Scales You Should Never Take?

[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.

[Xietor]

drain 2 is only -1 research, which is why it is a good deal for some races that do no not depend on magic for survival.

[Tuidjy]

I play most of my games with Order3, Sloth2-3, Temp 1 off, Growth 1, Misfortune 3,
Drain 2 or Magic 1. I cannot complain of my results :-)

Right now I am subbing for someone who took growth 3. Late in the game, I am
enjoying the income, but I know that there is nothing I can do if someone
decides to hit me with population killing spells. I firmly believe that
growth and death should influence population killers in the same way that
temperature and magic influence other spells.

[CUnknown]

Wow, great idea Tuidjy. Growth should definitely lessen the effect of the black deaths, blights, etc. That would be awesome. Growth could use a boost too, and that one makes perfect sense.

[OmikronWarrior]

Order-3, Growth-3, heat/cold-0 are the gold maximizing scales. Taking additional hot/cold nets you -5% gold, which ain't good. Especially considering Order usually accompanies Misfortune causing fixed income losses (200 gold to repair vital equipment!). Meaning, thinking in terms of margins, the felt effect is more than just 5%.

Combining Turmoil, Misfortune, and Death is suicide. I doubt you'll be able to go 6 turns with out recruiting becoming impossible at your home province. Death and Misfortune is pretty bad itself even with order, but the effects might be delayed longer to let you get set up.

As for magic and drain, yes the largest effect these scales will have on your game is on your research. However, keep in mind magic scales also effect MR and spell casting fatigue. If you're up against LA Ermor, it might be worthwhile to consider magic scales for the sole purpose of making his undead units easier to banish.

[Sir_Dr_D]

people say to always use order 3 misfortune 2, or else luck 3, turmoil 3. But I I am using order 3 and luck 3 in a current game, and have found the combination quite effective.