Human/Merchant Build Help!

[Christophersen]

I used to play Utopia years ago, just joined again wanting something with an easy economy- Human Merchant.

Anywho, I am trying to master my build.

I am playing in a ghetto warring KD.

I am going for a A/T build mostly, really just trying to be an attacker with thievery on the side.

QUESTION 1:
I have 88% BE- whats the best way to increase it?/Should I worry about it?

QUESTION 2:
How can I improve my build?
_____________________________________________________________
7% Homes
8% Farms
8% Towers
15% TD
14% Guilds(Mainly this high because I made my prov a week ago and I need to get my wpa up)
12% TG
12% Rax
10% Hospitals
13% Banks
_________________

My monarch keeps telling me to cut some of the buildings. She says 5-6 buildings is ideal, and she runs like 40%(no joke) homes, but shes a T/M so I don't know what to do.


I used to NEVER use homes when I played.
Are they better now?

I personally would like to cut the homes first, and probably TG's next and mainly increase Hospitals/Rax/TD.

So I could potentially run like:

8% Farms
8% Towers
20% TD
20% Rax
13% Banks
15% Hosptials
15% Guilds


Thats 7 buildings instead of 9.. I think I could eventually drop towers/farms too, but I'd have to be stealing like a boss. Also I'd lower/get rid of guilds too at some point.

Please give me ideas.
I have 62% Draft Rate, and I mainly have Elites, but also use offensive specs.

Thanks a lot

[Ethan]

If you don't know where you stand on homes - as human, don't use them. At all. The human +10% pop bonus does *not* apply, making them very slightly less useful for humans than for any other race.

The main way to "fix" your BE (80-85% is fairly normal) is better science. Keep cranking that science - pop, and income and BE. (Pop should be the highest.) While oow, once trained fully, ToG for GC to run higher science. You've got the money, use it.


Overall, either of those builds looks ok, though the first actually is the stronger of the 2. For all the old (weak) players hate on "rainbow" strats, ever since DBE there has been good reason to spread out a bit to get good use of the especially low DBE penalties at low %. And for humans especially with lots of weaker units, TGs are a god send - you can't attack well without them. (Typically, I looks at a build, and ask "Would lowering this building for more TGs still be good?" Usually the answer is yes - TG is the attacker's yardstick for builds.)

An attacker wants: 2x a day attacks (or more depending on schedule), Offense, gains, low losses (land + troops), good income. In about that order, usually. So Rax is a must, since I assume you plan 2x a day. (A bit above 2x oow is ok, cause war has an attack time bonus - but don't forget to keep building rax in war!) TG's are great, since they help offense. Gains is Orc, or sci (sci again! Get it, it is the biggest differentiator in individual province strength), so not much you can do there.

So now you get down to losses vs. income (vs. thievishness). Losses usually are better, because you get the troops saved right away, but econ is also important because of funding dragons and building land. Also, is almost all your pes are dead from mages, banks still give income, maybe enough to keep attacking without aid. (Matters more in a getto, when aid may take hours/days to get to you!) Against all that, and most importantly in your case, ToG and Merchant *both* function as big income multipliers - so use them! I'd aim for 15% banks, 10% hospitals, though once war started I wouldn't build banks unless unbreakable and being mostly ignored by the mages.


Land losses, with GS, is a widely debated subject. I dislike GS in general, others swear by them. Human naturally has high land for it's "size" (NW is usually the better measure of size), so GS make more sense than usual. Human, however, especially an A/T, isn't high on the chain target list normally, so you might never need them. Play with both and form your own opinion there. With GS is gonna put a big squeeze on your remain space though - since 10-20% is needed to see much of a difference.

Hope this all helps!

[Christophersen]

Thanks a lot, much appreciated.

I am going to drop the homes(hate myself for building some this morning that won't be done for a while).

I'll probably increase Hospitals to 12%, and then increase TG/Rax with the remaining.

In war I probably will drop guilds(by just not rebuilding more) down to like 8% --- is that okay?
I also, like you said, will not rebuild banks as much(same with towers/farms depending on my theifing targets).

I feel better just seeing that most peoples BE is just as bad as mine.

[Ethan]

Especially starting late and trying to catch up, I wouldn't raze the homes, just not build any more. (At least until the 5 remaining after trading hits got too annoying.) The GC can go elsewhere, and it is probably better. It isn't like they do bad things to the province - the homes are helping, just not as much as other buildings. (Heck, I've got 5% myself cause I like them... though they fade every war, just like you plan on guilds.)

