UD/Warrior Ghetto War build

Hey guys, returning player here. Been away from the game since around age 40. Just come through my first war with a new KD and looking for some advice on fine tuning my war build. To give some context my KD is a mixed bag of race/persona, probably a little light on attackers and about as active as you can expect for a ghetto. That is to say everyone logs in often enough to keep their armies out and their stealth/mana spent.

My current build is as follows;

Banks 10%
TGs 20%
Rax 15%
Hospitals 10%
Guilds 10%
Towers 5%
WTs 15%
Stables 8%
Dungeons 2%

The last 5% goes into GS as I convert over with the Stabs being razed after the first hit and converted into GS as well.

I currently only run 65% draft rate but with the goal of increasing that during that 70% during the downtime between this and our EOA war. Shooting for about 35 DPA (armies out) and 1.5 WPA/TPA raw while running an all elite offence. Starting this late in the age my sciences are pretty much a non factor though I'm shooting for 100 BPA in Alc/Tools/Housing/War in that order if I get the time.

So my questions are;

1. Is there any obvious or glaring oversights on my part here?
2. Could I/should I be trying to fit homes in there somewhere to inflate my offence/BE for a stronger start to the war and would the +BR% be worth keeping them around to help offset the economic pressure I'm going to be feeling as well as help me grow into the land I've taken.
3. Any additional info required to give a better picture?

you can experiment builds right now till the end of age since it will happen soon.. your build looks solid in almost all the parts..

one question, what is your OPA..? if you are ranked top 3 of having the highest OPA in your KD, most probably a build like yours with little GS from the start will make you a chain target from the beginning of war.. but UD/warriors were meant to play with high offense semi-suicidal strat, so i'd say just scrap out those Stables and put it into GS.. unless if you could time it perfectly, you can raze and rebuild it during hostile, then its ok.. not to say stable is totally bad, but the importance of GS overrides it..

i personally think you dont need homes from the start.. if you starting to get chained in war, build all incoming acres into GS, push it to 28% by removing WTs.. when you've been chained down to less than 40% of your original size, then convert 10% from GS into homes and also maintain a 18% GS along the way..

Currently runnings around 60 OPA raw, 90 OPA mod against war targets. Hoping to push that out further with the extra draft coming into the next war. But yes, on OPA im probably the highest in my KD.

After last war i'm sitting on the lower side of the average province size so I don't expect to be the first chain target (not that most ghettos would be able to pull off co-ordinated deep chain anyways) and I plan on scrapping the stabs on the first wave, like before we even hit hostile. So that should give me enough time to convert over from stabs to GS before I get hit. I do however see the point you're making about cutting them all together. My only reasoning behind having them was that a warrior gets alot of +OME mods, so more raw offence I have, the better I capitalize on my strengths.

With regards to homes that's something I didn't really consider, building them reactively rather then pre-emptively. It seemed to me that not taking advantage of the higher PPA going into the war was wasting a big part of their utlity but I suppose if they're coming out of my redundant GS off the back of a chain it could be well worth it.

Thanks for the advice

higher PPA and its birth rate bonus is what Homes worth for.. not BE or extra income due to extra peasants.. having said that, war between 2 average ghettos where the possibility of you getting coordinated deep chains is low and also if enemy T/Ms are limited, then there's more gains in running Homes and more Rax/TGs instead of defensive builds like GS and WTs...

you're smart.. and so if i were to suggest, whilst being in an average ghetto with average war plans, why dont you go with an extreme build.. make yourself as the favorite chain target.. keep 30DPA, 1TPA/WPA, and the rest all offense.. get 20%GS, 20%TGs, 20% Rax, 10% Hosp, 13% Homes, 10% Guilds, 5% towers, 2% Dungeons.. i'm pretty sure you'll be the 1st chain target, and if they didn chose you, they've made a huge mistake... no need WTs as NS runs wont cant hurt much of your small troops back home.. when you're the chain target, GBP sets in and you'll be unstoppable.. army in/out, ask for aid frequently, gc to built land & runes to LL.. go for max gains from the moment you got chained..

a war like that, you might be ending up losing lands at the end but chain targets handling chain well could probably decide who wins..

That's essentially the role I ended up fulfilling in the last war because we hit a war pretty soon after I came OOP. The war was also one of the longest and most drawn out affairs I've ever seen. But starting at 800ish acres I bounced between 1200 and 300 acres twice over, tracking for another high when the war ended.

I was hoping with a bit more time to prepare going into the next war I could be far more stable. At least a stable as an attacker can be in the midst of a war and still be effective.

