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Thread: Horses, are they worth it?

  1. #1
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    Horses, are they worth it?

    Hi all, im a returning player after 6 years. This is my first age back and i have some questions regarding Stables.

    Im currently running a UD/WR province.

    1.5k acres with 45 DPA(No elite) and 105 OPA. My science looks something like 11% BE9% Pop 15% income, the rest spread around.

    Im currently running,

    15% Rax
    10% Banks
    20% TG
    8% Guild
    10% Stabes
    5% Tower
    2% Dungeon
    10% Hospital
    20% GS

    So while i was switching my buildings around, ive noticed that my 10% Stables only provides around 8k+ horses, which means a paltry 10k offence(120% OME). This doesnt seem alot when i have 150k+ offence so i was wondering if it would be a good idea to take out stables altogether and maybe use the land in WT or even homes? WT helps a ton in war especially when im running only 1tpa(raw), not to mention deterring/soak up ops for my KD. I havent done the calculation but i think with 10% homes instead of stables, i will not lose too much offence but get a nice boost in income and birth rate.

    Id appreciiate if someone can explain or even better, show me a good Build in war! Looking forward to your replies.
    Last edited by Shortizz; 17-04-2012 at 14:50.

  2. #2
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    Homes or WTs are really the most viable alternatives - but they provide different results. With 1 tpa raw and tons of expensive elites i would be looking at WTs myself.
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  3. #3
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    UD Warrior build should look something like this. 5%home, 25%tg, 20%raxx, 20gs, 15%wt. The rest in guilds and towers
    High tg's are a must otherwise your not modding the 9off elite value which makes them so strong. And definately watch towers if your only running 1tpa
    Last edited by brickwolfman; 17-04-2012 at 15:02.
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  4. #4
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    To be kinda pedantic, I'd ask the question in 2 steps:

    1. I have 32% buildings in offense mods (TG/Forts/Stables/Dungeons). While I always like more offense... am I a "glass cannon" relying too much on mods and too little durability? Do I need other buildings more than I need these offense buildings?
    2. Once I've picked my new % offense buildings - how do I best split them up? Are more TGs better than stables? Are more forts? (Concession to the forts haters - remember forts are not as good as a pure static evaluation suggests - but if you had 30%+ TGs, they'd still clearly be better than more TGs.)

    Question 1 is tough, and 'tis a big time strategic question. Is your role in the kingdom to be the "breaker" that can start a chain on anybody? Are you meant to be chain bait? Does your kingdom fight week+ wars usually?

    IMO, a total lack of WT's *will* get you lit up, and all the rest of your build won't matter within about 2 days, cause the A/ts and A/Ts will have NSed a huge amount. (Heck, the T/Ms might run prop since they can send max thieves without fear of losses - if their rTPA is good enough.) Even the attackers might get in on the stealing - rob doesn't need much, if any, of a mTPA advantage to succeed with moderate frequency. All of which says you need WTs to cut the damage a bit (and force them to take losses... so at least the attackers will stop, or run out of thieves and not be able to do it to any of your kingdom mates as well.) As to where to get the 10-20% WT's from? GS *maybe* - if you aren't chain bait, 20% seems high, though 15% is probably good on a big hitter like this. But what else can you cut? It *has* to come out of that 32% you've got locked up in offense buildings.


    Question #2 is fairly easy. If you drop offense buildings to 22% or lower - 2% dungeons is good. Given your good science, I assume your BE is relatively high (85-90%, at a guess) and so either 20% TGs, or 10% TGs 10% Forts is better than using stables. High base offense argues for % mods like TGs, and solid BE also pushes for TGs a bit. The high offense elite improves *forts* because every d-spec you save produces more base offense, which is why you *could* consider going as high as 1:1 on TGs:Forts - but again, remember forts have special dangers TGs lack. (Usually most pronounced when chained - so again that chain bait question.) But even if you stay with 20% TGs, I'm *fairly* sure even the last %, from 19%->20%, is better as a TG than as a stable. If you really care, sim everything out and fiddle the last % for your specific situation.
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  5. #5
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    Undead get more utility out of stables than most races. For all races, stables are best for players that can use armies-in-armies-out so that horses never desert once the stables are lost.

    Watchtowers are a higher priority though. During war, you shouldn't build any further stables, and if you have spare cash, better to raze them off as soon as long as you can keep armies out.