8% guilds is getting a little bit low, but should be ok. If you aren't trying to be a mage at all, ToG is a great spell to burn mana on, so 10% might be worth it for the fewer fizzles. But a large portion of your land in war will be incoming, or being built, so don't sweat 8%. Below 5% starts to be a real problem though.

I personally describe stealing resources with an attacker as an A/t - higher than normal defensive TPA, which you use opportunistically on whoever you can get though on often enough. (Learn to love kidnap - mages hate having to FB you over and over again.) If this sounds like your plan, I would keep TD under 10%, and you *could* get rid of them entirely. The space is better elsewhere, imo. What I call an A/T proper is expected to NS the military kill target - this takes distinctly more mTPA than an A/t usually needs. And also many more thieves sent, and thus losses. This makes TDs a good building for A/Ts, but much less so for A/ts.

Some will argue my A/t category is just an attacker using TPA instead of WTs for thief defense. I figure, it acts different than a standard attacker, so give it a label, but meh, whatever thinking makes sense for you. I play straight A first war since my sci is poor (Human Sage), then go to A/t, and late age try to switch to full A/T (or A/T/m if chained and small again, and thus having super sci). It works, especially in a getto it can trash the opposition cause it won't stay shelled. Top kingdoms should tell you what role they want, so it shouldn't even be a question at the top since the kingdom strat locks you in to a role, while in a getto/semi-getto, anything attacking is an asset.

[Persain]

I
Please give me ideas.
I have 62% Draft Rate, and I mainly have Elites, but also use offensive specs.

Thanks a lot

Dont run Homes,
Dont wory about bad BE, its not uncommom to have a a BE near or below 75%.
Up your draft as a A/T 70-75% draft isnt bad.
Rainbow strats are bad, but 9-10 buildings is fine, I run 10 on my undead for example ( Banks, TG, Rax, WT, GS, Hos, Guilds, Towers, Stables, Dun). As im not human i dont have a build off the top of my head but some combo of the buildings u list with the addition of GS and either Fort/TG isnt a bad start.....and btw GS is very helpful, you may not be high on the list as ethan claims, but some kds target hybrids first.

[Christophersen]

Your A/t description is what I think of TD's too(a more useful defensive than WT's), I used to always run something like this.

If I find a suitable target, I definately will NS some, but my tpa is probably more suitable for kidnapping/stealing resources/getting intel.

My KD isn't very communicative, so I won't run GS as I don't expect it to work well by myself.
I dislike Forts in general, I'd rather have a strong offense so I can keep my elites at home for defense.

Thanks for all the input, keep it coming!

[Persain]

My KD isn't very communicative, so I won't run GS as I don't expect it to work well by myself.
I dislike Forts in general, I'd rather have a strong offense so I can keep my elites at home for defense.

Thanks for all the input, keep it coming!

Cant blame you on the GS, its a kd wide building usually. AS for the Forts i personally hate them on an atttacker, BUT as a human if you expect that you might want to be turtleing up its not a bad building to have.

[Christophersen]

is using minimal elites to attack "turtling up"?

I think of it this way:
My offense specs are 6/0, defense is 5(specs or elites).

I can either do:
A) TGs and improve my offense by a %
B) Forts and improve my defense by a %

Assuming that % is equal and my offense/defense are the same, having TG would grant me higher returns because 6 > 5
But maybe I'm thinking about that incorrectly or its only partially relevant.

In war, realistically unless somebody suicides I probably will have to send *some* elites, lesser the better though.

[Persain]

is using minimal elites to attack "turtling up"?

I think of it this way:

Not eactly, turtling up would be something along the lines of having a large part of your offense being leets and then not usting them to attack.

Taht is when your army gets home you end up being nearly/fully unbreakable. ie say you have some science and have 30 pop/acre. If you run something like 5 off spec/acre 15 leets/ace, 1 wpa, 4tpa, 5 peasents/acre. That'd give you 24/30=80% draft rate. You'd end up with about 92 opa/40 dpa full army out, and a good portion of that offense is leets. To turtle means you leave all/ most of the leets home in hope of not geting attacked. And you could end up having about 40opa from specs and then leaving all leets home for about ~80 dpa. If you ran forts you can mod up that def such that you have 90+ dpa with all leets home.

