Elf/Mystic War Build

[wickedfail]

I know war builds can change entirely depending on what the enemy is running for MO and MD and such, but I feel like my war build contains to many pieces. It seems I want a bit of everything, and doing do, maybe it makes me weaker?

A/m

I generally run:
8% Farms
10% Banks
10% TG
10% Rax
15% Hosp
10% Guild
10% Tower
15% WT
10% Stables
2% Dungs

Now, some might think that 10% Towers is low, but it has worked for me lately..

Military Breakdown: 1500 acres
14000 Archers
10000 Elites
2.0 rTPA
4.5 rWPA

I will probably end up with (If I include TG's) 85k MO, with a few orcs/undeads at 100k. So I'm not sure where I will end up as a target...

The problems..
which is better? GS or Hosps? Or Forts?
Is it better to get 10% TG and 10% rax, or 20% of either (TG or Rax and not the other)
Or maybe 10% Hosp, 10% TG, and maybe 10% Fort (there I go again, trying to pick up more things)

I save myself 10% attack time with 10% rax... but would they be better spent to increase TG by 5% and maybe go 10% hosp and 10% gs? or maybe 20% of either... so many different combos :/

But yeah, not sure if having 10-15% of a lot of things in war is better than having 20% of somethings? ...so looking for some thoughts on the build.

[Elf]

Lose the Barracks and Training Grounds and build more Watch Towers. Lose the Stables and rebuild as more Banks, Guilds and Hospitals. You are vulnerable to Massacres and mass Assassinate Wizards.

The problems ...
GS, HS and Forts are all beneficial but IMO Hospitals are a necessity. Forts are good if you want to be unbreakable, but if you did want that then you should have picked Faery - they are much easier to make ub.

I am still learning to play Elf myself but i think 25% Watchtowers and a higher % of Archers would benefit you more than trying to have a high offense Elf army. And as i said/typed it might be worth boosting your Hospitals as you clearly seem intent on making many attacks.

%'s of particular buildings really depend on what enemies you are Warring against, but 10% Barracks and Training Grounds is just a waste of land for an Elf IMO.

Well here we go. I posted in the Strategy section. Let the arguements begin ... :-(

[pwner]

elf mystic for A/m doesnt look good choice to me...since u more emphasize attacker role
elf tactician/warrior would be better choice imo..some personality that gives you free space in builds (free % of rax or % of Tgs etc)
but thats just me...

[wickedfail]

I would have liked to choose something different, but I kind of had to switch mid-age once already, and I don't feel like switching to entirely something different again. Losing science, honor etc. Our kingdom had a couple main attackers leave and new people that came also went elf/mystic -_- so we needed attackers, thus I stepped in.

So, I know elf/mystic isnt a good A/m, but I need to make it work somehow. haha:P or as effectively as I can.

We are about set to start waving and I'm looking something like:
Farms 7%
Banks 10%
Hosps 20%
Rax 10%
10% Guilds
10% Towers
20% WT
10% Stables
3% Dungs

1500 acres. 75k MO, 77K MD with elites gone at 200% wages. (10k elites, 10k horses, 14k archers)
7.0 mWPA and 3 mTPA


I could drop stables and Rax leaving me with:
7% Farms
20% Banks
10% Guilds
15% Towers
25% WT
20% Hosp
3% Dung

1500 acres. 64k MO, 77K MD with elites gone at 200% wages. (10k elites, 14k archers)
7.0 mWPA and 3 mTPA

Or I guess there is a 3rd option where I drop just rax:
Farms 7%
Banks 10%
Hosps 20%
10% Guilds
15% Towers
25% WT
10% Stables
3% Dungs

1500 acres. 75k MO, 77K MD with elites gone at 200% wages. (10k elites, 10k horses, 14k archers)
7.0 mWPA and 3 mTPA

I could go to an UB choice... and leave myself with something near 43k MO but that's more of an a/M choice. And we definitely need attackers imo.

For choice 2, 64k MO wouldn't be terrible. We do have big attackers to open up chains, and the people we are generally facing with armies out sit around 40-55k MD.. So I could still hit. But I'm just not sure what one is better, or perhaps an entirely different approach. But yeah, need attackers, elf/mystic is terrible...but it has to do:P

[mastakizzor]

A/m or A/t generally should have OPA starting from 60 onwards and not more than 40 DPA.. because you're a major attacker with minor thief/mage capability..

your stats of 50OPA/50DPA is more likely a minor attacker, and if you can push to 6rwpa, you'd be an a/M.. and this is how you should play an elf/mystic.. your primary bonus as an elf and a mystic is your +2 mana recovery, so your fast mana recovery should be utilized at best..

elf/mystic a/M war build for me:

7% Farms (at 85% BE, with 50% Food science, and FL spell, you'll have enough food supply for yourself)
10% Banks (Just enough)
10% TG (great to have especially with stables and dungeon)
10% Forts (a must when you have a large number of dpecs)
10% Guilds (just enough to have max duration for offensive spell blankets)
15% Towers (your mod tpa is low to steal runes and unless there is someone generous enough to aid you runes throughout a war, you have to produce enough runes to use up all your mana)
10% Hospitals (elites are expensive and it'll save a great amount of losses)
10% Stables (produces 6horses/acre and enough to cover all your armies)
15% Watch Tower (generally its enough, increase to 25% with incoming acres if you're being opped heavily)
3% Dungeons (the usual amount)

lets assume with no science at all, you'll be running with:

1500acre

37.5k pop : 25ppa
6 elites/acre
8 dspecs/acre
1 rtpa (with pop science & honor bonus, you can increase it to 2rtpa)
4 rwpa (with pop science & honor bonus, you can increase it to 6rwpa)

this will get you to 49OPA/DPA, with some research in tools, if you could get BE to 90%, you'll get 50OPA/DPA..

