Dwarf High Homes/BE strategy

[tetley]

but why wouldn't you just raze the rest of them after that

[noobium]

but why wouldn't you just raze the rest of them after that

because razing all the homes at once (a) pushes the dwarf into overpop, and (b) even if overpop is averted, it leads to peasants and BE tanking a lot sooner and the BE upswing takes longer to reach, and (c) it's implied that you are going to be gaining acres from attacks soon, so the homes would naturally fade out if dwarf is left unmolested. it is possible to enter hostile with most of the necessary war buildings. a possible (d) is that there is uncertainty as to which buildings will be useful later in war, so it makes sense to wait and hold the option to raze homes (and manipulate nw), and a possible (e) is that razing costs money (and implied money+opportunity cost with lower peasants). (f) is related to that and what i said earlier, that if the dwarf waves a target and gets no war, they will have an easier time switching back to fort and pumping again with the homes in place than not. they probably wouldn't repeat the same process, but instead revert to a standard build.

there are many associated risks, like landchains being harsher and the peasants being stolen or disrupted. the first one is not too big a deal - chains will happen (and probably happen worse if the homes are removed too early), and chain mitigation probably means reverting to 100% homes and maxing out BE for dwarf. the second one is really bad because kidnap farms suck. the third is one that is difficult to prevent. it is also possible to enter hostile with higher tpa and aim to play a/t. the second (and possibly the third) can be accounted for by adjusting towards wt/td and training extra thieves, but this is harder to do if all of those homes were already replaced, and not always desirable.

since dwarf has razing credits, they can replace the homes later for free, and get a BE bump out of the deal, at some expense. other races can do similar things, but they're usually stuck with the homes for better or worse. in short, the premise of keeping the homes is flexibility... if it is known that war is going to happen, then the homes would be replaced with a planned rebuild asap, but if the reaction of the target is unclear then it might be better to wait until acres come in, build banks on the incoming and revert to pumping. or something else.

[tetley]

i did say "after that", btw. Not all at once

To me you should repeatedly r+r in segments, constantly maintaining a totalpop just under 115% of max. But I really view this kind of homes pump as a strat you use when you are surely going to be entering conflict so nothing is wasted.
Like I said imo static homes are worse than pretty much any other building you would want. So you want to have them all out of the way and turned into new buildings before the hits start.

Edit: for your original situation why not just build 30% homes and raze them out all at once then?

[noobium]

I thought the overpop mechanics were changed so that it is now impossible to attack with total military > total population, as per the wiki...

Your army will also refuse to attack if your total army exceeds your maximum population.

As to why not start with 30% homes;
During a pump with 60% homes, a province needs only 6.67 peasants/acre to attain maximum BE. Using build rotation, these homes can be phased in during the standard eowcf/fort pump in order to generate the money necessary to facilitate the rest of the pump. 6.6 of those peasants (assuming +10% maximum population) are from the homes, so their removal reduces the dwarf to 0.07 peasants/acre - which is risky due to how easy it would be to peasant kill a province (another reason to avoid rotating out the homes too soon). Rotating out the homes along with some of the pump buildings will allow that maxed BE to sustain while the homes rebuild, but only to a certain extent. (It is possible to raze-rebuild almost everything, if you don't mind razing guilds and rebuilding them, but this seems like a pretty huge waste of cash.)
Dropping to about 3.3 ppa is a lot safer, and gives those peasants room to recover in case the dwarf is not immediately chained. tanking to virtually no peasants is problematic for a lot of reasons, if there is uncertainty as to what will happen in the future.

The second point is that the setup to execute this is cheap enough for dwarf that it is within the realm of possibility for a ghetto dwarf with limited prep time; most likely all that would be needed is a standard eowcf and 3 days fort stance, assuming the dwarf exits war without needing too much rebuilding. While it might suck to be hit in fort stance, the pump can usually be cancelled early and build reset, with about the same BE effects. (It might lead to more or all homes being razed off.)

Finally, like I said, it is useful to have the flexibility and peasants intact for economic reasons; doubling ppa from 3 to 6-8 of your starting size is a lot easier than moving from 0.1 to 6-8, and again if the peasants really need to go, the homes can be razed earlier. While non-secure peasants aren't always useful, they aren't totally useless either. Total raw military/acre is the same whether the peasants exist or not, since the excess population is almost entirely placed in homes.
The long-term plan is to start hostile at maximum BE, and have new peasants before BE declines too much. Locking down peasants and troops with watchtowers is easier with 130-140% BE watchtowers than it is with 100% BE watchtowers, and having econ is probably better than having full war buildings.

Is it perfect? Of course not. But it is an example of why I might wind up going to war with 30% homes. I originally assumed that I had 30% homes for some other reason, like pumping or growth, and decided I would rather keep the homes than spend money razing them. I have been in that spot a few times with non-Dwarf and it not that big a deal; usually that involved me getting chained immediately, which was not the worst-case scenario.

[Persain]

Is it perfect? Of course not. But it is an example of why I might wind up going to war with 30% homes.

as usual noobium gives excellent advise i might tweak a few things but overal the idea of your post is right on.

I thought the overpop mechanics were changed so that it is now impossible to attack with total military > total population, as per

You cant attack if total military>max pop or total pop>115% of max pop.

However for the vast majority of people total military>max pop will never be the reason they cant attack because peasents+wizzards will hold enough portion of their total pop (even usuing building swaps).