refuting common wisdom on scales everybody knows

[Baalz]

I thought I�d take a moment to refute some of the conventional wisdom that everybody knows. Let me preface this by making it clear that I�m in no way saying that the conventional wisdom is always wrong, just that it�s not always right.

Gold is king. You�re foolish if you don�t take order-3 with almost any nation, and turmoil is practically unplayable competitively. This is not true. Gold is a means, not an end. It is often the case that making other choices will allow you to spend less gold on expanding at the same rate. Production allows you to use more heavily armored troops, so you can use less of them. Taking an awake pretender allows you to use less troops for expansion. Taking a better bless allows you to split your sacreds into smaller armies for more rapid expansion. All of these can very well end you with a stronger position than if you took in more gold but also spent more gold. Order/turmoil scale is a balancing act which must be planned for in the context of your nation and your strategy for optimal return.

Expansion is queen to gold�s king. In order to have a competitive build you must be able to expand very rapidly. If you can�t grab about 20 provinces by the end of the first year you need to go back to the drawing board. False. Provinces are a means, not an end. Namely, provinces are a way to get more gold and gems. Of course, all other things being equal the more provinces you can get the better, but you must consider the opportunity cost. The first obvious one is that scales are often sacrificed to optimize expansion. A swing from order-3, prod-3, growth -3 (+ 39% income) to turmoil-3, sloth-3, death -3 (-39% income) means you have to expand more than twice as fast merely to break even. This is an extreme example to illustrate the point, but the concept holds on any smaller variation � every tick down in your scales is more you have to work just to break even for gold. In addition, extra provinces have a downside - you�ve got more area to defend, more money dumped into PD, more upkeep in troops to defend it, and of course more troops and casualties to conquer it in the first place.

This is another consideration that most people don�t consider, the opportunity cost of dumping gold into troops as fast as you can to fuel a fast expansion. If you stop and think about it, it is often a stronger position to have 12 provinces with 3 castles than 24 provinces with just your capital castle at the end of year one. With extra labs, mages & research, triple the troop production (even without accounting for production scale differences) and superior defensive options you stand a very good chance of clobbering the guy who�s grabbing provinces as fast as he can (and probably making enemies along the way). At some point, obviously, it�s a good idea to devote resources to things other than expansion. This point can be quite a bit earlier than many people realize.

Sloth is almost always great dumping grounds to get design points. False. As I illustrate above production can often lead to more economic power than order whether from more efficient use of your troops or faster expansion. Doesn�t take a rocket scientist to figure out that triple the troops (-45% to +45% resources) can often translate into double the gold income which trounces the 30% swing in income from order-3/sloth-3 to turmoil-3/production-3. Again, the same is true in smaller increments.

Misfortune is almost always a good dumping grounds to get design points. False. Luck offers a number of advantages which many overlook in paying homage to the �gold is King� myth. True, order will give you more gold over time than luck even accounting for rebuilding burned down labs & temples (though of course your missing lab also cost you research points and possibly strategic spell casting). I believe that it�s a mistake to measure the benefit of luck in terms of gold. One big advantage of luck is greater magic diversity through random gems, indie mages joining you, and national heroes. How do you put a gold value on getting a mage plus gems to start site searching in a new path? Also, the fact that order will give you more gold in the long run does not capture the advantage of gaining 1000 gold in the first couple turns when every coin counts the most. Finally, I think the detriment of random indie attacks are not really factored in by most people. If you�re on the ball and have some spare capacity they are no more than a gold-costing nuisance. In a tight fight though they are often the tipping point, effectively acting with your enemy to attack you and fortify what you lost. Misfortune scales are very common, and I�ve lost track of how many times I�ve seen people screwed over by indie attacks while another player is attacking them and they have no way to retake the lost provinces in any reasonable amount of time.

Drain is for suckers, never take it competitively. Well heck, just look at the numbers, what percentage change in research will the mage you plan to do most of your researching with have? If you plan on researching with Sauromancers (10 rp), drain 2 only subtracts 10% of your research�so you could put those design points into 2 levels of order to gain 14% more income and theoretically 14% more mages. Again, it all depends on how everything fits together.