Faery personality options

[DDodge]

Wanting to play as a faery next age, and really struggling to determine what personality would be best. The basic outline for my gameplay will be to be a heavy explorer running high homes/banks at first, and to get to 1.5k-2k acres quickly before halting there for a huge science pump.

Wanting very high DPA and to be a viscous threat in wars as a T/M.

Considering Shepard as the main potential, to help with rapid exploration early, while mainting a high DPA with the elites.

Also considering merchant and sage as the other possibilities. I don't feel like rogue or warrior or cleric would provide any benefits for my aimed playstyle, and think that Mystic would be somewhat redundant as a personality.

Im fairly new to Utopia and could use some advice on the personality as well as some Building Percentages at the beginning and 1k-2k range for the start of next age!

THanks in advance for anyone with some tips or a short write up of a Faery T/M strategy!!

[twitched]

sage. there should be no debate about it. faery sage.

[Palem]

Wait for final changes to start planning. That said...

You won't be exploring up fast OOP, I'll tell you that right now. With no offense, you'll be a sitting duck.

Personalities to consider:
Rogue -> Assassinate Wizards and Prop are deadly, plus max TD bonuses are awesome.
Sage -> Science = key.

You have ToG so money is not too much of an issue as long as you've got a decent income to work off of. I'm running a Faery/Rogue this age, and I'm running the following setup:
(Word of Warning: This is a fail TM. I'm not even maging people. I'm using all my mana on ToG to fund/kill dragons)

15% Homes
9% Farms
21% Banks
10% Forts
15% Guilds
15% Towers
15% TDs

[DDodge]

You say a faery can't explore fast OOP, but with the 4/7 Elite I feel like its possible to maintain a high DPA early on and still explore... but i'm a newbie and i appreciate your criticism. So on that note, if exploring isnt a good option, what is a good target amount of Land to aim for OOP as a faery? I was thinking 800, but i don't know if thats too ambitious.

Also on that note, how do you increase your land with your current strategy Palem? Lots of land lust and Paradise castings? Or did you pump lots of Off specs?

I guess what i was thinking is that if i sacrificed all my offense and maxed out my DPA i would be safe enough to explore a lot and steal lots of GC to keep up a solid elite pump.

[Palem]

Don't aim for unbreakable, aim for safe. If the enemy wants to hit you, they will find a way to make that happen, but make them work for it. Basically, the difference between 100 dpa and 120 dpa is really nothing.

And even with a 4/7 leet, offense wins out. There's more offensive mods than defensive ones, and there are plenty of leets running around with 7 or more offense to match/beat you.

You'll want to stick with dicing to grow. If you're small enough (like in protection) exploring wouldn't be a bad idea since it's cheap, but eventually it's just not worth it.

As far as OOP size, that really depends on your kd. If they can back you up at 800 acres, cool. If not it may not be the best target.

[DDodge]

Dicing = Paradise spell, right?

[Palem]

Yes.

[twitched]

seriously though. sage.

[Ethan]

This age, faery sage gives *the best* WPA mod in the game. And fast stealth with good thief mods. It also give the option to convert to an attacker, either A/M or A/T (or A/t/m)... but that is *very* hard to do, even for experienced players.

I'd advise a new player to play straight attacker their first age - most consider it the best part of the game, and it is certainly the most common these ages. Part way though the age you consider trying whichever hybrid your race supports better if you find the attacking boring. Even if you never play attacker again... that age should tell you what hurts attackers, and what they just laugh at.

If you are playing a T/M though... stay small. Seriously, big T/M in a new player's hands is just useless for the kingdom - they'll probably try to force you to defect. A small T/M isn't hurting your total kingdom size much, and can get much better mods by getting really high science - big T/M bloats the whole kingdom and doesn't do any better damage.

Remember, in war, every hit you take is one more hit an attacker didn't suffer. Especially with Faery's Fog (and AD) you take the hits better than anyone anyway, so do damage with your ops and eat the hits for the team.


Straight out of protection (oop) you probably don't want elites... 5@350 vs. 7@850 (1000 this age). ToG *can* make elites sufficient if you stay under about 600 acres. Exploring the initial 125 and nothing else is fairly standard for attackers, so up to 600 is a reasonable range to target in most kingdoms.

