Kingdom level strategy age 61

[noobium]

Run the numbers and come back. You'll find that the human needs 1.5-2k BPA to match their numbers. The pop bonus and TPA/WPA bonuses are huge for relmil.

I ran numbers before last age. Specifically, I was looking at whether Humans can put up the offense to be able to hit defensive provinces, which is a common requirement for warring at the low-level wars where I've been fighting. Humans can put up offenses that are good enough to break Halfers clean with the right preparation, and pretty effective at doubling other attackers. Halflings in the same position cannot put up effective offense, to say nothing about Elves and Faeries.
Turtle attacker can't really be played by non-growth kingdoms, like the entire bottom 200 or however low number of kingdoms are left in the game. Some can try and do alright, but at ghetto level it's basically t/ms and high offense attackers with no middle ground. Human in that place has the unique characteristic of being able to arrange their army for high offense without necessarily lacking defense. Only Dwarf competes in that niche.

[noobium]

typical play in war teir/ghetto lends itself very well to human. The options humans have are as attackers and play out like this:
1. active but not army in army out. Thus if you're army in you have a massive def that discourages geting hit army in as it'll be mostly single taps.
2. ability to recover from chains. you zero def an enemy kds attackers. you get chained release all you def, leave 90% of your leets home and then hit zero def atttackers to regain land. 2 waves of that and you've got enough pop space to receive aid/retrain def using credits.
3. ability to train all leet pre war and save up spec credits, war starts you have a "safe" econ advantage stored up.

These are all useful points for why I wanted my ghetto to pick Human. Unfortunately they had a lot of selfish Halflings who fouled up the whole plan and made it more difficult to pick a more coherent build strat... and they were just terribad and refused to listen when I told them how to pump and how to get good science.

With that said i dont like human because 1. it requires alot of micro manage of your attacker core. Every prov will need an individual build based on size in kd/enemy facing and then must individually adapt their builds as war progresses. 2. it takes FOREVER to pump to 4-5-6 peasants/acre due to insane leets costs. Not worth the wait in my opinion.

#1 is a valid thing. Humans do require someone who knows what to build and how to compensate for not having the easy sustainability of Undead or Dwarf, or Orcs/Avians for whom the optimal build strategy is pretty much solved already and the only strategy is to know what to hit and when to hit it.
#2 though is not as hard as it seems. Fortified stance, homes and banks/arms allow a Human to rake in the monies and train up really fast, and 6/4 elites allow a Human to skate by with a lower draft rate for pumping. I didn't notice any major problems for Undeads pumping this age w/o ToG, and they're probably harder to pump than Humans with ToG.
More problematic for low-tier Humans is that their oop is painfully slow compared to other races.

As far as kd setup. Next age goes 1 feary rogue, 1 feary mystic, 6 elf mystics, 6 halfer rogues(argueably clearic/sage could work), 11 orc warrior. Size them as faeries=biggest in kd, 70-80 dpa with high tpa/wpa. Then all your orcs max mod off u can run consider even homes as you just want as much off as you can. Elf/Halfer at the bottom all running hybrid and pure leet pre war.

Your 2 fearies if big enough and low enough def can be safeish from elfs/halfer and can op out hard. your orcs are sized big enough that they either have to be chained or they massacre enemy t/m's and cause insane damage. hybrids grow, then turtle and give you mid war unbreakables.

I guess that works. Warrior is kind of hard to justify now that it's only +10%. I like tact for orc a lot better for CS+RM and faster hitting.

[oCtodur]

The effects are multiplied, and have been since pretty much forever. :P

UD cleric offense losses would be 100% (normal losses without mods) x 0.5 (-50% offense losses) x 0.65 (-35% cleric losses) = 32.5% of normal losses for UD cleric offensive losses.

Further multiply by hosps bonus if you had them at whatever BE etc. etc. etc.

So no, you won't get to 100%, there doesn't need to be a cap because you won't ever get there, but the multipliers are still pretty low offensive losses when combined.

Sorry for the dumb question but maths aint my strong side and i cant really get my head around this. First you have -50% offense loses and if you choose cleric that has -35% the numbers are not additive but multiplied. OK, what i dont get is how -50% offense loses becomes -32.5% offense loses (yes i multiply and get the same result) but what use is it to be cleric then!? Im sure im on a stray here but the logic in this is illogical in my weird head =)

If this is how i think it is then there is no use for UDs to pick cleric at all? But as a orc you can pick it and have your-35% losses.

