General Strategies for Elf Heretic

[LochNess]

Hi guys, I'm a pretty new guy, joined at the beginning of Age 68.
I played Heavy attacker (Orc Cleric) last age, but I want to try out another role this age, so I settled on Elf Heretic.


About my kingdom: we are a fairly laid back warring kingdom, we have quite some freedom to manage our provinces, and we war when most people are ready.


Is there any advice you can give to me? Since this is my first time playing T/M, any relevant advice would be useful, even if you think it's common sense :)
Such as build strategies, ops and spells to prioritize, what army composition (all dspecs or some elites as well), attack or not to attack, scientist distribution etc.

Thanks!

[beans]

what kind of kd are you in? organized? war a lot? just grow?

[Bo To]

Elf/heretic is not t/m it's a hybrid. But then again the same can be said for f/h.

[LochNess]

Actually, I'm in a fairly laid back warring kd. I just want to hear some general advice from more advanced players so that I can be more useful in our wars.

[Uhm hoi]

General advise... I'd definately use the generals on nm runs, otherwise it depends on how well you op, if you're ub or oor etc. Sometimes using generals to raze just to get oor is really good for elf heretics, thats how we won 2 of our wars last age; just getting the elf heretics oor and let them bottomfeed, op and aid up beaten down attackers. But how to use the generals is pretty situational and its probably just best to go with what the kd leadership tells you to do; hit (nm) chain targets/leave army home for ub or learn some scrub on landdefense/raze.

[StratOcastle]

I'll pm you some tactics I use in relaxed kingdoms.

The problem with a lot of builds in casual kingdoms is that they're built to support the other provinces. When the other provinces aren't anxious to make use of your efforts it can be frustrating. For instance, last age you played orc cleric which you may not realize is a strong independent build. It doesn't have to cure plague from undead, can hit about anything else in the game because of its offense and can absorb a decent level of punishment. As an orc cleric I had one of my best wars ever in a post civil war kingdom that went against a fully active kingdom. We had about 10 actives vs 22. We couldn't win but I executed a textbook demonstration of zone/gap warfare. Simply glorious.

With elf heretic you will be supporting provinces like the one you played last age, unless you idealize your province as a 3 pronged entity. Now while that may seem greedy it's not. Anything you do for yourself as an elf heretic will help other players in your kingdom. It's simply that you're prioritizing for your self preservation which also serves your kingdom. The day they want to play team ball you'll be ready. But it's very important to be aware of your actions because your enemy will be aware of them as well. I've spent time in great kingdoms as well as kingdoms withering in the dust. Love thy self and then you can love others. No truer words can be spoken in Utopia either.

I won't offer build/science advice because I run provinces in esoteric ways that wouldn't coincide with common standards. We have several brilliant players who can offer specific build advice.

Good luck out there.

[beans]

elf heretic can work just fine as a full t/m or as a hybrid t/m attacker.

every bit of specific advice that I can think of is the wrong advice under some circumstances.

mostly try and build the working relationship with other t/ms and hybrids. the more yall talk about what ops your doing and the results you get the better the team gets.

and dont waste your mana mving ms off attackers!

[LochNess]

Thanks guys, also, any approximate TPA/WPA to aim for? I'm thinking around 4 raw tpa and 6 raw wpa for the middle of the age.

For our first war, I'm still thinking of what to do, probably run high guilds oop.

[StratOcastle]

Thanks guys, also, any approximate TPA/WPA to aim for? I'm thinking around 4 raw tpa and 6 raw wpa.

That's what I had as a dwarf cleric last age to supplement our mutilated t/m core for a war or 2. I could cast on most attackers, but the science variations played into this. I could steal pretty well also. Your elf bonuses will make you more effective along with heretic base percentages. The wars I mentioned were late in the age where attackers had accumulated lots of science.

If we could compare ages, I'd say your numbers are right on if your intent is to resist enemy t/ms and reliably break core. One big difference was that dwarf has the spell Clear Sight so I resisted a lot of halfling theft efforts. you won't have this benefit so you'll have to play even more conservatively than I had. Still I had 100s of thousands of runes and food stolen, but never enough that I didn't have plenty for spell casting or dinner.

[noobium]

start with strong defense, stay with strong defense, wait for attackers to tire themselves out and bloat, take the acres for the win.

sometimes you might have to hit early (risky), and you will usually have to make yourself technically breakable.

weak kingdoms are really bad at chaining high defense provinces when they should, which helps immensely.

[LochNess]

So should I use elites or ospecs to attack, if I really need to?
What's the networth of ospecs or dspecs?

[noobium]

Elf is much better as a/m than t/m (although in practice you should be an a/t/m of sorts - zero thief losses make it virtually risk-free to op).

You should attack selectively, not army-in-army-out. You have to be careful about when you expose yourself, otherwise you get smashed into the ground; but you can probably start hitting a day or two into war, when attackers start dropping and chains are harder to complete. Again, it works best against weak kingdoms that aren't organized enough to chain properly, because many a ghetto will go for the path of least resistance. It works even better when you can coordinate nightmare runs. I would suggest you hold your attacks so they coincide with the bulk of your kingdom; because your attack time is likely slower, you'll likely hit once for every two hits of your allies, until you are at a point where you hit safely.

You really wouldn't want to miss out on taking acres as an Elf. Ultimately if you play your cards right you can get nice ranks of honor, and while the honor can be stripped away oow, it's immensely helpful when your Marquis Elf snipes at Lord and Baron orcs.

[Demascuss]

So should I use elites or ospecs to attack, if I really need to?
What's the networth of ospecs or dspecs?

Use elites for your offense. That way if you don't need to attack, you still have that extra defense to help you out