Thief~Mage Happiness Survey

[StratOcastle]

Hello.

If you're playing a t/m or variant, I want to know how you're enjoying your role this age. This can be heretic, mystic, rogue, sage(the mean ones), super thief, supermage or even something unusual.

This is the 1st of a 3 part series. Please answer the 3 questions below:

A) what do you play?

B) how are you doing? (spare details that may endanger you :-)

C) any surprises, good or bad?

Thank you for your participation.

The next two series will address hybrid and attacker.

[Persain]

A) what do you play?
Feary mystic

B) how are you doing? (spare details that may endanger you :-)
I suck, i didnt run enough guilds oop and am still building up magic science/wpa.

C) any surprises, good or bad?
None so far the race plays exactly as expected. My gut said run 120> dpa oversize yourself and then overtrain wpa/tpa to be safe. It seems thats the only way to be safe as attackers are easily hitting 200+opa on 10 epa.

[durianpopsicle]

A) what do you play?
halfer heretic

B) how are you doing? (spare details that may endanger you :-)
low wpa. other than that everything is fine. easy attacking, very low cost.

C) any surprises, good or bad?
I need less towers. need more foods. trying to get low NW but high MO and MDef.

[natebane]

A) what do you play?
Faery Rogue

B) how are you doing? (spare details that may endanger you :-)
Neglected building enough guilds oop and regretting it.

C) any surprises, good or bad?
Underestimated the crappiness of early econ with : reduced recovery time, nerfed ToG, aaand inflated Leet cost. Stealing helps immensely, but it's pretty slow getting built up relative to the much more cost effective offense on attackers

[7thghost]

Halfling/Rogue

Great, 2 war wins in, rock solid tpa, working on wpa/dpa :p

Not really, as expected, been massacred a few times but thats about it, in long drawn out wars I get to attack as well ^_^

[Bo To]

A) what do you play?
Faery/Sage

B) how are you doing? (spare details that may endanger you :-)
Still pumping sci, still low wpa, but high tpa and dpa.

C) any surprises, good or bad?
Being learned. Like ppl don't know/read what my perso has. The elite cost is really bad thing in normal stance. Very high NW and nwpa(at 61% draft 240 nwpa...).

[Conclave]

A) what do you play?
Faery/Mystic

B) how are you doing? (spare details that may endanger you :-)
Great, aside from being inactive right before the start of our last war and not doing as well as I could have.

C) any surprises, good or bad?
Not really, it's what I expected. I really hate fae/mystic though :) I feel rogue is much more powerful and fun than mystic, and would've preferred fae/rog or even elf/rog > fae mys (i like elf for mystic more), but its what my kd needed me to do. Also, chastity duration is laughable...

[HerpNDerp]

1- Fae/Mystic
2- Meh. Ive been running 30-50% guilds for what seems like the entire age so far, and Im still barely 5 rwpa @ 1k acres. Chastity is a joke. Might as well never expect to start a war anywhere close to UB.
3- Elites are expensive as hell. A couple wars in now, and im running 62% DR at normal and maybe 75% are elites still. 1.2k gc per elite and really high nwpa. I wish I had gone attacker :P

[jmiedema]

A) what do you play?
Faery/Heretic

B) how are you doing? (spare details that may endanger you :-)
It is going OK, We are large right now, so CF situation and NW differential to Server will give a scewed view.

C) any surprises, good or bad?

Good:
-Dicing is very inexpensive (though not realistic to do since ToG is almost always better)
-Robbing was very effective early age, even Robbing out of fort, always worth keeping stealth low
-Landlust very inexpensive, which is nice in late wars, or if chained.
-Very effective at blanketing riots and stealing war horses (even vs tacticians with watchtowers which would usually be a nightmare for rogues)
-Decent offense on leet gives a few more options than in previous ages with sending out with stolen horses.

Bad:
-Very difficult to train a decent epa due to leet cost, even with non-stop ToG with high homes/banks and a CF environment that is rather forgiving.. I imagine this is even more difficult for faeries in kingdoms where the faery may get hit and randomed into more often.
-WPA pumping as a Heretic has been very difficult. Nightmare is a difficult spell but I cant do a proper wizard pump without very much forgoing elite pumping. I doubt I will be able to have good Nightmare success against any decent attacker until mid-late age.

[Uhm hoi]

A) Elf Rogue

B) I´m doing great. This is probably the strongest race/persona combination I've played in a long time. It's extremely nw efficient due to the strong specs, +30% wpa and invisibility. I don't have to fear randoms too much since the army is cheap, even with some leets mixed in and I have that -30% losses going for me. And the best thing of all, it's so efficient on it's acres. I really love this province.

