Elf Cleric A/M

[Elurin]

Elf/cleric is, unfortunately, a terrible combination and cannot be recommended to anyone. Whatever purpose a prov has, there are many better options. Scorpio is either trolling or regard this as a RPG, and should ofc play elf/cleric if that's enjoyable to him. To anyone new to game who reads this; pick something good.

[scorpio86]

Well gee when i was a Human Shepherd i was told my choice was quoute 'crap and selfish', now my new choice is thought terrible to you? Oh well, we shall have to agree to disagree. I do regard this as a RPG in the sense that i play the role of the ruler of a Province, i understand that it is text based team strategy, i am not trolling and in fact i dislike the term trolling as it is offensive to trolls, which i think are are cool creatures although they are technically not real.

I am sticking with Elf Cleric A/M(/t) for the forseeable future. Each to their own, leave trolls out of this.

[Elurin]

The same will be said of combos like orc/rogue, avian/mystic, faery/cleric etc. There are quite a few good combinations in the game, which makes the remaining choices even poorer. That said, everyone plays for different reasons and if your goal is not to create as good as possible a province, should go whatever. I guess people would frequent these forums to get input on what's good or bad though, and it would be sad if other's thought knowledgeable players would recommend elf/cleric to anyone.

[scorpio86]

Yeah thanks for that

[Ethan]

Elf is clearly a better attacker than Faery, yet last age (with Fog) I did fine with a Faery/Sage A/t/m. Elf as a mage has one very obvious bonus, which is lots of fireballs, and no malus... which is fairly good for a mage. Cleric makes for a good attacking personality, since it helps with offense directly a small amount a has a huge land savings. The land savings is particularly valuable to an Elf since it needs so many towers to use the mana effectively. All in all, while I don't like Elf much in general, Elf/Cleric is a perfectly reasonable choice for a province, and naturally falls into an A/m or A/M role. Frankly, I'm not thinking of anything else that is a serious alternative for A/M - Dwarf? Same attacker, fewer FBs.

While it is often recommended to new players to play a straight attacker for at least your first age (attacking is the hardest part to learn to do well), if you are attempting an A/M role Elf/Cleric is a decent choice, and cleric is particularly forgiving in many ways for a new player. Feel free to ignore Elurin's previous 2 posts when making your choice.

[scorpio86]

I always feel free to ignore whichever posts i so choose, which happens to be a lot :-) Cheers fo advice and feedback Ethan. I am pleased with the Elf Cleric and it is the 'best' combo that i have tried so far. I find myself leaning towards 'good' races, i am yet to play Orc or Undead and i may save that for later.

The last month of this age is just a practice for me for Age 53, using the same personality and race. Bring on Age 53 i say.

[JimmyCarter]

Mate I think Elf/Cleric is a rocking A/m for a warring kingdom.
No hospitals needed, freeing up 15% of buildings.
Thieves no prob, Run 1tpa with WT and spell CS.
That should keep your ecconm and peasants rock solid all war
Being chained would just help your mages, who would be mostly FB/PF opponents low WPA attackers.

Sure the raw numbers might be down, but in war its all about endurance, more so if your hyper active and going to be a target.

How does sage roll with learns, I sore a post about an elf/sage at 1800 acres with 26.3% Population Limits (1,025,838 books).
But then to be sage attacker you have 15% hospitals and other % in the science buildings. Space that could be used.

[scorpio86]

I am A/M, but thankyou JimmyCarter. I am too noob to respond to your comment about Sage and Learns. I am yet to play Sage.

[Ordray]

Mate I think Elf/Cleric is a rocking A/t for a warring kingdom.
No hospitals needed, freeing up 15% of buildings.
Thieves no prob, Run 1tpa with WT and spell CS.
That should keep your ecconm and peasants rock solid all war
Being chained would just help your mages, who would be mostly FB/PF opponents low WPA attackers.

Sure the raw numbers might be down, but in war its all about endurance, more so if your hyper active and going to be a target.

How does sage roll with learns, I sore a post about an elf/sage at 1800 acres with 26.3% Population Limits (1,025,838 books).
But then to be sage attacker you have 15% hospitals and other % in the science buildings. Space that could be used.

I think that you meant A/m and not A/t. 1 TPA =/= A/t by any stretch of the imagination.

[JimmyCarter]

Thanks Ordray.

[hewitt]

Mate I think Elf/Cleric is a rocking A/m for a warring kingdom.
No hospitals needed, freeing up 15% of buildings.
Thieves no prob, Run 1tpa with WT and spell CS.
That should keep your ecconm and peasants rock solid all war
Being chained would just help your mages, who would be mostly FB/PF opponents low WPA attackers.

If you are up against any decent kd, 1tpa with WT and CS won't do much to save your pezzies. I've run 2 tpa raw with WT's and CS 24/7 and it only slows them down slightly. If you are considered a threat to the enemy kd, you can be assured they will get you. For those reasons, I consider the WT's more of an optional building now based on the kd we're up against. If I expect heavy ops, I may include them to force them to burn more stealth. However, normally I just opt for another building instead since elf A/M already has a hard time with space as it is. No point wasting +10% of my land on a building that only annoys people slightly.

