END OF AGE 88: AGE REVIEW w/ WARBIRDS (LAND+NW CROWNS)

Kingdom and Position?
7:7 War lead, kingdom builds, strategy, diplo.

How would you rate you overall experience this age?
7

What impacted your experience the most?
"Our setup lead to another age where we struggled to find wars. Being 25 provinces kept our war options very limited. A mid age mistake lead to explore about 10k past most warring kingdoms.
7:1 waved hoping for free land after we waved 8:2 and didn't get a war. We had a 4 day hostile where we gained about 20k acres, nuked their eco to nothing. Prepped over a 4 day CF to hostile again."

What was your strategy for your attackers?
"Early age labs.
Down time run ~50% guilds.
Scale well with pop+sci+wpa+rm.

Actual numbers for gnomes were pretty good on off+def, combined with magic resistance and eco bonuses makes us able to win any extended war. Any war loss would have to be a blowout, because any extended war there's no potential we can lose.

We ran 18 attackers, 8 mystics, 10 pure core. Attacking mystics lose very little in terms of offensive power, but contribute almost full mana use.

In general we ran higher dspa, stalwart ritual, sometimes forts. Synced best we could, used NM fairly often mid age."

What was your strategy for your TMs?
"Run no pure mystics, run enough hybrid mystics you are certain you will be covered (8 hybrid mystic, 5 faery 3 gnome).

3 heretic, enough you can NM but aren't dependent on them. Big strength of gnome is a cheap pump. We maxed our wpa growth, we explored to top 1/3 of land within the kingdom after any war.

4 rogue, mostly focused on GA WT + NS, occasionally AW. Pump was very WPA focused, with 2+ wpa by week 3, RM, we were barely cast upon."

What was your strategy for your hybrids?
"Run them with +1 or +2 dspa, 10% forts, and they end up with ~30% more defense. The faery also gain defense with converts, the gnomes potentially leave home a few elites mid-late war to ensure UB.

Hybrid mystics are your best bet to maintain eco if they are not hit. They should have more than enough defensive wpa, safety in numbers, RM just in case. Mystics with guild bonus ensure you have max duration casting. Greed+chas+ms blankets. Blizz+explosions on choice provinces."

What was your favorite ritual and dragon combination for war?
"Early age onslaught, it was okay. Once we started using NM stalwart proved much stronger.
Dragon depending on the target in prep. In war you always wanted to spam topaz or sapphire due to price."

How many wars did you have and how did your setup work well for you?
3 wars. Potential for about 5. Setup worked too well, hard to get wars.

What are your thoughts on the conversion mechanics?
It's fine I guess. It doesn't feel very impactful for most races. I like how it helps faery attacker on any personality though.

Is there something you would change about UTOPIA?
Encourage growth, encourage wars, get some new players and old leaders back. Losing competition so fast.

Would you like to say something to your kingdom?
You guys are the best I've ever had. My 24 hour coverage has never been better, impressive lack of drama, a lot of belief in me and I hope I have delivered. I really couldn't ask for more, thank you.

Do you have any advice for the community?
Bite the bullet, go to 25, war anyone in range. You learn by losing. Kick out the people who always **** up, they wont change. Remove the drama. If you can't hold onto people it's because you're not good enough or fun enough or inclusive enough. If there's a problem you fix it. Try hard, lose some sleep, have high expectations. You'll have a lot of fun, you'll surprise yourself. You'll kick ass if you try.

Any Final Thoughts?
I'm going to go ****ing insane if I don't have at least 6 wars this age. The last 2 ages have been my worst ever in terms of war count. I can't survive like this.

Thank you very much WarBirds! We look forward to seeing you in Age 89!