[Fenleone]

Palem is spot on with the DPA bit. Just put "Unbreakable" out of your mind. You can have enough defense to be not worth while on the other hand and that is what you should be aiming for.

As for size the smartest thing for a T/M to be doing is to watch how big most of your KDs attackers are (mostly the Heavy attackers) and try and stay slightly smaller than them. Grow much bigger and you'll find yourself attracting more bottom feeders. Stay small and other KDs your size might be more tempted to run massacres on you in a provoking stage of a war. Also never never grow faster than you can train up new defense, being land fat as an attacker is dangerous, being land fat as a T/M is suicidal.

[twitched]

"Straight out of protection (oop) you probably don't want elites... 5@350 vs. 7@850 (1000 this age). ToG *can* make elites sufficient if you stay under about 600 acres. Exploring the initial 125 and nothing else is fairly standard for attackers, so up to 600 is a reasonable range to target in most kingdoms."

100% false if you plan enough. came out at 750 this age as fae/sage. trained up about 3k elites from prot, another 1500 dsp. tog is retardedly powerful. as long as you get your first 24 hours squared away, you'll be gravy.

[DDodge]

Mind sharing my opening moves in the first 24 hours? The numbers you just listed would be awesome goals for me. Like I said, I'm fairly new, but i think i have a solid grasp of my opening moves.

First build: 25% homes 25% banks
8% farms 20% armouries
12% guild 10% towers

Explore as much as possible after that, then wait for stuff to come in and cast builders boon before the next wave of buildings going in. Put my starting sciences into housing and tools, maybe 5k in alchemy? Set draft rate to normal instead of agressive.

Around the 40 hour mark start spamming ToG and pumping elites. I think i'll probably come out of protection with 750 acres and hopefully the same numbers of elites/dsp you just posted. Probably wont have much as far as theives go.

Any criticisms with this?

[gergnub]

Hope your kd mates can back you up some or just get prepared to get hit.

[Bishop]

Any criticisms with this?

Its very hard to explore solo - what are your kingdom mates doing? If you come oop at 750 acres with 0 attackers to protect you then you will be food for killers.

[Ethan]

Why homes in the opening build? Homes don't provide jobs, and the limit on income for the first part of protection is a lack of jobs, not a lack of people.
During protection speed building is only 1/2 as effective, so it is *.75 instead of *.5. As such, even banks are *not* cheaper to speed build at hour 0 - despite getting jobs faster (see above) *and* getting better income from the building itself.

If you can try for very large, 800+, you will probably benefit greatly from mills - in which case speed build mills might be helpful, but by then your looking at needing the excel simulator that's out there to "tune" the sequence.

Remember to *stop* drafting for a short while - you are locked into aggressive draft, which costs a lot early on. (Many) More sols than you can train isn't cost efficient defense. Then make double sure you turn draft back on!

Especially if you want to jump to elites straight away, you'll need a lot of armories, and a lot of banks, and a lot of towers to burn out the mana on ToG. If your putting in the leg work to plan it out fairly clearly, you can do that just fine... if you fire up that excel simulator and optimize, you might be able to target even higher, even with the "slow" start from sage. BTW, especially as sage, set sci up from 0 as soon as your first buildings are built unless your build sequence absolutely demands the gc for your build. It isn't uncommon for the sci to pay for itself even by end of protection - remember, income will grow as you do, and ToG acts like a multiplier at the end... so having a bunch of sci points multiplying all of that gets big fast. Notice the increasing costs for gaining sci faster - slow and steady (at first) wins the race. (Long term fast and steady - I'm holding at 75% income used at rushed... 1 setting short of max.)


My targets may have been low because, while I played Faery Sage this age... I came oop as an attacker, and haven't let up since. Not recommended unless you *like* being mildly insane, but it is possible. (I'll be so happy if they switch to -5% pop on the 1k elites... that'd make it good enough I'd try to convert others in my kingdom to the attacking Faery side.) Which meant that, while I went oop with elites, it was elites + o-specs... too many elites would have lowered my offense. I think I planned to use only specs, but ToG was better than I knew so I burnt the extra with elites.

Aim for .5+ TPA at oop. Thieves cost... but then they steal from all the inactives, and now you have free thieves.