Age 54: Dwarf/Mystic

[Jotun]

I play in a small warring KD. 8 and 9 wars the last two ages.

I am considering going Dwarf/Mystic, because Elf/mystic or any kind of elf attacker kind of suck this age. They got nerfed huuge as attackers after losing QF, and now that they dont have clearsight thats like another 10-15% buildings they need. Also $700 6/4 elite @ 6nwpa is verrrry bad. Only thing good about elf is pitfalls, but we got faerys for that. I dont think elf would be good anything this age, whether its for pure attacker or hybrid a/m they seem bad overall.


I calculated my stats of 800 bpa and baron cause thats what i hope to aim for mid age, maybe Y5
60-65% food sci
70% magic sci
50% thievery sci
5-10% military sci


my dwarf mystic strat:
9% farms
24% training grounds
9% barracks
9% guilds
9% towers
6% watchtowers
19% hosp
15% GS

7.5 dspec/acre (MP, fana) = 41 dpa
2 raw tpa, 3 mod tpa
3 raw wpa, 5.5 mod wpa
rest elites, 90-100 opa without generals (depends on sci and 65-70% draft)

my calculated wpa with 3 raw wpa is also a mid age estimate...but doing low-mid tier spells is useful still isnt it? and vs weaker mage provs ill be able to use MS.


possible?

[hb23]

interested to hear peoples comments, like the build, very similar to my plan, wasnt planning on any wt. prob have more barracks

[Mansoor]

Forget MS, maybe on some 1 wpa orcs running really low wpa. but usually provinces mid age even attackers have 2 wpa. But fireballs and such you can get away with ofc. But your build is off man, you need banks and income to be able to survive 200% payrate, upkeep cost, sci cost, some draft cost and rebuild cost (army). If you get an attack or two your province won't be able to + income.

[Luc]

Don't see the point in going mystic when you aren't gonna run more wpa than that

[Ahab]

Part of the beauty of the dwarf mystic is that you can pump wizards like crazy, so I think you should plan for a higher raw wpa, and has already been said you need more income. Some of the hospitals are better invested in banks.

[Demascus]

Sage > Mystic for dwarf. As an A/m you won't be focusing on MS at all (aside from the horribly low wpa attackers mid age). And as already mentioned, you need some sort of income bud.

[Demented Logic]

I threw the idea of Dwarf Mystic around for my Dwarf A/M, but I came to the conclusion that Dwarf Warrior is stronger.

So I compared Dwarf A/M vs Dwarf Warrior.

During War, the difference between us: The mystic will have additional land due to space from Guilds/Towers. They will also have +1 mana, and +50% spell duration. They has MS, but they won't be using it, so I ignored it.

So I assumed the mystic put all land in TGs, and I calculated the difference in Mod Offense. The warrior will have 18% more Mod Offense than the Mystic. So now ask yourself, what is more important, +1 Mana and +50% Spell Duration, or +18% Mod Offense. To me, the answer was simple- The offense is more important.


OME = (Base Military Efficiency + Training Ground Bonus) * Honor Bonus * Fanaticism
Mod Off = Raw Offense * ( OME + General Bonus) * Personality

Here are the numbers for I used.
I would have 20% TGs.
OME = (107.9% [200% wages] + 25.2%[20% TGs at 105% BE])*105% [Fanaticism] = 139.76
Mod Off = Raw* (139.76% [OME] + 12% [5 generals])*115% [Warrior] = 174.53*Raw Offense

Here are the numbers for Mystic
They would have 29% TGs with land they save.
OME = (107.9% [200% wages] + 32.4%[29% TGs at 105% BE])*105% [Fanaticism] = 147.32
Mod Off = Raw* (147.32% [OME] + 9% [4 generals]) = 156.32*Raw Offense

174.53-156.32 = 18.21 The cost of 1 mana per hour and +50% duration.

[Demented Logic]

This is my wartime build.

11% Farms
10% Banks
20% TGs
5% Barracks
15% WTs
13% Hospitals
10% Guilds
8% Towers
7% Stables
1% Dungeons

[Ethan]

If mystic running A/M, GS doesn't seem great. Sure, you'd *like* them... but more towers/banks/tgs or something is better. (Or any TGs, probably, since I'm suggesting "more" stuff below, and it comes from TG by default.) Figure against chains you should be able to LL back the land.
That said, "rainbow" dwarf has the clear advantage of getting good use of the BE and DBE.

Agree - banks a must. Even with halfer this age, I've been crying if my banks got too low.

I'd think you'd want to be a rune source, since you've got 230% base rune production. Crank that magic sci, and aid it out to the non-mystics elves to keep the fbs flowing. Again, sucking away from build space and thus attack power... but better you than them, assuming you don't let them get stolen.

