Human Attacker

[Tovarishch]

Looking for a bit of advice:

Human war hero (read a lot of negative feedback on this combo - but I personally believe it's merits outweigh its disadvantages)

Want to know couple things:
What housing % (combined with race/perc mod) is sufficient to run 0% homes?
Would it be more beneficial as an attacker to have Dungeons as opposed to stables?
My proposed war build:

10% Farms
20% Banks
18% TG
6% GS
10% Guilds
4% Towers
10% Thieves
15% WT
7% Stables

Won't be expected to run ops or spells - Purely attacker.
Not bothering with guild pump - for obvious reasons, just enough to provide some (lol) protection from T/M's.
I'll be running Sci/training pump prior to, and oop.

Any suggestions/critique welcome and appreciated!

[Hunting]

If you gonna play pure attacker, don't choose Human. You never can have the offense that you get from Orc or Undead.

[Brilliant]

too many farms. should be able to run 6-8% max depending on food sci. if u playing pure attack i would go with 4% and just steal food.
too many banks. you dont need that many banks in war. 12% is normally enough to cover most things.
6% gs is just a waste of space to have much effect.
why run both tds and wts. if you playing pure attacker u would be running around 2-3 rtpa. and the only ops u would do against people you could fail against would be intel/rob ops. both of which require little amount of thieves and the losses arent that much.

Your build has no raxs. you want min 11 hour attack times if u wanna play heavy attacker. As for stables, the amount is the amount of specs/elites u send out so there is no fix %. just a random number to equal the amount of specs/elites you send out to be fully covered.

[StratOcastle]

I like the combination myself because every war needs a spec/soldier machine. ToG, training time, 10% pop. But then again I like halfer tac because I think intel is one of the most underrated tools. Never saw humans as expressly HA, but can attest to the potential toughness vs my ud cleric last war.

[octobrev]

With the exception of faery, human is the best attacker in the game. It's so good, in fact, that your plan to couple it with the worst personality in the game shouldn't make it unplayable. It derives it's power from it's high flexibility, turtling capability, and massive (60%) income bonus. Unfortunately, it's also one of the most difficult to play. That's why you typically see them in top kingdoms while the lower tier kingdoms opt for the more playable orcs and undeads (hit and repeat).

Firstly, you should never run homes. The only practical use for them isn't viable outside of top kingdoms. A traditional march is worth over 20% homes in your build. Plus, an army will come back in like 12 hours. Homes sit there indefinitely to provide the same bonus.

Secondly, the build is largely dependent on your position in the kingdom in terms of nw and the nature of the kingdom you intend to exchange with. You will want to stay near the top of your kingdom for a plethora of reasons I can't possibly summarize in a single point. A war build would include rax, stables, tgs, and hosps (since you picked the wrong pers). If you can control the exchanges with provinces in the target kd, use forts. If you have no such control (if they have a lot of provinces in your range), use guard stations. If there are a lot of halflings in range, use wts. If there are few threats or if they are faeries, go the tpa route and potentially include some tds. Networth is a better defense against thievery than anything you can put in your build. Your military is also predominantly elites, which are stronger against nightstrikes and practically immune to nightmares.

Which brings me to wpa. You want a lot. At this point in the age, probably 3-4. Any provinces that you allow to grow in the target kingdom will be easy to landlust. Since the minimum gain in war is now 1.5%, a 1.3% average landlust cast is pretty attractive and reaches far out of range. Stealing runes isn't very difficult and you have a gains bonus there as well. Alternatively, you can also kidnap to fill your population and start TOGing behind your wall of wizards.

Finally, defensive play. Vital utopia skill. If you aren't controlling the exchange, the other kingdom is. Or if they aren't, then neither of you are and you're just 4xing each other back and forth, testing each others' activity.

[StratOcastle]

From experience I've seen home strat at work and even intel to support the offensive, but my kingdom just barely overcame the weight of population bonus and science. We simply didn't have the muscle to control the number of attackers using the strat. We won that war because our elves suddenly discover nightmares to open multi-taps and secure a negotiated win. That said our rune cache was exhausted trying to control population. We all boasted higher than usual wpa so many of us attackers were involved in FB and Chastity. Ymmv

[Tovarishch]

With the exception of faery, human is the best attacker in the game. It's so good, in fact, that your plan to couple it with the worst personality in the game shouldn't make it unplayable. It derives it's power from it's high flexibility, turtling capability, and massive (60%) income bonus. Unfortunately, it's also one of the most difficult to play. That's why you typically see them in top kingdoms while the lower tier kingdoms opt for the more playable orcs and undeads (hit and repeat).

...don't know about ya'll, but this confirms my belief in Humans - granted I paired it with the worst prec, I intend to thoroughly discover for myself just how far I can push the advantages apparent and/or otherwise to their limits.
Thanks for your post - really insightful.

