Ops Success & Fail Rate

[jmiedema]

well it is entirely possible that if the dwarf is online and you are casting on him that he is just casting Mystic Aura to block your attempts.

Also, I'm curious how you knew he is 1.53 wpa? Wpa calcs are hard to get this age because it is population based, not NW based (since SoS does not give exactly # of days of science experience, so can't do a networth calculation). So since it is Population based, any time the targets population is underpop or overpop it will drastically change the wpa calculation (because it assume for instance if a province is 2000 underpopulated, that those 2000 are all wizards, making their wpa seem higher than it is. Alternatively if they are overpopulated, and/or just rebuilt from homes so they are overpopulated 2000, then the wpa calc will assume that you don't have 2000 population (and they remove the 2000 from wizards).

So it is important to get wpa calcs, but do it at a time where you KNOW that the target has full population so it is accurate. Keep track of it using an outside spreadsheet (keep track of raw wizard count) and then you can calculate their wpa that way, adjusting the number if you Assassinate wizards, or prop wizards, and adjusting based on more or less land.

Also, if you are complaining that mages have it tough to get good numbers, think of this.. Rogues NEED to have decent tpa and wpa because there is no building/spell that auto fails spells (other than mystic aura, but that isn't a duration spell) to protect a rogue from a mystic, whereas Mystics have Watchtowers and (hopefully) Clear Sight to protect them from rogues. So Rogues have to invest in much higher tpa+wpa, to have decent protection from MS while also being able to do their rogue duties. Whereas a mystic really doesn't HAVE to run any tpa at all, they could just run like 10-11wpa, 2 tpa, and tons of WT's and CS up 24/7. the auto fail will protect them. Not even 5-6 wpa will protect a rogue from a mystic.

Mystics should have their own difficulties, just like every race/personality in this game should have their difficulties. That is good balance.

[treton]

We know he's at max pop, has been since the start of the war since we can't cast successfully against him. His numbers are very similar from wars start, now 24 hours later the estimated wpa has remained very close to that number. And my kd mates and myself are having high failure rates with him offline, so it's not as though he he blocking two of us when we're both casting.

I would argue that a mage could not run anything under 5, let alone 4tpa. I was wrecked last war from a rogue even though I had 5 tpa and cs up the whole time. Propaganda with rogues right now is deadly effective. If I was to run any lower tpa, I would not be successful at stealing from attacker, and pure mage dosen't help a kd enough these days. I understand the randomness of the game, but it feels like its going to one extreme or the other right now with how useless I feel casting.

[jmiedema]

We know he's at max pop, has been since the start of the war since we can't cast successfully against him. His numbers are very similar from wars start, now 24 hours later the estimated wpa has remained very close to that number. And my kd mates and myself are having high failure rates with him offline, so it's not as though he he blocking two of us when we're both casting.

I would argue that a mage could not run anything under 5, let alone 4tpa. I was wrecked last war from a rogue even though I had 5 tpa and cs up the whole time. Propaganda with rogues right now is deadly effective. If I was to run any lower tpa, I would not be successful at stealing from attacker, and pure mage dosen't help a kd enough these days. I understand the randomness of the game, but it feels like its going to one extreme or the other right now with how useless I feel casting.

You keep saying running 4-5tpa +CS.. Are you not running WT's as a mystic against rogues? I seriously hope you aren't running Dens and hoping to make your tpa enough that the rogue can't prop you.. that is a suicide mission since with propaganda a few hits on your Thief stack and you are substantially easier to op. This is why I keep saying Auto-fail, Auto-fail, Auto-fail. Only good way to stop rogues. not to mention that watchtowers also reduce the DAMAGE from the ops which is crucial..

If you think about it, running higher tpa as a mystic actually works counter-productively against the rogue, as propaganada uses A LOT of thieves, and so a lot of thieves die also. Part of a propaganda runs success is that your tpa gets replenished by hitting thieves with propaganda. So in a weird way, by running high tpa instead of WT's not only is it less successful as a protection technique, but you are also allowing them to maintain a higher tpa at the end of the run than you would if you ran 2-3 rTPA and WT's.

If you are a mystic against rogues, Always go Watchtowers, not Thieves Dens. You can always rebuild them later in the war if your kingdom "handles" the rogues.

[treton]

That was the first war where a rogue even bothered me and that was my mistake not running enough wts. This war they don't even have a rogue so no need for them.

[SlightlyOverdosed]

casting against a dwarf (wh & baron) less than 15% nw larger than me, and he has 1.53 wpa according to stinger after infilitrate. Myself and our other mages are failing a ton of fb, let alone ms. It makes no sense whatsoever that we are all failing that much.

We know he's at max pop, has been since the start of the war since we can't cast successfully against him. His numbers are very similar from wars start, now 24 hours later the estimated wpa has remained very close to that number.

This doesn't make sense. Chances an attacker is max pop in the middle of the war isn't high. He should be gaining empty acres, and losing pop to attacks.
Please clerify what method are you using to calculate his wpa. Infiltrate is not enough to assess wpa.
It indeed doesn't make sense you're failing so much against 1.53 wpa target, I'd guess that wpa calculation is wrong.

