Human A/T

[Adian]

Rather than cluttering up other peoples' threads with all my questions, I decided to create my own.

I'm effectively new to the game. I played a T/M a few ages ago (not well), the only relevance of which being that I know I enjoy the thief aspects. Stealing and night striking suit me, I guess. Since T/Ms suck (and may have always sucked), I've decided on running an A/T

My newness, coupled with some things I've read on the boards here, has led me to decide on Human for my race.

Similarly, Rogue seemed to make the most sense for a personality, until I considered the benefits. Is the +1 stealth regen, Greater Arson, Propaganda, and Assassinate Wizards really worth it, or would I be better served with something different? Merchant for extra gold or Shepherd for faster...everything? What personality would you recommend for a newbie Human A/T?

I know that your build needs to be fluid, that out of war, in war, and certain opponents all require their own plans. I put together the following general build. It will probably work, but I seriously doubt it's as efficient as it should be.

10% - Homes
08% - Farms
15% - Training Grounds
10% - Barracks
10% - Forts
10% - Hospitals
10% - Guilds
07% - Towers
20% - Thieves' Dens

Banks - Should I reduce something and make room for some? Or will my income boost from my race (and possibly Personality) make the land better spent elsewhere?

Homes - I've read that with enough Pop science which, as a Human, I should have, homes can provide an offensive benefit similar to the same number of Stables.

Farms - Not sure if this is enough, I can always Rob Granaries to supplement.

Training Grounds & Forts - Offensive and Defensive bonuses respectively. My only concern here is having to little of one and too much of the other. Or, maybe, too little of both.

Barracks - I don't know why, but to me this building seems like the kind of thing you should either have a lot of or none of. I assume I need them, but is there some minimum threshold I may be missing before which it's useless to have them?

Hospitals - Less losses are good. Similar to Barracks, do I have enough to make it worth taking any?

Guilds & Towers - I really don't know how much magic I'll be using. I'll need Wizards for defense and for self spells, that's about it. Is this too much? Not enough? Should I lower Towers and just plan on stealing runes when I need them?

Thieves' Dens - 20% seems like a lot. But I see myself as more of a T/A than an A/T. It's just more my playstyle. However, when it comes down to it I'd rather survive than do what I want (within reason), so if it makes more sense to lower this, I can.

When it comes to units, I'm in the same situation as I am for buildings. What is the minimum of Unit X I'll need to not be easy pickings?

Draft Rate - 68%
Wages - 100% (Unless this should be raised?)

With 10% Homes, that gives me 25 * 1.032 = 25.8 Units per Acre on average.
25.8 * .68 = 17.5 Military Units and 8.3 Peasants

5 - DefSpecs
7 - Elites
5 - Thieves
2 - Wizards

That leaves me with a total of 19 Drafted Units and 6 Peasants per acre. I'm pretty concerned about my number of Wizards. Human A/T are pretty much fireball fodder to begin with, but I would like the opportunity to deflect one or two every now and then. Will I even get to this number with the amount of Guilds I have? Is this Unit Breakdown worthwhile, or should I change my allocations?

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. I'm probably going to fall flat on my face anyway, but the more newbie mistakes I can avoid, the better off I'll be.

[daggermouth]

I am running 2 human a/ts one because i got razed till i was that, the other cause i was big and strong, and someone in the kd had to step up. (stupid undeads, never Learn)

I recommend Rogue

more later, haven't read it and work is so crazy I'm surprised I came in here.

[Yoda]

for a newbie, human sage will be the best way to go for A/T (although if next age is truly a short age, the sage personality will not really shine through). The most feared thing for any human is getting learned (you will be having high pop and crime sci) and having 75% learn protection is pretty sweet

[tzar]

I'd recommend sage over rogue for a newbie.

I wouldn't run forts, and you've got too many towers. I also wouldn't even think of running homes till you actually got decent pop sci, and even then I probably still wouldn't run them, banks will be better.

So, as a build strat, for a human sage a/t, I'd run something like:
08% Farms - 8% is more than enough, with some high sci you could lower it further
10% Banks - You say you're a newbie, you'll want some banks :)
15% Training Grounds
10% Barracks - Rax really depends on your activity, but they do get your elites home sooner so you can turtle
20% Hospitals - Lower losses is good
10% Guilds - You'll need to up this out of war, to get close to 2 wpa.
04% Towers - Enough for cbs and self spells
20% Thieves' Dens - 20% is good

The strat is actually adds up to 102%, but i figured I'd keep the numbers slightly rounded to 5% to give you the idea

Run 200% wage rate

As for your troop numbers... I'm more used to dpa than dspa, but 7 def spec pa is better than 5, with 200% wages gets you 45 dpa, 4-5 tpa, 2wpa, rest into elites.

You'll probably need to lower your tpa initially if you want to attack while you get some pop sci.

[Adian]

Ok, so that's two for Sage. Wow, I really hadn't been thinking of Science as quite that influential. I guess I need to focus primarily on Pop and Crime, balancing out everything else behind them.

Out of War/In War
08/08% Farms
10/10% Banks
15/15% Training Grounds
07/12% Barracks
20/20% Hospitals
15/10% Guilds
05/05% Towers
20/20% Thieves' Dens

I'll use just as many farms as I have to in order to produce slightly more food than I need. This number will decrease with Science, freeing up more land for other buildings.

I need more Guilds out of war than in war to maintain 2 WPA raw. Is 10% too high for War, and is 15% enough out of War?

Barracks. I have the time to be fairly active, though I usually only log in every 12 hours or so for the bonus. I'm not familiar with attack times, but as long as my troops are back every 12 hours for a new attack, I'll be happy. In War that changes, as more attacks mean more usefulness.