Faery is a tough ambush!* Some top kingdom logic doesn't apply in ghettos, so it depends on your circumstance. Home strategy works in ghettos because intel gathering is generally poor and dedicated chains aren't as common. I'd be the first to tell you to go merchant, but then you may have to cover ground dependent on activity. The ability to generate soldiers for aid or specs to help slay dragons may fall on your shoulders. The immunities make this a viable capability. I don't think anybody here sees a HA, but you have the tools to do the ugly work. By this logic faery war hero makes just as much sense, but if your in a kingdom where dragons hang around in war your choice has merit.

Very true, mind you our KD has finally taken a step toward moving into more established territory - and based on our record thus far (however short that maybe) we are a warring KD and personally the immunities present a real forward capability - but I agree with Octobrev, this will be a hard play.
Thanks for your post - appreciate it.

[StratOcastle]

Faery is a tough ambush!* Some top kingdom logic doesn't apply in ghettos, so it depends on your circumstance. Home strategy works in ghettos because intel gathering is generally poor and dedicated chains aren't as common. I'd be the first to tell you to go merchant, but then you may have to cover ground dependent on activity. The ability to generate soldiers for aid or specs to help slay dragons may fall on your shoulders. The immunities make this a viable capability. I don't think anybody here sees a HA, but you have the tools to do the ugly work. By this logic faery war hero makes just as much sense, but if your in a kingdom where dragons hang around in war your choice has merit.

[Tovarishch]

Can I just also ask... why is the War Hero so unfavourable with everyone, particularly when it comes to Human combo?
In my mind, I can see some excellent benefits.
Have there been any successful/unsuccessful cases of note, from where everyone seems to get there opinions/experience from regarding this particular combo - or is the general accepted stigma based on theoretical evidence as much as inexperienced players ?
Just curious. I refuse to believe that a Human War hero cannot make a much impact as any other attacking combo.

[Ahab]

Don't listen to people who say you shouldn't run homes, and definitely don't listen to anyone saying you should run less than 20% banks and no homes at the same time. If you get hit at all in war and have neither of those you'll be driven into negative income and have a hard time attacking. That's just not a plan for strong toe-to-toe combat in wars, where you need a solid income, birthrate, and building efficiency. I recommend 15% or more homes and have found many a strong province, in both top kingdoms and ghettos, who ran as many as 30%. I also recommend 15-20% banks, and the less homes you have the more banks you'll need (in fact, that's true of any building that depends on building efficiency for its benefits).

I agree 6-8% farms is plenty, 8% being a perfectly safe number with virtually any food science.

It's hard to evaluate whether TDs are a waste without knowing what tpa you plan to run, but since you claim to be planning a pure attacker who runs no ops or spells I don't see the point of 10% TDs and 15% WTs. The WTs is a good number but why do you need any TDs as a pure attacker? That's wasted space that would be better placed in barracks, which is probably the most glaring omission from your strat. Unless you're a tactician, your attack time won't be very competitive without at least some barracks and you have nothing to compensate for it like some hybrids might.

Otherwise, assuming no new age changes affect it the human/war hero combination can definitely work.

[idiocy]

"What housing % (combined with race/perc mod) is sufficient to run 0% homes?"

0%. Housing science makes homes better. Homes don't stack with racial population mods (which is one reason they suck pretty bad on Human), but stack with every other mod.

"Would it be more beneficial as an attacker to have Dungeons as opposed to stables?"

Only those that can be filled in one attack, typically 1-2%.

Basically, listen to octobrev, which you seem to be doing. Forget about homes.

[Seldum]

I run 20% homes and 10% banks as human/sage in our kingdom. To me running homes just boosts my province. I can run higher draft 75-80% and still keep a decent BE.

Of cause if you get chain fireballed you won't have much effect out of the homes :) I run 3 rtpa and 15% WT in war - always. I also run 3 rwpa.

I like running 3 dspec per acre (dragon slaying) and 15 elites per acre. Rest in to offense specs. I often go full elites and 3 dspec per acre into wars, and only retrain lost troops into ospecs.

To reach the highest numbers in offense you need offense specs, the only problem is, I like the turtle effect more elites give - especially out of war. It's nice to sit at 80-90 dpa with army home.

[Brilliant]

for once listen to octobrev. Homes is a waste of space on humans. i am running 36ppa atm on my human sage and only have lord honour bonus. with your combo u could easily get to 31-33ppa. means u can run 74% draft, still have 80% be and 100+opa to send out. if you are just doing self spells you are a waste of time. Humans have plus instant damage. fireball fireball fireball. dont bother tog when u are heavy drafted and ur econ is ****. There is no such thing as being heavy attacker anymore, you must do fill at least another role for your kingdom. Do the maths dont be lazy and see what u can run, then compare using the amount of space with homes vs tgs/hosps combo.

[Seldum]

I'm curious Brilliant, how much science do you have in the respective categories? My human is only 4 weeks old, and we have been at war for alot of the time, so I only have 100 bpa in Alc, tool's and housing.

[Brilliant]

creating human that late into round u were always going to struggle, as humans big advantage is sci. i run ratios of 14/17/22/7/12/13/15 (im sage - wouldnt run that heavy pop ratio if ne other pers) but only switch to ratios once i have pumped in the order i like.