C) Surprised in a good way. I was suppost to play a rogue this age and I was a bit worried when I was making the calculations for halfling and faery rogue. I feared both would bloat their nw way too much and fall prey to randomming orcs. I tried the calculations for elf as a last ditch effort and I was surprised how good it was on paper and now that I play it, it's exceeding my expectations. Also surprised how easy it is to steal oow with just 10% thieves dens. I was a bit worried about elf econ as that has been the problem area for elf mystics I've played in the past, but being able to steal everything I need for low losses is great.

EDIT: For those looking to start a t/m still, I recommend this. It's strong from the start and a lot of fun to play.

[jmiedema]

A) Elf Rogue

B) I´m doing great. This is probably the strongest race/persona combination I've played in a long time. It's extremely nw efficient due to the strong specs, +30% wpa and invisibility. I don't have to fear randoms too much since the army is cheap, even with some leets mixed in and I have that -30% losses going for me. And the best thing of all, it's so efficient on it's acres. I really love this province.

C) Surprised in a good way. I was suppost to play a rogue this age and I was a bit worried when I was making the calculations for halfling and faery rogue. I feared both would bloat their nw way too much and fall prey to randomming orcs. I tried the calculations for elf as a last ditch effort and I was surprised how good it was on paper and now that I play it, it's exceeding my expectations. Also surprised how easy it is to steal oow with just 10% thieves dens. I was a bit worried about elf econ as that has been the problem area for elf mystics I've played in the past, but being able to steal everything I need for low losses is great.

EDIT: For those looking to start a t/m still, I recommend this. It's strong from the start and a lot of fun to play.

Yea the numbers are good for elf/rogue offensively. The problem would be defensively I would think. What is your defense vs Halfling Rogue? A halfling rogue will be able to Prop an elf/rogue, and dspecs/thieves/wizards are what give the best prop gains, and elf/rogue has all 3 of those in spades, and elf/rogue doesnt have CS and doesnt have the build space for WT's without having to remove TD % or Home % which cripples their offensive capabilities. I think that is the main reason Elf/Ro isn't used as much anymore.

[Uhm hoi]

Yea the numbers are good for elf/rogue offensively. The problem would be defensively I would think. What is your defense vs Halfling Rogue? A halfling rogue will be able to Prop an elf/rogue, and dspecs/thieves/wizards are what give the best prop gains, and elf/rogue has all 3 of those in spades, and elf/rogue doesnt have CS and doesnt have the build space for WT's without having to remove TD % or Home % which cripples their offensive capabilities. I think that is the main reason Elf/Ro isn't used as much anymore.

I havent come across a halfling rogue trying that yet. I also think if a halfling rogue has a tpa high enough to do that, he either sacrificed wpa for it so he can be ET'ed reliably, or he sacrificed defense for it and he can be chained... And rogues do happen to be our favorit targets to chain and massacre.

Also, I have quite some build space to mess around with. 7% farms, 10% guilds, 10% towers and 25% thief dens is enough to let me function as a t/m, which leaves 48% land to mess around with (which has come down to just running some forts and high homes in war build, but I'd have the option to use wt if ever it'll appear to be necessary).

[StratOcastle]

That's right, you've got the tower and TD bonus. I included an elf rogue in The Virtual Kingdom because FATstrat played one in 67 and enjoyed it. Braced by a faery and halfer rogue; the other 2 rogues.

The remaining t/ms in The Virtual Kingdom are:

Elf sage
Elf mystic
Faery heretic
Faery mystic
Faery sage
Halfling mystic
Halfling sage

Heretic ended up being a patch strat because I biased the t/m races for more efficient top feed.

[dingy2]

Faery/rogue

I'm working my ass off trying to get fully saturated with leets. Haven't had 100% stealth/mana all age long, except stealth in eowcf. Still can't make enough gc to pay for 100% leets.
It's tough, but I think it works out well because when a race combination has to work hard to pump up fully, there is a big difference between the ones who work hard and those who don't. My high percentage of leets and high science gives me a clear edge against enemy faeries.

Also running a high tpa, I have literally found only 2 provinces this age that gave me a challenge with my thieves.
I am a perennial heavy attacker, have been for years now, so playing a rogue TM is quite enjoyable. OOW is annoying, constantly searching for steal targets.... rogue in war is sexy.

[Bo To]

Faery/rogue

I'm working my ass off trying to get fully saturated with leets. Haven't had 100% stealth/mana all age long, except stealth in eowcf.

OOW is annoying, constantly searching for steal targets.... rogue in war is sexy.

Because you look to steal gold instead of playing with low towers/farms and stealing food and runes which are much easier to find :).