Undead tactician build strat

[Bishop]

you should never have elites home :p typically you need to run 10% of a building to get decent effects from it.

[Awesomeness]

you should never have elites home :p typically you need to run 10% of a building to get decent effects from it.

Hmm. So how should I tweak my build that I aim to build? I wish one has 200% land lol

[John Snowstorm]

gs protect your land, hospitals lower troops losses. Undeads tend to believe that because they have 0 offensive losses hospitals are worthless. Then they get chained and lose tons of defense per hit, allowing the enemy kd to quad them with ease.

Undead is going down to some tiny size anyways, you will lose every single dspec and ospec and thief anyways because you will want to keep those elites.

Def specs lost per hit in war chains dont matter a damn as the gbp troop protection kicks in very quickly anyways, overpop will still put you on the same troops either way. You are much better off with GS lowering your overpop and rax to make more hits and get your land in faster, reducing the hours of overpop you sit on.

[Bishop]

tell that to sanc.

[brickwolfman]

barracks 25%
banks 15%
tg's 20%
wt 15%
stables 10%
guilds 10%
towers 5%

once your over 1000acres drop stables and add hospitals. ud/tac's usually get chained first at start of wars so youll need the hospitals to reduce losses

[Awesomeness]

hmm some people suggest homes while some dont.. is homes necessary?

[Ordray]

Homes help maintain a higher draft and still get decent (80%+) BE without having a crap ton of science. If you use homes, then put them in your build pre-war and don't rebuild them. Phase them out during war and put in more of other buildings where needed.
Personally, I use ~10% homes, but some people use a little more while others use less (or none.) Then you have the people like Gojete who says use 40-50% homes and tries to say that they're better than TG's despite that being proven wrong time and time again in calculations comparing them...

[Sheister]

Homes are not necessary. What homes are good for is to give a small population boost and increase your BE because there are fewer buildings that need workers. Once you have enough science, it is better to drop them in favor of other things. my 10% homes recommendation was based on my thoughts that you had just started your province and had no science at all. The build I proposed was designed for you to do a lot of in-out hitting and get to troop/land parity quickly having started late. AS for what I would recommend now, I can't say a thing unless I know:

Loc, SoT, SoM, etc.

In short, all the intel you don't want to tell me. Minus those specifics, I can't give you really any solid advice. I think you are making a mistake keeping less than 15% WTs. I think 20% TG is overkill giventhe OP I have been looking at in wars with undead's so far. with 50% elites, you don't need that much TG to still be able to double tap provinces of similar size to you or even triple tap once they have sent out (particularly heavy attackers). Some have said if you can get even more elites, homes, in one sense, are more offense than stables (to the extent that you have more elites because of them....) but since you can't train elites directly, I think that logic fails with undeads. I too am not that impressed so far with worrying too much about D specs. First, you train them essentially for free of your creds, second having more losses when you are hit and being chained is not a bad thing, third I just don't think they make sense for undead given that half the point of the building is about the plague (yes I know most people just think about the combat loss part..yadda yadda yadda, but I have had a few bad NB runs and been saved by my hosps.), Fourth, unless you are in a war with idiots, there is no way you, as an attacker, are going to be unchained if you are singled out for a chain, so either your D almost does not matter because no one is really going to touch you or it does not matter at all because you are going to be 200 acres soon anyway. The only thing D does is affect whether you get single tapped or double tapped. In one sense, higher D will potentially slow down a chain and perhaps allow you to delay getting to 200 acres by 12 hrs or so, but you are going there whether you like it or not once you are targeted, so just sit back and enjoy the rid down the slide.

Overall, I would recommend not running undead because I think they suck, but that is not an option here anyway.

[John Snowstorm]

tell that to sanc.

instead of repeating the discussion:

http://pastebin.com/imJ2LZru

did a word replacement scan to replace swear words, but some may remain, view at your own peril.

[Sheister]

LOL at log.

[Ethan]

Unless it is a top (in size or war skill) kingdom, hospitals are *critical* for defense - if you take a hit and your DPA *drops* instead of rises, then almost any kingdom with 10 attackers can do an ok chain. Especially lower down, you find a fairly long spread... if you are the lowest dpa target with good NW, you might well be chained without the other kingdom even trying!

