Mystic How-to: wpa growth despite land growth

[oetzi]

Hi guys, I'm relatively new, and now this cropped up. I'm running an ud mystic. Please make one assumption - that changing the choice of that combo is out of the question. Take this as a great challenge.

Main problem
Catching up with the other provinces in terms of size (esp the mercs). I have been chained in all past wars except the last one, resulting in being two times smaller than some provinces in the kd. For ms/mv it stinks. Standing at 1.2k acres, what are possible ways to get to 1.8k in max 4 days?

Finer stats

1. 73% drafted after oowcf. I'm trading runes for gc now although my tb is already on the brink of being taxed. How does one go about this?

2. I ran 40% guilds (now down to 36%) in attempt to pull up wpa. Are there other better, possible ways?

3. How much should an ud dice with this goal in mind? Runes are also needed for trading in order to built up land and mil so this is tight.

4. 60/40 elite/spec ratio as of now. I went into last war with 90%+ leets because of a lucky plunder but at this size they are hiding.

5. Trading. I see tb as important because I am fed runes in war.

6. 350 bpa. I'm just unable to catch up with the rest in this, seemingly.

7. I have now 3.3+ rwpa and am losing it. The requirement is 5.

8. I estimate that final numbers can be around 4 rwpa with 1.5 rtpa with around 80 opa/60dpa (45dpa 0% elites). If this is not acceptable, then what are some possible ways to go around it? This numbers already include a 200% wage rate + tgs.

[Ordray]

4 rWPA is fine, imo. Just TM to grow and build a high number of guilds. Gaining 50% of your original size in 4 days is not a problem at all, and as long as you keep 40% or so guilds then you should be able to get your WPA back up in no time.

You need to get higher bpa though. Plunder and set up your research rate or find a good learn target (finding a a/M who isn't Sage would be a great target as they'll focus on magic science which you want anyway.) Also, is that 45 DPA including wages+MP? If not, then I'd adjust my defensive training to take those into account and up my offense accordingly.

[oetzi]

The 60 dpa was with MP but no wage rate. 80 opa was with wage and tg tho (inconsistent much sorry). Now, there's another problem. It's hard for me to attack provinces with no armies out now with under 65+opa -> maintaining opa is another layer slapped onto all those growth issues. Now I've had to resort to CE-ing around.

[Ordray]

pick on smaller provinces and grow. You don't have to hit people your size.

[Persain]

pick on smaller provinces and grow. You don't have to hit people your size.

:D exactly grow in acres asap with a mix of dicing and t/m. Should be able to grow from 1.2-1.5 acres in 1 day (dice+hit+hit). Keep the guilds % so you keep training, stop do a plunder, train up offence (dont wory about running 30 dpa for a bit if you choose a good target low dpa is fine till u catch up with kd in acres). Then hit for the next 300 acres. Then do a plunder to train up more off/def, then find a guy in a ghetto/kd that wont hit yours with good science and then hit him 3-4 times for learns. he'll be pissed but what do u care.

Also 5 raw wpa is high just let them yell at you about the wpa as u catch up in land...tell then your guild % and your trying, not like they'll kill u off for 3 wpa v 5 wpa if you have high guilds

[Ordray]

I was meaning to address that as well, but I guess that I forgot. 5rWPA is overboard. 3.5-4 rWPA is good enough to do what you need to do.

[oetzi]

Thanks for the advice Ordray, Persain. Ah well, the CEs paid off though, just hit someone 19% bigger in a smaller kd and am on my way to 1.5k. How does that affect gains btw? 15% is ideal? I actually had another target that was 2% within my size with way lower defense. I could've sent a majority spec army for conversions, but since my primary objective was growth I passed. Is this the right way of thinking? One more TM and it's all plunders and learns. ^^

[Ordray]

Well, if you can, send more specs on attacks (and fewer elites if you have to, you don't want to oversend too much as that reduces your conversion rate) to convert more elites. That will make growing your offense into your acres a little easier as you'll have more elites already. Optimal gains are on provinces that are +/-10% of your size, and 15% of his land is indeed a nice grab since gains are capped at 20% oow.

[Persain]

hitting someone +19% bigger acutaly reduced your gains than if u had hit at +-10% as Ordray pointed out. Last age when trying to grow in land i aimed for 80-90% my size and double taps only keeps you safer and as a whole u get more land. Either way learn to use ******************.eu ive gone from 1300=>2000 acres off of one kd before in a single unique. Mind u i had 120 opa and 4 taped a kd in hostile....they didnt like me but they also didnt tag hostile :P

[nooblet]

When aiming to grow, too high a draft rate will screw you economically.
It's better to aim for wizard pumps once you've caught up to your goal acreage rather than trying to pump while growing... with 20% mystic guilds you should be bringing in good wpa anyway, 40% is a little overkill when you're planning to gain 50% of your size anyway. Since your guilds are already in you might as well keep them, but wait until you reach the goal before building more - if they are necessary.
Traditional March and dice both work... try to avoid hitting into kingdoms that are able to hit you back as much as possible, even if the gains are less than ideal. If you can find some place to steal/plunder the runes then dice is even better. In any event the only thing you really need to worry about outside of war while growing is having too low a net worth per acre. If it's high enough, and you have enough offense to retaliate anyone who does take an SoT, you should be safe from random landgrabs.
As with wizzies, raising science is best once you have reached your goal acreage, and it helps to keep your draft rate artificially low until you need to prepare for a wave. I'm doing fine with 60% drafted, ~150nw/a.