[LightWolf]

I play more defensively than the above. 20% homes 20% banks 20% guilds 20% WTs 7% farms 13% towers. Last 2 ages I have been prince so that dose help inflate the figures and been hit twice last age and numerous times this age but in the 1 war by a guy 3 times my size so no honor loss. 5-6 raw wpa 2.5-3.5 raw tpa 6-7 EPA and 12-13 dspa. Add in 800-900 bpa and all figures are nice, the plan is to gain and keep honor I have no intention of making the big hit to possibly get chain leave that to orcs and undeads.

[LightWolf]

Last war my tb was 20 times my nw I turtle and when I'm unbreakable I stop training and start mass aiding chained attackers. Also very good at dragon slaying :)

[idiocy]

Against a good kingdom, Elf as straight attacker is hard to play.

Defensive buildings are very important to Elf fighting a quality opponent. Heavy WT (probably 20%) is a must, and high forts coverage is usually helpful. You want to limit the number of enemy provinces that can attack you at all, and avoid double-taps when at all possible. It's usually impossible to be UB at the outset of war, but if your Elf can survive the first day of war, enemy offenses can crash quickly from effective chaining.

Your military will probably be defspec heavy, but it is possible to run pretty high epa and rely on semi-turtling during the early phases of war. If you do this, hospitals, TG, and stables bump upwards in priority.
The other extreme would be to have about 6-7 epa, but use a t/m build and WT on top of that. This will likely mean that your Elf stays turtled during the first day of war, but if the Elf survives this, they're in a good position to bottomfeed, cast magic, and possibly use their thieves against fat attackers. Once you have incoming acres your build can shift towards more econ, more TG, or more t/m stuffs.
Elves being highly resistant to fireballing and being able to stack acres unlike Faery is a great benefit. Despite the lack of an economic bonus, in a longwar Elves can become the backbone of your kingdom's economy due to this, if they don't get land-chained.

Don't be afraid to get fat during war as an Elf. As long as you have one dedicated mage that restrains their growth or gets chained, your Elf will be able to pick the best targets for magic. Usually if you run Elves, your kingdom should have a Faery as a backup mage once the Elves grow or get trashed by chains or thievery. Even if Elf gets fat, they're still able to get reasonable success rates on fat attackers, and you can get to a point where a 1/8 chance of MS success vs. an enemy Faery is worth more than MSing their attacker core.

There are other approaches to playing Elf, and at the bottom of the charts an Elf can get away with any reasonable build most of the time.

[wickedfail]

Issue is our kingdom lacks attackers, which is annoying. But even if I sit at 70k MO, which having a 100k MD (with no army home). I think isn't bad for an elf, while maintaining a decent econ. Im trying to get the big 95k+ MO with little acres to try to be like an orc.. can't be done. haha

[StratOcastle]

That's why you have The Nightmares spell; makes your offense bigger than it looks. ;-)

[idiocy]

You don't want to be like orc. If you need an Elf with high offense, you might as well go with high epa (9+), and use semi-turtling during the early stages of war. Trading 3 dpsa for 3 epa and leaving them home only sacrifices 7-8 mod dpa, while giving you offense that lasts a lot longer, and gives more options for attacking. During war you'd have to train heavy defense, and it is helpful to have training credits banked before war for that.

A possible build for high-offense elf would be something like...

10% guild
10% tower
15% tg
15% hospitals
20% wt
10% bank
10% stables

With 10% left for farms and whatever else fits.

Population breakdown of:
9 epa
6 dspa
5 wpa
1.5 tpa
leaving at least 5 peasants per acre even with bad housing science. against a good kingdom you'd want more tpa, but 1.5 tpa is good enough if the only people opping you are dedicated thieves. With good science, libs, and honor you could up to 10 epa.

The stables are the least important part, and can be reduced/dropped completely in favor of tg, forts, banks, towers, gs (only if your kingdom runs them and you can fit 20%, but ideally you do not want to be hit as Elf) or anything else that fits.
If you have good enough science, swap the stables for libraries. Because of Elves having a magic-oriented role, the breakeven point for running libraries is lower than it is for most races, and libs give wpa which can't be replicated by anything else directly. Having +100% channeling science by itself would be enough to justify libs, and it's likely that those libs would be giving extra population and food production at the least.

[squazzie]

why don't any of you run homes?

and assuming you're all running crap BE which you all probably are, 10% guilds doesn't translate to maximum meteor duration.

[Brilliant]

first of all elf mystic is M/a not a/m. being a mage and covering ms and other harder spells is your role in general. as for builds there is a few givens - enough towers so you can cast 2 ms per tick. enough banks so you can fund 2/3rd dragon and aid people during first. enough guilds so u have max duration, and 20-25% wts.

once you work out how much space that takes then look at what else u wanna run, if u arent ub look at gs not hosps, since ur loses in war means u will only train specs not elites. Just remember the build you start war in is never the build you finish it. you want to be at your strongest for the first 24-36 hours, then you slowly transition to what is needed in your kd.

[Brilliant]

why don't any of you run homes?

and assuming you're all running crap BE which you all probably are, 10% guilds doesn't translate to maximum meteor duration.

Homes are useless please refer to many many other threads that talk about homes. There is very very small situations where homes are benefical

[LameBeaver]

Homes are useless please refer to many many other threads that talk about homes. There is very very small situations where homes are benefical

This is one of them.

Don't run rax. tried that and with 2 uniques per day, my wpa got so screwed i ended up being plain attacker instead of a/m. the most solid A/M elf/mystic build mentioned here is that from LightWolf.

I play more defensively than the above. 20% homes 20% banks 20% guilds 20% WTs 7% farms 13% towers....5-6 raw wpa 2.5-3.5 raw tpa