Honestly, I'd be surprised if the same weren't true for top kingdoms too - I'm not sure though, since stuff does play a bit different up there.

It gets especially bad with a fair number of GS, since then you'll be losing lots of specs and small amounts of land - a day or two of trading hits and your down to <20 DPA, without then even trying. Something has gone wrong if you spend all your time in war training *def* specs!

Shiester's build is good under the assumption you were new and small... but in your case that isn't true. My original tweeks were assuming a more developed province, and still look fairly good. Your most recent strat also looks pretty good. Once you read brickwolfman's revision of stables into hospitals that looks similar to your setup, and is a bit more focused. (The high WT's are a small, but fairly important improvement - if you use them, use a good number of them.) Sacking the homes in that build hurts... but not as bad as constant NS would.

The rax% is still giving me a bit of pause - how often are you actually planning on attacking? I show a 10.88 hour attack time in war with 0% rax - how much more do you really want? 8 hour attacks take 33% rax@80% BE, so I don't think that is a real option. If one of your 3 is a -2 hour attack time it falls to 26% rax needed... but keeping that with the land flux isn't exactly easy.

A 9.6 hour attack time gives you 5x per 48 hours if you can turn it around perfectly. It takes just barely more than 11% rax to get that attack time. It seems to me, then, that 15% rax or so gives you a nice 20 minute buffer to get your hits calced and turned around, and lets your BE vary some without losing your targeted 5x in min. I have trouble justifying another 5-10% rax when that could be TGs/Forts, or more WTs/Hospitals. Even stables or homes or guilds targeting a A/m type role. But you know better if you'll make use of the faster attack time or not.

Just as a note, as a faery attacker I have QF. In war I have just under 12 hour attack time naturally. I build a tiny bit of rax, but not normally more than 3%, to keep a buffer on attack times and let me move my bed time back slowly. In a now 6 day war I've gained 2 hours, to the point where I'm pushed up against the start of my window, instead of the back. I can't use more, even though the next few % are very effective.

[brickwolfman]

@ Sheister/ with 50% elites, you don't need that much TG to still be able to double tap provinces of similar size to you or even triple tap once they have sent out (particularly heavy attackers)..... IMO it seems like such a waste to have a 9off elite and not modify it and make sure you can double and triple tap.

[Sheister]

Right, but how much? 20% seems excessive to me. I would rather have rax myself. I can see putting in 10-15% TG's but given the immortal offense and the fact that most provs I see are not carrying more than 40 DPA (when they have send out) or 60 DPA with armies home, 120 OPA should be more than pleanty and he can get that without overly investing in TGs (I think that is only about 10 epa with the horses and dungeon mercs right? too lazy to calc atm). He can double tap anything in the 60 or less range and triple or quad just about anything less.

admittedly, I preferentially play hybrids so I am sure I am off a bit, but just the same, I don't see TG's as thatimportant. As a hybrid I run 0% TG's and I am still doubling the lower 30% (lower 50% when they send out) of the KD's provinces and that is with me maintaining 3 wpa raw and 5 tpa raw. With the rax I keep (23%) I am managing more than 2.5 uniques per day (as prince recons it, because I almost always get some ambush in.) So an attacker keeping 1-1.5 wpa (and I ask you, what is the point of having higher than 1 wpa, its not like you are going to stop their mages from opping you) and 2 tpa raw with 30 DPA and everything else as OP has little if any need for TG's.

[Awesomeness]

too many suggestions but only 1 way to test. :/ guess when i get chained down then i will know whats more impt than others lol. right now with 20% rax i get 2 hits per day out of war. slightly less than 12 hours req per hit. low hit rate due to kd stance if im not wrong.. maybe i should get rid of hospitals and throw them to WTs so that i have 10% WT instead of 5/5 for hosp/WT. is 8% guilds too low as i keep failing spells even though science bonus is 48% for magic

[Sheister]

wow 5/5 for hosp/WT

That pretty much violates everyone's advice. Why are you asking for advice when you are not going to take any of it?