AGE 109 - Yr3 - Seanchan Empire L4W(6:8) vs Screwups(3:3)

I caught up with the monarch of Seanchan Empire L4W(6:8) after their victory against Screwups(3:3) to get this exclusive interview about the war!

#1 Who initiated the war? And was there a hostile wave?
We were bored after being rejected by everyone in range, including kds 10 or 15% above us, so we swapped from pump to wave builds. Kept unis but added tg+hosps. We learn waved 33, but couldn't target our biggest provs due to nw so we also hit 43 to just under hostile. 3:3 was essentially identical nw to us.

February YR3 Edition
February 1 of YR3Psilocybine for Ambush Avians has sent an aid shipment to Xanax for Dragged out Wars.
February 1 of YR3Psilocybine for Ambush Avians has sent an aid shipment to Effexor to Deal With Dolt King.
February 2 of YR33 - Daughter of the Nine Moons (6:8) attacked and pillaged the lands of 6 - Ativan for AFK Anxiety (3:3).
February 2 of YR33 - Daughter of the Nine Moons (6:8) attacked and looted 13,287 books from 6 - Ativan for AFK Anxiety (3:3).
February 2 of YR32 - Zephyros (6:8) attacked and looted 18,938 books from 3 - Ritalin for Wave Focus (3:3).
February 2 of YR315 - Celestara Sanctum (6:8) attacked and looted 15,120 books from 7 - Zoloft for Intra KD Drama (3:3).
February 2 of YR37 - Anything you like (6:8) attacked and looted 16,749 books from 22 - Cymbalta for Nerf Announcement (3:3).
February 2 of YR32 - Zephyros (6:8) attacked and looted 15,064 books from 3 - Ritalin for Wave Focus (3:3).
February 2 of YR37 - Anything you like (6:8) attacked and looted 13,202 books from 22 - Cymbalta for Nerf Announcement (3:3).
February 2 of YR311 - Shield Wall (6:8) attacked and looted 14,691 books from 5 - Risperidone for Multis (3:3).
February 2 of YR311 - Shield Wall (6:8) attacked and looted 12,635 books from 5 - Risperidone for Multis (3:3).
February 2 of YR38 - Zaddiest (6:8) attacked and looted 12,612 books from 10 - Aricept for SSL Cert Renewal (3:3).
February 2 of YR38 - Zaddiest (6:8) attacked and looted 10,937 books from 10 - Aricept for SSL Cert Renewal (3:3).
February 3 of YR3We have forced DICTIS LATINIS (5:5) to enter a long-lasting ceasefire agreement.
February 3 of YR39 - Gilead (6:8) attacked and looted 15,792 books from 8 - Lisinopril For Leadership (3:3).
February 3 of YR39 - Gilead (6:8) attacked and looted 13,035 books from 8 - Lisinopril For Leadership (3:3).
February 3 of YR321 - Splosionsville (6:8) attacked and looted 14,364 books from 14 - Thyroxine for Server Lag (3:3).
February 3 of YR325 - Daddy (6:8) attacked and looted 15,614 books from 24 - Xanax for Dragged out Wars (3:3).
February 3 of YR321 - Splosionsville (6:8) attacked and looted 12,087 books from 14 - Thyroxine for Server Lag (3:3).
February 3 of YR325 - Daddy (6:8) attacked and looted 12,972 books from 24 - Xanax for Dragged out Wars (3:3).
February 3 of YR35 - Subtle Brick (6:8) attacked and looted 12,672 books from 16 - Ambien for Post-War CF (3:3).
February 3 of YR35 - Subtle Brick (6:8) attacked and looted 9,750 books from 16 - Ambien for Post-War CF (3:3).
February 3 of YR3Our kingdom has begun the Emerald Dragon project, LEEEEEEEEROYYYYYYYYY, targeted at Seanchan Empire L4W (6:8).
February 3 of YR3THC for Throttled Ops has sent an aid shipment to Clindamycin For Toxic KD Mates.
February 4 of YR323 - Clindamycin For Toxic KD Mates (3:3) attempted an invasion of 14 - Unknown (6:8), but was repelled.
February 4 of YR323 - Clindamycin For Toxic KD Mates (3:3) attempted an invasion of 14 - Unknown (6:8), but was repelled.
February 4 of YR323 - Clindamycin For Toxic KD Mates (3:3) attempted an invasion of 14 - Unknown (6:8), but was repelled.
February 4 of YR323 - Clindamycin For Toxic KD Mates (3:3) attempted an invasion of 14 - Unknown (6:8), but was repelled.
February 4 of YR3Seanchan Empire L4W (6:8) has begun the Ruby Dragon project, Dragon, against us!
February 4 of YR34 - THC for Throttled Ops (3:3) captured 55 acres of land from 5 - Subtle Brick (6:8).
February 4 of YR3We have declared WAR on Seanchan Empire L4W (6:8)!"

