Noobie Questions

[Julio Ceaser Chavez]

I am new to this game, but I have played similar text based war games called dominion (www.kamikazegames.com)
and legends of elveron (www.elveron.com)

I got lots of noobie questions for yall.

1. Do the base offense and defense units cost the same for all races or is it different?

2. Does anyone bother running homes?

I ask this cause in the other games I play homes have double the population of regular buildings meaning
homes would house 25+25 peasants on those games, but on this one it's 25+8 which looks useless in my opinion.

3. If your building efficiency goes over 100%, does that mean your buildings can produce more resources than
the guide shows? ( I know it can produce less than guide shows, not sure if it gives more)

4. What is the maximum % bonus for all sciences?

5. What does the bonus modifier under each science area mean in the guide?

6. Is there a general defense per acre guide for new players that tells what general defense to run each day?

7. Do mercenaries have 3 defense? How long do they stay with you if your an explorer? Do they take up population space?

8. Do human specs have 6 defense?

9. Whats the highest land you can safely leave protection on and still be safe, assuming you start at the beginning of the round and are playing a fast human with all specs?

10. Would a top land explorer need to raise his draft rate higher than the starting rate to reach top land and still be able to defend himself?

11. I read somewhere that mills where not described properly in the scribes and you can't get free exploration costs. Can someone please explain exactly what mills do?

12. If I build 50 guilds am I guarenteed to make 1 wizard per utopian day?

13. If I play by myself as an explorer will I have to run lots of mages/spies to stop people from raping me in a war or will I be ignored since explorers are less of a threat?

14. Whats the fastest possible return time an army can have?

[Stone]

I'm not exactly a pro either but I'll give it a shot. Hopefully I'm not wrong haha

1. Specialists cost the same regardless of race, only elites vary

2. Yes

3. Yes

4. I dont know about raw maximums, but Libraries increase the effects too

5. I dont know

6. Depends on your size, but you should be fine with 40-50dpa starting out

7. Mercenaries do not defend, they are hired for one attack, and then leave immediately afterwards, so they are never just sitting on your land

8. Yes, their Defensive Specs are 0/6 instead of the standard 0/5

9. Depends on your defense, and if your kingdom is in a war. Try 6-700 for your first try, but more experienced players can be nearly double that

10. I've never played as a pure explorer, but my guess is that the more land you have, the more your draft rate will need to rise since more people will want your land

11. Mills reduce the cost (in gold) of exploring. It does not reduce the number of soldiers needed. And I believe the maximum you can reduce the cost is -75%

12. I dont know how to explain this fully, but the simple answer is no. It is possible to produce more than 1 wizard per day, but the number you will train is not guaranteed. For example my province right now trains "about 2.42 wizards per hour" so generally I get 2 or 3 but it varies a little. 50 guilds will produce "about 1 wizard per hour" (or more/less depending on Building Efficiency, and guilds are twice as effective for Mystics)

13. If your resources (land, gold, science, etc) are easily taken, then people will take them. If you do a good enough job of protecting them then you will be ignored. If its not worth it to try to take your stuff then they wont

14. Lots of things determine this: spells, buildings, building efficiency, type of attack, personality, etc. But just to throw a number out there I'd say an Elf Warrior with Quick Feet, lots of barracks, and high building efficiency could get down around 8-9 hours? Generally good attackers will attack twice per day, so attack times around 10-12 hours are pretty solid for most attackers

[waheed]

1. Do the base offense and defense units cost the same for all races or is it different?

yes, specialists and thieves cost the same. elites are different, their prices are listed in the guide


2. Does anyone bother running homes?

yes. some ppl like myself love them, some others dont like them. its player preference, but its not a "must keep" building, and its definitely not a useless building


3. If your building efficiency goes over 100%, does that mean your buildings can produce more resources than
the guide shows? ( I know it can produce less than guide shows, not sure if it gives more)

yes, except for flat rate buildings. for example a home will give an extra 8 population no matter what ur BE is


4. What is the maximum % bonus for all sciences?

there is no maximum. basically if u want to double ur science effect, u will need 4x more books


5. What does the bonus modifier under each science area mean in the guide?

the easiest way to find this out is to download Utopia Angel at www.utopiatemple.com, and play around with the science modifier. it will tell u all u need to know


6. Is there a general defense per acre guide for new players that tells what general defense to run each day?

generally you do not want to have anything less than 7 defensive specialists per acre unless your kingdom demands specific strategies. my recommendation to you is do not go by "per acre", but by the ratio of ur offense and defense. if you want to stay in war mode at all times and plunder for income, then keep 1:1 ratio between offense troops and defense troops while maintaining at least 50% draft (anything lower than 50 is free food. generally for war you'll want your draft AT LEAST to be close to 60. between 50 and 60% draft, u r not at 100% but at least you can still fight back or plunder easy targets)


7. Do mercenaries have 3 defense? How long do they stay with you if your an explorer? Do they take up population space?

mercenaries only work for one battle. thats why its generally not recommended that u use them unless in very extreme situations in war when u need those to take down a key target


8. Do human specs have 6 defense?

yes, as listed in guide


9. Whats the highest land you can safely leave protection on and still be safe, assuming you start at the beginning of the round and are playing a fast human with all specs?