I would argue that a mage could not run anything under 5, let alone 4tpa. I was wrecked last war from a rogue even though I had 5 tpa and cs up the whole time. Propaganda with rogues right now is deadly effective. If I was to run any lower tpa, I would not be successful at stealing from attacker, and pure mage dosen't help a kd enough these days. I understand the randomness of the game, but it feels like its going to one extreme or the other right now with how useless I feel casting.

You should figure out what is your core purpose and prioritize. If you as a mage, find yourself failing fireballs, that means you have to increase wpa, not invest in other areas.
First you need to realize, no one province is impervious, that's not how the game is designed and it wouldn't make sense. Just like an attacker can be completely destroyed via a chain, or emptied through Night strike/propaganda/assassinate wizards/tornadoes/fireballs/tornadoes/MS...
So can a thief or a mage province be destroyed. It does take more effort on the part of the enemy kingdom, but it is very much a possibility that you CANNOT prevent.
Yes you will be breakable to attackers at start of war, if they pump correctly. Just like they are open to your magic if you pump wpa correctly. Neither is a problem, it is as it should be.
You need to try to be as defended as possible while maximizing offensive output. If that means going with lower tpa than that's that.

Stop pursuing a dream of absolute protection.

[treton]

The dwarf was at the top end of the range for our attacker at the start and has been bottom feeding, not gaining a terrible amount, but slowly growing. Stinger calculates estimated tpa and wpa based on pop, so when you infiltrate, you narrow down the range it could be. From sots prewar, and now 12 hour updates, there has been little change. It has never gone over 2, yes it could be higher in reality, but I couldn't see the estimate off by that much. Even if he's at 2.5, How can a mage not be at least 50% successful when running 8.2 raw? So unless stinger is terrible wrong, it does not make sense. Just a few hours ago on one of our mages went 3/10 with fireballs on him, I was 2/5. So for 3 mages to fail that highly makes 0 sense on a dwarf war hero.

And no where did I say that I wanted to be absolutely protected. Everyone wants to jump to that conclusion once a t/m issues a complaint. I was stating that a pure mage is only so effective in this current utopia. And for bishop to say that 8wpa is not enough, makes being a t/m more difficult in terms of helpfulness to the kd. The game is being pushed towards being an attacker heavy game.

My main argument is that I have never experienced so many failures as I have this age. And with everyone being at a near level playing field in terms of magic science by year 3, mages have lost that advantage.

[jmiedema]

The dwarf was at the top end of the range for our attacker at the start and has been bottom feeding, not gaining a terrible amount, but slowly growing. Stinger calculates estimated tpa and wpa based on pop, so when you infiltrate, you narrow down the range it could be. From sots prewar, and now 12 hour updates, there has been little change. It has never gone over 2, yes it could be higher in reality, but I couldn't see the estimate off by that much. Even if he's at 2.5, How can a mage not be at least 50% successful when running 8.2 raw? So unless stinger is terrible wrong, it does not make sense. Just a few hours ago on one of our mages went 3/10 with fireballs on him, I was 2/5. So for 3 mages to fail that highly makes 0 sense on a dwarf war hero.

And no where did I say that I wanted to be absolutely protected. Everyone wants to jump to that conclusion once a t/m issues a complaint. I was stating that a pure mage is only so effective in this current utopia. And for bishop to say that 8wpa is not enough, makes being a t/m more difficult in terms of helpfulness to the kd. The game is being pushed towards being an attacker heavy game.

My main argument is that I have never experienced so many failures as I have this age. And with everyone being at a near level playing field in terms of magic science by year 3, mages have lost that advantage.

Bishop was right though.. 8 rWPA isn't enough anymore.. not when the science system this age allows every province and their dog to be capped in every category. This won't be an issue in future ages when they balance the new sci.

The reason i was so focussed on the "tpa and CS" issue is because you inability to make the necessary change to low tpa and higher wpa even when it is more effective to do so, gives you no right to complain that overall mages are screwed and not balanced, etc. Mages continue to be the highest honour provinces in the game. that is for a reason.. other people must be having more success than you.. maybe adapt to what they are doing..

[SlightlyOverdosed]

Stinger calculates estimated tpa and wpa based on pop, so when you infiltrate, you narrow down the range it could be. From sots prewar, and now 12 hour updates, there has been little change. It has never gone over 2, yes it could be higher in reality, but I couldn't see the estimate off by that much.

You're still not 100% clear. If you're using just infiltrate the wpa numbers can easily be way off the mark, my guess that this is the case and his real wpa is around 3-4. I do not know what are the requirements to accurately calc wpa using stinger but I would imagine it to require taking an accurate sot, som, survey, sos and infiltrate within a short time frame. Not doing this may result in very inaccurate calculations, especially if some of these components are missing completely.