[noobium]

Going back to the OP ->

I am taking it for granted that you are not playing in a competitive growth kingdom, so I am looking at more specific setups for various situations, with a few modifications. Builds presume 25 players, but attempt to account for dropping up to 5 slots. The exact picks can vary of course...

"relaxed" build for kingdoms that don't actively seek war but want to be capable of holding their own in most conflicts:
10 human/cleric
8 undead/tactician OR orc/tactician OR dwarf/tactician
3 elf/mystic
4 faery/sage or faery/mystic
drop 1 faery, 1 elf, 2 humans, then 1 faery for each slot vacant. keep at least 4 mystics preferably. a faery and elf can change places.

Size distribution can range pretty much anywhere. In order for the faeries to not be raped you should have at least a few attackers around the same size as your faeries, so that you have the ability to retaliate hits.
fa/sage is likely to have the best overall defense, and is perfect for slaying dragons and putting riots on most targets. played right they are also able to leech acres and science without too much difficulty.
With the attacker choice, pick one, don't mix. Undead is probably the best overall for plague, offensive power, and sustainability, and has no economic penalty that is annoying for a peaceful kingdom. Plague blowback sucks for a kingdom heavy on mages and tog (counterargument: don't hit plagued targets unless it's for significant overpopulation). Dwarf is the most versatile and effective at growth, but they have a power and sustainability gap which is problematic against orc/undead kingdoms. Orcs don't have plague issues like Undead and the lack of sustainability isn't a big problem, but the science penalty is at odds with a kingdom that spends more time pumping than warring.

Flexible "ghettowar" build:
3 elf/mystic (must be able to a/M)
6 faery/rogue
4 dwarf/tactician
12 orc/tactician
drop fae/rogue, dwarf/tactician, fae/rogue, 2 orc/tactician

16 attacker provinces that hit fast and have pretty good offense, and at least 3 provinces that should be capable of opening chains. An added bonus is that this setup has everyone capable of NS, and plenty of strength for nightmare. Lacks long-term staying power and its peak offense is not as strong as it could be.
dwarf/warrior is also a possibility but inferior defensively due to lacking CS, but it requires fewer barracks to reach attack time parity with tactician. your orcs should be tact for sure.
This setup wins fast wars, has enough rogues for AW to work, and enough offensive power to utilize massacre. The 6 faeries are also effective dragon slayers and banks. Your faeries will likely be more thief than mage, so magic power is somewhat suspect. Finally, every race in this setup has some form of magic protection.

"uberghetto war" build:
19 orc/warrior
3 elf/mystic
3 faery/mystic or faery/wh
drop 1 faery/mystic, 4 orc/tacticians

The super-easy build for ghettos who just want to win by grinding down opponents. Contains the bare minimum magic coverage to get MS up, and faeries to function as thieves and economic bases. The rest is just orc/warriors with big gains and big kills. Too easy to subvert against a kingdom that knows what they are doing, too easy to screw up by making the wrong decisions for chaining, and warrior's lack of a great bonus outside of war is problematic. If you're playing in one of those infernal ghettos that refuses to do anything but moar power, this is about as effective a setup as one can hope for. pray the elf and faeries are played by semi-competent people.

[noobium]

Sorry for the dumb question but maths aint my strong side and i cant really get my head around this. First you have -50% offense loses and if you choose cleric that has -35% the numbers are not additive but multiplied. OK, what i dont get is how -50% offense loses becomes -32.5% offense loses (yes i multiply and get the same result) but what use is it to be cleric then!? Im sure im on a stray here but the logic in this is illogical in my weird head =)

If this is how i think it is then there is no use for UDs to pick cleric at all? But as a orc you can pick it and have your-35% losses.

More offensive sustain isn't bad, and defensive sustain for zombies, town watch, and leaving ghouls at home is valuable.

Warrior is better for pure offensive sustain though, or at least it is so close that by the time Cleric has a marked lead the Warrior would have inflicted so much more useful damage.

