Help?

[Persain]

it's entirely possible to play some core attackers with neither tg nor forts.

no, no its not. if your a "core attacker" your job is attacking. you need tg in your build to start a war. a HYBRID may run stables and run neither forts nor tg, but thats because they want to look weak initially then booom biger off/def when they add in addtional buildings.

[noobium]

last age with dwarf/sage i ran with very few training grounds (i think 5-10%?), just because my milsci mod was enough to put up 100-110ish OPA sans tg, and that OPA was sufficient for what I needed to do. of course last age was kind of a mess, and being dwarf meant the ability to switch in tg when i needed. it was difficult to get that across the whole kingdom at times.

hence the qualifier "some". human/sage last age could pull it off too, even better than dwarf.

it's harder to do that with orc or ud (and for ud why would you not, given their immense build space), but i could see rax+hosps, raw offense buildings, or some defensive builds taking priority against some targets. dropping tg might mean fewer 2taps in hostile and worse range, but starting war with better raw off has so many long-term implications. i like overbuilding tg much better in any typical situation i'd expect, but i'm always willing to drop them if something else would do better...

[Persain]

as a dwarf sage or human sage last age u were more of an a/m than a core attacker though. the fact that u still hit 100 opa doesnt mean a ton as u were still desgined to be casting FB's, FG, and switching in massive forts once u gained some land and started to turtle/bottom feed only.

[StratOcastle]

If I have TG it's an entirely different animal than what I normally roll. I understand you guys are geniuses in this stuff, but I almost never do stables or TG. I toyed with them as an orc warrior and have had them in adopted builds. I realize you guys do your wave thing and I'm subject to waves. It's not like I'm in some wonderland where none of my enemies wave, lol...or chain.

I've blasted a lot of attackers of every race and personality. They're built right and I commend them for their obedience. I'm alive and well and the build strats have impact but apparently my slop does to.

It's not that I'm trying to derail advice regarding efficiency, but there is life of an entirely different order out there. See Star Trek TOS 'Devil in the Dark'. It's not just about silicone based life it's about the ignorance in our ways of operating.
Enjoy.

[noobium]

as a dwarf sage or human sage last age u were more of an a/m than a core attacker though. the fact that u still hit 100 opa doesnt mean a ton as u were still desgined to be casting FB's, FG, and switching in massive forts once u gained some land and started to turtle/bottom feed only.

There is no such thing as a strict hybrid unless they are picking a t/m personality. Even the dedicated mage and thief races don't have to be locked into either role, though it's pretty silly not to use those assets.
Even if I was prioritizing thievery or magic, dwarf and human are still primarily attackers and should play to that most of the time, because military doesn't have a failrate. It's just a matter of how milsci worked last age and how we were set up (only dwarf/sage attackers and with fewer than normal... and starting with 19 provs too). We did build thief dens and train goodish tpa though (3-4), but against more organized kingdoms that attempt at thievery was going to be a wash. It was really good at pushing around weaker kingdoms, but we couldn't steal with it oow (not that we were doing much thievery oow).
The buildings we needed were mostly defensive types (gs, rax, hosps) and libraries for sciencing. Had we fought more skilled kingdoms I would have pushed for less tpa and wt over dens, but I would have likely been downvoted.

[Attero]

Okay well for my next round of questions! Lets see... Let us talk about Dragon Slaying, Semi-Chaining, wpa-tpa numbers


1. Currently a common dragon slaying strat that we use is that when a dragon is sent each province is responsible to kill a % of the dragon according to the size of their province compared to the kingdoms overall nw. So if you are 6% of the kingdoms total nw you are required to kill that much of the dragons health. Is this a bad idea and does anyone have tips and or a better strategy to use??

2. Is it a good idea to just deep chain one province at a time or is it a smart idea to chain two provinces at one time? So if I had 20 attackers say devote 10 attackers on target 1 and 10 attackers on target 2. How much importance should be placed on targets incoming land?

3. To correctly army in/out does one need to be online 10-20 mins before armies return to get new details on target and send out within 2-3 mins of being home?

4. This is a big problem for me as I am not what you call a t/m. Maybe a a/tm as I get chained down. What I would like to know here is what are good wpas and tpas that my
Thiefs and Mages should have. If you could give me some sizes depending on what part of the age you are in. (Like YR0-2 2wpa YR2-4 4wpa etc..)