1
No, that looks pretty standard for ghetto undead attacker pre-war build-wise. you might want to aim for higher draft rates, but that is more a matter of handing eow cf and fortified stance optimally, and of course having science (which is problematic for a late starter, but not much that can be done about that). You might not need that many WTs, and might want more guilds in order to build up WPA faster + have better selfspell success even if taking in acres.
2.
Homes on heavy attackers are meh. They're good for high-level pumping strats as mentioned in the Human thread, but other than that it's difficult to justify their use most of the time, especially for a race that is a pincushion for fireballs and a likely chain target. Homes are more of a defensive building for defensive people anyway.
Having good BE is nice, but there are ways to manipulate BE besides running low draft or building homes. Build rotations are a big one, as is taking on new acres and peasants. The most solid method for boosting BE however is tools science, which is a little more valuable for undeads since they don't need farmland.
3.
Science priorities should favor housing, tools, and war a lot more than alchemy, for a variety of reasons like late starting, undead's science penalty, and the availability of huge plunder targets at this stage of the game. Balancing science investment is important, doesn't make sense to focus entirely on one area before moving on to the next, though there are periods where it makes sense to neglect a science which isn't short-term useful (like war and tools if you're in an eow cf, alchemy when pumped, or housing during hostile/war).
If you can keep armies out during war, raze-rebuilding your stables can be a good plan, if you have money laying around. It isn't strictly necessary, but usually beneficial when starting as one of the smaller provinces in a kingdom. If you start as one of the bigger provinces in the kingdom, high gs are practically useful, as you will be one of the first targets.
4. Acre instability happens... not much point in worrying about it. Hits against your newly minted undead are much preferable to hits against your allied t/m provinces.

With regards to sciences I had already pumped a bit into Alc coming OOP before the war so right now im shooting for a pretty even investment between housing/tools/war. Once I get this up to par Ill probably add Alc back into the mix again as an even 4 way split.

But once again thanks to the both of you for the advice, its good to know I'm headed in the general direction I need to be. So here's hoping for one last good war and I can shake all the cobwebs out for next age and hit the ground running

I would want less rax and more GS. I also think I would have picked cleric and then you could cut hosps, but warr is fine.

Rax to me have always been a personal preference based on what your activity allows. 10% is probably all I'll need but 15% allows me just a little bit more flexibility because sometimes work gets in the way and I need a shorter turn around to fit the next attack in following a later attacker. Though generally speaking I'm always army in/army out.

That being said I would like more GS and as I get fatter in a war I tend to just start ramping up GS and just build a net % of total land in GS and steal space from all others equally rather then just cutting something specifically.

I agree cleric would be a good choice but I had no way of knowing what I was getting into rolling the dice on a random Kingdom mid age. Plus as it turns out my current KD has a distinct lack of heavy attackers. That is to say while we have plenty of race/persona combos that would lend to heavy attacking and we have quite a few people who consider themselves heavy attackers they are running far too much defence to fulfill the role effectively, like 45+ raw DPA with elites out and numbers in the 70s and 80s at best for OPA, some lower. So for me running with warrior and a bloated OPA (now 125) going into this last war I feel is the correct decision. Unless anyone has any insight into why that would be a bad thing when I already knew coming into it I would be the likely chain target first.

I would run this build and every other guy in the forums will tell you different

40% Homes
13% TGs
9%Guilds
8%Forts
2% Dung
6% Towers
7-10% Rax (Depends on lifestyle)
15% on misc (GS & WTs should be based on your KD strat)

Look everyone that sits back and states 40% homes on a UD is bogus; they are the same people who dont understand algebra. 40% homes on an UD allows 100% BE, 30 pop/acre, 100 OPA, 2rTpa, 1.2rWpa, andgreater effectiveness. My 13% TGs are as effective as those guys who run 18% TGs with 10% homes. When you run 80% BE and I run max BE, you lose. If you ever listen to some one who runs lower homes than 30% than they dont understand math. I have more to tell but I know the Forum gods will say their peace and hate on me. So let it start.

Source: (Lex, 2012)

I understand enough to know that 15% spread between WT/GS isn't enough for my personal tastes nor would it be enough for a KD who was organised enough to run a KD wide strat. Once again this being a ghetto, that just isn't happening.

I am curious though as to where you OME ends up when your prov becomes a shell from ops and they kill off most of your peasants running a strat like that. You're going to end up with the same number of peasants either way, regardless of how many homes you're running. And i know you still have a higher BE then if you were running lower homes due to less jobs to be filled, but is it enough to offset the extra 7% of TGs you'd have? I personally don't think I'd try something like this without running the numbers through many many times first but I'm curious as to how it would stand beside a 'standard' build as it were.

EDIT: Also seems to me, with gains being NW based now rather then land based as they once were it could be actually possible to be too lean? I mean obviously two provs of equal NW but 30% margin in land, the gains would favour the smaller province. But as some point surely between science and PPA you would drive your NWPA too high for your own good? Or does that only happen at an NWPA that is strictly theoretical and in no way practical?