  6. #6
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    Ethans' questions are spot on for what your asking and
    Quote Originally Posted by Ethan View Post
    1. I have 32% buildings in offense mods (TG/Forts/Stables/Dungeons). While I always like more offense... am I a "glass cannon" relying too much on mods and too little durability? Do I need other buildings more than I need these offense buildings?
    in addition to this u need to ask what % of land goes to economy, ie homes/banks/arms/hospitals.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ethan View Post
    2. Once I've picked my new % offense buildings - how do I best split them up? Are more TGs better than stables? Are more forts? (Concession to the forts haters - remember forts are not as good as a pure static evaluation suggests - but if you had 30%+ TGs, they'd still clearly be better than more TGs.)
    These are important questions. What i personally ask FIRST is what size am i relative to the rest of the kd. am i near the top, am i mid, am i bottom. what % WT/GS do i need, then i go offense, then economy.

    In each case
    start war build=>end war build(incoming acres goal to build towards)

    If your a "breaker" you want high gs/wt, assumed u'll be chained for ending build
    10% Rax =>20%
    25% TG =>35%
    8% Guild =>5%
    8% Stabes
    2% Tower
    2% Dungeon
    25% GS =>40%
    20% WT

    if your mid teir u want safety/economy
    5% homes =>7%
    15% Rax =>15%
    10% banks =>15%
    15% TG =>20%
    8% Guild =>5%
    0% forts =>5%
    10% Stabes
    2% Tower =>2%
    2% Dungeon =>1%
    19% GS =>20%
    15% WT =>10%

    if your small teir u need to be very flexible as u could grow or have to fight chains, so start out flexible with a few wt just in case u grow and u end up needing more later
    8% homes
    15% Rax
    15% banks
    15% TG
    8% Guild
    10% Stabes
    2% Tower
    2% Dungeon
    15% GS
    10% WT

    overall i love horses as you get free offence and can turn stables into tg with incoming land so your offence doesnt drop much during war. As well for an attacker i hate forts as you def drops without ever even being hit when u get new land and then are required to continue to dedicate land towards them all war, hampering your flexibility.
    Last edited by Persain; 17-04-2012 at 17:13.

  7. #7
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    Hey guys, thanks for the awesome replies and feedbacks.

    Im usually one of the bigger guys in my KD, although we have a habit of waiting for others to catch up in land size before we go into the next war. Idk if this is a good habit or not, i sometimes just keep ''waitiing'' up to 1 week doing nothing but learns and plunders.

    So id assume my role to be the middle - top of the pack, with the high offence set up we are running we can usually break others with no problem.

    Also, my BE is around 86%-90% like u've guessed.

    I see that some of u are forgo-ing hospitals so i might wanna add that i run a 90% Elite, 10% Off spec offence so every attacks fricking hurts my elites count. Would it be a good idea to add some hospitals in?

    5% homes =>7%
    15% Rax =>15%
    10% banks =>15%
    15% TG =>20%
    8% Guild =>5%
    0% forts =>5%
    10% Stabes
    2% Tower =>2%
    2% Dungeon =>1%
    19% GS =>20%
    15% WT =>10%

    I really like Persian's build right here except i intend to take out the Homes and squeeze out 5% from GS and WT to make it 10% Hospitals. What do u guys think?

  8. #8
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    Undead can't exactly skip hospitals unless they're cleric. Offensively undead elites are valuable enough to justify using them even if you're not attacked.

    Homes are (almost) never a priority building. I'd swap out homes for hospitals, at least pre-war. As the war goes on you might be able to tell if you're going to be a chain target, op target, or left alone... if it's the latter two, hospitals don't do as much for you.

    I always wing it with build strategies, because so much relies on adjusting the build strategy for a particular situation. I've had wars where I got chained, built 30% TG + 10% Fort and pimped a province with pretty insane mod power considering all the hits I took.

  9. #9
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    as for myself i wont get forts =)

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    Quote Originally Posted by nooblet View Post
    Undead get more utility out of stables than most races.
    So its fairly late and I had a long day at work so I'm probably missing the common sense in all of this but how do undeads get the most utility out of stables when they only add 11% bonus (per 1 elite unit) as compared to say, an elf whose elite is 7 points, making the horse add 14% (once again comparing one elite with one horse)

  11. #11
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    Undead have enough spare land to use stables without crippling the rest of their province too much. Undead will run armies-in-armies-out almost every war, and may do it outside of war as well. Once the stables are gone, undead lose less of them on every attack, allowing them to retain their war horses for far longer. The extra offense from the stables is often enough to push an undead to make another hit in war, which is huge. In any event, war horses are best when modded by good training grounds.

