New player with lots of questions!

[Regary]

So I have been playing utopia for...mebbe a month? Slightly less? Not certain. I love it here! But I have lots of questions, and though my kingdom mates are very helpful I wanted to ask all you wonderfully nice expert people for your advice as well:) No sarcasm at all! I have learned a LOT from reading these forums!

For the record, I am a human merchant, and attacker. I know its probably not the best attacker combo, but I was new!

When I joined and asked all my noobie questions my kingie delivered a building strat to me and I faithfully followed it. But NOW that I am reading and doing my own research, I am starting to question it a bit. First, there were no hospitals, and barracks at 10%. I would like to change that - as my wait times for my army are ridiculously long in my ever so humble opinon. Also, they set me up with 10% stables, but few of the building strats I have seen mention stables. So...

1-How important are stables? I realize they give offense, but I run an almost all-elite army and want to know just how much these stables add to my offense, if they are worth it? If not, I would dearly love to sink those stables into barracks.

2-SHOULD I be running an all elite army, or should I also have normal offense specs?

3- I have seen info on building efficiency. What percentage should I start worrying? Is 70% safe? What about 60%? What happens if my building efficiency goes to low? I really don't understand the concept of building efficiency at all - not certain what precisely it means.

4- Here is my very first building strat I made up. Please please please tell me what you think, if Im missing something, should change something, etc.
10% Homes
5% Farms (Not much, but I figure with science and stealing foods I should make it ok)
15% Banks
10% Training Grounds
5% Armories (I know this will hit my pocketbook a bit, but I am a merchant and I think I can cover it)
25% Barracks
10% Hospitals
5% Guilds
5% Towers
10% Watchtowers

Updated strat based on feedback so far:
10% Homes
7% Farms (Not much, but I figure with science and stealing foods I should make it ok)
15% Banks
20% Training Grounds
20% Barracks
10% Hospitals
5% Guilds
5% Towers
8% Watchtowers

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read and answer this! I promise it is very much appreciated.

[Backspin]

You dont run armouries in war, especially as a human merchant with more than enough income. I'd scratch some of the barracks. Did someone explain you the diminishing returns mechanism? Buildings get less and less effective when you have a higher percentage. I'd say run enough to be able to hit every 12 hours in war, thats about 12% if I'm correct.
With the freed acres, I'd build some more Trainig Grounds and stables if you're full attacker, otherwise go thief dens (and change the watchtowers to TD's too) and have 3-4 raw thieves per acre (tpa)

[Regary]

Well according to the angel buildings calculator 25% barracks would reduce my attack time enough I can get in three attacks per 24 hour period, which with my activity level I can totally do. So even with diminishing returns that 25% accomplishes what I want - which is more attacks.

Training grounds make sense - and I can take my armories and put those into training grounds.
I AM full attacker, but Im not sure if the stables offer enough offense to be worth it. Do you know exactly how much they offer? Is it like...3 horses = 1 def spec, or something like that?

Thief dens I thought was for offensive stealing, and watchtowers was for defense. About the only thing I use my thieves for is intel and the occasional stealing gold or food or whatever. I really dont use them enough to warrant thief dens, at least I think. I might be wrong.

I appreciate your answering though, and if anything I've said here needs correcting, by all means:)

[grofdojka]

3-4 raw tpa is a bit high for human merch isnt it?

As backspin said you dont need armouries, lower your rax to 15 % or so, mybe have 7-8% farms, definately more training grounds.

BE is very simple. If your BE is 100% 1 tower will produce 12 runes. if your be is 75% you will get only 9 runes. Apply that to everything and thats it. It doesnt apply to homes 8+pop tho and stables, but im not sure about stables.
Anyway, anything above 80 BE is ok, you REALLY shouldnt go bellow 75(well, in some cases yes but not in general)


edit:tds give you more mod tpa which in return gives you more defense from thieveing. wt gives you a chance to catch a thief so dunno, your choice

[dreaku]

1. in general for human (all elite) TG's>stables (get a pencil or an excel sh and do the math, it's not to hard and it's rewarding)
2. yes, all elite (for human) ofence army in 99% of the cases
3. ex: a farm produces 70 bushels per hour with no modifiers (sci, fl) at 100% BE. it will produce 35 at 50% and so on (70*BE).
4. it's an ok strat. peoples will argue more there less there etc.
i'd point you only one thing: the % of barrack is, in general, set to give the average (casual) player return times that would not mess his/her's scredule during war times (when it's expected that you keep your army home as little as possible).

[Regary]

Yeah I was thinking 2 tpa, and before war bumping it to 3 if there are a significant number of thieves in the opposing kingdom.

I agree, Ive knocked off the armories. And I think lowering barracks to 20% will still get me three attacks per day. I bumped farms up to 7% and training grounds to 20%.