Agree mystic will probably get higher wpa, and 'tis tough to turn that down. Just accept your military *will* be lacking as a hybrid, and make sure you get to like 60 opa/40 dpa or better, so you'll still be good on chain target or able to break near same size for max gain. 2xing you won't be for sure though, A/M is more costly than A/T. (But magic is high damage usually, so...)


As noted, if you really want A/m, sage is much better. Dwarf sage could be a good, durable attacker. Then higher GS and good hospitals (and low defense) make perfect sense.

[Quacky-T]

For your original strat, I don't think you have enough Towers and like others pointed out - you are missing banks. Those Elites won't come for free.
10-15% for both Towers and Banks might be a good idea.

Also, 800k BPA by midage or week 5 might be asking a bit much. Depends how much warring your warring KD does of course. (And whether or not you are winning those wars.)


If you really want to go as Dwarf mage, I think I'd rather consider the Sage and stick with Greed or FB's. MS will be hard to cast I think.
Then again I think I might as well run the Dwarf more as a straight attacker, perhaps with some thievery on the side to be able to steal what I need. Let the Fearies or Elves in your KD dish out the spell damage - besides, Dwarf spellbook isn't so juice compared with Elves/Faeries.

[citadela01]

you'd need 10+ wpa midage to cast MS reliably on pure hitters with halfdecent succes rate, more to suport some growth in wars and not be useless after 2 hits. It will completely kill your off trying to maintain that kind of wpa.
Sage, and focus on FB's imo. I was runinn up to 15 wpa late age this age with elf just be able to keep up with FB'ing w/o wasting runes. Dwarf with no wpa mods ... you will either have to run pathetic off or will keep failing sells all over the place with mystic.

[nooblet]

Dwarf/Mystic is playable, but not great. The lack of a WPA bonus and no race with a direct WPA penalty makes it hard. Both of the races with indirect magic penalties, orc and undead, either have reflect magic, and the latter often has the time and inclination to run higher guilds despite the sci penalty. Dwarf spellbook doesn't exactly translate to an economic advantage, unlike Faery or Human, and Dwarves don't have a particularly good spellbook outside the standards. Also note that every time you need to cast QF is an offensive spell lost.

If I were making a dedicated a/m I'd pick Elf over Dwarf and live with an inferior economy. Militarily 6/6 armies work alright for an a/m, if they have a more defensive focus in mind. Human/Mystic might work, simply due to Mystic reducing the number of guilds+towers needed to maximize ToG income, and Human's +magic mod giving them better damage output, but their army doth suck much.

Dwarf magic is good situationally, but not good enough to make a dedicated a/m out of. I'd think Sage, Merchant, or Cleric would be better picks... one has the obvious better science, Merchant is better economically which can translate to a bump in wpa, and Cleric not needing hospitals frees up a lot of land and, more importantly, makes it a lot more problematic for people to chain you - which combined with a magic focus and LL when it happens, means that few people are going to want to chain you first. All of these face issues against the magic power of faes and elves, but I don't believe that Mystic will give enough protection to fend off either completely. Wizard pumps are easy as cake for a dwarf without mystic.

[Lebanon]

Hello! my kd mate kindly posted that for me up there to help get me feedback. thank you for your comments and here is my response:

@mansoor "you need banks and income to be able to survive 200% payrate, upkeep cost, sci cost, some draft cost and rebuild cost "
is payrate and upkeep the same thing? 200% will be 'survivable' especially if im not getting fb/ms/chastity all the time. sci is off in war, building/razing is free, specs from 2x attacks is good enough. the only thing left is 'some draft cost' which i believe i can adequately cover

@Luc "Don't see the point in going mystic when you aren't gonna run more wpa than that"
3 raw wpa is a mid age estimate, i expect to have more eventually and its nice to have free buildings/raze for in between war to pump wiz
this is why i chose mystic even if i only have 5-6 mod wpa:
- i save 18% buildings for my war build
- +1 mana
- +50% spell duration saves a LOT of runes for both self spells and combat duration spells
- better wiz numbers throughout the game (as opposed to non-mystic A/m)
- not a completely useless personality OOW/during protection/ceasfire

@Ahab "you need more income. Some of the hospitals are better invested in banks"
-ive been doing some numbers on this, and unless i have very low BE or need money for buildings/thieves (ie. not dwarf) then hospitals would save me more money than banks would generate. if it turns out i need banks sometime into the war itll be a free 14 hour switch though

@demascus "Sage > Mystic for dwarf"
-sage isnt viable for our KD since we war maybe 7+ per age, with learns being our primary way to obtain sci

