kingdom race/setup question

[ThRaZe]

Hey guys, was wondering if i could get some advice. My situation is this:

I am monarch of a semi-ghetto KD... with some extremely good players. We reached number 1 on our island, had the entire top 10 island provs from our KD, and top 20 in the world. The thing that makes us ghetto is inconsistancy of activity by 25% of the KD, failure to follow chain orders correctly - which is mostly impart to the fact our provences have been able to choose whatever race they like, ending in 75% TM. We got smashed in our last war, as facing kingdoms the size we were at, we we're simply outmatched as far as organization and teamwork was concerned.

So currently my KD is thinking strat for next age. We are in the process of recruiting friends of the KD which should eliminate the activity problem.

We have a couple of options which obviously depend on revisions of race/personality changes for next age, but working off the preliminary changes I have come here to put to you guys a couple of our thoughts.

Hybrid KD:

5 x Elf Mystics
7 x Halfer Rouges
4 x Human Sage
4 x Faerie rouges

with the addition of 5 invites we would look at extra elf mystics.


The other option is a pure attacking KD:

1 x Human Merchant (monarch)
2 x Faerie Rouge
2 x Halfer Rouge
Everyone else undead.


We are I guess what you would call a warring KD, so in saying that I am wondering:

Which option seems more fitting to our KD.
Would human hybrids be better off with max sci as opposed to and elf hybrid?

[marve]

Honestly man, ths topic is extremely tough to discuss before final changes are out. Since the changes were so drastic, you can't accurately set this up.

[Luc]

You're not likely to get a good discussion going in this thread considering the changes are very far from final.

In general though, when building a kingdom, it's better to get people used to being pure attackers at first. That's because it really forces them to be team players, and usually takes away their fear of getting hit (which is a common cause of anti-team-play behavior). If you let too many play t/m's and, to a slightly lesser extent, hybrids they start thinking too much of themselves and their honor etc. Especially if they play a race which is good at turtling (such as halflings). It's very common for warring kd's to fall apart because too many of the supposed attackers (i.e. hybrids) aren't actually hitting, but rather keeping their troops home in fear of getting hit. If nobody's hitting, you're unlikely to win anything.

[Topsy]

Obviously changes aren't out, so there is no point talking about actual setups, except as examples of ideas. In general, I'd recomend this:
1) think about your kd goals for the age. Utopia is odd in so far as there isn't a firmly recognized(atleast outside the top 5 kd's in nw or so) definition of what "winning" is. Yet winning demands certain race/pers setups. Decide what winning looks like, and choose accordingly.
2) you said warring kd, so think what size ww kd you want. You only have 20 provs right now, so if you want to war a lot, I'd recomend being a >100rank warring kd. As you get below that, most kd's will out province you.
3) the pluses to have a kd-wide strat are: A) allows you to play to the interests/lvl's of potential coordintion and activity in KD, B) Allows you to have more clear and more effective warring strategy(this is particularly true with dragons/nw distribution/chaining v max gaining) C) Allows you to stop weaknesses in your KD before they start. For example, I was talking to someone who had a KD setup of 4 faery/rogue, 10 avian something, 4 human/rogue, 3 elf/ystic, and 4 undead/warrior. They had thought "oh, well the avians or elves can get unbreakable, and the undead will take chains." Instead, the undead got ns'd to hell since they were the only provs without cs or high tpa. If they had gone 19 avian/elf, the other kd would have been forced to either coordinate and mv/ns run, or op into cs/high tpa. If they had gone 19 undead, all their undeads wouldn't have been taken down. Alternatively, last age people would run a whole bunch of undead or orc/cleric with high gs, and then have a couple something else attacker/hybrid and be shocked when those got chained every time.
4) decide how much you want to dictate. If you want to war, it can't be underemphasized how important bating is. When you have an actual kd-wide strat, it becomes much harder to find good war targets. Waving for weeks is really bad for activity, and you always end up finally taking a kd with better starting numbers anywase. You can normally start a war with better advantages if you have an unorganized kd-strat, than an organized one. This is atleast the case where you are >100(obviousy as you get <50 or <30 everyone has kd-strats and then this isn't as true, although it is still partly the case that you'll be able to war the less prepared)
So, you can either make a kd strat (for his age, say 15 undead/warrior, 3 faery/rogue, 2 elf/mystic) or you can make roles and have some options (15 core attacker, 3 t/m, 2 a/m or bottomfeeder or whatever) and then have what you think are roughly decent options for each one(while keeping in mind the first things). Sometimes, there will be more obvious choices, but normally you can probably get yourself looking a little more ghetto.

