Petition to change LUCK\ORDER Scales

After almost 300 turns of tests (common events), it seems to me that the frequency of "disastrous" events should be balanced. A disaster means big (thus irreparable) loss of pop : floods, restless people, plagues, famines, etc, I'm not counting the minor events like hailstorms, or the provinces lost to rebels, knights, etc

To sum up :
- Order 0 & Luck 0 = 36 events in 82 turns. 20 good events (I've been lucky) but 5 disasters.
- Order-3 & Luck +3 = 88 events in 82 turns. 61 good events (including the 1500 gold, for a total of 3245 gp bonuses). But still 7 big disasters!
- Order+3 & Luck-3 = 6 events in 123 turns. Only minor effects.

Is that logical to get *more* disasters with max luck ? IMHO Illwinter should limit the frequency of those major events, something like 2 possible disasters with Luck+1, 1 with Luck+2 et 0 with Luck+3. As it is, the Luck/Disorder combo seems a poor choice (on average, 40 gp/turn dont compensate for disasters and 30% tax losses).
Cheers

[ November 25, 2003, 08:05: Message edited by: Sunray_be ]

[ywl]

Originally posted by apoger:
There have been many well thought out and excellent ideas here. Problem is that most of them are complex. It is hard to balance new complexity. Furthmore complexity is a very hard sell to Illwinter. I'm interested in seeing a fix this century.

To that end I offer the follwing thoughts.
The main issue is that dire events are -NOT FUN-. Nobody losses 10K population at the capital and thinks "Wow! I love Dominions". Secondly these events are not balanced. There is no 'population is increased by 10K' event. Gaining a cloak of displacement is sweet, but is no compenstation for the more serious dire events. These events add nothing to the game. I say a simple way to address the issue would be to *delete* them. It would only make the game better. Nobody would miss these events. Losing labs and chunks of gold is more than bad enough.

Without these catastrophic events, I suspect that Turmiol/Luck might be more balanced in respect to Order/Misfortune.

This might not be the best solution, but it is simple, and easy to implement. Often that has a 'magic' of it's own.

It's a very good idea. However, one side-feature of the major random events is to disguise those province-hitting spells. Though it's one feature that we could live without.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Sunray_be:
After almost 300 turns of tests...

To sum up :
- Order 0 & Luck 0 = 36 events in 82 turns. 20 good events (I've been lucky) but 5 disasters.
- Order-3 & Luck +3 = 88 events in 82 turns. 61 good events (including the 1500 gold, for a total of 3245 gp bonuses). But still 7 big disasters!
- Order+3 & Luck-3 = 6 events in 123 turns. Only minor effects.

Thanks for running the tests! Normally, 1 test per scale wouldn't really be statistically valid, but in this case the vastness of those difference is enough to draw firm conclusions. First, they indicate (to me) that not only is something majorly unbalanced, but also that my understanding of the way luck and order affect event frequencies is wrong. Those results are like 5 orders of magnitude away from my predictions, and it almost seems like Unluck is causing fewer events, and Luck is causing more events. If you are up for more tests, I'd suggest Order 0 & Luck +3, and Order 0 & Luck -3, to see if the base event frequency changes. I'd do it but I'm lazy.

-Cherry

[SurvivalistMerc]

ywl,

I agree...I could also do without the disasters designed to disquise those province-harming spells.

NTJedi,

I would like to leave ORDER alone and fix the problem by truly balancing the events. Fixing the events is just as easy as changing the order scale. Or so it would seem to me.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
I agree...I could also do without the disasters designed to disquise those province-harming spells.

Ah, that's right. Sunray_be, some of your work might be in vain if it is impossible to discriminate between real and fake disasters. Some, like knights, vinemen, and earthquakes are always luck... but others, like floods, are also major and cannot be distinguished.

[HJ]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

quote:

---

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
I agree...I could also do without the disasters designed to disquise those province-harming spells.

Ah, that's right. Sunray_be, some of your work might be in vain if it is impossible to discriminate between real and fake disasters. Some, like knights, vinemen, and earthquakes are always luck... but others, like floods, are also major and cannot be distinguished.

---

Not if you play all the races at the same time through hotseat. The only thing you have to remember then is how many spells did you cast yourself.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
[QB] ywl,

I agree...I could also do without the disasters designed to disquise those province-harming spells.

Then you would know that someone was out to get you though, which isn't necessarily a good thing. It removes a lot of the espionage aspect.