[oCtodur]

More offensive sustain isn't bad, and defensive sustain for zombies, town watch, and leaving ghouls at home is valuable.

Warrior is better for pure offensive sustain though, or at least it is so close that by the time Cleric has a marked lead the Warrior would have inflicted so much more useful damage.

Alright so basically you sacrifice approximately 18% in offense losses to add 32.5% in defense losses?
Then it all makes MUCH more sense =) Thanks for the clarification mate!

[noobium]

i don't think you follow what i said. undead cleric has -67.5% offense losses and -35% defensive losses.

the point i was making is that warriors have effectively 10% extra offense in war and have an extra general, which outweighs the reduction of offensive losses for undead cleric for a number of reasons. (reducing defensive losses is valuable in many situations, like the ones i mentioned, but for an undead they are not particularly valuable)

[oCtodur]

I blame it on the morning time here =) Now i get it! Finally with my bad math =) so still 0.5 but adding 0.175 making it 0.675 in offense losses and 0.35 defense losses, thanks!! =)

I see now why Warrior would be a nice personality for a UD. Would the warrior outweigh the cleric to a HA UD thats suiciding?

[Elit]

I blame it on the morning time here =) Now i get it! Finally with my bad math =) so still 0.5 but adding 0.175 making it 0.675 in offense losses and 0.35 defense losses, thanks!! =)

I see now why Warrior would be a nice personality for a UD. Would the warrior outweigh the cleric to a HA UD thats suiciding?

If you play solo in ghetto better go Cleric over Warrior for Undead.
Game is not just math. There is many other factors.

[oCtodur]

If you play solo in ghetto better go Cleric over Warrior for Undead.
Game is not just math. There is many other factors.

Aye thats for sure, im in a semi ghetto that we are trying to build up so i think this round we will do Warrior for the attackers ;)

[Elit]

Aye thats for sure, im in a semi ghetto that we are trying to build up so i think this round we will do Warrior for the attackers ;)

Better go Tactic. Its much better overall. You get CS, its very important spell and you can send 10 thieves for get 100% accurate intel = you wont loss tpa. This is important too and you can play with 1.5-2tpa when you cant make any ops with undead.

[noobium]

I blame it on the morning time here =) Now i get it! Finally with my bad math =) so still 0.5 but adding 0.175 making it 0.675 in offense losses and 0.35 defense losses, thanks!! =)

I see now why Warrior would be a nice personality for a UD. Would the warrior outweigh the cleric to a HA UD thats suiciding?

Yes, but as mentioned Tactician can be better than Warrior in a lot of cases for CS and attack speed. (CS can be vortexed though, and Undeads usually should be vortexed just before a chain to remove TW, so it's far from a certainty.)

Cleric isn't bad if you expect your Undead to leave some ghouls at home, and it is able to make some efficient hits outside of war. I would still prefer tactician or warrior, depending on how many undeads I operate.

[Cry0]

First - Is there an active IRC community anywhere where people actually talk about strategy like this thread? #strategy & #tactics are always quiet. Are there people out there who would be happy to shoot the **** on strategies in irc? What channel?

I just started playing again this age after not playing for 13 years and the lack of active discussions is IMO a negative for the community. Seems there is a huge amount of disparity between "good" kd and "ghetto" kd and a lot of that simply has to do with basic game knowlege. AKA What cover spells are, how to build a province, ideal ospa/dspa/tpa/wpa for different provinces.

I got lucky to random into a KD that has people who generally know how to play - but reading threads like this I really really miss the open discussions because discussions within your KD quickly become really incestuous after a few ages.

WITH THAT SAID

I sat a halfer/war this age and despite the amount of flack that halfers get the a/t combo seemed really good. You use 5/0 ospecs to attack with, each attack gives credits, you end up maintaining army with only draft cost fairly well. The ability to run thief ops effectively is nice and cheap thieves always nice. Was thinking a 2-3 halfer/merchants would be good to have since the +50% spec creds works in line with their existing strategy of creds = offense. They can have strong economies due to the +10% population so ToG benefits from that even if you are a/t and running higher draft. The -% birth rate isn't horrible because you can kidnap peasants effectively from halfer +50% tpa.

