Thief or Mage?

[SamStein]

Summary of myself: Last time I played Utopia was about 3 years ago when Avians was introduced to the game and Undead still existed. I always played A/T or T/M never A/M since I had the perspective the thieves were doing more damage then any mage could ever do.. they had their fireballs, nightmares and ms that could cripple any guy with a single wave from A/M hybrids though... Looking back now I wish I played mage lol but maybe there were some other stuff that came into play that changed my mind from mage to thief...


Anyway.. I've been browsing this Strategy Talk Thingy for a while now and seen alot of discussions about what race/personality is best for any speciality (T/M,A/T,/AM)


What I haven't seen though is a pure discussion of wether thieves or mages are the strongest way to go?..

as I can see it there are only different advantages on the choices we have..

Thief, they can NS alot and make a province significantly weaker, they can steal resources when they need to expand or pump, given the oppurtunity to steal resources means u don't need to waste land on banks. hmm.. riots, (anyone can riot though, just hard to keep it steady in my opinion)

the only disadvantage of what I just wrote about the Thief possibilities is that they can have a hard time finding a good target to steal resources from..


Mage, Fireball, alt MS(mystic), alt nightmares and ToG...


hmm.. in the end it must come down to the effeciency of MS and NS?.. NS will kill alot of troops, though it needs alot of stealth to have any decent effect.. MS will kill less troops BUT it only takes 1 spell per province and each spell lasts about 8-14 days give or take a day. assuming A good mage are performing here.. Mages can use the remaining mana to cast nightmares wich will have the same effect as NS only for a small time (I don't know if they are disabled both offensive and defensive) A good NS run also means that the target will need to spend resources on training new troops...

mages can also fireball the peasants to decrease income, cast GREED to stop any good income at all.. riots shouldn't be hard to do even for a A/M so the target won't have any other way but to ask for aid...


hmm.. I guess this is it... if im missing something extremely important please add on, I just wrote a thread like this and tried to submit only to get to the point that I had been logged out during the time I wrote the thread so it didnt post and I couldn't go back and copy what i'd written >_< so I could paste it when I logged on again..

PS. I haven't read the changes for next age yet, so there might be something I haven't taken consideration to right now...

[uzziah]

There are several ways to "disable" a province, the most common of which are:

overpop,
peasants drop,
troop drop

Troop Drop is mostly used by warring kingdoms with little coordination (for troop dropping NS and Propaganda are the best, NM's only drops troops for a short time and are not really used in this method, thus Thieves are best)

Peasant drop is used by warring kingdoms who are in for longer hauls at war and are using economy control & BE control measures (for peasants MS, storms, fireballs, plague, and kidnaps are used, fireballs and storms do more to take away peasants than kidnaps so Mages are best)

Overpop is used by kingdoms wishing to keep opposing kingdoms from making attacks or keeping their economy long term, it takes a lot of coordination and is quite effective when used correctly, for this method LL, Tornadoes, Fireballs, Kidnaps, Greater Arson, Arson, and NM before attacks are used, this method needs both thieves and mages however the mage spells have larger damage amounts for example tornado may take 3% of the total acres in buildings where arson might only get 1.5-2% of the total acres per op. In this case mages do more damage.

Mages are a lot harder to run province wise since wizard production is harder than just training thieves so most players are more apt to run A/T's than A/M's but overall a Mage has higher damages with their ops so they are more worthwhile given some circumstances.

[SamStein]

hmm.. thanks for spreading some light on my problem here uzziah :)

Troop Drop is indeed best for kingdoms with little coordination.. cause it only needs one special op made to disable an enemy attacker wich is NS. Anyone can log on, read forum what the T/M target is and use all the stealth to NS the target.



How about OOW?.. Thieves can spend their stealth on stealing resources to rebuild or boost the province , Mages can't do anything... well.. depending on what race u have.. DE can ToG.. wich is safer, (you won't loose any thieves thus no sacrifices).. U don't have to spend time looking for a target with money... hmm

[mrsyer]

dont try too choose a role based on which is better.. activity makes the smallest differences unimportant anyways... if you go nuts nightstriking targets during war once a day.. then your a good thief... if you cast meteor showers on 10 ppl everyday in war your a good mage... they both equal out in the end..

you need to work with your kd, dont just choose something to benefit yourself.. maybe your kd needs a DE to take care of MS... maybe your kd needs more thiefs for som's and riots... a role should be less abotu you, and more about your kingdom...

[SamStein]

yeah I know. I have a few contacts left from my days.. im gonna create an account and use the option "move" to get into their kd.. i've talked to their monarch and he seems to be going either Gnome/rogue or DE/Mystic.. I just want to know the alternatives, what is best..

utopia can be played decent if u log on 2 or 3 times a day. morning, afternoon and night. always have army out, never ever have 100% stealth/mana.

it's not hard if u know the basics of the game.