How to play Bank?

[_greenie]

ok,

in regards to the "bank" question

1) if you arent going to be substantially bigger than rest of kd, and most of wol, you cant be an affective bank prov (in the traditional sense of the word)
2) if you want to be around the same size as everyone else in kd (or ~20-25% bigger than next biggest prov), and be able to fund/kill dragons by yourself, killing, wont happen... but i would say go DE, so you can ToG all the income you need =)

to become a slayer, i would say you need to be at least 2x the size of next biggest prov in kd...

as to vines, go away...

[Hexlir]

> ....as well as being "untouchable" in war.

exactly - and that would probably never happen. if you're sitting on a pile of gold you'll attract the vultures....

I was running DE/Rogue as a T/M this age, and kind of ended up as somewhat the bank... I ran 60% draft rate, 15% forts, 5-6TPA, 2WPA(though I should of had it higher) and with 200% wages during war I had 85-90DPA... I was only hit once this whole age and that was way back towards the beginning... and I almost constantly had over 1.5mil on hand... and sometimes was up past 3 and 4mil...

[clarey]

I was running DE/Rogue as a T/M this age, and kind of ended up as somewhat the bank... I ran 60% draft rate, 15% forts, 5-6TPA, 2WPA(though I should of had it higher) and with 200% wages during war I had 85-90DPA... I was only hit once this whole age and that was way back towards the beginning... and I almost constantly had over 1.5mil on hand... and sometimes was up past 3 and 4mil...

If your aim is to run a defended T/M, say so. :) it looks like you require an adjustment of your build and/or science however. When I played a DE T/M actively this age I had a 50 - 55% draft rate with 15 - 20% forts, 5 raw TPA, 6 raw WPA. With 200% wages and approx 97% BE i had 730k def points or so, which worked out to around 95+ dpa or so.

Gold wasn't a problem wither.

[Toadi]

5 TPA and 2 WPA does not make you a T/M, both these values are pretty low ... T/M are too preoccupated about defense and never ever run enough WPA or TPA.

[shank]

I'm assuming he meant 5 and 2 raw. 5 makes you a proper T assuming you're doing the other things right. 2 means you can defend fairly well and maybe spam some FB's on the weaklings.

Hex, that prov sounds solid if you can also manage to send out 50 opa while staying relatively safe. Maximize that utility.The thing about playing a... it kind of needs a new term... it's not a bank because you aren't so far above everyone that NW makes things impossible. Is there a term for a province/role that attempts to stay ~25-35% larger than the rest of the KD so as to provide gold, troops, and the ability to attack and gain acres for the KD OR dragon(1/2? 2/3? 1/3?) slay->which results in massive pezzie gain creating turbo cash and sol generation. With the emphasis on a workable army, either T or M is going to have to suffer. Unless you're a mystic, I say one should probably emphasize thievery.

Does the role have a name? Crappy bank? LArger THAn Life A/T? LATHAL. Guess my goal was a lathal prov this age.

[Dragons Mate]

well now your not talking about a bank though. He is just a crappy a/t with more income than most.

[Dvorak]

my advice is to play as a superthief, Gnome rogue.

My monarch played this last age and did very well. His tpa was around 25, so he was able to steal from anyone he wanted. (oow, but especially in hostile, just before war starts). He was never safe from plunders, but he never got plundered because he played smart. Didn't keep more than 4M and stayed under the top nw in our kd with a very high draft rate. He didn't make too much income himself, he just stole it from others.

BTW: If you are a good player, you can do this and still attack once in awhile. Our monarch did. That's one thing about gnome I learned this age (my first as a gnome) is that they are very versatile. Having a (nearly) all elite army means you can do almost any attacking strategy you want depending on the circumstances. Sure, they have low peak offensive power (no argument there) but in war, military strength is much less important. (which is one reason I think ruby dragons are overused, I've never seen an opposing kd use a different type)

See, this strategy is better than what you are suggesting (pure income generation) because every 1M gc you can rob from your enemy is 1M closer to your dragon and 1M further from theirs. Myself and a few others (who player A/t) did this as well, running a strong offense with a decent (5-8 depending on my mood) tpa. We had very little trouble funding dragons this age.

[Dvorak]

oh, and slaying dragons is rediculously easy in this game. I'm not in any superkd. We're a decent one that is getting better. But, I've never seen a dragon on my kd last more than 21h. The last dragon we faced was dead in less than 1h. There's no special secret, you just need some kd sacrifice. Whenever a dragon comes, whoever is online compiles a nw-weighted list of how many specs everyone is responsible for and posts it with his contribution (x troops were sent to fight the dragon, it's strength is reduced to y). Our kd is eager to follow. Usually, the first few send about double what they're responsible for and the draco dies once about 12-15 kd members have logged in. If you spread out the troop losses, you will be roughly even for military strength after you kill a ruby dragon but without the penalty to income and draft.

I love dragons ;)

[moe]

just listen to dvorak, he said it all. its ok to try to fund the dragon yourself, or almost by yourself. but dont try being a dragon slayer too. it wont work out, and you will not be as useful to the kd as when doing what dvorak just said. if you still insist, i believe you have enough advice by now, good luck.

[toast]

Gnome.

Thieves not only protect but can steal GC pre war. gnomes in my kd consistently donate 2-3m each to our first dragon.

massive pop bonus = turtle power to prevent plunder, more specs to slay dragon, and higher income i guess