Homes

[Kyle]

I am fairly new (I used to play some ages ago), but I have noticed that people seem to not think that highly of homes. I am just curious why? Is it that they are too easily countered (with greater arson and tornadeos and stuff like that), that there are simply better uses for your buildings, or something else that I am not seeing.

I am curious, just because the 8 extra pop per acre seems like a pretty significant advantage, plus the gains to BE and birth rate.

Thanks for your time!

[Persain]

there is simply better uses for your buildings. the extra pop/BE/Birthrates do not replace the benefits lost by not building other buildings, FOR AN ATTACKER.

[Bishop]

Agreed, you typically do not have the space to fit them in over other higher priority buildings that provide better effects. T/Ms will find use for them though.

[Kyle]

Alright, thanks guys!

[Palem]

The problem with homes is that their real benefit takes time to actually be able to profit from. If you're an attacker or hybrid in a war, you're going to have a large amount of acre swapping (Losing acres and gaining them back) and that's typically on the time span of around 12 hours.

Now if you consider an instant bonus building like Training Grounds. You build them and then 16 hours later when they come in, boom you've got your full effects. At least until you get attacked some and the acres go away.

Now consider Homes. You build them. 16 hours later your population increases. NOW you have to wait for your population to fill in. NOW you have to draft the extra soldiers. NOW you have to train the extra soldiers you drafted.
If you got hit during any part of that^, which would prolly take around 24 hours to really get everything done, then it was pretty much all for nothing with the possible exception of the boosted Birth rates and the slight BE boost.


As Bishop said though, if you're playing a role where you can reasonably expect not to trade hits with people (a TM, a bank/larger prov, A kd that doesn't war) then homes are a pretty good building.

[squazzie]

a BE boost would be certain, as palem said =)

So what is a good percentage for homes in War?

[Ethan]

On an attacker, homes are one of the best buildings at increasing OPA/DPA in a static situation. There are 2 problems here:
1. The situation isn't static. As others have covered.
2. OPNW and DPNW are often better measures than OPA and DPA. (Neither is perfect, the answer is somewhere in the middle but closer to the NW measures.)

TGs (and Forts) are NW free military, as is pay rate and MP. Horses have low NW. Homes give more military units that have to be paid and have high NW.

Item 2 alone is not enough to disuade from the use of homes - they are fairly strong even on NW measures, and if you have 15% TGs already homes probably help more than more TGs. But layering item 2 *on top of* item 1 that others have discussed makes them a poor choice for an attacker in most situations, and so should only be run by experienced players with good game knowledge (if at all).


Personally I liked using 5-10% oow to drive up BE for better semi-pumping, and then left them in as I finished up switching to war start because they were good enough. This age I built lots in PWCF, because training the troops was good (I had *way* too much money always) and then let them fall as I moved back to war build. It is very rare to have a good use from them *in* war - basically just never build them in war. Gonna find out how good they are on T/Ms this age, never really tried that before.

[astronomer86]

I am running 10% homes as an Orc Tactician Attacker. Extra peasants, extra jobs filled, higher birthrate.

[Persain]

a BE boost would be certain, as palem said =)

So what is a good percentage for homes in War?

The BE boost is a net negative. You dont run homes for a BE bost, ie 15% TG on 80 BE <<16% TG on 78 BE. Thats y i said zero on an attacker, i'd play 10-20% on a t/m though.

[f1av0r]

Top kingdoms use homes, so don't get too brain washed by these posts. Use homes while you're growing out of war and phase them out when you get into hostiles. By the time you get into war they'll be a pretty small percentage of your total land.

The biggest benefit of homes is that it lets you carry more troops then you normally would into an encounter. Which means it takes longer for your military to fall apart because it started bigger. Once your military starts fighting you phase the homes out into something that helps your fight more efficiently. That's how you should use them.

Out of hostile, homes are nice because the generate more money and give you ability as previously mentioned to super pump. Farting around in your war build all age is fine if you don't plan to grow big. But if you play in a kingdom that intends to grow large and war - homes are a necessary building.

[paul1229]

Homes are great. You build 10-15% before war for the extra peasants to allocate to your needs. During war, you phase it in. Meaning, don't build anymore homes, just fill in other buildings. They also give you higher BE at the start of war.

[Bishop]

Top kingdoms use homes, so don't get too brain washed by these posts. Use homes while you're growing out of war and phase them out when you get into hostiles. By the time you get into war they'll be a pretty small percentage of your total land.

The biggest benefit of homes is that it lets you carry more troops then you normally would into an encounter. Which means it takes longer for your military to fall apart because it started bigger. Once your military starts fighting you phase the homes out into something that helps your fight more efficiently. That's how you should use them.

Out of hostile, homes are nice because the generate more money and give you ability as previously mentioned to super pump. Farting around in your war build all age is fine if you don't plan to grow big. But if you play in a kingdom that intends to grow large and war - homes are a necessary building.

Top kds use massive home strats for incredibly situational tactics. Homes are bad for 99% of attackers. If you are in that 1% you are not on these forums looking for strategy advice.

[nooblet]

Homes are a defensive building. Trying to run homes on a province designed for high offense is (usually) counterproductive. The reasons why are numerous to list.

[theuser]

If you are in a position where you are stacking a building beyond 20% then DBE turns it to mush (<60% effectiveness per building past 20%...)and so you can take away from that building and put it towards Homes provided you have nowhere else to put that building space (like nothing you could conceivably need).
In the case of an attacker there's always something you could use more of....

[Smitty87]

i generally go into a war with 10-15% homes this allows u to enter war with a higher BE and military. As your land comes in during war i don't rebuild these homes but instead put them into more banks to increase econ or gs's if i'm a chain target