@dementedlogic "So I compared Dwarf A/M vs Dwarf Warrior"
-youre right about the +1 mana +50spell vs +18% off, but if i was going pure attacker id pick Orc

@Ethan "Agree - banks a must. Even with halfer this age, I've been crying if my banks got too low." "Just accept your military *will* be lacking as a hybrid, and make sure you get to like 60 opa/40 dpa or better"
- halfers need to replenish thieves and require money for buildings. ill still be hurting as a dwarf no doubt, but which attacker wouldnt?
- i have already accepted that my military will be lacking as a hybrid, but it definitely wont be somethin **** like 60opa/40dpa (im assuming youre not talking about early age)

@Quacky-T
- runes will be an issue until i find a good balance, i might have to adjust. also, i dont intend to build elites during war. as for the 800 bpa by midage, i can agree its a high estimate but id still do fine with 400-500bpa which is definitely a reasonable estimate.

@citadela01
- i doubt id need 10+ WPA to cast MS on pure attackers with 1wpa, but if its true then ill leave it to our faerys and do other spells
- no idea why you were trying to run 15 wpa as an elf last age...is that like 7 raw wpa?
- cant sage

@nooblet
-faery is a t/m and human would NOT make a good a/m.
-clearsight/fana/quickfeet is a GOOD spellbook, and still probably more useful than ToG
-i do acknowledge that having to recast QF is detrimental...but still a useful selfspell nonetheless
-if i choose elf a/m not only will i have an inferior economy and no free buildings, but id also have ****ty offense (really ****ty), and less building space without CS, QF. im not interested in a defensive focus. we had a hopeless elf with that style of play last age and it worked Against our KD goals.
-im not interested in dwarf pure attacker, id pick orc instead. sage is not an option since no more free books and we war all age. merchant is okay...for an a/m though? and how would that translate to a bump in wpa? i definitely need an explanation for that.
-cleric frees up as much buildings as a mystic, and as much as a lot of other personalities like warrior or tactician
-i would prefer using hospitals for plague protection as well.
-ALSO chaining is used to overpop provinces to make their troops desert. if a cleric is chained, his population will be more inflated than a non-cleric because of all the extra soldiers (even released they are still population as peasants) which raises your overpop % and much higher chance for desertion. in other words, cleric is worse for being chained. warrior or tactician would be my attacker personalities of choice, depending on the race.
-dont mind getting chained first. id still be useful as a chained province, and id have lots of chain protection with 15% GS and an inflated wpa allowing for LL.
-you are correct, dwarf/mystic cant compare against the magic power or faery and elf but if they wanna waste ****loads more mana and runes on me instead of my teammates then thats a good thing.
-lastly, although wiz pumps wouldnt be an issue for a dwarf non-mystic, my KD wars too much so mystic seems almost vital in this case of dwarf a/m

[Demascus]

1) Sages can make learn attacks ;)
2) warring a lot and winning gives a nice science boost (yay sage)
3) you make a good arguement on banks vs hospitals
4) being chained as a cleric does a few things for you:
a) does not overpop you easier as you send soldiers as aid or to dragon
b) makes the other KD focus on you a bit more
5) assuming you war a lot as you said, when are you going to find the time to get your wpa up to 3 in order to drop guilds to 9% (not sure if EoWCF is enough time? Haven't had to worry about this issue in a long time)

[nooblet]

I don't think Dwarf a/m is bad, but I think Dwarf/Mystic is poor, due to Dwarf not benefitting much from the Mystic bonus beyond the extra mana and Meteors. Chances are, you shouldn't need to rely on an a/m for meteors, and the extra mana is only situationally useful. It is a large expense to pick Mystic over a more flexible personality and be locked into the a/m role.

Dwarf does have a good spellbook, just not a spellbook that is enhanced by mystic the way ToG is, or an offensive spellbook like Elf, Faery, or even Undead is. You could just as well pick any other dwarf, and not lose that much magic potential... just be sure to pump your wpa and find a way to get runes. By picking Mystic a dwarf is locked into magic, at the expense of an economic or military boost which is more consistently useful. Even with Mystic, you can't always op the targets you want to op no matter how much time is spent wizard pumping, so when you do run into that situation your dwarf is at a disadvantage. Better to pick an attacker or economic personality, and if you have the wpa to cast spells, cast them - perhaps by making a conscious effort to raise your wpa and build towers, but not being locked into magic.

I suppose Mystic is good this age just because the personality is so over-the-top good. A dwarf can cast spells without it though.

Mystic is still playable I suppose, just not ideal, especially with many races getting bonuses to magic.