#2 What rituals were used by both sides?
We ran stalwart x2. Last age when we warred merciless, who was a full avian core, from behind about 20%, we were having pretty big struggles, until they had swapped from stalwart to onslaught. Once that happened, despite having like 15 hosps and salvation they started to fall so easily. I don't think my kd will run anything but stalwart this age, the casualty problems of avian are too hard to otherwise manage. 3:3 had haste left from eowcf for their declare wave, then also went stalwart.

#3 What dragons were used by both sides
We started a ruby as soon as it was clear they were preparing to war, we had almost 2 dragons worth of gc at hostile time, but, with mystics having FG now(terrible design but whatever) they were able to destroy essentially every gold we had :cry: We were barely able to add in WTs and raze out our unis with what GC was left and couldn't fund at all. I think ruby is just the best dragon straight up. 15% dme is great, can't be mitigated. emerald you're already facing hosps and stalwart and stuff, it's pre-mitigated. They were able to declare with an emerald and send a 2nd emerald about 2 days into war. We slew first with elites before our 2nd wave, we had 1 core who was late to swap WT, only had like 1 rtpa, and I figured he was gonna get NSed to ****. So I had him send like 4-5x more elites than others. Second slay was sort of similar, I tried to send as much as I could from my high nw provinces since they were sort of out of range of most the enemy anyways. Sent about 30% of the slay from dspecs as well, dropped some TM defense, etc.

3b I see they are still sitting on a Ruby Dragon, how long did they tank that for and was that the first?
We sent that first ruby essentially 2 ticks before they WD, it was clearly over by then, but we timed it with a good gains wave and AR to hammer it home

#4 How was the first wave in war planned? (What were you targeting, why?)
Targeting was pretty awkward. They had 2 huge super UB elf/her we could never hope to really touch. 1 hybrid(UB and top offense), and 1 pure(over 2x def as our top off). They had 3 avians that were significantly higher nw than our kingdom, but sort of in range for our top. Then the rest of their avians, and all their remaining hybrid(the large pure was their only pure def prov), were about 20% lower nw than us prov : prov. The big 2 elf I figured we could ignore all war. I was happy to spend most my mystic mana just FBing them. They couldn't effectively take any honor, and while the one elf could mass any of us at any time, it didn't terribly concern me since avians can already mass anyone at any time. On their declare wave they were able to chain one of my rogues, mass the other rogue, and chained 2 core. As well as a terribly massive amount of fireball, full kd duration coverage, riots, and an ungodly amount of NS onto a few provs.

For our first wave, I was thinking about a few things. We essentially couldn't chain any provinces in their whole kingdom the NW miss match we just too much in their favor. Any of their 180k nw provs would hardly be overpop by the time our bottom NW were already out of range of them, and I don't do trads out of range essentially ever. Those big 3 avians would pose a huge problem for us, because they could accomplish so much more than those 2 elf if they were left alone. The peasants can't be so simply controlled, and massing at 8 hours at a time is a lot scarier than 12 hours at a time. They had 25 casters, we needed something we could LL. Avoid spreading out hits as much as possible, or else we would never get the NWs we need to effectively chain.

So, on the first wave we semi chained one of the big avians, knowing it'd probably take 2-3 waves to finish them off(took 3). We massed one of the halfling heretics quite a lot to prep LL and otherwise keep him from NSing. We used essentially every avian ability in the KD to mass the other big 2 avians. We tried to get one of them to below 1 tpa so we could NS with most of our core. The other big avian we only massed a little bit, just enough so our massed rogues and heretic could soften them up with NS. We maybe also sort of chained one of their core or heretics? I don't recall exactly, but I think we just had a gain option for a few people who couldn't hit the other chain.

Outcome:
The massed heretic was able to be LLed pretty easily by our chains
The semi chain on the big avian was okay, he dropped enough we could continue to finish him off in future waves. The big avian we massed a lot was pretty weak, but the NSes didn't go great. We didn't get an MV, a lot of core didn't bother to NS either. I had hoped for like 400 ns and we got like 100... We did rectify that over waves to come and they probably took some like 1000+ ns by end of war. The big avian we softened enough for our real thieves did take quite a bit of damage.


#5 How were the halflings used? Were they effective?
Yeah same deal with both the elf and halfling hybrids Meh off meh def meh tpa But easier to mass and control and LL because none of the elf benefits

#6 Whose avian's do you think played a stronger game and why?
"War hero, I don't think played a big factor in the last war. We hadn't really achieved any good honor until after this win. The coverts are nice, but mystic also have equivalent converts so basically even there. War hero does do some funny things. Every person we chained became a peasant so fast. When they chained us we would usually stay lord, not even dropping to knight. Our honor is high, but well spread and sadly very little on our TM
so we still aren't in a situation to benefit a lot from the honor, despite being #2 world wide."

#7 There were a lot convergence wave over wave, what tactical errors contributed to your victory?
"They were able to disable all our pure TMs pretty easily with their avian massacres, but they didn't go hard on our mystics. The mystics didn't have enough tpa to do much, but they kept their wpa and kept peons enough to pay everyone's wages awhile. I think they just fundamentally played a poor game with 0 massacres, not finishing or taking chains deep enough, etc. They had really low NW provinces and they should have been able to deeply chain us all war. They often targeted too many provinces at once. I also feel like they barely LLed at all. Despite being chained mystics. Idk if that was a mana problem? They had more than enough runes.