But don't go hybrid unless there are significant changes.

[Yadda9To5]

You're not likely to get a good discussion going in this thread considering the changes are very far from final.

In general though, when building a kingdom, it's better to get people used to being pure attackers at first. That's because it really forces them to be team players, and usually takes away their fear of getting hit (which is a common cause of anti-team-play behavior). If you let too many play t/m's and, to a slightly lesser extent, hybrids they start thinking too much of themselves and their honor etc. Especially if they play a race which is good at turtling (such as halflings). It's very common for warring kd's to fall apart because too many of the supposed attackers (i.e. hybrids) aren't actually hitting, but rather keeping their troops home in fear of getting hit. If nobody's hitting, you're unlikely to win anything.

I hate it how right you are. Happened to me in 2 different kd's. KD does great, let's try to be better and use ops more. And suddenly you hear "I can't attack a target cause if i send out 60opa i can be retalled hard (duh, in war only faeries are meant to be unbreakable)". Needless to say, next age we'll be all attackers again, it might cost us a war or two, but wars will faster; in 2 days it's perfectly clear whether or not you overpower the opposing kingdom by pure brute force. If not, just surrender (building up unbreakables and such is a no go anyways with only heavy hitters) and war a new kd. A few war losses should make finding wars easier as well.

Added to this: The hardest part of utopia is get the kingdom to work as a team (assuming you want to war). Even a few provs unable to attack (or op if that's their role) the targets makes effective chaining a true challenge. "Perfect" strats come 2nd.

[Landro]

The first thing is to convince your players that playing T/M doesn't mean they'll never get hit. In fact, they often a popular target for people seeking extra acres.

[citadela01]

Its best to go heavy hitter setup when building a KD, have few dedicated tm‘s and everyone else pure hitter with FIXED def. The way i cured my KD from fear of geting hit and defhogin was to play with 20 orcs and 25 dpa for the first 9 weeks of the age and than up it to 30.
Wars were fun, short and brutal, activity boomed during that age and we never had issues with defhoggin again.

[Persain]

Its best to go heavy hitter setup when building a KD, have few dedicated tm‘s and everyone else pure hitter with FIXED def. The way i cured my KD from fear of geting hit and defhogin was to play with 20 orcs and 25 dpa for the first 9 weeks of the age and than up it to 30.
Wars were fun, short and brutal, activity boomed during that age and we never had issues with defhoggin again.

+1 geting chained is fun

[cRs]

get 1-2 max faeryes - experienced and active players - they should do the work for the kd(or you could remove them completlly from strat). Go with full attackers for players who are still learning the game (undead preferablly - easy to play, only have to worry about neg. income). If you have good active players, make them hybrids (make sure they know what they are doing though), having a hybrid that cant do the t/m job wont do the work. As for urself, playing human/merchant wont help that much in war the kd, try A/T or A/M - help your mates with infos, do good attacks/ops, give a good example.

[nooblet]

For next age - I do not believe the race changes are final, so it is difficult to say what is a good pick. Some things I thought...

-No more Ambush protection for anyone except Avian with warspoils, bar anonymity. This is a huge deal for undead kingdoms, who are now very prone to getting hit with ambush attacks.
-Lots of races with turtle power, and the capability of running pure elite armies. The combination of these, I'm guessing, is to make recovery from chains easier for most races.
-Avians are simply way too good
-Faeries are even better t/ms than before. They are a little more vulnerable to being bottomfed with their elite's higher networth, and their offspecs are of course completely worthless.

Without going into too much detail about why, since I feel it will be irrelevant soon anyway - core of Avian attackers, 2-3 Faery t/ms. There might be other options to play with, but this setup is very easy to implement. It does not matter if you can't utilize the Avian attack time bonus fully.

[gergnub]

id like to point out its rogue, not rouge. but wait till changes are final, too early young padawan.

[Bishop]

Rouges are over-powdered.

[peteyb22]

I only reap the OP but here's what I'd do:

You and the most active players that you know will stay the whole age no matter what should play whatever you want to.
The rest of the Kingdom should go Human and you should judge activity and recruit this whole age.
Then build your Kingdom strat next age.