Diary of a Dwarf Merchant Attacker

[nooblet]

Switching off draft at the start is optimal, but not necessary for most standard starts. I flipped it for a few early ticks when I needed extra gold to explore a few acres, but it had little overall effect on my province. I came out at 610 and could train the 5300 or so soldiers I drafted, plus everything I was drafting afterwards per tick with patriotism.

nwpa means nothing at any stage, and i'll repeat it til the cows go home; but least of all during the early stages of the game, where elites can perform both offensive and defensive duties if you can afford them.

[Twyla]

I'm more in the middle ground where the NWpA issue is concerned. Gains - particularly land grabs- are affected by a somewhat complex formula where the attacker's size and Net Worth relative to the defender's.

Ideal targets are slightly larger than the attacker at roughly the same Net Worth. The more offense you can squeeze into your Province for the same Net Worth, the better range of targets you can successfully attack.

Since it's very rarely a good idea to suicide (leave little or no defense when attacking), anywhere from 30%-50% of your military will usually be left at home - depending on Race and other factors. Insofar as Dwarves are concerned, Elites which are part of this minimal defense offer no advantage over Defense Specs. In some Ages Elites benefited from lower casualty rates, but such is not the case this Age.

There is also the matter of Specialist Training Credits which are earned by successful attacks. The amount often varies between Ages but, at least for Dwarves, these are usually best spent on defense as Elite units have better offense values.


But the biggest factor in the Elite/Spec division under this strat is in being able to afford to train all the Soldiers available by OOP, yet still obtain the most offense possible at this point. All-Elite and I would have untrained Soldiers left over - all-Spec and I wouldn't have as much offense.

[citadela01]

nwpa is irrelevant ... or of minor importance at best. If you have money to train solider into elite over dspec you should do so because sooner or later you will be training dspecs and efectivly gaining elite in the process as result of early elite overkill. Having more elites/off is of much more use early oop than having more (unnecesary trrops), as oposed to your 2500 dspecs/3000 zerks plan I'd much rather go oop with 1000 dspecs/4000 zerks and more pezzies.

Also you have several time downplayed value of further modding allready impressive dwarf/merchant income. This is big mistake ... there is no such thing as too much money in this game and key to succesfull province is piling mods on top of eachother and not the other way arround (ie running dens to compensate for tpa malus) ... in another words you want to mod your income as much as possible since every new mod yields increased benefits. Create avalanche efects with exces money through science that yields superior economy and even more troops/money.

Another big dorf strength you dont capitalize is their BE. You want to stay as far away as possioble from capacity buildings such as stables and should use more tg/forts instead, you would yield better results.

Towers ... you need towers. One of the very common mistakes ppl do oop is to run ton of guilds to get some early wpa and dont run enough towers to capitalize on the guilds. There is no other building you can run that will result in so much land gained as enough towers to dice with early on. 100 free and safe acres a day early on is major thing. You have the guilds ? than dice ...

[nooblet]

you want to mod your income as much as possible early on because money is in high demand, regardless of what race and personality you're playing with. Merchant and Human make it even more effective.

Dwarf stables are actually not so bad, as long as you keep your armies out every tick and mount every offensive troop. Build stables, let them fill, then raze them for the buildings you actually want to use. With free building and raze credits this can cost no gc, only the 50-60 ticks needed to fill stables taking from buildings you could run during peacetime. Swapping stables for rax when you're preparing for war is easy enough, even if you're caught off-guard.
In protection stables are not so bad for any race, since your total offensive army is much smaller than normal, and thus less stables are required to mount your initial offense. After they've outlived their usefulness they can be swapped with the same trick as above. For non-dwarves they have the benefit of being immune to BE and DBE as well.

I figure training def spec in prot is better than turning off draft and coming out with fewer troops; but if I had the cash for more elites on hand, there's no reason to train defense specs instead, aside from maybe more thieves.