    Stables are a raw offense building, not a mod building. Doesn't matter if the horses and mounted by elites, offspec, or soldiers. Anyone who starts talking about tweaking training grounds and stables for optimum numbers is doing it wrong - you only build stables, for any race, when you have lots of TG, plan to have lots of TG in the near future, or a few other situations that relate to economic factors... like the possibility of having to tank a gold dragon. With that in mind, the best races for stables are actually the races with 9 point offensive elites, because they also have huge bonuses that make each of their attacks much more effective, and are more likely to get an extra attack out of the horses.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by nooblet View Post
    Undead can't exactly skip hospitals unless they're cleric. Offensively undead elites are valuable enough to justify using them even if you're not attacked.
    Terrible, its like suggesting an orc cleric run hospitals, sure for kd wide strats and planned 10+ days wars it might be a good concept, but if you plan for you war to go 72-96 hours and then adapt as needed after that your going to be in much better shape as a single prov.

    With that said Undead is the one race that if managed during war can run ZERO hostpitals. Becasue either yours setting yourself up to be chained where as hospitals hurt you, or theres a max gain war where its more important to run high GS, increase your TG during war to keep your offense and then train a few dspecs + adding forts. Added to the fact that this guy is an Un/Wr and he already has the extra -15% losses and it turns hostpitals into one of the least effective buildings to protect offence. Thats the point of 10-15% banks, they are there to allow him to run 1% draft rate and train a ton of specs as needed and end up being a better use of land for keeping offense in normal wars and only a slightly less effective per acre building than hospitals during a straight max gain war.


    Quote Originally Posted by Shortizz View Post
    So id assume my role to be the middle - top of the pack....
    I really like Persian's build right here except i intend to take out the Homes and squeeze out 5% from GS and WT to make it 10% Hospitals. What do u guys think?
    if you Waring a competent kd, i definitely wouldn't run hospitals, see above your not using your land as effectively as it could be. WT and GS protect you more than hospitals do any day for a few reasons,
    1. in a ghetto war they redirect ops/attacks away from you if your the only one with them (not that you should be the only one with either...all pure attackers undead/avain/orc really should try to have 10%+ GS and some WT if they have low tpa).
    2. in a normal war you can expect that you will either be shelled/chained as a high offense largish hitter, these 2 buildings counter that the best you can.
    3. arms/hospitals/homes/banks are the 4 buildings you can use as an attacker during war to sustain yourself. As an undead/warrior your offence is already sustained via spec=>leet, 57.5% reduced off losses & def is a bit sustained via 15% reduced def losses. As such the "sustain" you want to be using is something that can benefit your kd via aid if you dont get hit enough to use it. homes/banks serve that purpose.

    Note the reason i have homes in my build at all is that not that it gives a minor boost to BE/birthrate/population (that helps your econ) but it allows you a bit more flexibility in war. That is its a "planed" buffer sure i said go up to 7%, but these things are only basis and concept. There a GOOD chance that if your being t/m-ed you will need up UP your WT, not lower it, if you start with hospitals its very difficult to, during war, say screw it i dont need more hospitals i need more banks/tg/gs/wt/towers/whatever, becasue your offense is dieing. In contrast the mental barrier over building more homes is meh, how are they going to help me +15% br, and more population space..meh im not even at max pop, screw em.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shortizz View Post
    Also, my BE is around 86%-90% like u've guessed.
    if its that high you might want to up your draft rate a bit i would expect BE to be in the 75-80 range, should be able to pull off 110 mod opa easy.
    Last edited by Persain; 19-04-2012 at 16:29.

  13. #13
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    ugh, forget it. go on giving bad advice, all of you.

  14. #14
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    The more ospecs you have in comparison to elites, the more useful stables are. In other words the less pumped you are entering war, the better stables are. That said I'd rather have some more barracks than stables if I was undead in most cases, since that would allow more spec > conversion, and quicker incoming land.
    Hospitals aren't that bad either. If the enemy kingdom is active enough, they can time it so they hit you the second your elites come home, devastating you if you don't have hospitals. They can also ambush you, although you can counter that with war spoils, but then you'd need to run more guilds and towers.
    It's all situational.

  15. #15
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    Homes... lol ... no


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