[oetzi]

Ordray - ic, that may have been the wrong call then.

Persain - I'd love 120 opa, but doesn't that only serve heavy attackers? I've only done that max 1-2 weeks oop when wpa doesn't take up too much at 120 opa 20 dpa.

Hey nooblet, thanks for dropping by. I see the sense in most of what you said, but here are two things.

1. Won't a lower draft rate e.g. 60% leave defense compromised? Assuming you keep fair growing a/m-A/M offense around 70opa.Then again, at 155 nwpa this would give you smaller networth targets and potentially lower defense too. Although if targets are chosen carefully to ones that do not retaliate, it also opens you up to be a target for the bigger kds? The % of gains on you may stay the same but as you have more land, the % yields a higher land value. 2. Even with 30% guilds, it takes 7 RL days for a mystic to get 2 wpa, let alone a growing one so I feel that 20% is not enough.

I'm wondering about one new thing. I generally hate homes, but I've never played ud mystic and since my combo seems to be destined to have bad econ, when approaching a wave I'm thinking of: 1. 50%+ homes for a period for pop to max up 2. Raze homes to enter war with good econ momentarily with decay latency

Now the two things about this is: 1. A stupid question but does razing such a high amount of homes 'suddenly' overpop you? 2. Going into war with high peasants high military would make me a darn good chain target won't it? The other kd would see it as a great way to get rid of military.

[Ordray]

If you build 50% homes then raze them you'll be too overpopulated to attack. That's a minimum of 4 pop/acre before honor and science mods. That'll put you at ~16% overpopulation. If you run any homes, don't go higher than 10-15%. But the best thing is to get your science up focus income, be, and pop, and ofc magic.

[oetzi]

Then how did pulse enter war with rage at 70-90% homes?

Edit: wait, I think that was to cater to 90% military.

[nooblet]

"Hey nooblet, thanks for dropping by. I see the sense in most of what you said, but here are two things.

1. Won't a lower draft rate e.g. 60% leave defense compromised? Assuming you keep fair growing a/m-A/M offense around 70opa.Then again, at 155 nwpa this would give you smaller networth targets and potentially lower defense too. Although if targets are chosen carefully to ones that do not retaliate, it also opens you up to be a target for the bigger kds? The % of gains on you may stay the same but as you have more land, the % yields a higher land value."

I was putting up somewhere around 75 opa/40 dpa as an undead attacker with 60% drafted, though I have much less wizards and pretty low tpa. It doesn't really matter if your defense or offense are low per acre... the question is whether a kingdom wants to deal with a retal war at this point, especially if you're one of the smaller players in that kingdom. Bigger kingdoms will take note if your nw/a falls too low or because they can, but once they take your SoT and decide to hit you there isn't an easy way to have enough defense to act as a deterrent. As long as you have reasonable nw/a and the threat of retaliation available to you, you should be fine.
The main issue with waiting to draft up to 70% is that it will take a long time to reach that before your next hit, and when you do reach that DR you'll have less money available to train new defense troops. If you need to train more defense you can, so long as you're keeping enough offense to hit the targets you want and have the ability to retal anything. Something like 60 opa/50 dpa would work, maybe less defense. Per-acre numbers are not so important.

"2. Even with 30% guilds, it takes 7 RL days for a mystic to get 2 wpa, let alone a growing one so I feel that 20% is not enough."

30% of 1800 > 30% of 1200. It's always difficult to raise wpa mystic or no, but the bigger you are the easier it is. What others have said is true... 4 raw wpa is enough. At that point channeling science becomes more important than more wizzies, even for undeads. It's not worth it to raze the guilds you have, but when you get incoming acres it makes sense to build other stuff until you get to your intended size.

"I'm wondering about one new thing. I generally hate homes, but I've never played ud mystic and since my combo seems to be destined to have bad econ, when approaching a wave I'm thinking of: 1. 50%+ homes for a period for pop to max up 2. Raze homes to enter war with good econ momentarily with decay latency/ Now the two things about this is: 1. A stupid question but does razing such a high amount of homes 'suddenly' overpop you? 2. Going into war with high peasants high military would make me a darn good chain target won't it? The other kd would see it as a great way to get rid of military."

1. is already answered, and 2. is, yes, someone with ridiculously high homes is chain-bait at the start of war. Don't build homes in ridiculous quantities, and never build them in place of a building that serves a direct purpose.

[oetzi]

Ok, those are reasonable explanations. Yet, somehow I've noticed some crazy provinces. Say, a 1k acre ud warrior at 88/88 opa dpa with 11k peasants OOW. I'm going to take more intel next time to see how these fun stuffs are run but I suspect they're all time sensitive. There are some other questions though.

1. Is the thievery calculator correct? It seems that the gains do not work like land. The thievery calculator implies that gains will be ideal if your nw is every bit the same. Do spells work the same way?

2. What is a suitable grading of a successful race/pers combo? Is there one thing that simplifies everything? It is really complicated to grade. I've tried arranging some algorithms but have only managed to calculate the tangible things (e.g. inputting targets like op/nw dp/nw, wpa, tpa) at maximum capacity. Ive found this to be very 'brute force' in munching out the best fit for those narrow standards. Not say, the capacity for science and therefore gains, and therefore conversions for uds vs elites being as cheap as specs due to conversions. Or how much the benefits of the speed of growth/rebuilding actually counts. Or the ease in reaching that max capacity. And all these things multiplied.

2.