[Twyla]

nwpa is irrelevant ... or of minor importance at best. If you have money to train solider into elite over dspec you should do so because sooner or later you will be training dspecs and efectivly gaining elite in the process as result of early elite overkill. Having more elites/off is of much more use early oop than having more (unnecesary trrops), as oposed to your 2500 dspecs/3000 zerks plan I'd much rather go oop with 1000 dspecs/4000 zerks and more pezzies.

"Locks only keep the honest people out." Offense is always good, but defense has it's place as well. A single grain of rice can tip the scales, and a few hundred points of defense can make the difference between a successful hit against you or a bounce - assuming they don't pass by for an easier target. I don't see the issue with the notion of recruiting all the Soldiers you can train AND training all the Soldiers you can get.

Also you have several time downplayed value of further modding allready impressive dwarf/merchant income. This is big mistake ... there is no such thing as too much money in this game and key to succesfull province is piling mods on top of eachother and not the other way arround (ie running dens to compensate for tpa malus) ... in another words you want to mod your income as much as possible since every new mod yields increased benefits. Create avalanche efects with exces money through science that yields superior economy and even more troops/money.

Since you brought this up...

According to the wiki here: Science Bonus = Race Mod * Personality Mod * Science Multiplier * SQRT( Books per Acre ) * Library Effect

Look again at the SQRT( BpA )... That's an insane curve of diminishing returns - literally exponential!

Assuming you make it OOP with 50 BpA, that's 7.071 effect or a 14% return on the investment. 25 BpA, half the investment, results in 5.0 effect (20% return). 75 BpA earns an 8.66 effect, and 100 BpA earns 10.0. 100 BpA vs 25 Bpa - that's four times the investment for double the effect, and it just gets worse from there. You're going to have to expand your Sciences eventually anyways.

Being Bank-heavy, BE is a bigger influence on Income than Alchemy, and also relies on having enough Peasants to keep the minimum number of jobs filled at all times - and I've been pegged at 124% BE for most of Protection (123.5% BE once the last 5-acre freebie came in). That's 30.84gc/Bank (vs 25gc) on top of extra 27.5% income from the pezzies they provide. The +2% population bonus is 2% extra raw income - even higher as Peasants leave their plowshares to pick up swords - which works out to an additional 3.6% income. And, yes, those same points in Alchemy would result in an extra 1% net income - but without the extra workers to maintain BE or the larger peasant population to draft from with the locked Draft Rate. The drop in Bank BE from the lack of Peasants would be greater in just in their Gold production alone than the extra 1% net income - not even counting the drop in the income modifier they provide.

Altogether for this strat, Housing Science for the initial investment is worth twice what Alchemy would offer.

Another big dorf strength you dont capitalize is their BE. You want to stay as far away as possioble from capacity buildings such as stables and should use more tg/forts instead, you would yield better results.

See the above concerning on capitalizing on the BE.

You have an argument concerning Forts, but not TGs.

Having a Horse for every Elite increases their OP by 14.29% BEFORE mods for OME (including TGs). If I had no Training Grounds whatsoever in my build then, yes, they would be preferable to Stables (@ +16.2% OME). But even 3.5% brings the single OME effect of 10% extra TGs below what the Horses provide via Stables. Considering I'm starting out with 11.4% TGs (increasing to 13% as new lands are acquired), those lands serve better as Stables.

Towers ... you need towers. One of the very common mistakes ppl do oop is to run ton of guilds to get some early wpa and dont run enough towers to capitalize on the guilds. There is no other building you can run that will result in so much land gained as enough towers to dice with early on. 100 free and safe acres a day early on is major thing. You have the guilds ? than dice ...

You may have a point concerning Paradice - I haven't specifically run the numbers for dicing vs exploring in Protection. Though if you notice in the OP, those numbers will drop off as new lands come in - further affected by the lack of accelerated construction.




But more important than all the rest:

The OP is less a matter of presenting a completely optimized strat and more an issue of demonstrating how the various elements of Utopia interact with each other. To promote an understanding of the inner workings by illustrating those interactions AND trying to explain why one option is preferred over another.

