Scales You Should Never Take?

[DonCorazon]

Just wondering if there are any scales that are too be avoided at all costs (aside from the unique exceptions like Ermor and Death or Niefel and Cold)? I recently joined an MP game and am playing Drain-2 (and I am not Ulm) and wondering if I made a horrible mistake as my research slogs along at an unbelievably slow pace. I am playing a strong bless nation so my troops are fine but fear my mages will be casting magic missiles when others are busting out the meteor storms (to borrow a D&D analogy).

I also have come to fear negative Luck, though I know many take it in conjunction with Order. It seems to hone in on my natural unluckiness [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon22.gif[/img] and hit me extremely hard.
I never take Death either though have no basis for that - it just seems so unpleasant

[Xietor]

I do not like death or misfortune, but they should never be taken together.

I actually won a mp game with 2 drain(fixed). Was dead last in research, but that does not matter for some races, especially bless nations early on.

If you take 2 sloth, you should try to trade/make skull mentors/ lanterns etc.

[moderation]

Xietor said:I actually won a mp game with 2 drain(fixed). Was dead last in research, but that does not matter for some races, especially bless nations early on.

What is "2 drain(fixed)"? Was there a bug with Drain 2 that was previously fixed?

Also, I read somewhere that Death + Misfortune unlocks some nasty events. Do any other scale combinations unlock "special" events?

[Xietor]

I had said sloth, inadvertently, then after llamabeast corrected me, i went back and changed it to say drain. Though i did have 3 sloth and 2 drain in that game . heh.

[AreaOfEffect]

I find that no negative scale is so terrible provided you match them well to your nation. I find Death isn't really that bad, particularly with nations like LA Ermor, LA R'lyeh, EA Agartha, and EA or LA Mictlan.

To be honest, I dislike Misfortune much more then Death. At least death can be compensated for. Misfortune on the other hand can serve up disasters that can't be seen ahead of time.

[Baalz]

I often take death if I've got no old mages, but this does lock you into a fairly aggressive play style. So long as you're more or less constantly expanding I find the loss of income isn't very much...particularly if you conquer a neighbor who had growth scales.

[Zenzei]

Here's my take on the scales
Order: Sweet.
Turmoil: Passable with Luck 3, anything less is not hot.
Productivity/Sloth: I take sloth very often in order to get more design points.
Heat/Cold: I almost always take one scale more than the nation's preference.
Growth: I'm starting to think this is the most useless scale, it just doesn't give any tangible benefits soon enough.
Death: This, on the other hand, starts to feel like a no brainer. I think death is good choice for every nation except for those with heavy blood element but even blood nations can get away with it in small game.
Magic: If the nation I'm playing has cheap sacred researchers, I always aim for magic 3. Magic 3 also has a very significant effect on spellcasting fatigue. Magic 1 is my default setting for nations with no cheapo researchers.
Drain: I think this a very very bad choice, unless your mages are immune to the effect (MA Ulm, LA Man).
Luck: Good but it's hard to get points for it except by taking turmoil.
Misfortune: Is BAD. I never take it because I always seem to get some bad unrest event on turn 2, which slows my early game very seriously and therefore has long-reaching consequences (this happens even with order 3).

[Endoperez]

moderation said:
Also, I read somewhere that Death + Misfortune unlocks some nasty events. Do any other scale combinations unlock "special" events?

Death unlocks or makes more common: plague events (bad!), famine events (bad!), possibly undead attacks (Ermorian cultists or something, "one of your counts has revealed himself as a vampire" but that might also be Magic), a wealthy prince has died (few thousand gp and a magic item or something like that).

Growth unlocks: Ancient Presence attack (kills almost all population, very bad but very, very rare; also needs magic). Also rare immigration events and such.

Production unlocks/makes more common: all mines (permanent gold income or resource boost), genius prospector events (+200 or more gp), possibly the merchants' guild event (+income).

Sloth unlocks: ???

Order unlocks/makes more common: increased tax (200-1000 gp), probably prevents some bad events (unhappy peasants leaving, some barbarian attacks?). Castle events are very rare and probably require Luck and order and/or production, depending on the spesific event. "X has finished the construction of a ring wall" might be production, "one of your bailiffs has built a castle" might be order, but this is just guessing on my part.

Turmoil unlocks/makes more common several attack events that need unrest with other scales. These include barbarian and knight attacks. Some of these might also require misfortune scales.

Magic: allows for all kinds of attacks by magical creatures like Trolls and ancient presence Caspar of the Cave (troglodytes and mage attack, but also create +1 earth gem site) and such, sometimes with other scales; makes gem events much more common; allows for various mages to join your empire (may require other scales, such as Order or growth or death, for spesific mages).

Drain: can destroy a lab, lose gems

[Randvek]

In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with a little misfortune in the base game. When you start playing with mods, though, especially something like Worthy Heroes, luck becomes more important.

On heat, I play like Zenzei: take one more than you need, and take one even if you don't need it.

[CUnknown]

I personally am scared of misfortune, although my fear is probably unfounded. I will take misfortune-1 if I have at least order-2 or -3, though. Sometimes misfortune-2, but I tremble reading my events each turn, fearful of that turn when the hammer falls. I know it's out there. Waiting to get me. I will never, ever take Misfortune-3. I don't care how many points it gives me.

Death I think is a great idea if you plan to rush. It's basically free points if you aren't thinking long-term. Then have such a big edge that you can win even when death bites you in the butt. Although I am not much of a rush player.

Drain is fine for me, it gives you magic resistance, right? Make sure to build your expensive mages for research purposes, drain affects them less than the cheap, low research mages (8 research -2 is still decent, 3-2 is not worth doing). And make research booster items.

Sloth is like almost always worth doing.

Heat/Cold is nation specific.

Turmoil is just about never worth it, unless you combine with luck, and even then it can be crippling. Although like with Pangea, if you are getting Menaeds from turmoil, then it suddenly becomes good.