DE Correction?

[pmyraje]

I wouldn't break you back though, I'd break someone else instead! Plus with the extra cash I could afford to have a higher draft rate and train more troops to give an extra military boost also.

If I did go as high as 200% though I wouldn't keep it there permanently if I am logging in regularly. Since effects of wage changes happen slowly over time, but the effect of the lower cost happens immediately I would likely get up to the 200% level of military efficiency and then for a couple of hours here and there I would drop it to 50% and then put back up to 200%

[Bishop]

I wouldn't break you back though, I'd break someone else instead! Plus with the extra cash I could afford to have a higher draft rate and train more troops to give an extra military boost also.

If I did go as high as 200% though I wouldn't keep it there permanently if I am logging in regularly. Since effects of wage changes happen slowly over time, but the effect of the lower cost happens immediately I would likely get up to the 200% level of military efficiency and then for a couple of hours here and there I would drop it to 50% and then put back up to 200%

and if everyone in my kd runs 200%?

[pmyraje]

I'd attack downwards. Most kingdoms (certainly those around the size my KD would be warring) or not organised enough to have a really coordinated kingdom-wide war strategy that they pull off effectively. Top kingdoms or top warring kingdoms do, of course, but your average kingdom will always have some provinces that are better run and some that are less well run.

My province is always set up with more of a balance between economy and military with the aim of faster recovery rather than making bigger hits. Chances are that would all unravel quickly in a war, but then a few fireballs will quickly cause a 200% military wages strat to get rather difficult to maintain too, even allowing for IA.

[Bishop]

sounds like you think a prov isn't robust at 200% wages, but it is. i guess this is why every kd i know runs that rate. i dont see a good argument to not run it, except for being in eow cf, fw or after being chained. this is a numbers game, if a similar prov has a better military than you then he has a big advantage.

[pmyraje]

Maybe. I have always looked to use different strategy to the "normal" though. If I find that "everyone" is using a particular element of strategy I will always look to do something different.

If military size is the only factor then why not run an 80% military? Presumably there is a balance that comes into deciding what draft rate to run and that balance comes from being able to have a good enough economy to do something with your huge army. Most attackers seem to use Barracks so how do they afford to build all their acres if they attack twice per day, or even retrain lost military and new military to defend their new acres?

I don't personally use training grounds so I could get a 7% offensive bonus from ~4.5% and 7% extra defence from the same percentage of forts. Obviously since most attackers do use TGs that isn't an option because 4.5% on top of 20% gives nowhere near that bonus.

No doubt next Age I will find my strategy won't work, I'll join the masses with the same high military strat and then die of boredem ;-) Alternatively I'll run high Guard Stations, expect to get hit and attack smaller provinces for my acres

[Bishop]

you dont use TGs as an attacker, and you use 50% pay rate?

[pmyraje]

Remember I said I only started a few days before Christmas and have been in vacation mode for 2 weeks so I am effectively only ~7 days OOP and ~1000 acres and at that size there have so far been enough badly defended provinces. I'm beefing up my science at the moment and when I finish that I will switch back to 100% wages. I doubt I'll bother with Training Grounds though, for some reason I just don't like a building that just adds to my offence.

Next Age I will probably have to use some because I will start at the same time of everyone else and hope to grow to a decent size where I will need all those extra bonuses.

[Bishop]

as an attacker you should be running 200% wages and about 15% tgs by now. The tgs are pretty important as free off is always good, and the wages help since this game is always about optimising numbers. You should post your cb for some advice ;)

[pmyraje]

Yeah, but they aren't free offense are they? 15% land could be used for other things - maybe not as good, but there is still a trade-off. Likewise with the wages - I can afford to run a higher draft rate if I make more money anyway.

I can see the logic of TGs, I'm just one of those players who prefers innovative strategy to deterministic strategy. It's ~6 years since I was the top province on the old WoL server and plenty has changed since then, but I still don't want to just go for the strategy that gives me the best static numbers.

People in the forums so often just talk about static strategies, of optimising numbers for opa or dpa or of building strats with numbers that add up to 100%, but very few actually talk about the dynamic aspect of strategy - the fact that if you attack regularly you always have maybe up to 10% of your land as buildings in progress so you can only really have a 90% build strat, the fact that you need to be able to draft and train soldiers to maintain those numbers of opa and dpa, etc, etc. That is the aspect of strategy that I like to play around experimenting with - I know I'll never reach the top of the rankings, but that isn't my aim. From what I hear of "top" players their game seems a very boring experience a lot of the time, sat around dicing or wielding a province that is so crammed with military they can barely grow.

Returning to the original question though, he seemed to be having negative income which is why I originally made the suggestion of switching to 100% wages because you don't pay twice as much as you need to if you just simply can't afford it.

[Bishop]

im not sure why he was negative, he was prolly overdrafted. and lower wages doesn tmean you can run a higher draft rate, you want to ideally keep your draft low - more peas = more income and you dont overpop as easily