Halfling pure attacker?

[Malcolm]

So i was doing some thinking on what best attacker would be and i came up with a halfling warrior strat which i think is rather interesting.

Since Halflings kind of suck as rogues now... i was thinking pure halfling attacker with: 6% housing science and 12.5% homes for a comfy 30/31 (?) ppa

Adding a full elite army of lets say 22 epa and 1tpa/1wpa. Thats is 130 raw dpa. Being warrior getting OME up to 130% shouldnt be too hard. So i think i could easily send out 80 OPA while keeping 80 DPA at home.

Any insights please? I think i want to try this next age(depending on changes ofcuz)

[DDodge]

why keep 80 dpa home?

go BIG!!!!!! 120 OPA, 40 DPA @ home

[nooblet]

Hhalfling heavy attacker isn't too bad with their turtle potential, and of course the intel in war filling a niche. You'll probably use some offensive specialists in place of elites, if your plan is to attack consistently. Maybe around 3:1 elites to offspec, while training pure offspec and the rare dspec in war. With this setup you're capable of choosing whether to implement normal offense or high offense.

Housing science is good as always... homes, meh. For halfling they make some sense, I guess.

Go with heavy barracks and quick feet. Against non-avian, non-dwarf a halfling has the option of hitting between gaps if they are lucky with timing, and their defense-at-home is too huge.
The usual heavy attacker options for buildings - watchtowers, gs, hospitals - all work well. The crapsicle is that birthrate penalty making it tougher to draft replacement troops. Homes on a heavy attacker are generally a poor building, but for halfling they might be what you want to counteract the birthrates, in place of some of your hospitals and gs. Halfling still needs many training grounds in order to stand up to the power attackers, and probably does not have space to use stables.
A halfer is more able to take risks with their thieves, even with poor tpa; and, during war, they have a much easier time training up tpa to convert to a sort of a/t. Being able to bottomfeed and trap acres while keeping considerable defense in is an option.

Note that no matter what, you're going to have weaker armies than a human, orc, or undead by far unless they're run like crap. It won't be an incredibly strong attacker, but it will work.

[BlazingChicken]

Your networth will be insanely high compared to your OPA..... >.>

[Malcolm]

Im running a human merchant now with 12.5% homes :p
Tried doing a bit of hybrid with 3 tpa but not too happy with it so i think ill just drop thieving alltogether.
But why is homes no good for pure attacker? I always thought the extra ppa and BE were worth getting some homes in bcuz you can get extra opa like that.
If i would stay A/t would homes be good then?

[BlazingChicken]

Im running a human merchant now with 12.5% homes :p
Tried doing a bit of hybrid with 3 tpa but not too happy with it so i think ill just drop thieving alltogether.
But why is homes no good for pure attacker? I always thought the extra ppa and BE were worth getting some homes in bcuz you can get extra opa like that.
If i would stay A/t would homes be good then?

You get fireballed, and all that extra BE would quickly fade away.

[lastunicorn]

and population, and at 1k peasants, even +30% br isn't going to help much. Arguably they can be used to build your province to a higher BE or draft% before war, but once you get into a war, they usually become dead space. The exception is if you don't get fb or chained and need extra br.

[BlazingChicken]

Better to just pump some science and run libraries imo. Shouldn't be hard if you're human or halfling. You'll get more BE from your tools science, extra pop from your housing science, less farms needed thanks to again more food science, higher mod wpa/tpa, etc. You get chained down and those libraries would help you far more than those homes since your BPA would jump towards the stars.

[nooblet]

Homes are a terrible building for a heavy attacker in war. The BE and extra population are less use than any worthwhile building in their place, and homes really screw you over when they are destroyed or you get chained.
A/t only gets use out of homes if they cut the other war buildings that they would want in favor or something that can indirectly improve their thievery, after dens are close to their maximum potential. Even then they're still pretty bad.

[Ethan]

If you run 50/50 on the o-spec elite split instead of your pure elite idea, you get *identical* total military with army out and save a fairly huge 13.75 NW/A. By observation, I hit 170-180 range on NW/A (halfer sage) - being at 190 instead is a *big* hit to my effectiveness.

Yes, halfer works as a straight attacker. I still think it works better as an A/t style "lite" hybrid - you know that BR problem? That's what kidnap is made for. AD and QF are distinctly nice - AD's a life saver if the enemy isn't chaining but just max gain (or if you are super active) cause it acts a lot like hospitals, which you can't get enough of as an attacker.

Even with the +10% pop, the total NW/A is low, so halfer has built in "anti-gs", same way the human/orc sage has "built in gs" from the high NW/A. You might hit the same OPNW and DPNW (though honestly they'll still edge you out by 2-5%) but you need more acres to do it. It isn't a major malus though.

Looking at the numbers you ran above, I see only 6 pes/acre. That ain't enough - anyone puts out stupid huge numbers if they have low pes like that. I look at that and say "chain bait"... and if you turtle with high def, you get FB'ed instead. Warrior in particular has a bit OME mod, and wants to put out heck tons of offense. Low def *and* low pes is asking for a deep chain imo. Not that huge pes is good either - I like about 10, but most will do better with around 8. But that lops 13+ OPA off your numbers, makes it look not so great.


As others mentioned, homes in war is a tricky animal. Ok if chained, nice if left alone, pointless if partial PK. Whereas TGs or Forts... those just make more offense, always. Without a NW hit either.

[nooblet]

Any halfling that runs 1:1 ospec:elite for nw/a deserves to get chained hard by a group of undeads or orcs. Have the halfling keep their armies in for extra fun and lots of dead brutes, and watch their province come crashing down even faster.

Bonus: For even more fun, add nightstrikes and watch the halfling's offense get chopped to pieces, forcing them to suicide on every hit.

[Ethan]

Any halfling that runs 1:1 ospec:elite for nw/a deserves to get chained hard by a group of undeads or orcs. Have the halfling keep their armies in for extra fun and lots of dead brutes, and watch their province come crashing down even faster.

Bonus: For even more fun, add nightstrikes and watch the halfling's offense get chopped to pieces, forcing them to suicide on every hit.

Wait, what? Are you saying 1:1 is too many o-specs, or two few? Your post didn't really seem to make much sense to me.

Generally, I figured 1:1 was conservative still - I run more off-specs than that, cause I know I'll use them. (Or end up sacking them against the dragon.) Lack of aggression has never been a weak point for me though - if I don't know what to do, I hit harder. ('Tis a learned response from chess... if you are "dead" anyway, might as well attack like a berserk, see if your opponent will screw up. Translates surprisingly well to utopia though.)

[nooblet]

I remember when Humans had the defensive elite, and they had a much better army to make up for it then. Why would I want to be in the same position with a much weaker attacker and be a sitting duck to be chained first thing, for even less gain?

Besides, if I wanted to be a berseker as described, halfling is one of the worst races to pick for it. Be an Orc or Undead if that's the plan, and it works much, much better.

[octobrev]

Halfling is of course a pure attacker. Anyone running it a/t did so because they used saw it last age, not because its effective.

[Ethan]

Or they saw the +1 stealth, and figured it as the only actual NS damage bonus an A/T could get. But ya, I call my build A/t not A/T for a reason - I started as an attacker, and the thieves are as much defense as offense. Kidnap is great though, just gotta figure out who you can succeed against a lot.

Agree with the main point that people that assume halfer must be run as A/T aren't really looking at this age though, they're still playing the last one.