Claiming horrible thrones?

[onomastikon]

So some games have thrones spawn close to the starting cap, I'm in a situation where I had one right next to mine, beginning turn 2 I had a single white candle there and it didn't look too tough so I figured Level 1, my awake expander should be able to take it, and did so without a problem, and I think "yey", only to find out it's ... the Throne of Pestilence. I hate crappy thrones like this. So while death gem income is nice, I decide not to claim it, as I don't want disease and death scales. Is this common practice or am I being an idiot? I figure I can claim it later if and when I feel I should throne rush...?

[applenta]

No, you are being wise, especially if you strength is dependent on gold. 3 Death gems isn't worth it, site searching could yield much more gem income than that. Once you have excess Growth scale beyond 3, like after having claimed another throne, it would be safe to claim the Death throne.

[Mardagg]

3 Death gems income is huge for very early game. Thats 36 more death gems per year.
You certainly should claim it if you have no/low death gem income and at least growth 1 as scale.

[jojeck]

Depends on your nation and how much you rely on gold income. If you already have death scales or other bad scales you won't be spreading much it might not hurt much. If you have growth scales and plan to build up a big gold income then it will not be worth it.

Losing a growth scale will cost 2% across your whole empire for the rest of the game and you lose 0.2% pop growth every turn in every province where you have your scales. You have an awake pretender and so should get a biggish empire quickly so that is a lot of lost gold over time.

Just take a moderate expansion and a total of 100K pop, which gives a base income 1000 gold (depends how good your other income scales are), then taking the throne costs 20 gold per turn and due to lower growth (200 pop per turn) an extra 2 gold every turn. By turn 60 say that amounts to a cumulative loss of 120 gold per turn just in that 100K pop. By that stage of the game after conquering a neighbour or two you could have 400K pop and about 4000 base income. The 3 death gems per turn pale into insignificance compared to losses on that scale.

[Zonk]

Jojek: You'll get +3 Death gems every turn, immediately. Meanwhile, it will take a while for your dominion in each province to adjust to the new value; it's not like the moment your dominion gets +1 Death / -1 Growth your income and popgrowth drop EVERYWHERE.


Also you could make a profit on selling the Death gems to some other nation, or replace regular troops (with upkeep) with upkeep-free D summons, and so on.

So I think you're exaggerating the losses.

[sunbeam]

Originally posted by Zonk:

So I think you're exaggerating the losses.

I guess it depends on which nation you are playing. If I played a nation where I had no death mages, I wouldn't bother. Even with a nation like MA Machaka, I think I'd rather have higher growth than 3 death gems.

Sceleria? Dunno. More forts, more animators will outweigh anything you can get with 3 death gems in the long run. Then again they can really use death gems too. So it would be a harder call with them.

But Marignon? MA Ulm? TNN or Eriu? No way I'd take 3 D gems over one point of growth. My price point in trade, assuming I can always find a partner, for that one is higher than I think anyone will pay.

[jojeck]

Wrong. It is everywhere inside your dominion as soon as you claim the throne. Obviously on turn 3 the dominion has not spread far but it is applied to it for the rest of the game, or until the throne is lost. The effects of growth are exponential while gem income is fixed. That can result in the loss of many 10,000's of gold over the course of the game once growth is accounted for. Far more than a few death gems can possibly be worth.

Furthermore: I am not exaggerating anything. I made a calculation based on reasonable assumptions about the progress of a typical game. You can argue with those assumptions and say they are too optimistic. If so replace them with your own and we can have a discussion, until then your claim of exaggeration is absurd.

[Mardagg]

Originally posted by jojeck:

Wrong. It is everywhere inside your dominion as soon as you claim the throne. Obviously on turn 3 the dominion has not spread far but it is applied to it for the rest of the game, or until the throne is lost. The effects of growth are exponential while gem income is fixed. That can result in the loss of many 10,000's of gold over the course of the game once growth is accounted for. Far more than a few death gems can possibly be worth.

Furthermore: I am not exaggerating anything. I made a calculation based on reasonable assumptions about the progress of a typical game. You can argue with those assumptions and say they are too optimistic. If so replace them with your own and we can have a discussion, until then your claim of exaggeration is absurd.

