fighting a human sage kingdom?

[dagwood]

We are going to war with human sage based kingdom (17) plus 3 elves.with many A/t's
one school of thought is to go emerald dragon to help kill expensive armies (looks to be 55 offense/ 45 d specs)

the other is to go sapphire ( we are 14 undead 5 fae/elves) then MS and NM chain. we are equal size/ nw

any suggestions to going after a human sage kingdom?

[khronosschoty]

I suggest emerald!

[skoyl12]

Emerald is best choice. Human sages cant keep up with undead on long wars. My second choice would be ruby if the extra 8% off/def opened more triple taps or made double taps more difficult for humans.
Anyway, be wary on the advice we give here cos we dont know kd setups spreads etc.

[noobium]

that depends on your setup and situation dragon picks should be more to push your own advantages than to negate enemy advantages, though the enemy does influence choice of dragon.

when in doubt, ruby. nw-free attack and defense power is usually useful and even when it's not, it can make it a little harder to hit the big provinces you want to secure. against humans and elves it's pretty useful for preventing the turtle games both races are effective at playing.

the others are a lot more situational and would probably come into play as war progresses.

most kingdoms will slay a dragon quickly if they're going to slay at all, so this should be kept in mind as well.

[dagwood]

thanks for the advice, its funny we are still in war ending CF with another kingdom (they WD April 8), but we said WTH with the holiday coming lets agree on this other war (while we are still in EoWCF protection) We had CF the human kingdom earlier as we had multiple hostiles, and had to pick a war.

so while we have CF and are in EoWCF protection, they started a dragon on us- I did not know you could do tha, so we started a dragon on them. I just logged on to see they sent their dragon(ruby) on us while we still have CF with them and are in the EoW CF, seems weird.

The monarch ended up going emerald- there was some discussion as many of the human sages were a/t about going sapphire, but he must have thought the same way you guys did.

thanks again- any advice on how to defeat humans?
this seems like it might be a particularly nasty war, or is it likely someone sent it early to make us waste resources while we are trying to get rebuilt from our previous war?

June 15 of YR3 Deadly has begun a Ruby Dragon project against us!
June 17 of YR3 Our kingdom has begun a Emerald Dragon project targetted at Deadly
June 22 of YR3 A Ruby Dragon from Deadly has begun ravaging our lands!
June 23 of YR3 Deadly has begun a Ruby Dragon project against us!

[noobium]

you don't want to maxgain on humans and think that you'll win by attrition. chain deep, as the high nw weight of human elites and their population penalty will lead to some severe losses. human landshells can be annoying due to their ability to turtle behind defense, but maxgaining on humans creates a bunch of a/t/m with extra income and the best overall army in the game.

emerald can be useful for securing position, primarily through nerfing chain tactics against you, but i would prefer ruby against a pure human kingdom simply because it's the dragon that is least likely to go wrong. don't think that just because a human loses a boatload of elites that they're going to be useless.

sapphire is not a defensive dragon against thieves; it is actually quite easy to bypass sapphire by targetting thief-weak provinces until a slay can be arranged, which is what the human/sages would likely be doing anyway - or just holding back stealth until the slay is ready. sapphire is more useful for flexing a t/m advantage than compensating for a disadvantage. it does protect somewhat against mages due to autofail (which does affect selfspells afaik), but the sapphire does nothing about the humans' military efficiency, and the humans can tog with reasonable efficiency as well.

dragons really are circumstantial based on the progression of war, rather than sticking with one dragon throughout and figuring out which race is weak against what.

[tetley]

well how much science do they even have at this point?

[dagwood]

thanks all for the advice- we are definitely going to deep chain as they are running 15-20% homes @33 pop per acre for most. The sapphire was not for weakening their thieves as much as for helping our mages keep 24/7 MS and FB'ing/CH some of them in to economic shells, with most being 70-72% drafted. our big worry is whether it is worth it to kill multiple dragons or to just let a ruby sit ( for 4-7 days we think this will last at a min, with all those ToG's I can see them just dumping one after another.

are there any statistics on whether or not it is ever worth it to kill a dragon or not? or if can't be killed in X hours to just let it ride
at our size its @3M to fund one and the HP would be @100K, 3M only buys @35K hp, , but the other penalties of the dragon I am new and have never seen.

[Persain]

you could always try a mid war gold dragon too. u'll ruin their lib/farms/towers that they'll be trying to use.

[StratOcastle]

And contemplate tanking a dragon as that human core will simply outstrip your ability to trade.maybe someone already mentioned this(?)

[crease]

you could always try a mid war gold dragon too. u'll ruin their lib/farms/towers that they'll be trying to use.

u can ruin libs by crashing BE now?

My solution. Dont give a crap. They might outwave you the first 24 hours from superior TM power, after that its next to worthless and sustain> the tog/income bonuses so long as you can limit their econ.

Theres only 2 things to worry about, making sure EVERY chainee has 2k+ d specs 100% of the time and making sure that your topend has WT in early war.

[noobium]

thanks all for the advice- we are definitely going to deep chain as they are running 15-20% homes @33 pop per acre for most. The sapphire was not for weakening their thieves as much as for helping our mages keep 24/7 MS and FB'ing/CH some of them in to economic shells, with most being 70-72% drafted. our big worry is whether it is worth it to kill multiple dragons or to just let a ruby sit ( for 4-7 days we think this will last at a min, with all those ToG's I can see them just dumping one after another.

are there any statistics on whether or not it is ever worth it to kill a dragon or not? or if can't be killed in X hours to just let it ride
at our size its @3M to fund one and the HP would be @100K, 3M only buys @35K hp, , but the other penalties of the dragon I am new and have never seen.

if you expect another dragon to replace it shortly and can't slay back to back, then slay might be a bad idea. also there are short-term considerations, like whether you can fund your dragon, and timing the slay to coincide with when you can send.

note that once offenses start sputtering out due to chains and decay, unless a kingdom has the resources to retrain offense and rebuild tg. sometimes it's just a matter of waiting for offense and economy to wear down while your ubs can remain safe on a lower and lower defense as war progresses. because the space used for slaying dragons can be filled with peasants, slaying (and sending dragons at the wrong time) can wind up being an economic boon for the slayer.

there are considerations of back-to-back slays, back-to-back funding, and subsequently b2b2b slaying if you have been tanking a drake for a long time.

the general rule of thumb (i think?) is to be able to slay a dragon within 24 hours, or 6-12 hours after mintime.

human's economic boost may not be as big a deal as you think, because +20% of crap is crap*1.2.

[madi]

good choice on the sapphire... most kds that run pure humans have war experience/ except the ones running human/sage---- such a waist so easy 2 neutralize benefits.... saphire better, make hell on t/m's, thats best advice i can give atm

[dagwood]

lol 1.2 X crap = 1.2 crap, their economy, thank you for the laugh

[noobium]

meh sage is fine.