Mass starvation strat?

[shadoweminence]

Just wondering what you think about running a KD with an undead/halfer core, robbing all granaries, 24/7 vermin, greater arson to burn farms, drought, and a gold dragon to boot. It seems ridiculous but also sounds like it would be a crazy fun strat to run. Enemies won't feel the effect until day 2 or day 3, when all of a sudden NO ONE has any food left!

[Palem]

Stealing food is too easy oow and it's generally not something people are going to fuss over if you steal from them (food, that is). At best it would be an extra pressure on the other kd to get food stolen and aided out.

Generally speaking using starvation as a means of directly damaging a prov is only a good option if you're targeting someone that's close to/already starving and taking advantage of their mismanaged situation. Trying to starve out a prov that's actively managing their prov tends to be a fruitless endeavor

[StratOcastle]

If you do go with that strat name your kingdom The Fruitless Endeavors! - it might be a nice utility signature to an otherwise innocuous looking kingdom page. Like most cool ideas, it's fun as long as you're winning. But if you have a cool kingdom the losses aren't a big deal in the big picture.

[skoyl12]

Doesn't work.
The reason is how starvation mechanics work. Guide says that max losses from starvation is 5%. In order to have that 5% province must have no food and zero food production. Even if it has some food production it loses a part of that 5%.
Vermin affects stockpiles so no use on a low food province.
Mass greater arson might only work, but if you need a lot of rogues and you are actually wasting your stealth for indirect damage (and not so big).

[topsy's revenge]

don't forget amnesia! 20bpa is 45% more food production on non human.

[Bishop]

Starvation can work pretty well if it is a kingdom-wide strategy. Starving someone that is asleep is a lot of fun.

[The Real Bonny]

As Bishop says timing is really fun as you get to watch them lose serious amounts of troops, A good point is that the more negative the starvation the greater the desertions until its maximum effect 5%..Its easy and effective..

I always weed out the low food players and help them along to starving.

[fuzzy|]

EJ did it one age against an orc heavey kingdom - our main strat was to starve them. gold dragon + vermin + drought pre-war and entire war we had 65% of the enemy starving

[shadoweminence]

EJ did it one age against an orc heavey kingdom - our main strat was to starve them. gold dragon + vermin + drought pre-war and entire war we had 65% of the enemy starving

How did that war go?

[fawk]

Stealing food is one of the easiest ops in the game. Almost like taking an SOT.
And you get a large amount of their food as well. it's extremely easy to counter starvation by stealing food from an enemy attacker to keep you well fed.
If you feel you are falling behind you can also build extra 5% farms.

Because it's so easily countered it's never a chosen strategy. Doing the basic M/S / fireballs / Greed / Riots / NS always ends up doing more damage.
That being said, if you ever see anyone with 0 food, cast droughts and vermin on him immediately to increase his losses next tick from starvation.

[Bishop]

Its not possible to steal when you are asleep. I've often watched kingdoms use starvation tactics successfully.

[Palem]

It's possible to get aid while you sleep

[Bishop]

Yes. Nonetheless, I've seen starvation used several times very successfully.

[NoseBlood]

The problem is to figure out when they are sleeping :D

[topsy's revenge]

If you're playing in a ghetto/most war kd's just do it after they hit.