decisions on race/persona for ghetto living.

[Ethan]

As proposed:

A - Halfer (Avian/Dwarf/Orc/UD all ok, halfer better.)
A/T - Halfer
A/M - Faery or Halfer
T - Halfer
M - Faery
T/M - Halfer or Faery

If you are a race other than halfer, you chose wrong. Not that you can't do quite well... but when you run into someone (me) also hanging out down here... my halfer will eat your whatever alive.

(And this coming from someone who played human or faery forever - I have always sneered at halfers. But the numbers don't lie.)

[Iamnotyou]

As proposed:

A - Halfer (Avian/Dwarf/Orc/UD all ok, halfer better.)
A/T - Halfer
A/M - Faery or Halfer
T - Halfer
M - Faery
T/M - Halfer or Faery

If you are a race other than halfer, you chose wrong. Not that you can't do quite well... but when you run into someone (me) also hanging out down here... my halfer will eat your whatever alive.

(And this coming from someone who played human or faery forever - I have always sneered at halfers. But the numbers don't lie.)

Interesting, you got me thinking...
What is your build/strat/persona?


Halfer/Sage, huge pop, all elite, low NW, high guilds+paradise, steal gold to runn extreme science?

[StratOcastle]

Avian tac is your super active HA, cleric just has more wind. And I know the argument about rax, but as a tac you just build more. Why? Because getting home first is near equal to ambush protection, you can time uniques to loop your enemies and intel accuracy saves training off topic in war. You can crush builds before they're built without teamwork.
- But let's elaborate on fun. Faery looks the most fun and here's why: 1) the spell book is so underused it drives me crazy to watch the same old blah, blah. The self spells alone are worth it. 2) you might get generals this time. This is great if you use NM. Warrior would be euphoric if you get plenty of learns early age. 3) if you're ghetto you have the most versatility to parasite from other provinces work. Plus you get to focus all your resources to crush single enemy provinces. The problem with organization is the poor t/m have " responsibility " like blanketing or funding dragons. I've been around and I must say I've seen devastating work done by t/ms that act like HA. Shed the responsibility and just unleash every attack, mana, rune and stealth for your purposes and I'll bet you'll find it in your heart to help the good ones in your ghetto. In fact it'll be a side effect.

[StratOcastle]

When I build a character/province for fun I always have the old Mecha-Godzilla with missiles and beams coming out of every legal orafice foremost in mind. ;-D

[Ethan]

Interesting, you got me thinking...
What is your build/strat/persona?


Halfer/Sage, huge pop, all elite, low NW, high guilds+paradise, steal gold to runn extreme science?

For attacker halfer (A/t):

You should be able to run second highest sci without doing much special by mid age anyway. Sage is junk cause it gives you no direct advantage anymore, it just makes it easier to get where you ought to be. Down in the getto you don't even have to deal with growth, so you should manage 1,000 bpa just fine by mid-late age.

Halfer elite is for defense, o-spec for offense. You should *plan* on using about 80% o-spec army for offense, and just a few elites to get the min needed for that hit - this avoids the (painful) static defense problem without hurting your NW much. (Remember, low NW kinda like + gains) You could over-build elites during recovery to bank the spec credits into the next war, a nice trick I've been partially able to do with human this age.

A/t is how I describe an attacker that uses actual tpa (but not really much/any dens) as a thief defense. It weakens you again thief heavy T/Ms or against pure T - but it slows many T/Ms well and stops hybrids. The main point is to steal whatever you can get hold of to make your province better, now that your tpa is (just) enough to run easy ops on attackers. (Horses are great for stealing if you are waving and/or can catch them at home.) The ability to gobble up their gc/runes etc (or NS whoever is their weak link) gives you a nice damage increase, and it replaces the WTs in your build so it gains some of the lost troops back in better OME... for halfer, it is a no-brainer to go at least A/t, even if not A/T.

Build looks pretty standard for an attacker - it should play just like any other attacker, just with econ via stealth instead of free draft/build/convert.

[Craigus]

Halfer Elite and Spec are same NW so run 100% Elites minus what you want for dragon killing. No Dens? Most attackers run WTs so you will not last long as a thief in war. You are 99% guaranteed to be one of the first provinces to be FBd so replacing those lost thieves is not going to be easy.

[LightWolf]

Why would you run off specs they are more expensive, same nw and doesn't help with def. maybe if your in war and you got credits and no money but still. Have to run at least 10% tds everyone is so defensive. Haven't played halfer for about 45 ages but I'm tempted. There was a 17 age break thou ;)

[Ethan]

Why would you run off specs they are more expensive, same nw and doesn't help with def...

O-spec is 3.2 NW, elite is 4 NW. Use o-spec for offense (except the "oversend" so your defense isn't static).

@Craigus - I'd figure an "A/t" to have about 3 rTPA. With science and racial, that is around 6-8 mTPA. To NS into that you need around 3-4x, so you are looking at 18mTPA to get ok success rates on NS. If your enemy have provinces with that much tpa... just kick the snot out of them, it isn't like they are any good anyway. (Or somehow they are so much better you should have never fought them in the first place.)

Thief losses are a real problem if you skimp on dens - don't keep stealing/opping targets that you fail on. There ought to be a few attackers so messed up you can get some runes/gc/pes from them though.

And why fb the halfer first? Unless you are the most dangerous attacker... then, congrats, you let your second best attacker stay up a bit longer. It isn't like this doesn't happen to all the other good attackers anyway.

Again, not to say this is the "uber" strat - I'm not even going halfer, it isn't *that* much stronger (and I love attacking faeries). But, imo, best attacker "in isolation", and also a great attacker as a core for a kingdom.