Chained attacker survivability

[Vermesan.Ionut]

Lets have a discussion about the Race (i think only orc and undeads count here) , pers and build strat for a heavy attacker survivability during a war chain. What race/pers/strat do u think its best to use in order to go down harder?

I was thinking about Orc-cleric or Orc WH , with some GS in the build...rly want to know how u see this.

[unoduetre]

human war hero

[TerricK]

Avians are good too but eventually wear themselves out

[Landro]

Warrior. The extra general makes a very big difference if you are a chained heavy attacker

[Anatak1989]

From experience, yes, I hate keeping up with Avians, if I'm a chained target trying to compete with an enemy chained avian. Similarly, I hate always having to worry about the plague haha. I think it's between Undead and Avian for me. Undead can just keep soooo much offense if they're active enough. I think my vote would have to go to Undead Tactician or Undead Warrior.

[Cry0]

Human and elves are both inherently a pain in the ass at the bottom of chains because they can turtle on elites and make it hard for your chained provs to feed on them well.

A human with all elite army can maintain defense that an orc or an undead can't and then they can be opportunistic about their hits.

That said - any heavy attacker can manage if they are active with their armies and smart with their generals. You see people stumble because they get chained, then they start missing army out, or they use their army to only make 1 single attack.

[smercjd]

Avian/Cleric - Orc/Warrior - Undead/Merchant are probably the best three IMO.

[tiggis]

Undead Merchant.

Keep offense out.
Keep defense up with the Extra credit.
TOG when your short on cash.

[Landro]

Undead Merchant.

Keep offense out.
Keep defense up with the Extra credit.
TOG when your short on cash.

A chained attacker has barely any peasants because they are the first to leave when you get overpopped. Better use your mana on LL to increase max pop and prevent your troops and peasants from leaving.

[Bo To]

Seriously you tog as a chained prov? When im chained I dont have more than 500 peasants so tog is like 2-3k :). Not to mention i dont waste building cred for guilds(with 10+ wpa go and try ms on me I double dare you). You need a lot GS and probably homes/barracks, so I build all my free building cred into GS, barracks(if I can be active enough) and homes. Now merchant can rly make some difference with the extra building cred, but IMO warr/tact are better.

[StratOcastle]

Since everybody here has different opinions I think we can agree that being active is the most important element. Pick a comfy fit for doing everything else and you'll be fine when chained. I'm in war now; I'm an elf and my enemies are halflings, orcs and undead. We're beating the crap out of each other.

[Zantetsuken]

I'm an Undead/Warrior this age and I have taken quite a few beatings in the wars my kd has had. Granted, I'm running almost 150 opa, so I don't question why I'm always the target, but I find myself practically begging to be chained. As a few people have already stated here, the extra general makes a significant difference at the bottom of a chain. But it also comes down to using your generals wisely. It allows for more effective uses of Conquest/Ambush mixed in with Trads to not only maximize your gains, but minimize your opponent's gains as well. In one of our wars, I was responsible for about 15% of the total land traded in the war. My vote would certainly go to UD/Warrior as the hardest to keep down if played correctly. As for builds at the bottom of a chain, I run Rax, GS, and Hosps, sometimes switching out the Hosps for Homes to keep my max population high enough to send out if the enemy is persistent.

My second vote would go to Cleric, and then Merchant for similar reasons. Cleric is useful for hanging onto what little defense you have left and protecting your now invaluable offense. Combine that with 30% Hosps, and you won't simply "hang onto" your military, but actually be able to GROW your military, eventually making it out of the range of the other chained provinces. And Clerics are great as you're going down in a chain as well. Less troop losses on the way down means more you can send away as aid or used to kill a dragon. Merchant works similarly in that while you'll lose more than a Cleric, you can also train more and build your buildings more easily.

Ultimately though, it will come down to activity. Something I like to do at the bottom of a chain is not cast Minor Protection/Town Watch until I notice my intel is being taken prior to being hit. It doesn't always work, but I did get 3 bounces out of it this age. And when you're sitting at 300 acres, hanging onto 50-100 of them from bounces can really make the difference, and it takes activity to pull off.