Also, in other threads I read people ***** about no double td = too many thief losses. Then here I read everyone saying to run non halfer/rogues.. It seems like halfer rogue works because you can get such high mod TPA you can avoid the failures others hit and the -50% thief costs allow you to retrain cheaply. Our halfer rogues this age both have ~30 tpa mod. Are halfer/rogues really not worthwhile compared to faery/rogue? +1 on dspec, +30% on sabotage > +50% tpa -50% thief cost +10% pop?

I see how undead are nice, but do people not feel that if you have undead all your other attackers are at risk? If a faery a/t hits in an UD heavy kd faery can & will pick up plague courtesy of your attackers. I like undead but it seems like a nasty side effect if you plan to run any hybrids.

Ahh, im on irc all day and would love to have a discussion/discussions with people about this. I also think threads like this are really important to this game ever getting popular again. Every time I see a ghetto kd with orcs running 100k mod offense 100k mod defense and a rainbow strat i wonder how much more fun they would have if they switched to a focus build & higher offense lower defense.

[noobium]

ooh... Halfers....

I could ***** in detail but in short - Halfers are only really exceptional as thieves, and thieves are difficult to use due to the prevalence of Tactician personality and the strength of wts. It looks impressive on paper and it can do some good things, but it is not easytown.

I like Faery/Rogue better because they are essentially Halfling/Rogue superthieves that trade a TPA bonus that they might not need, for a very useful spellbook that a superthief definitely wants. Making Halfling really work as a superthief means feeding them gc and soldiers in order to utilize their cheap thief training, and dealing with a lot more magic damage, while Faeries are pretty effective for generating money and securing peasants. Therefore you have two areas - magic and economy - where a Faery is helpful, while Halfer really only has thievery and a slight advantage at landgrabbing. Halfer/Rogue superthief is a somewhat effective counter to Faeries and Elves, but in order to build up a sufficient TPA advantage they will have to build up some thief advantage during war and get around any watchtowers either race would use.

One good aspect about Halfers is that they are the only race that is reasonably competent in three niches; core attacker, turtle attacker, and superthief. Humans and Dwarves are effective at the first two, Elves are effective in the second and have the best WPA, Faeries are effective in the latter two, and the other three are only effective as core attacker or offensive specialist. Halflings are quite weak in the core, but if they are willing to get trashed in war they might get lucky and remain ignored, or at least take hits in place of other core races. In any of those roles, the Halfer will usually need a lot more support than other races due to their lackluster money generation and economic security.

I wouldn't run halfers unless I were prepared to field at least 6 of them, and they should be backed up with other capable thieves and with enough economy to feed the halfers' soldiers and cash. That is a fairly big expense for provinces that are quite chainable and vulnerable to ops, so there is not a guarantee that the Halflings will survive. The Halfers basically have to be willing to die, and every halfer that can't exercise all of their bonuses is a slot that was better off as a full attacker or a race with better economy, or a better mage.

Halfers as defensive provinces in growth kingdoms fare a lot better, largely due to Halfers' head start and weaker competition between the turtles. The other turtles received substantial buffs... in any event those advantages are only especially apparent for kingdoms that can contend for the top of the charts, everyone else is going to have a hard time attaining UB and doesn't benefit from Halfers' early growth.

Another thing - it is not easy for a Halfer to op other t/ms clean from the outset of war, unless they run a TPA so high that they are guaranteed chain bait. Sometimes it works, but the fail rate will be substantial. This is where the loss of Rogue tds is especially important and why people ***** about it a lot. (I don't really agree that it is the end of the world, because a 50% failrate on AW is bad enough without the associated losses.
The Halfling is more likely to rely on attrition ops against Faery and Elf in order to control their economy; particularly, riots, kidnapping, and ordinary theft. No one else is capable of landing those ops easily, though a strong Faery will be able to do it better. With more economic advantage the Halfer can offset their liabilities in the short-term, in order to win the war in the long term. The only problem with that is surviving long enough to actually do that, especially against setups that are designed to take down Halfers as quickly as possible.

tl;dr: Don't play Halfer unless you are going to commit to it, and don't make overly optimistic projections that they're going to AW and Prop everything in sight and never fail. Most important - don't rely on Halflings as your only dedicated thieves.

[outburst]

noobium i sent you a private message. can we talk about your strategies? i needed some advice.