And no where did I say that I wanted to be absolutely protected. Everyone wants to jump to that conclusion once a t/m issues a complaint. I was stating that a pure mage is only so effective in this current utopia. And for bishop to say that 8wpa is not enough, makes being a t/m more difficult in terms of helpfulness to the kd. The game is being pushed towards being an attacker heavy game.

My main argument is that I have never experienced so many failures as I have this age. And with everyone being at a near level playing field in terms of magic science by year 3, mages have lost that advantage.

I concur that mages specifically are less potent than they used to be. There is no need to repeat the advice already given in this thread. Mitigate the situation and go with less tpa.

[I'm back]

Seems a little lobsided

[Verminator]

The magic problem is easy to figure out.

1) Channeling science increases wizard production.
2) Science caps are higher and everyone is maxed by mid age, including Channeling science on attackers.
3) WPA numbers on attackers are higher than usual on average.
4) WPA numbers on casters is still the same because you only go so high on raw WPA to maintain province balance.
5) Spell difficulties were likely untouched from last age to this age, so the required difference for success between source and target WPA remains the same.
6) Higher difficulty spells now require unreasonable/unfeasible WPA numbers to succeed with. Medium difficulty spells now have the success rate that high difficulty spells used to have.

If Channeling science continues to boost wizard production and spell difficulties aren't adjusted to compensate, then offensive magic in general will become a waste of effort and resources.

[Bananamancer2000]

The magic problem is easy to figure out.

1) Channeling science increases wizard production.
2) Science caps are higher and everyone is maxed by mid age, including Channeling science on attackers.
3) WPA numbers on attackers are higher than usual on average.
4) WPA numbers on casters is still the same because you only go so high on raw WPA to maintain province balance.
5) Spell difficulties were likely untouched from last age to this age, so the required difference for success between source and target WPA remains the same.
6) Higher difficulty spells now require unreasonable/unfeasible WPA numbers to succeed with. Medium difficulty spells now have the success rate that high difficulty spells used to have.

If Channeling science continues to boost wizard production and spell difficulties aren't adjusted to compensate, then offensive magic in general will become a waste of effort and resources.

We've had a 30+ mwpa elf/mystic fail LLs and MS on in range 1mwpa attackers more than you'd ever suspect(I'd suspect never... but it happens often enough) LL gains in general have seemed incredibly low this age as well, MS has been a huge problem. Even with sci how it is, most cores we wpa calc(using munk) don't have numbers especially higher than I saw in ages past, yet casting on them seems near impossible by all but the elf/my. 6.5 rwpa sages failing consistently on 2-3rwpa core, the mystic ever failing on cores with 1/5th the wpa... I remember running a 3-4 rwpa orc with plenty of BPA in channeling and doing just fine, but also getting casted on. Now it seems like noone succeeds on anyone else... Everyone fails

[Goodwitch]

We've had a 30+ mwpa elf/mystic fail LLs and MS on in range 1mwpa attackers more than you'd ever suspect(I'd suspect never... but it happens often enough) LL gains in general have seemed incredibly low this age as well, MS has been a huge problem. Even with sci how it is, most cores we wpa calc(using munk) don't have numbers especially higher than I saw in ages past, yet casting on them seems near impossible by all but the elf/my. 6.5 rwpa sages failing consistently on 2-3rwpa core, the mystic ever failing on cores with 1/5th the wpa... I remember running a 3-4 rwpa orc with plenty of BPA in channeling and doing just fine, but also getting casted on. Now it seems like noone succeeds on anyone else... Everyone fails

no offense but I think you may be calculating mwpa wrong. I can't see any attacker having onl 1mwpa this age unless they started only a few days ago maybe

[treton]

Since we're still talking about ops and success....I have a question.

So I just cast mv on an orc (try to clear that nasty reflect and such), it succeeds but evaporates not clearing anything. I go ahead and cast ms, ms is reflected back on me for 8 hours the following cast. What is the point of casting an mv and having it succeed, but does not clearing at least 1 spell?

[jmiedema]

Since we're still talking about ops and success....I have a question.

So I just cast mv on an orc (try to clear that nasty reflect and such), it succeeds but evaporates not clearing anything. I go ahead and cast ms, ms is reflected back on me for 8 hours the following cast. What is the point of casting an mv and having it succeed, but does not clearing at least 1 spell?

It is 50% chance to clear each active spell, each cast (70% chance as faery). That's still pretty powerful, but I agree RNG could make you even be careful and do 3 cast of it (and it isn't an easy spell to land) showing no spells being removed, and then having that pesky CS or RM on.

It's not a bad thought to put it in a suggestion for MV to have the same 50% chance at removing each spell (or maybe reduced to 40%) but have it always remove at least 1 spell (if there is one to be removed). Seems like a change that would make sense.

[treton]

Exactly, removing some of the randomness would help. Considering earlier today I mv'ed someone and removed 7 spells (all self spells to boot), I don't think I have ever seen that many in one go! If it doesn't clear a spell, it should just be a failure.

I would be totally fine with it lower to 40% as long as it would be guaranteed to clear one as it can be a gamble if they have active combat spells.