5. What spells should one keep on targets. I have a good idea here but want some feedback from others.

6. How important are the kd forums? How does aid work in your kds?

[Attero]

One other thing.. I generally like to run 200% wages but lately I feel like just running 100% wages in war is alot easier to manage and I can still deal just as much damage it seems. So is it best to just keep wages at 100% and not focus so much on pushing it any higher.

[StratOcastle]

5. I think explosions is the most underused blanket spell in game. I've used it to isolate an attacker with additional blanket spells. if you can land it on the aid distributor that's fine to.

[Shockwave]

Most of these questions i've seen cannot be answered directly. nearly all builds, chaining methods, lead waves, use of anon, etc are situational are never the same twice. the prep we put into each war is borderline insanity and taylored exactly to the kingdom we're fighting. the best way to learn, sadly is by experience. you may make mistakes, but that's ok as long as you learn from them.

if you aren't willing to leave your kd to gain experience from seasoned players, the best way is to find someone willing to discuss what you did/what you're going to do. i know many very good players that are willing to talk to people and give advice/critique less experienced leaders to help make them better.

[Persain]

Okay well for my next round of questions! Lets see... Let us talk about Dragon Slaying, Semi-Chaining, wpa-tpa numbers

1. points/acre. Do acres not nw since dragon hp is based on kd acres. For us who kills dragons are dependent on whose safe. if you t/m's arent safe i wouldn't have them send. if they are safe-ish i'd have them send "extra" to get their economy going.

2. see what i said about chaining ealier. you either want them to lose off or def. if your 10 people can take them down enough to do that goal then your fine, otherwise put on more people. my kd has even done 20 people on 1 target for 2 full rounds of hits as the target was massive and we could only single tap. As for the importance of incoming, its VERY important if your trying to make them lose offense, the smaller they get (counting incoming) the more they lose.

3. It 100% depends. Typically yes 10 min early and hitting within 5 min is "acceptable." Though as a warning if you're waring someone bad even 15 min after your army gets in can be fine, while against someone good being army in for more than 15 seconds can get you hit army in.

4. more is always better in tpa/wpa, just dont have to low a def ;). You need to balance tpa/wpa/dpa "correctly" for the target your facing its why most kd put their best players on t/m's. In most cases a mystic= 4-8 raw wpa, 1.5-4 tpa, rogue= 4-9 raw tpa and 2-5 raw wpa. figureing out what to hit is based on intell/experience and science. if you have very good science u can get away with a little less planning and just hope your have enough tpa/wpa.

5. Whatever your mana and runes can sustain. Typically it goes MS>Greed>storms>explosions>chastity>vermin. However these can vary all the time, for example zero point in puting MS on someone with <3k def or casting chastity on the guy with 40k peasents.

6. we never use forums besides posting races/pers choices there at age start and war summaries. We use a bot for aid.

One other thing.. I generally like to run 200% wages but lately I feel like just running 100% wages in war is alot easier to manage and I can still deal just as much damage it seems. So is it best to just keep wages at 100% and not focus so much on pushing it any higher.

if u are eating hits 50% is fine. GBP will keep your ME as high as wages normally would. as for 200 v 100, its going to be dependent on your income and the mod off/def of your enemy. ie do u need the extra 7.6% ME?

[Runefire]

Regarding army in/army out, it is not just enough to log in 10 minutes before, but to get people to log in the tick before their army returns to make sure their armies are paid so they can send out.

Nothing worse to be counting on a province to make a certain hit only to have them log in and see they weren't able to pay their wages.

Also leniency can be allowed if your target KD is all out :)


With Kingdom forums it will depend. Most serious kingdoms will likely use IRC or some other form of external communication as their primary method . I would certainly recommend it, as I find it a lot more fun idling in my kingdom channel and just chatting about whatever during the down time. But if you can't convince your kingdom, then obviously the forums/kingdom chat will be very important.

Like Persain said, because most kingdoms will run IRC with a bot, aid is handled via this, or by simply asking people via other external programs like whatsapp for aid.

[noobium]

"1. Currently a common dragon slaying strat that we use is that when a dragon is sent each province is responsible to kill a % of the dragon according to the size of their province compared to the kingdoms overall nw. So if you are 6% of the kingdoms total nw you are required to kill that much of the dragons health. Is this a bad idea and does anyone have tips and or a better strategy to use??"