And thanks for the info on BE:) That makes perfect sense! I need to get my BE up lol. I will update my building strat..

[grofdojka]

i really doubt you can pull out 8 hours return time with human tho....

[Regary]

:( But I wanna! xD

[grofdojka]

you shouldve picked avian then :P

in best case scenario, you base attack time would be 12 hours. 50% rax with 100 BE would give you 7.5 hours for attack :D

[Regary]

*sighs* Well I will leave it at 20% then and see what that does.

[bluebear]

1-How important are stables? I realize they give offense, but I run an almost all-elite army and want to know just how much these stables add to my offense, if they are worth it? If not, I would dearly love to sink those stables into barracks.

2-SHOULD I be running an all elite army, or should I also have normal offense specs?

3- I have seen info on building efficiency. What percentage should I start worrying? Is 70% safe? What about 60%? What happens if my building efficiency goes to low? I really don't understand the concept of building efficiency at all - not certain what precisely it means.

4- Here is my very first building strat I made up. Please please please tell me what you think, if Im missing something, should change something, etc.
10% Homes
5% Farms (Not much, but I figure with science and stealing foods I should make it ok)
15% Banks
10% Training Grounds
5% Armories (I know this will hit my pocketbook a bit, but I am a merchant and I think I can cover it)
25% Barracks
10% Hospitals
5% Guilds
5% Towers
10% Watchtowers

Updated strat based on feedback so far:
10% Homes
7% Farms (Not much, but I figure with science and stealing foods I should make it ok)
15% Banks
20% Training Grounds
20% Barracks
10% Hospitals
5% Guilds
5% Towers
8% Watchtowers

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read and answer this! I promise it is very much appreciated.

well welcome to utopia first of all.

1. this is a mathematical game so you can figure this out easily. Horses add 1 to offense so for halfers that's equivalent to 20% increase in offensive power while for humans, it's 12.5% increase. so think of it as extra offensive military efficiency. bottomline: no stables for human

2. human elites 8/3 while ospec is 5/0... offense and defense wise, elite is better....

3. answered by others well

4. get rid of watchtowers. 8% watchtowers wont save you from faery t/m with 20+mod tpa. attackers won't attempt to ns you so dont worry about them. also builds change depending on how big you are as well.

good luck and have fun.

[Azureflames]

Mod off=((Elites*EliteValue)+60*(X%stables*acres))*(((ME+1.5*BE*Y%TGs*(1-Y%TGs))*honor bonus)+general bonus)

X%stables + Y%TGs = %land dedicated to TG/stables

Example

((11401*8)+60*(X*1057))*(((1.075867+1.5*.8374*Y(1-Y))*1.02)+.09)

X%stables + Y%TGs = .25
X%stables = .25-Y%TGs

((11401*8)+60*((.25-Y)*1057))*(((1.075867+1.5*.8374*Y(1-Y))*1.02)+.09)

max value at about y = .15/.16

So 16% TG's 9% stables for these numbers. Not sure if this is 100% accurate, just looked up these formulas on the wiki and plugged in some numbers for a human. If someone shows me how this is wrong I'll delete it. Of course these aren't hard numbers because there's lots of other considerations such as stealing war horses.

[Backspin]

Oh, and if you're facing a kingdom with quite some undead, I would up my guilds to 12% to get rid of plague. Cause 5% guilds and being human its gonna be difficult to cast nature's blessing halfway through war with incoming lands/attacks.

[Fatal1ty]

Why are the homes needed? Just get some pop science and get rid of the homes...

[Persain]

Why are the homes needed? Just get some pop science and get rid of the homes...

yea only races i run homes on are ones that i have "spare" land on, humans inst one of them.
Also

So 16% TG's 9% stables for these numbers.

I run stables on on my "pure" attackers you might end up with less max mod off regardless of what the "numbers" say, but as long as you run army in army out you end up with a much stronger prov that has durability. And as a human you can get away with 3ish raw tpa+science being an attacker
Thus if u are middle range for your kd as far as size goes (top 2-3 attackers need 20% WT and 20%+GS)

7% Farms
15% Training Grounds
8% Banks
10% Barracks
20% Hospitals
15% GS
10% Guilds
5% Towers
8% stables
2% dungeons

Then when in war with your first incoming land build mainly TG to get that up to over 20%. Never build stables, and rarely build dungeons/guilds.
By the end of war if you have not been hit much (also you didn't become the largest attacker) i would expect a build to have transitioned to
6% Farms
25% Training Grounds
5% Banks
20% Barracks
15% Hospitals
15% GS
5% Guilds
5% Towers
4% stables (never built any new ones so this % will be dependent on how much land u got but should drop considerably)

If you have been chained (main targets of enough hits to completely turn over your build) i would expect a build of
5% Farms (aid/steal your food your small so its easy)
20% Training Grounds
20% Barracks
25% hospitals
30% GS