depends when you start playing. at this stage i would recommend you do not explore at all. the reason is the smaller you are, the more easy targets there are, so you can find more noobs to plunder/land grab


10. Would a top land explorer need to raise his draft rate higher than the starting rate to reach top land and still be able to defend himself?

the top land ppl get pumped resources by their kingdoms, and their kingdoms also have other high offense provs to take down other high land ppl to clear the way for them. its not recommend that u attempt to do that


11. I read somewhere that mills where not described properly in the scribes and you can't get free exploration costs. Can someone please explain exactly what mills do?

mills lower your exploring cost and building cost. if you download angel, you can play around with the building calculator, it will tell you all you need to know


12. If I build 50 guilds am I guarenteed to make 1 wizard per utopian day?

i believe its a probability and the mean is 0.02 wizard per guild. but if u run it for a long time on average u'll get 1 per day ya


13. If I play by myself as an explorer will I have to run lots of mages/spies to stop people from raping me in a war or will I be ignored since explorers are less of a threat?

this game has been around for a long time, and players generally dont accept explorers. if u want to play that im afraid u'll be expecting some very rude kingdom mates who will probably piss u off and u'll leave the game :( so best if u dont do it


14. Whats the fastest possible return time an army can have?

something around 7 hours for a traditional march. with elf/warrior and cast quick feet and build a lot of barracks. if you do ambush or plunder/massacre/learn it will come back faster. but speed isnt everything though. i recommend you dont go into that direction and just settle with 2 attacks per day (12 hours return time. any race can do that) and get a feel of the game first

[Catwalk]

Welcome to the game, hope you'll stick around,

2. Does anyone bother running homes?

Compare those 8 peasants (and the removal of 25 jobs, which is a very good thing) with the effects of other buildings. In some situations they're a decent choice, especially for conflicts due to the birth rate bonus.

4. What is the maximum % bonus for all sciences?
5. What does the bonus modifier under each science area mean in the guide?

bonus = modifier * bpa^0.5
Where bpa = books per acre. As you can see from the above, there is no max as it's a square root function.

6. Is there a general defense per acre guide for new players that tells what general defense to run each day?

The first 2-3 weeks of the round are very hectic, with way lower military ratios than later on. How much defense to run is a heavily debated issue. In conflicts, you should line up with your kingdom somewhat. It's no use to have 75 DPA if your kingdom is running 45 DPA, same if you run 35 while they have 50. Many newbies run too much defense in a futile effort to stay safe. While defense may sometimes keep your province safe, offense helps keep your kingdom safe.

9. Whats the highest land you can safely leave protection on and still be safe, assuming you start at the beginning of the round and are playing a fast human with all specs?

Not a newbie question, hard to answer. The problem is that the safety of your province depends to a large extent on how much backup your kingdom can give you. For the most part, any top 100 province in a kingdom that isn't top 50 (probably top 20, rather) will get chopped up and eaten first 2-3 weeks. If you're only planning on racing up during protection and first 2 days then pump and drop, that may work better. You'd generally be better advised to grow in moderation without a strong kingdom to back you. Explore to maybe 700-800 acres during protection.

10. Would a top land explorer need to raise his draft rate higher than the starting rate to reach top land and still be able to defend himself?

A word on draft rates first. If you're active (minimum 2 logins per day, average 3-4) and playing in a somewhat organized kingdom (not necessarily top), you should always be at 80% draft rate. Instead, vary your draft with the speed setting. If you produce too many soldiers, lower to reservist and send what extra you have to others in your kingdom. That's far more economical than being self supplying and having to run Normal sometimes to get enough soldiers when demand is higher.

For a large explorer during protection, you'll probably need to draft from the start. Again, don't think in terms of the draft%. Think in terms of drafting or not, and at what speed.

11. I read somewhere that mills where not described properly in the scribes and you can't get free exploration costs. Can someone please explain exactly what mills do?

They are properly described, but the building effect isn't proportional with the building%. If you have 30% of something, you don't get an effect of 30% * modifier. Instead, you get 30% * (100% - 30%) * modifier = 21% * modifier. That's called diminishing returns on buildings, promoting diversity in setups. Max effect you can reach is 25 * modifier (mills modifier is -3 so max effect is -75%).

13. If I play by myself as an explorer will I have to run lots of mages/spies to stop people from raping me in a war or will I be ignored since explorers are less of a threat?

If you play as an explorer without offense, thieves or wizards you'll be completely useless to your kingdom in any conflict and be taken out very easily. Playing as a T/M (thief/mage) can be a viable choice, but I advise against it. If you wish to learn the game, playing attacker is the best way. You're too sheltered as a T/M and often not enough use to your kingdom.

14. Whats the fastest possible return time an army can have?

List of factors:
base time = 16
Learn/Plunder/Massacre = *0.875 (war room displays this wrong)
Ambush = *0.75 (ditto)
Quick Feet = *0.9
Aggressive = *0.9
Warrior = *0.85
On-island (if not at war) = *0.9
War = *0.85

Note that the bonuses are compounded. Hope that helped!