Totally situation-dependent, and also depends on what you're using to slay. Using defense on provinces that are already unbreakable is usually the most effective way to slay, even if it means those provinces have to hold armies for a while. Slaying is almost never evenly distributed, although in theory it should be if you can't use t/m. Using offense to slay shouldn't be ruled out either, since you really don't want to be open to too many 4taps. (This was more true of Dwarf last age, if they were entering war with 15ish elites/acre they really don't have the defense to slay dragons... naturally, explaining this concept to my kingdom last age went over like a lead balloon and we tanked some dragons we shouldn't have. Fortunately kingdoms picked the wrong dragon type in almost every war, so it was better to tank anyway.)

Slaying isn't always the best strategy, but if kingdoms make proper dragon selection instead of making bad dragon choices, tanking is going to something you'd only do out of necessity - though it will be necessary many times. Fortunately a lot of kingdoms make bad dragon choices, like using sapphire as a defensive dragon without having defensible provinces, or picking emerald purely for troop attrition and leaving their provinces in formation to get farmed one by one. If you can cut through a dragon or the dragon effects are irrelevant to your goals, it's especially easy to tank even if you could slay. Sapphire is probably the easiest to tank when it's used ineffectively.

"2. Is it a good idea to just deep chain one province at a time or is it a smart idea to chain two provinces at one time? So if I had 20 attackers say devote 10 attackers on target 1 and 10 attackers on target 2. How much importance should be placed on targets incoming land?"

Too situation-dependent to answer and wars last beyond the initial declaration phase. Players overrate landchains anyway, unless they have the ability to keep their army waves locked together.

"3. To correctly army in/out does one need to be online 10-20 mins before armies return to get new details on target and send out within 2-3 mins of being home?"

You should have your targets sorted out and ready to hit the moment your troops are home if at all possible, because it's logistically easier to manage. If your people need orders, don't drag for minutes to hit, that is the most aggravating **** and leads to more potential screwups. You can also take slight advantage of a 1-2 minute delay between hits, so you can hit with stronger tg than if you wait for all acres to come in (though this can be problematic if it staggers your barracks). That said, you don't absolutely need to make sure your armies are constantly out, at least against most opponents, and it's perfectly fine to wait in order to fix staggered return times. The really important thing is to not have armies home when enemies conduct chains.

"4. This is a big problem for me as I am not what you call a t/m. Maybe a a/tm as I get chained down. What I would like to know here is what are good wpas and tpas that my
Thiefs and Mages should have. If you could give me some sizes depending on what part of the age you are in. (Like YR0-2 2wpa YR2-4 4wpa etc..)"

Way too situational and varies based on opponent (or peacetime situation). In war tier, some setups (like Dwarf) really ought to spend time jacking up their wpa and science, so if they play their cards right and don't get massacred, they can have far better wpa than the norm, and no reason to release that right away. I think a good way to gauge wpa is to figure out what your own kingdom has, and use that as a baseline - since you know what your kingdom has been doing, and should know whether your wpa is going to be better or worse than other kingdoms you face. You'd have to assume at a reasonably large size that most kingdoms will attain at least decent wpa, but you don't necessarily need to cram huge wpa on your mystics to compensate. For thieves, it's difficult to justify more than 4-5 rTPA in peacetime, especially since Rogue thieves are dirt cheap should you need to train for an enemy. Until someone releases an exact thief/spell success formula, it's largely guesswork to know what tpa is actually good, even with years of accumulated experience. The biggest mistake for a t/m is to assume that they're always going to succeed their ops and everything will be awesome, because the RNG ****s over many a player... and even as a t/m, sometimes you want the military for defense (and thus offense, later on) rather than a huge tpa, and accept that you have to pick your first targets with more care.

"5. What spells should one keep on targets. I have a good idea here but want some feedback from others."

Way, way too situational. A general rule of thumb is to do the thing that destroys the most resources, and keep doing that. If I do that more often than my enemy, then I should win. However, some resources don't matter as much as others, and sometimes low-yield ops like nightstrike are important due to tactical implications (for instance, nm/ns a target so that your t/m can send out armies).

Against less organized opponents (and sometimes against pretty good kingdoms), if you have runes to burn, your attackers can usually attempt storms - it's by far the easiest mage op, and fairly good for global peasant control when it works. Of course this implies that you want to destroy peasants rather than farm them, and that your attackers can't cast something better.

Fireballs usually aren't that good in early war, not with the draft rates many kingdoms prefer, wpa levels at their peak, and nightmares being so much more valuable. Fireball makes more sense when attackers have seperated significantly in acres, and it's better to use attackers to fb other core attackers. Banks though will require immediate attention if they're sitting on good peasants, and need to be prevented from repopulation if they slay.