Originally posted by sunbeam:

Originally posted by Zonk:

So I think you're exaggerating the losses.

I guess it depends on which nation you are playing. If I played a nation where I had no death mages, I wouldn't bother. Even with a nation like MA Machaka, I think I'd rather have higher growth than 3 death gems.

Sceleria? Dunno. More forts, more animators will outweigh anything you can get with 3 death gems in the long run. Then again they can really use death gems too. So it would be a harder call with them.

But Marignon? MA Ulm? TNN or Eriu? No way I'd take 3 D gems over one point of growth. My price point in trade, assuming I can always find a partner, for that one is higher than I think anyone will pay.

I think especially for nations with no natural D paths, the 3 D gems so early can be huge. Depends a bit on pretender design on top. But its a way to get into D magic for sure.
Thats why I think the choice to claim/or not to claim is way harder early in the game. At this point dominion didnt spread in all provinces and normally you dont have over 20 provinces anyways + overall gem income is very low...thats where 3 D gems more per turn can matter a lot.

The snowballing effect of netting nice D gems every turn can pay off huge for mid or late game...when obviously though the income hit will be higher as well.
But think of it, with 3 D gems per turn very early in the game all you need is one or 2 mages with D paths casting dark knowledge on your provinces, which can result in very high D income per turn for mid game...which could be more important than the extra gold getting from a higher growth.

[Zonk]

Originally posted by jojeck:

Wrong. It is everywhere inside your dominion as soon as you claim the throne

Are you assuming that if you have Growth 3 and claim the Throne of Pestilence (+1 Death dominion) then all your Growth 3 provinces will immediately become Growth 2?

Because that's not how it's supposed to work, at least according to the manual:

Originally posted by manual, page 98:

Each turn a province has your dominion in it there will be a small chance for each scale to tip one step towards your chosen dominion. The chance for this to happen is (5% multiplied by the dominion level in the province) plus (10% multiplied by the difference between the actual scale and your nation's scale)

So if you have Growth 3 and 5 candles in a province claiming the Throne of Death should make your dominion Growth 2 and give 35% chance each turn of switching that province to Growth 2.

EDIT: Unless throne Dominion changes are applied *instantly*, which I guess is possible...but if that's not the case, there's going to be a few months where you are getting the D gems but your provinces haven't lost Growth yet.

[Zonk]

Also you mention 'conquering a neighbour or two' but unless you were bloodsaccing, templing or preaching very aggressively it's going to take a while to get your dominion into these lands.
Meaning that the effect of your scales will be delayed for a while - in the meanwhile, you're STILL getting 3 gems a month.

[Parasol]

The Throne of Pestilence is quite useful for me on the game I'm playing on. It's the province next to my capital. I could forge that helmet that adds fear (cost 10 gems each) for 2 of my Pretender Titans, with them, I took all the sea provinces quite easily. ...and I don't have to look for D sites too much.

3 gems isn't bad, remember it's a throne lvl 1 !
If you don't have access to Death, of course...

[sunbeam]

Wow, I can't think of too many nations that can take a Trinity pretender that would want to (besides that Rainbow Grey One).

By any chance are you playing Fomoria? Just wondering if anyone has actually used the Morrigna.

Even if you dump scales, you still can't get too much in paths on that chassis. Been a while since I've looked at Fomoria. Hmmm maybe they actually could take Turmoil 3 or something.

[applenta]

I wish there were a way to dump unwanted Throne once claimed, after all, you could lose the throne if independent or someone else take over the province, so why have to wait for the middle man and not do it yourself?

[Parasol]

I forgot to mention the nation : Arcoscephale.
Trinity pretender with D/S/N path. First time with a Trinity : d

That said, the Death scale on dominion from that throne is not easy to appreciate.

[onomastikon]

Ugh, now it's the throne of autumn. Dammit, you can't see which one it's going to be with a scout, you need a spy I think. I hate this throne. Why must autumn increase death? Is that really necessary?

[Mormacil]

Autumn is the opposite of spring which brings life. Autumn is historically connected to festivals that honor the dead. Especially in Germanic religion it's connected with the spirits of the ancestors walking among the living at night, a dangerous time. Similarly the Day of the Dead, the mexican holiday falls in autumn.