Petition to change LUCK\ORDER Scales

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

quote:

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Originally posted by Catquiet:
Would you be happier if Magic gave a straight %20 percent bonus to the research pool per tick?

Possibly. I'd have to think about it for a while. The way it works now is more interesting, with weak mages affected more than strong mages, and the pretender rarely affected much at all... really, I think I'd prefer for the research effects to stay the same, and rebalancing of scales done more at the scale-cost level than scale-effect level. Though magic/drain affecting gem output seems logical and interesting to me.

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Although I usually agree with you, I don't want to see scale costs changed. 40 points per scale, for all scales, at all levels, is one of the few simple and easy to understand mechanics in Dom II, and I don't want to see it go away.

I'd rather see the scale effects become nOnlinear (if they have to) than the costs.

What would you say to +1/+2/+4 rp for magic, and -1/-1/-2 for drain? (keeping in mind that the MR effects happen at +/-2).

Extra luck increasing income would be logical to help fix the system, by making +Luck/+Order suddenly a viable choice... but it makes no sense conceptually to me. Why should luck and unluck predicatably affect your income?

They shouldn't predictably do so (in my opinion). Instead they should unpredictably do so.

I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with the event system - but really bad events should be much more rare in luck scales, or not be allowed at all. Currently turmoil/luck is not viable, and order/unluck is too good, primarily because luck doesn't provide enough protection from game-losing events, and good events don't provide enough benefit to offset the very bad events.

Having them modify the chances of units gaining afflictions in lucky/unluck provinces, though... that would be interesting too. Right now the affliction chance for a hit is this: (Damage/HP). So a 20 HP unit taking 5 damage has a 25% chance of gaining an affliction. Something like (Damage*(10-Luck)/(10*HP)) would change that, so that the same situation in a -3 Luck province would give (5*(10+3)/(10*20))=32.5%, and a +3 Luck province would give a (5*(10-3)/(10*20))=17.5% of gaining an affliction.

Unluck would be a good scale for light-unit Machaka and BK Tien Chi, while Luck would be better for Ulm, Abysia, and Ermor... and everyone would be afraid to invade Unluck nations

-Cherry

Hmm, that could be interesting. But I think having it affect both sides indiscriminately might largely negate the effect (at least, if you want to make it something that adds to the benefits of luck and the pains of unluck).

Also, I wouldn't call Machaka a light-unit nation. I make extensive use of spider knights and black hunters, both of which are heavy units that I would hate to see get extra afflictions. (Nature-9 is pretty awesome for black hunters...)

[NTJedi]

I suggest making ORDER less effective with its current bonuses.

This would also be a quick solution... instead of trying to change all the others as well.

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:

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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.

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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.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Sunray_be:
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

how many provinces did you control for the tests? I think you should own at least 10 so to get the max number of possibles events coming. This can change the whole thing if you get 150 events in 75 turns compared to one a turn roughly (but 20% will be bad anyway - which is too much)