Mystic How-to: wpa growth despite land growth

[lastunicorn]

iirc spell gains do not vary. If you fireball someone 5x your size with 3k peasants or same size as you with 3k peasants, you will fb the same amount. You will fail more on opponents with vastly different nw compared to yours though.

[MojoCrojo]

I'd say you need to cut down the draft rate and increase your homes. Stabilize your economy and hit into small kingdoms, your wpa may not be up to speed but it should be effective enough for any out of war needs. I would not draft passed 70% without good reason and I'd say that at the moment you could drop down to 65%, the only way to take control of your wpa is to invest in science which means you need a more economical build.

[oetzi]

Originally, I drafted that much because I had no income and relied on 100% plunders and runes. But now it's stabilizing (without homes). I'm one hit away from my target so thanks guys. Threatening a few guys in the kd to stop growing or no mv from me as well heh. Yes, MojoCrojo, I'm gonna do something about that science issue. Man it's biting me. Well, it's been good conversation and I suppose I'll hang out more in here.

[Persain]

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.

meh, straight attackers can be well above 120 dpa and 40 dpa...you as a A/M will for sure be a bit lower that a straight attacker, but if you are trying to grow starting at 120 opa will mean u end at the desired opa and its alot easier to get there.I always train offense before defense as an attacker. For example last age i ended the age as an undead 66% draft 110 opa, 40 dpa 3 raw wpa, 2:1 ratio of leets:specs. Sure thats end of age numbers but if your goal is to grow (post war or just regularly) there no reason y u shouldn't be able to run above 100 opa as an undead.

Another reason/example is leet conversion, this age its viable to run 130 opa 50 dpa (of your target land size) and hitting with specs every day of a significantly larger size than you want to be to get specs=> leets. Say something like acre size goal 1500 acres run ~95 opa / 35 dpa at 2000 acres, use your extra size to get science (learns and buy), train wizards faster, get gold at a lower draft rate and then 1-2 days prior to your kd being ready to war (or getting WAY to big) land drop back to 1500 acres. If u need u can then release any extra off specs ifand be pumped INSTANTLY to the desired size and in the mean time u reap a nice amount of benefits. Similarly lets say u start at 700 acres with the goal being that 1500 acres. Lets say the reason u are 700 acres is u were chained in war and now next to no defense and are mostly all offense. IF you start growing for acres and train nearly all offense (staying above 130 nw/acre) there a good chance u can get to 1500 acres at 120-130 opa and 10-20 dpa without being hit. (read godlys guide to randoms most people wont be hitting u if u are built like this outside war). Now u can keep growing to that 2k acres while training up mostly defense reaping the benefits of being big.

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.

draft rates of 60% are fine IF you are larger than your target acres, just keep 1 intra raze larger than u want to be outside of war and then right before your kd is ready to war land drop. IF a kd waves your kd chances are your going to be hit anyway and now that land hit did no effective damage.

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.

Also fyi if u ran that many homes and raze them u just burned through ALOT of gc's that are probably better spent on a dragon. Radical pre-war building changes are rarely beneficial.

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?

i dont do alot of theif ops, but im pretty sure the one on the dragon portal is up to date,

iirc spell gains do not vary. If you fireball someone 5x your size with 3k peasants or same size as you with 3k peasants, you will fb the same amount. You will fail more on opponents with vastly different nw compared to yours though.

This is correct....at least from whave ive seen this age casting 100+ fireballs.

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.

Theres no simple way to grade a race/pers combo...some players may tell u otherwise(and spend HOURS calculating numbers just like you), but most of the "pros" such at realest have just been around long enough to have a general feeling what works best because they have either played or seen most combos played. A general rule of thumb is that kd activity & strategy (ie good leaders via war strat and overall kd strat) will overcome individual bad race/personality combos. Not 100% true via "top" wars but thats y u war up to learn what works and what doesnt.

[nooblet]

"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. "

I don't understand... are you trying to rank race-personality combinations, or how well that race-personality is being played?
Numbers on paper are one thing, results are another. If you can't use that 100 opa to win wars, it doesn't mean your province is so much better than a poorly run province. Human/Rogue might seem like it puts up good attack and thievery numbers on paper, but too many things disrupt a Human/Rogue to make it difficult for them to do either well, and even if they do pull off a/t, if their ops aren't effective then they're really just gimped attackers. Attack times, gains and speed modifiers are of huge importance in war, and you can have provinces with relatively weak numbers perform well if they're utilizing any of those or econ power.
Almost any race-personality combination can be made into a viable province, save for the few that are obviously bad like Undead/Shepherd or Faery/any attacker personality. Personalities usually have more to do with your kingdom's goals and strategy than the inherent value of a race-personality combination.

[oetzi]

Persain - Ok cool, I'll try doing the land drop thing. Yeah I suppose common sense + intuition/instinct can often count more than simply knowing the numbers.

nooblet - I suppose it's still good to understand the game mathematically, but it's a lost cause in giving too much focus on finding any kind of 'best fit' among all (but maybe best fit for kd is still worthwhile).

[nooblet]

Every race has a practically given "best personality":
Human - Merchant
Elf - Mystic, though most players' mileage may vary
Dwarf - Technically Shepherd, but for many reasons Shepherd Dwarf has drawbacks. Dwarves suck anyway this age.
Faery - Sage
Orc - Tactician
Avian - Warrior
Halfling - Rogue
Undead - Cleric

In practice, though, personalities are more useful at a kingdom level than at a province level, and most of a kingdom core will often run the same personality even if their races differ, or pick two predominant personalities for their core attackers. Many personalities, but especially tactician, work best if most of the kingdom is using them or can match personality bonuses with racial picks. (i.e., putting a non-avian/dwarf/halfing tactician with any of the above races since native attack times or quick feet will match the tactician attack time bonus). Then there are cases where having a few of a personality makes them obvious targets, particularly Merchants who will need to be fireballed or chained.

Undead Mystics are just a pain in the ass to use regardless of kingdom setup. It works best when your kingdom uses massacre or AW to weaken mage defenses, as under ideal conditions most provinces are going to have enough magic defense and channeling to repel half of what a UD/Mystic throws at least. Of course doing that implies that you have a kingdom that is set up to do both, which may not be the case - and even if they can, whether they'd want to is another matter entirely.

Also... don't land drop. Land drop is nub. :(

[oetzi]

Yeah, I quite preferred Elf Mystic as an A/M, eoa stats last age were around 95 opa/ 86dpa and sometimes I joined in with the orcs lol (and since I started playing late age, this elf wasn't pumped well). And there were other buffs like cheaper elites and better mana recovery despite trade offs like farm space and hosp.

Surprisingly, the ud mystics are doing very well blanketing ms. Even on faery rogues. There's no problem doing what proper mages should do IF I'm in nw range - which I wasn't for the most part.