relief? do the "resist" spells (cold and fire) reduce or eliminate the encumbrance effect of temp scales?

[MaxWilson]

Supply. Nature mitigates supply issues--he's not talking about the loss of income or encumbrance penalties.

-Max

[Sombre]

What are these plus-luck units of which you speak Gandalf?

[MaxWilson]

Doesn't the Lady of Luck add luck to the province she's in? I thought she did.

-Max

[Ballbarian]

There are also units which prevent bad events from occurring for the province they are in.

[Omnirizon]

MaxWilson said:
Supply. Nature mitigates supply issues--he's not talking about the loss of income or encumbrance penalties.

-Max

of course. i reallized this as I was at work, having a "dom strategy" moment.

if you take cold3 order2 and growth1, you will gain net income bonus (even more so considering random temp flucs), and halfway reduce the supply issue; the growth over time will work out to even more income. I've never encountered supply issues, but I think that is my playstyle, as I prefer to use smaller armies with thugs and SCs.

If you can manage the supply somehow (like with nature mages), then large cheap armies really benefit from the encumbrance penalty, as the individual units would die before it had any effect anyway, and the opposing army will tire themselves out on it.

[Chris_Byler]

Yeah, but going up against Jotunheim or Caelum when *you* have Cold-3 and aren't even a cold-loving nation (and maybe not even a water magic using one) would be really harsh. Even in your dominion you'd be in their preferred climate.

[Omnirizon]

Chris_Byler said:
Yeah, but going up against Jotunheim or Caelum when *you* have Cold-3 and aren't even a cold-loving nation (and maybe not even a water magic using one) would be really harsh. Even in your dominion you'd be in their preferred climate.

one question,

typically, a nation can never benefit from positive scales of enemy dominion, although they suffer from the negative ones. is this so with temp scales and cold loving nations?

and two points,

I've witnessed most players playing a cold loving nation shoot for wolven winter in early game; and use it liberally. Its easy to use and accessible. So the fact that your dominion is one they like is not as much a disadvantage, and still well worth the upside. Warm loving nations have no Wolven Winter and will be doubly screwed (and triply screwed if they are cold blood) by a cold3 dominion.

Also, it provides just one more way to screw peoples incomes in your dominion. You can use the cold3 to fund order3, giving you an overall gain in income, plus ground to dip into the misfortune scale a little for some points. The enemy though will suffer the income and misfortune, with no offset from order. If you are playing a nation that can operate fine even with a Sloth scale, you really have a way to make peoples lands next to useless.

the contingent:

of course, this requires building around; but that's the point. The temp scales provide another means of tweaking your strategy, making it specialized towards your build in a way that you will be able and prepared to deal with but that your enemy won't. all this, and you even get design points for taking it; double bonus.

[MaxWilson]

No, it's not like that with temp scales. Or rather, there is no such thing as positive temp scales, simply variation on the continuum where your "neutral" scale lies.

I agree that temp scales are not a bad point sink.

-Max