Balance: Some thoughts on Events and Scales

[tinkthank]

Some people had posted recently about "standard" scales, or about some scale choices being "no-brainers"; so there does seem to be some consensus as to which scales are "worth it" in a competetive MP environment where winning may be more important than other game features. This goes particularly for Luck/Misfortune, Order/Turmoil, and Sloth/Productivity, from what I can gather.

Here are some ideas on how these issues can be addressed in a global manner, without necessarily tweaking the individual scales themselves.

- Make events occur on a per-province, not per-nation basis. If a nation has 200 provinces, 100 events per turn would not be unthinkable under a Turmoil scale.
Of course this presupposes a type of UI overhaul as I suggested in previous posts on the Wishlist thread (mail window, events window, forge reports window, spell reports window, etc.) so that the "message" screen is not flooded.
- Then, increase the intensity of bad events, so that misfortune is truly something to fear if very high.
Then, greatly increase the number of special events which only happen if you have a certain type of scale (preferably: those which are currently considered underused as "no-brainers"). Such things could be, for example, to greatly increase the number and intensity of events which require Misfortune 1, Misfortune 2, and Misfortune 3 respectively. Ditto for Luck 1, 2 and 3. (Fun and interesting would be, for example, neat types of helpful units which join your cause: assassins and mages of various types, perhaps those which are not available anywhere else, as well as sages.) One could make many more certain events requiring Productivy 1, 2 or 3: new items are transported to your lab (perhaps those not forgable by ordinary means), perhaps a group of units get a boost to armor; perhaps a special event requiring Prod 3 will yield you a castle (or maybe: only if it occurs in a province with a castle already in it, although this would tend to encourage "mad castling") in which you can recruit your national units which all automatically have +1 protection or something, or adds a special Heavy-Infantry type unit to that castle. I think that would be neato. Of course, this last bit would require a different way of attributing units protection stats.
- Make quite a number of nation-specific events (or even better for modding: nation-type specific events, e.g. for tree-huggers, blood-worshippers, cold-lovers, underwater, etc.)

(EDIT: hm, maybe this belongs in the wishlist?)

[Oversway]

I like the idea of nation specific events (I guess only national heros are that now). I also like custom events tied to other scales.

But as far as making misfortune events really bad and really common, doesn't that just unbalance everything to the luck side of the scale? The trick is to make it so that you pay a penalty for misfortune, but not one that is so bad that nobody picks it.

[Kuritza_Dru]

I'd like some theme-specific heroes.

[Endoperez]

Youcan already get assasins/Ice Druids/Wind Mages/Lore Masters/Necromancers etc. through luck, you already can get magic items (like Robe of the Archmagi ) and fortresses (Fortified Citadel with order, and some kind of a castle) through luck...

Events can also create new sites, including gold- and resource-producing mines. I don't think they currently add unit-producing sites, but I think that would be possible even in DomII.

I think the real reason is that you can only get 3 events/turn, max, whichever scales you choose.

[sushiboat]

100 random events per turn? Ack!!! No! Please, no, no, no!

In the later turns, even going through nonrandom events is a chore. The thing that makes it bearable is that these events are the outcomes of your actions (or other players' actions) in the previous turn. I don't want to be punished with information overload for scales I took at the beginning of the game. Information overload is as undesirable as a lot of micromanagement.

Of course, a few more than three random events per turn would be fine once in a while. For example, there could be a small chance (e.g., 1-7%, depending on order/turmoil) of having up to, say, ten random events. Having the probability influenced by the number of provinces is fine too. However, three is plenty for the typical turn.

[The_Tauren13]

perhaps you should read the whole post before commenting on it, sushiboat.

tinkthank said:
Of course this presupposes a type of UI overhaul as I suggested in previous posts on the Wishlist thread (mail window, events window, forge reports window, spell reports window, etc.) so that the "message" screen is not flooded.

The 3 event per turn limit is quite a silly, artificial limit. There is no RP reason for it, it hurts game balance, so why have it?

[Agrajag]

The_Tauren13 said:
perhaps you should read the whole post before commenting on it, sushiboat.

The 3 event per turn limit is quite a silly, artificial limit. There is no RP reason for it, it hurts game balance, so why have it?

*AHEM*
To avoid information overload, just like Sushiboat said.
Maybe you should have read his post...

[PvK]

Information overload though is mainly because the current interface requires reading and mouse interaction. This could possibly be improved in Dominions III.

For example, if there were only one summary report for all random events, showing total effects and giving the option to read each one, and then on the map, optional icons could indicate the changes in each province, so you could see where the storms and fires and plague outbreaks and stuff were by just looking at the map.

PvK

[tinkthank]

Sorry: to clarify, I did say that 100 events in a HUGE empire of 200 provinces (roughly 130% of the Karan map) with HIGH TURMOIL would not be *unthinkable* -- not common, or necessary.
One could still expect -- IF your dominion is strong -- with a high Order scale to have 2-3 events in a large empire with 100 provinces or so. Otherwise, an empire of 20-30 provinces with neither turmoil nor order might also expect 2-5 events pro turn.
I do not find this odd or difficult.
But but Turmoil and Order should have some effect....

[Agrajag]

Still, Turmoil-3 would make events insane if your idea is used.
Even if you somehow manage to get a global effect report, you'd still have to cruise through dozens of provinces to rebuild/change taxes/patrol/recapture etc. and Turmoil-3 + Luck-3 would be an insane combination for enormous gold and gem production (through countless positive events).
This all just sounds like a bad idea.