[smercjd]

I'm an Undead/Warrior this age and I have taken quite a few beatings in the wars my kd has had. Granted, I'm running almost 150 opa, so I don't question why I'm always the target, but I find myself practically begging to be chained. As a few people have already stated here, the extra general makes a significant difference at the bottom of a chain. But it also comes down to using your generals wisely. It allows for more effective uses of Conquest/Ambush mixed in with Trads to not only maximize your gains, but minimize your opponent's gains as well. In one of our wars, I was responsible for about 15% of the total land traded in the war. My vote would certainly go to UD/Warrior as the hardest to keep down if played correctly. As for builds at the bottom of a chain, I run Rax, GS, and Hosps, sometimes switching out the Hosps for Homes to keep my max population high enough to send out if the enemy is persistent.

My second vote would go to Cleric, and then Merchant for similar reasons. Cleric is useful for hanging onto what little defense you have left and protecting your now invaluable offense. Combine that with 30% Hosps, and you won't simply "hang onto" your military, but actually be able to GROW your military, eventually making it out of the range of the other chained provinces. And Clerics are great as you're going down in a chain as well. Less troop losses on the way down means more you can send away as aid or used to kill a dragon. Merchant works similarly in that while you'll lose more than a Cleric, you can also train more and build your buildings more easily.

Ultimately though, it will come down to activity. Something I like to do at the bottom of a chain is not cast Minor Protection/Town Watch until I notice my intel is being taken prior to being hit. It doesn't always work, but I did get 3 bounces out of it this age. And when you're sitting at 300 acres, hanging onto 50-100 of them from bounces can really make the difference, and it takes activity to pull off.

Nicely put.

[Dungeon]

I have played Avian Tactition this age and I love it. We have had 8 wars this age and 7 out of 8 wars I have been chained within the first couple provs. This has been great for me because the real action is at the bottom. As an Avian tact with racks, I run just under 6 hour attacks. I am not sure why people consistently wish to chain me but my offense with hospitals and the amount of science I have I can take down a land defense prov and it does not matter what they are rather fast. I can ambush their attacks on me as well as drop them to 130 acres in a matter of a couple uniques. We ran 5 avians this age and having the idea that pretty much all our avians were chain makes any recovery from enemy provinces near impossible. We have taken down humans, elves and dwarves just as easy. When one of them turtles it only hurts them more when we have the offense to break them. They lose elites as well as acres = smaller province that is overpop and has to release to attack. IMHO avian was the way to go for chained provs because they were easy to maintain. Yes they do lose offense each attack but if they are chained to 200 acres or so you can still have 40-80k Mo sitting when you lands come in and still by end of war 35k which is plenty enough to keep chained provs down. Hospitals did help alot but most the time I had none by the time I was chained properly.

[noobium]

Avians and Dwarves are the best at dealing with the economic effects of being landchained, on a province level. Heavy attackers are played more for their value out of war and in early war than their value in long wars though, and the value of 7pt offenses is enough to sustain orcs and undeads. Humans stand up nicely to chains due to 6/4 armies and their ability to t/m well, but their peak power and sustainability are difficult.

Cleric is not particularly suited to chain resistance, and Warrior is better for retaining effective offense. Cleric is mostly for the land saved by building fewer or no hospitals; even if their sustain doesn't strictly match 20% hospitals, a cleric would have good enough sustain without hosps in most cases. Merchant is not so good at taking a chain, but they will rebuild faster and the free credits replicate some of the dwarf bonus. Would not pick Undead Merchant for anything, Orc/Dwarf/Avian Merchants are good attacker options though.

Probably the best method for resisting landchains for high-offense attackers is to have enough incoming acres to avert offensive desertions. Defensive buildings, at least in early war, are not much use, except against certain setups. (for instance, strong gs on an orc/undead vs. human core is useful since the human cores prefer to inflict massive overpop on orc/undead, but you would only have extreme gs on your biggest offenses.) orc vs. orc or undead vs. undead though, i wouldn't bother with heavy gs or even any gs, since it isn't too hard to push an orc or undead down in the event of a deep chain. as long as an attacker has a viable target to hit, it doesn't matter how deep an attacker is dropped, they will still be doing something with their generals; it is only when an attacker is completely locked out of useful hitting that it is really, really bad. It's still useful to chain hard to force desertions.

Dwarves are not very good this age, at least not as a core option. Humans are the best overall warring attacker race this age but not every kingdom can utilize them effectively.