I said in the beginning of the OP that this wasn't necessarily the best possible strat. But let's face facts:

Someone shows up in your Kingdom with what's listed in the OP, you've at least got a reliable starting point to work from in tailoring things more specifically to how you interact. I've seen everything from full-out rainbow builds (literally equal numbers of every building), Explorers with Training Grounds and no Mills, Mage/Thieves with Barracks... Some of the worst nightmares you could imagine, that nothing short of a ground-up full rebuild can correct.

And while the OP is only a reasonable option for one specific combination of Race, Personality, and Role, I hope for it to illustrate enough of the mechanics so that even someone deciding to play - for example - an Elf/Mystic a/M or Avian Rogue A/T will have at least enough understanding in their build so as not to be a major burden to whatever Kingdom they happen to land in.

[nooblet]

I don't see fault with training def specs in protection, if it's because of the monetary cost of elite training. If I were dwarf... well for one, I'd be coming out with more acres, but that's beside the point. Cutting your DR during protection to get more elites isn't that big a deal for most provinces, as long as you train enough elites to not suck offensively and don't resort to training ospec. But then I wouldn't be razing off armories either, so... meh.

On choosing between sciences in protection... alchemy enhances the banks' 25gc per building, while population science does not. The effects of the extra BE on your bank income is very negligible at this low of a science level, but the extra population does give you some extra money, BE, and soldiers. The point of prioritizing alchemy is in part to fund more research and training of troops as you grow, so that getting superior housing science at later stages is easier... but your way works okay if you can live with a little less income and want a slightly higher peasant base and more military per acre to work with.

Seeing as I had a crappy oop and have a pretty crappy province at the moment, I should shut up about optimization and stop sucking.

[Twyla]

This one's not exactly a screamer (35.5k mod OP/57.8 OpA), but still a respectable start for an OOP Attacker.

OP is more or less finished, BTW. May do some minor editing, or perhaps work in an epilogue, but still pretty much done.

[Palar]

How much of that is sendable? I'm always having trouble with my sendable offence OOP

[octobrev]

It should all be sendable if you type the numbers in correctly

[Twyla]

How much of that is sendable? I'm always having trouble with my sendable offence OOP

Ideally, you wouldn't send more Berserkers than you have Horses - 3000 of the 3500 from OOP - which would be roughly 30k mod OP. Having a few extra Zerks lets you fudge things just a little - risk a little more to crack a bigger target or keep higher defenses at home.

[citadela01]

so much numbers twyla ... most of them misplaced. I'll just say your wrong, take it or leave it.

[TheRock]

TGs > Stables for Dwarves

If your math tells you otherwise, you're doing your math wrong :)

[Twyla]

TGs > Stables for Dwarves

If your math tells you otherwise, you're doing your math wrong :)

Might double-check your own numbers. For the first few % of lands, Training Grounds outshine Stables. But at roughly 3.5%, even with the Dwarf's +20% BE, their effects balance - 1% Stables vs +1% Training Grounds. Beyond 5% total lands, the raw 14.3% OP gain from every Zerk having a Horse far outshines the diminishing returns for TGs.

If you've noticed from the OP, the Stables become even more effective because the OP gains from Horses multiply with those from TGs - and the build utilizes both.

[citadela01]

Your wrong. You base your asumption on certain % of stables neaded to mount all elites, this number will change radically and pretty soon as you kick up your draft greatly diminishing efectivnes of stables. And thats not even taking into account forts which provide significant off increase and give you strong turtling power to boot.

You can argue ofc that stables will be left to fade out oop since off boost they provide is really nice oop since its not related to draftable soliderss but in all honesty such economic powerhouse as dwarf merchant has no bussines skimmin off the priceles building %'s to get minor off boost easily obtainable otherwise.

Proper way to play dorf merch is to maximize your income and go for very high elite count from the start and as much sci as posible, if all you gona use his powerfull economy is to get decent military w/o long term investment in sci/overtraining leets your really wasting a race/pers combo you picked.

[KuhaN]

LOL, you silly, silly person.

TheCock is never wrong.