As to troops, I'm usually heavy on defense. I just thought that as an attacker, the more elites the better. If Defensive units should be my primary focus, though, I'll happily oblige.

While I'm still building up, I'll shoot for 3 raw TPA and boost it up later. That leaves room for 7 Defspecs and 7 Elites(or, in the beginning, Offspecs).

[Ezzerland]

Just for the record, if the age is actually going to be short you'd be better off with Merchant than sage. Especially if you are a new player.

If I get time later today I'll actually read through all the posts here and offer a heavier feedback.

[Yoda]

sage will still be newbie friendlier and in many cases better than a merchant, unless he's in a good kingdom and know what he's doing. If he doesn't have a good kingdom to back him up, the 75% learn protection will be heaven sent.

Also if your kingdom doesn't war often (i.e. have long oow periods), scrap all the tgs and rax and build armories, and steal gold to train up elites and thieves. You won't be attacking out of war much as a human.

[vines]

picking rogue or sage has nothing to do with skill. If you want to do heavy theif ops then pick rogue. If you want lots of science then pick sage. One doesn't take more skill to paly than the other.

[Yoda]

sage- sit there and get sci points
rogue- +33% more stealth, need to find targets and retrain thieves

skill and activity

[vines]

Rogue is going to sit there also. If playing a a/t role they both will just sit there and op during a war. And there's no finding targets it's war the target is in front of you. Rogue is better if you are going a/t because you will be able to do the ops that can really hurt an opponent. Without rogue ops one can not really hurt an opponent through theif ops. A rogue will just need a little more time to get his or her science up. If you want to play a heavy attack sage is the better choice.

[Yoda]

referring to out of war, sages can just sit and gather science where as rogues will have to be able to find money targets to fund their science.

as for the ops, AW and GA works well if a few people do it together, a solo province won't do much. As for prop, that should be left to gnomes because of cheap thieves.

But i agree, sages will make better attackers than rogues.

[Adian]

Well, initially I was seriously considering only Rogue or Merchant as personalities. Rogue because it seemed like the only choice if I wanted toe damaging thief ops. But then I read that the only really effective ops during war are Night Strikes, which you can do without that personality. So the only real loss is the +1 stealth per hour. As for Merchant, it would have given me more gold to repair the mistakes I'm bound to make, and also (in my mind, not sure if it makes real sense) would let me squeak by without needing banks.

Sage sounds like the best choice now that I have a proper frame for how much a difference science can make. However, the way I read it the benefits of Sage take place over the long-haul, and this is going to be a short age. I may be better off with another personality.

So really, I think I'm back to Rogue/Merchant for this coming age. As for the status of my Kingdom, I really have no idea. I'm just starting, I don't know where I'll be placed. I'd rather assume that I'm going to join into a bad KD than a good one.

The Rogue/Merchant choice, to me, boils down to this:

How much does being a non-Rogue gimp my abilities? I like thief ops, but if I wanted to go HEAVY thief I would have rolled a Gnome. I'm perfectly fine relying on robbing vaults, granaries, towers, and pulling night strikes. My Kingdom, however, might not feel the same way. I might get pushed into being an all-out attacker, or thought of as useless for Theif ops because of the lack of the personality. Is that likely?

Additionally, with Merchant and Human, will I still need the Banks, or will my income be sufficient without them?

And why won't a Human be attacking much out of war? Won't I need to attack to grow?

[Yoda]

If you're going to be a human, I think your kingdom will be fine with you being a A/T.

Being a non-Rogue won't gimp your abilities too much, but it just depends on how active and committed you are to using that extra stealth. Just as a heads up, the 3 most important ops in war will be incite riot, steal gold, and night strike.

With merchant, doesn't hurt to run banks for extra income but that's up to you. I definitely wouldn't forgo forts like some people above have stated.

You'll need to attack to grow, but the hard part is not obtaining acres, but training up your army. If you're not in a great kingdom, your size will probably be around 1k acres or so, which can be easily achieved in a week (2 weeks MAX). The hard part is building your army. As a human, you'll need to have a full elite attacking army, not to mention atleast 4 raw tpa of thieves. Hence during out of war, you'll mostly be turtling and stealing gold.

[Yoda]

This may or may not help

http://forums.joltonline.com/showthread.php?t=581329

notice who the thread starter is? ;D

[daggermouth]

Plan for a short age and prepare for a long one. If its short, sage wont be worth it I think. Hell you'll only be a good learn target real late anyway you cut it. I think about the time the sage thing would be nice to have, as another personality you would just be learning others. I dnn't think you should sweat it no matter what you pick.
The A/t is a very good role, one I highly recommend as a fun, involved, and important niche to fill. I suspect there are quite a few of them. I recommend the rogue for the fun. Its really not that hard to find targets for your gold, or grain. Just don't focus/rely too much on magic, a few self spells and cbs.

Merchant is reliable. Thats all I can say about it. But might not be ideal in all given situations. Its for sure not a max efficient personality. But its damn easy to make cash, and humans are expensive provinces.
Frankly in war, you will have to decide between Rob Vaults, and Night Strike. Incite riots wont use much unless you are the only thief, then whatever man (done this). All other ops probably sum up in kidnap and rob the food.

Aim high! Get alot of thieves. Get alot of knights. Don't forget archers. Or wizards. (but don't get hung up on them) 4t,9k,6a,whatever might be good starting ratios. ( or swords for oop )
For attacking, Hospitals and Barracks are at least as important as TGs for you. Forts are nice, but don't be distracted by them, offense is where its at, forts are either affordable bonus or not.

Banks are good early and often late.
Science is key.