"6. How important are the kd forums? How does aid work in your kds?"

Meh.

[UtopiaExpert]

"1. Currently a common dragon slaying strat that we use is that when a dragon is sent each province is responsible to kill a % of the dragon according to the size of their province compared to the kingdoms overall nw. So if you are 6% of the kingdoms total nw you are required to kill that much of the dragons health. Is this a bad idea and does anyone have tips and or a better strategy to use??"

Yes, this is a very bad idea. Dragons should be slayed asap, preferably before the tick (if it's sapphire, get it done really REALLY fast). This means you simply have to slay it with whoever happens to be online at the time. You cannot wait 12 hours before the last has logged in. Dragon-slaying should never be done voluntarily, but (just like attacks), should be planned or ordered by KD-leadership. Usually with us first slaying is done by TMs, with further slaying being done by our attackers, usually sending a mix of defense and offense (rather have em drop from 70 to 65 opa than from 20 to 15 dpa.

[Suur]

Yes, this is a very bad idea. Dragons should be slayed asap, preferably before the tick (if it's sapphire, get it done really REALLY fast). This means you simply have to slay it with whoever happens to be online at the time. You cannot wait 12 hours before the last has logged in. Dragon-slaying should never be done voluntarily, but (just like attacks), should be planned or ordered by KD-leadership. Usually with us first slaying is done by TMs, with further slaying being done by our attackers, usually sending a mix of defense and offense (rather have em drop from 70 to 65 opa than from 20 to 15 dpa.

Killing the dragon at the wrong moment and even more by wrong provinces can decide the war. What noobium said is more accurate imo. There is too many situations when you better do not kill the dragon at all or tank it for a while.

[noobium]

Also (in response to tpa/wpa levels) - whether you're going for growth or war, it's a good idea for all of your core provinces to build at least 25-30% guilds for oop and a good while afterwards, unless you plan to grow all of your provs really fast and have something better towards that end, or playing as orcs (your long-term wpa is going to suck regardless, but you have RM to deter some mage ops, and need a little more resources to build up your offense than avian/ud/dorf.) If you go fortified early, you can afford even more guilds.

Early age tpa, if I'm going fortified right away I hold off on training many thieves and rest at 1.5 or so on attackers, but if I come out and stay in normal/aggressive I like to make sure I train thieves. Early age thieves I prefer to set a goal for thieves in training each day after oop (independent of acre size), like say 400 thieves for when I exit protection, 800 thieves for a day after oop, 1200 for the next, etc, until I enter fortified or need to train stuff for an earlyish war. Early age acre sizes will likely be unstable for an attacker as kingdoms jockey for position, but your thieves are a relatively safe investment since they don't die in combat, and you're likely waiting until fortified to train elites. The exact numbers vary based on setup and goals, but having solid tpa is useful for fighting early wars and skimming gc piles in the first week of age. If I'm Undead though, forget about training much in the way of thieves early on and look at getting more offspec + defspec running, since you're likely to be burned by thieves regardless of what you train.
Just be aware that a good kingdom will adapt to global tpa by building wt, so while having a tpa edge is useful, it is by no means a guarantee, and you need to be a bit careful about giving away buttons.
Remember at all times - if you give unfriendly (or hostile) to another kingdom, your thievery ops will be a lot more effective than normal, so if your strategy revolves around offensive thievery, it pays to pick targets loaded with resources and poor defense, so you can take advantage before the target can adapt.

In the long term, there is a fairly wide spectrum of viable wpa/tpa levels - it is more useful to be able to adapt to your opponent, rather than get locked into a predictable pattern of training x tpa, or waiting to reach y wpa. Eventually, though, diminishing returns will make wizard pumping or thief cramming less profitable than working on science investment, and that point is usually around 5 wpa/tpa. Putting more into a province is fine, but you have to evaluate whether the tpa will be superflous or not.

For mages, you should be paying constant attention to science levels, and not just channeling science. A strong wpa is better when it's backed up by good science, especially on an elf. Elves' greatest difficulty is attaining good science in the long term vs. Faeries and attackers, but Elves are also very capable of playing attack and thievery in addition to their mage role, due to the ability to exploit province bloat in the thief or attack game. That said, if you have the ability to attain 6-7 rWPA with normal wizard pumping, you usually should go for it. It will take too long to reach that level consistently, but if you find yourself there, why not go for it?