They could have WD any time between day 2 and day 4 of war and kept an extra 5000+ honor, avoided a PK, and saved about 80k worth of massacres on their core. I don't think they evaluated the longer term strategy. By day 4 we had a significant peasant lead, despite the total # of fireballs we did being ~1/10th of what they did kd-wide, and we didn't cast chastity just because we were able to chain their high peon provinces. Tactically, we played quite poorly. We had a lot of late armies and waves got split quite badly. We had many provinces late to rebuild, a huge % of NSes were into CS and done without Blizzards.I had some issues with not finishing chains, especially on their hybird. So we probably could have been a lot more effective on that front. The lack of single wave sync really hurts when specifically chaining high peon provinces. Some of our waves did a lot less damage than there was potential."

#8 Can you explain more about your tm setup? It looks a bit mixed?
This age I wanted to do something a little less standard, so the plan was either 15 TMs, 5 TMs, or 0 TMs. We ended up going for 5 TM, so we just have 2 rogue 2 mystic 1 heretic. Elf is the easiest recovery, knowing they'll get picked on a lot. So that's why the elf TM.

#9 Did war hero live up to your expectations? And was all their avians mystic?
Yeah they were 100% avian mystic and see question 6 for more info

#10 How would you say the war went according to plan?
War went exactly to plan, I could have told you exactly what war looked like at day 2 and day 4 and what happened was nearly exact.

#11 How much ns was done by both sides?
The big avian we massed a lot was pretty weak, but the NSes didn't go great. We didn't get an MV, a lot of core didn't bother to NS either. I had hoped for like 400 ns and we got like 100... We did rectify that over waves to come and they probably took some like 1000+ ns by end of war. Their Halfings were barely noticeable.

#12 Did you break their tms first or go straight for their attackers?
Everyone was basically a caster so we focused on the avians

#13 how did you know it was won?
"From the first wave I knew that our only real path to winning was to allow their entire core to freely grow, without fb or anything, while we got chained, repeatedly.

Game plan was simple. Only do effective chains. Go all in massacring provinces 1 at a time, no split massing. So waves 2-4 were basically just semi chaining their hybrids, trying to force them to either release thief, then ignore them. Or if they release defense, we finish chaining or mass. In the end we barely massacred any of the hybrids, and only ever really deep chained 1 of them? I was surprised that we didn't take more heat despite leaving ~5 heretics unchecked all war.

By min time they had like a 40% peon lead, they sent their 2nd dragon, and they were otherwise ahead in all metrics. I floated the idea of offering MP just to avoid a mass-fest for both sides. It wasn't until after min-time, that we started to chain any of their core. And by then they were starting to have 10k+ peasants on most of their core, most our core barely could cover wages from constant fb, constant greed+riots. We hadn't sent a single gold into dragon yet. Once we were able to start chaining their core, it was pretty quickly obvious to me we'd simply win.

Unless they figured out how to massacre us back. Every wave we were able to put a province to overpop with 10-20 PPA. Every wave we were massing a province down to 0.5 tpa or lower. They sort of, just kept chaining us over and over. Some of our guys took 3 separate chains. Since we were all FBed, we weren't OPing as hard, and we had really large LL provs due to massacres. We kept massing provs we already massed, this is a key part of the strategy I learned from Hidden. You mass, ns, now their def is way lower, so you mass them more because it's even easier to do so then you can NS them with even worse/easier provinces and it never stops one of those big avians end of war? at 2200a was 50k offense 10k defense. Purely from core NSes.

#14 Is there anything you want to say to your kingdom?
Stop being so god damned late for armies all the time. We got like 18 perfectly synced provs with 0 rax but I gotta be ready to target 20/24 ticks a day because of you horrible spread. Don't add rax if I don't tell you. Be on time for ****s sake. Also, good job everyone thanks for your hard work and perseverance.

#15 Is there anything you want to say to the enemy?
I heard Royz was playing there �� **** you cheater. Go find some fake wars you loser

#16 How do you foresee the rest of your age?
If we can get more wars I'll be happy. Win or lose shouldn't matter, but it's dodge city out there. Essentially 0 25 man kingdoms are ever in range, and every 23 man kd says no to war no matter what. ��*♂️ is what it is. Can always raze out 6:10's cows every 96 hours on FCF cool down for ****s and giggles.

#17 What are your goals for the age?
Pick WH, win honor crown even if we lose all our wars against orcs. Deliberately picked some weaker and worse setup choices to get more wars. Isn't working. The "run a lot of heretics and/or orc/tact" play is clearly super strong compared to what I have. But it won't matter. Dodge is dodge, especially with all locs getting leaked by kagge early age. (and others even earlier)

Thank you for your contribution to the community and best of luck on your future wars!