Pro tip for avoiding fireballs: enter the war without peasants

You would be amazed at what training before the war as opposed to during the war will do for your kingdom.

Not even going to bite on the homes today. Congratulations on your mastery of basic algebra.

Im aware that going into a war one should be fully drafted and trained, the arguement put forward however was that you'd end up with a higher BE due to running homes. Now of course that comes in part from running Homes which provide 0 jobs. So naturally BE being a result of % of total jobs filled +/- modifiers homes on their own would inflate your BE.

So you either leave your draft the same and run a slightly large army and peasant pop due to a higher PPA or you draft every extra peasant provided. With the second option and no banks/arms your economy is paper thin and you have an even larger army to support so this seems like a straight up suicide strat and you'll be relying on Aid to pay your wages. There's nothing wrong with a suicide strat if you know how to handle it and have the KD support to back it up of course. I just want to make sure I'm fully understanding what's being suggested here and how it functions.

See that, I'm glad someone is down my alley. Undead support is a biggie. I'm ghetto, but it's in understanding why: in many ghettos the t/m activity level doesn't mirror active HA levels. They may be brilliant players, but the right aid at the right time is critical for a race with no thieving. My experience is I never get soldier aid as I grow and often when I'm chained. Lol. - kingdom mechanics like leaving a fat province to kidnap for other HA, the correct use of ops and spell book familiarity, knowing when to tank, and understanding your targets and goals all lead back to the strength of undead HA. Many would say this is universal, but the undead are pure dependent. Undead excel in team oriented kingdoms who recognize them as beautiful sportscars: they can't polish, oil or fuel themselves, but treat them right and they rumble!

nyaaaaaaaaah homes. :(

running 13% TGs at 100% BE will give you 17% OME bonus whereas running 20% TG at 80% BE will give you 19.2% OME bonus.. if that was basic algebra, than i must have learnt it when i was 6..

never consider homes for its BE bonus.. extra pop and birth rate is all that matters when it comes down to homes.. his proud 100% BE would be close to 50% in few hours of FBing, plus with Chastity, he is locked at that for quite sometime..

That was entirely my concern with a build so heavily focused on homes, once they empty and chastity settles in you're not really in a better position. So do the extra bonuses from running higher TG/RAX/GS/WT outweigh the extra army size and TPA, especially considering the TPA is purely for defence and intel. With intel being fairly negligable obviously.

Obviously raw numbers will give the edge to one build or the other before the first wave but who's in front 24 hrs after the deep chain starts? I imagine both of these builds would be prime targets for the first chain. I feel the homes based build would feel the chain harder, with each acre of homes lost along with more net acres being lost due to low GS, due to overpop and desertion. Assuming you can remove chastity and/or their focus moves on would the homes based build recover faster?

As I said I'm just trying to wrap my head around the pros and cons of both builds. And more particularly why the homes based build does/doesn't work and how it differs to a more standard build.

Home based builds are usually suitable for extreme hybrids and growth KDs only.. and growth KD attackers usually shot for 70-80% homes.. they do get into wars at times but their main concern is always about higher birth rate and huge pop.. they also run around 20-30% draft rate only as the rest remain as peasants.. thus giving them higher income further enabling them to explore and research science at higher rate..

homes can help you recover faster, but even after the FB spam and Chastity removal, with the 24/7 MS blanket and sometimes followed with Storm, Riot, and Greed combo on your province, homes loses its purpose.. best timing for homes are when your enemies are about to move to another chain target after bashing you up.. and 10% would be sufficient combined with LnP to balance your peasant count after MS and Storm losses.. every attack you make brings in new peasants and thats how you'll gain steadily..

No growth kingdom is building homes. Not like that at least. That strategy is found exclusively in the ghetto, with the exception of rage who had like 10kbpa.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bpitchfo

My 13% TGs are as effective as those guys who run 18% TGs with 10% homes.

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That doesn't seem like it could possibly be correct.

Only build homes if you're willing to play with heavy building rotation, using a pump strategy, or playing a defensive province. If you're looking at static provinces and using Homes, you're doing it wrong in too many ways to count.

I suppose there is a small case for using homes during war to build up peasant count during a fireballing, or for cases where nothing else makes sense, but both of those are very slim in usefulness... almost to the point where keeping the acres barren is better, and saving building credits for a point where they can build something more useful.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by octobrev

No growth kingdom is building homes. Not like that at least. That strategy is found exclusively in the ghetto, with the exception of rage who had like 10kbpa.

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tell me who's not a ghetto anymore...? 9/10 of KDs we can find in Utopia nowadays sit comfortably under the banner of a ghetto...

we are all ghetto.