Large Human Kingdoms

[Zauper]

This is exactly what I was saying. More to the point - jamming high TPA on a province with shaky off/def isn't always a great play, and it's situational especially if those humans are in a growth strat.

This whole thread is an exercise in deliberate stupidity from the get go. If all top kingdoms are playing their humans as a/t then I was wrong about that, but they'd be silly to play a/t to the hilt. I've observed the top kingdoms for a good part of the age and would be in a position to know what many are using.

This is exactly why you need a/t/m power. Because you hemorrhage your valuable military, you can't rely on having it, and need to look for gaining advantages from your tpa and wpa. And since with science, you become an effective a/t/m very quickly, there is limited reason not to. The exact numbers you run are obviously situational -- if your opponent is running a solid 4, then running 6 only costs you 2 rel mpa, not 5 rel mpa. If they're running 1 tpa, then you can get by on 3-3.5 quite easily.

Going from, say, 20 EPA to 15 EPA vs going from 18 to 13.5 (a 25% military loss for both) means you've lost less 'raw' military but maintained your twpa advantage over your opponent, factoring for growth/chains/blabla.

I suspect, being that you don't play in a top kingdom and haven't warred one, you probably are in a worse position to know what they are using compared to me :p

ZZ (do they count as a top kd?) is the only one running non-WH, and they have something like 4 rogues and 4 mystics in their humans. AMA ran theirs as a/t last age, and haven't had a war this age. I don't recall how they prepped for RBL/Pew2. Pyro ran theirs as a/t.

[goodz]

If your KD dominates t/m side you usually win even if you're chaining slower. Ultimately you can create unbreakables faster via ops then you can via chains. It is very hard to chain down one of their biggest in many situations, but you can usually op someone down.

Once humans have decent wpa/tpa science it is very hard for other core provinces to compete with them

[plm-kun]

i clearly notice a lack of logic in this thread
fantasy builds and setups of a province means nothing. only overall kingdom setup and strategy means anything. if you are in a ghetto and when hostilities start you are on your own, whatever build you have worth nothing being outnumbered.
except that, as a member of a warring kingdom, IMO humans are hard to play right in any kingdom. and any enemy you face that can use brains can find solution to deal with your human with ease exploiting any of the obvious weaknesses a hybrid a/t/m has.
and btw, 5 raw tpa or wpa means nothing if enemy has several dedicated tm gangbanging on you. they can nm/tornado/fb/ns/propaganda/arson and whatever they need or want to open you up for the orcs or undeads feast. and they can do that to any human in your kingdom every 12h even if you turtle. and once you are down in the 200 acre area try compete with a dedicated attacker. you will have no build no resources and in between the enemy tms will quad tap learns on you for the nice books gain

L.e. did anyone tested amnesia run on hu/sage ... really curious there :) ... i heard that every op ruines 8% of your sci for good and turns 5% into learning ... amazing

[Cry0]

Every strategy thread comes with 2 perspectives - the ghetto and the top. Zauper clearly is speaking from the top perspective because his examples used 2400 BPA provinces which only happens in the ghetto as a result of massive chains late in the age if at all.

The original topic was about how the large top KDs have success with human provinces so Zauper's explanation is right on track with what the OP wanted to know -- they all have a **** ton more science than you could ever pretend to have which allows the human +20% science perk to start to make a difference. +20% science on a 2500 BPA province is a boost of more science than the typical ghetto province ever sees in an age.

The discussion then turned into the merits of running humans as hybrids vs pure attackers and I would agree with you 100% in your super ghetto nobody should run anything other than HA and dedicated TM provinces because anyone running a hybrid is most likley to not have the science to utilize it well nor have the KD coordination to make use of the op capabilities. When you get into the more organized ghetto tiers hybrids become a lot more useful since you can use elf a/m to theoretically organize nightmare waves or use human a/t to do massive amounts of NS into land fat attackers.

[Bukharistan]

The discussion then turned into the merits of running humans as hybrids vs pure attackers and I would agree with you 100% in your super ghetto nobody should run anything other than HA and dedicated TM provinces because anyone running a hybrid is most likley to not have the science to utilize it well nor have the KD coordination to make use of the op capabilities. When you get into the more organized ghetto tiers hybrids become a lot more useful since you can use elf a/m to theoretically organize nightmare waves or use human a/t to do massive amounts of NS into land fat attackers.

Agreed. Best way to roll in ghetto's is to let them run UD/tact. At least they won't starve themselves, and even if they go rainbow they'll still have the -losses and low attack time. That is, the best if winning wars is the only thing you care about.

[copious]

Let the human grow in war, amnesia his science away for giggles, then once all that science disappears it'll be the softest target ever.
Nados + Nightmare + MS + FBs ground and pound humans.

300k MO and 200k def looks great on paper but 50% army in 50% army out even with pure elites means its only a 150k offence 100k defense province in war.
Plagueable too if i might add. Once enemy TMs have enough critical mass to pull of effective FB runs and chastity while they regenerate mana, its pretty much over.

Pure elite humans are very pretty to have. Also pretty fragile to have.
Sure i'll take out 300-400 troops out per nightmare, not as great as 500-600 dspecs i guess.
But i catch you army home acres just in, kiss your beautiful about to be useless offence goodbye yo =)

Science is both a Human player's boon and Human player's bane.
Just need to war the right enemy to allow him to show you why.