The act of attacking with a crappy mod off by leaving all your leets home is what is called turtling. It works BEST on races like halfing who can run all leet armies via 6/5 leets but a human could do it if they build their army right. And if you plan on doing that/going unbreakable forts can help in your build.

[Christophersen]

Ah interesting.
That does sound appealing, I think after I get a lot more science I'd think about it.

If I ran a draft that high I think my buildings would start on fire.

[Persain]

Ah interesting.
That does sound appealing, I think after I get a lot more science I'd think about it.

If I ran a draft that high I think my buildings would start on fire.

:D. Your a human/merchant, its good to be aware of turtling and running insanely high draft rates. Because during any given war if your able to place yourself in a position that you can go unbreakable and then grow you'll be able to pump out alot of gold via income/TOG for your kd and give them a big advantage. Not that you HAVE to plan on that but knowing how to do it is one step to getting better at the game.

[Christophersen]

What should my draft rate be?
What BE should I aim for/not go under?
What % of my army should be off spec vs. elites?

Going unbreakable would be awesome, I just don't know if it'd be possible to attack anybody unless they suicide.

[Christophersen]

Also, because of being human and getting more spell buffs(not thievery) does it make more sense to be A/m than A/t? It should be fine to stay with like 1.5-2 tpa and get intel for my KD, while pumping wizzies and using ToG to be a beast with money. Which would be better A/m or A/t? I also think I could take out TD's then and have more space to build(even if I get WT, or lessen TD to like 10%)

[Persain]

Also, because of being human and getting more spell buffs(not thievery) does it make more sense to be A/m than A/t? It should be fine to stay with like 1.5-2 tpa and get intel for my KD, while pumping wizzies and using ToG to be a beast with money. Which would be better A/m or A/t? I also think I could take out TD's then and have more space to build(even if I get WT, or lessen TD to like 10%)

I personally would go A/t, an A/m would be expected to cast spells on the enemy and as a human i'd want to spend mana and runes on ToG while running a say 1 wpa (ToG success rate is based on your guild % thus running 1 wpa would be fine). Going A/T would ensure the kd expectation wasn't that i was casting spells on anyone but ToG for money.

What should my draft rate be?
What BE should I aim for/not go under?
What % of my army should be off spec vs. elites?

Going unbreakable would be awesome, I just don't know if it'd be possible to attack anybody unless they suicide.

Im not human so i cant give you exact answers for these but
70% draft is a decent base for most people, play it by ear if u need more.
BE is whatever it ends up with, I'm sure someone else can give you a better heads about its importance and what to aim for but anywhere in 70-80% is typical. (lower isnt unheard of, higher means you probably need to draft more)
Not even going to try to guess at leet/spec mix but i would definitely not recommend 100% or 0% off specs for your offense, some mix of leets/specs.

[nooblet]

Question 1:
BE is dynamic, not static. It's normal for a pumped province to have somewhere between 80-90% BE, typically at the lower end. The best way to improve your overall BE is through tools science, and to a lesser extent population science. Building selection and certain tricks can be used to give a temporary boost to BE at the right time, but it is just that - temporary. The effects of being chained or extensively depopulated make aiming for a set BE problematic, so the best thing to do about BE is to focus on tools, and do what you can to prevent the things that cause your BE to sink.

Question 2:
What you have is about normal. You have 5 building types that you are emphasizing, and the other buildings you have are obligatory except for the homes.
You might want guardstations during war if you are chained, but if you are one of the smaller provinces in your kingdom you can get away with no gs at the start of war.
During war builds change dramatically, so the only static builds worth mentioning are pump builds, and pre-war builds. During war, you build only the building types that you need, rather than keeping everything at a fixed ratio.
The homes are the most expendable part of your building strategy, but for a/t they're not as bad so long as your TD are good.
You will need training grounds in order to be an effective attacker most of the time, so don't let them drop below 10% pre-war. Additionally, high barracks are not very good without the offense to do significant damage.
Taking your proposed homeless build, I'd pull out 5% from TD, 5% from barracks, 5% from hospitals and put them into training grounds. That way you will be able to hit stuff at the start of war. During war you can make the choice to fade out TG in favor of dens/rax, or vice versa... it would depend on how well your kingdom tears down enemy defenses.
There are a lot of ways you can go, such that a one-size fits all solution is impossible. Using human elites to turtle is a very useful strategy to keep in mind, and forts become a much better building with that in mind.

As for your monarch's advice... for a t/m, they only focus on a few key building types, and running high homes on a t/m is not uncommon. Attackers don't need to bother with them.