[Elurin]

I just realized Ethan, a player in a 20 prov low ranked kd who plays faery A/t/m's, asked others to ignore my posts. That's a tad weird and quite funny :D For argumentation regarding why merchant/sage should be the choice for A/m's, c.f. the A/t thread, same stuff applies but for elf/dwarf instead of human. But even I wont be presumptuous enough to tell anyone to ignore another post, just be careful to whom you listen and make up your own mind, try it out and then be open to improve.

[DDodge]

I only read your OP...

note that you will want WT's instead of TDs, and 3% farms isnt self-sustaining, but i assume you can get aid.

ideally you want the banks gone for war. you need rax, you want to maximize your hitting since you choose cleric for your perk. you can trim your guilds in war to allow for higher rax/tg.

[Ethan]

Re: Ignored posts

I don't know you well enough to know if "all" your posts should be ignored, though I presume not. Especially not after your last post here, which is stinging in no small part cause it's partially on target. When faery had Fog I played it (the first time) exactly because everyone said it was stupid, but my numbers for a sim said it wasn't. (I played it then next age cause it was really fun.) Given the age I had, I'm comfortable saying it isn't (wasn't) for most, but it isn't stupid either. But anything I say about top tier strategy is theory only - I've *never* played at those levels. (I try to flag it as such if it gets too far outside my direct knowledge.) While we'd all like to think we can walk in the tops shoes - I haven't proven I could, and I know that.

Describing it as "ignore" was probably a bit too strong - I was reading a bit of the "Realest" effect into it. Specifically, a quite possibly correct point being wildly overstated as though it were truth from on high. I (mis)read it as being a declaration that only a total fool or someone who isn't playing to win would take Elf cleric. Which triggered a bit of an overstatement on my part, trying to say your advice was (in this case) total bunk. Which still doesn't warrant ignoring those posts... since even if we disagree strongly, the arguments for either side will hopefully be informative. The only case were I actually advise ignoring otherwise useful posts are those in which a complex opinion is given with no justification.

Re: actual Elf/Cleric option.
I don't like it a whole lot myself actually, cause I think (based on those same numbers) Elf is just a weak attacker no matter what. If you need FBs, use Avian or maybe Dwarf. If you need MS... use a faery T/M. That said, I think an A/M elf does quite well with cleric, with maybe only sage being better. And while I avoid Elf due to my calcs on attacking strength - it's a small enough difference I can't fault anyone for disagreeing and trying elf.

As to merchant - I'll check that thread... I don't think I agree, though I do try to explicitly re-evaluate at times. (Aka - "...just be careful to whom you listen and make up your own mind, try it out and then be open to improve" - I'll second that!)

[lastunicorn]

Most quick wars are won based on ability to take acres (activity, opa, barracks) and defend them (dpa, GS). Long wars occur when the two kingdoms are similar in these aspects, and are usually won by the kingdom that can keep or even improve them (drafting and training soldiers, hospitals). That said, attempting a/t/m is going to gimp you when you could have made those thieves into elites and TDs into barracks and TGs. I can tell that no one's going to change your mind, but let me just add my voice that going a/t/m as elf without a huge amount of science isn't a great idea.

I don't think Elf/Cleric is a bad choice for a/m though. Sure you have a weaker elite, but your army will outlast the enemy's, and you'll destroy their ability to train army through fbs. With 30% more power and +2 mana, you essentially have double the fireball power of other races.

To combat this, other kingdoms are either going to massacre you early on, let you grow throughout the war, or both. You could be an effective mage at the beginning with 6mwpa or so, but in order to be able to fireball after massacres and several days of growing I'd start with even more. You are going to need at least those 20% towers in order to continue fireballs throughout war. Send a lot of runes to your active thieves during peace times to prevent them from being taken easily at the beginning of war. Guilds are less important, maybe 15% during war.

As far as thieving goes, I'd go about it a different way then most real thieves. At 500gc a pop, thieves are expensive to retrain during war, so aim to lose as few as possible. This means targeting the attackers that have doubled in land, got their thieves propped, had to release due to being chained, or just provinces that people post about in the forums as having horrible tpa/wts. You might have to test out the waters a bit first, sending 10 thieves for ops until you are confident you won't fail much against them. Above all you are going to need to use the formulas so you don't ever over send thieves. Nothing is worse than sending a ton of thieves and having your tpa drop hard only to realize you could have done the same damage with 20% that number. Still don't see this being wildly successful, though.

In the end, don't run your province with hard numbers if they aren't working for you. Here's what I would have as bare minimum for a war build:

8% farms
10% barracks
15% TGs
12% guilds
20% towers

which leaves you with 35% you might spend on:
10% banks
15% GS depending on your kingdom strat
15% WT depending on whether you are going against real thieves that like to target you

or build an extra
5% TGs
5% guilds
5% towers
2% farms
10% barracks
depending on your needs

Use only a few TDs if any. This is going to change depending on how high of tpa you have, not really worth it to mod 2tpa.