War Spoils seems like a pretty silly spell

[Kido]

Coming from the perspective of a player only been in war KDs, having 0 incoming acres for the duration of your returns then the duration of the next returns seems pretty silly. Apart from random hits outside war and maybe sneaky TMs land grabbing, it seems like you're painting a target on you chest that reads 0 incoming land. Unless you can stay ahead of the damage, and stay afloat - which doesn't seem likely, given the way gains work. So are there circumstances in war which make war spoils worth it to cast and attack with?

[s0830887]

Very limited use I think. One really valuable use I could see for it would be if you have speedy, tanky hitters hitting between enemy waves. If they're not in danger of being chained (either because their def is so high or their leets return home before the enemy second wave) then ws would be useful there to get the acres in and eco working quicker/buildings built faster. And as you mentioned, easy tm acres I guess?

[jmiedema]

It also works like Anonymity to make those acres not ambushable, so if you are in a drawn out hostile with no chance of being deep chained, it could be useful to have it on.

Overall a very situational spell. But in the situations it is useful for, it is very useful. But yea, probably the weakest (or least used) of the "personality bonus spells".

Most of its uses are out of war though, or in-war pretty much for tanky attackers only as T/M's with Unbreakable defense would still in most cases rather keep their high tpa/wpa modifiers for longer than receive the acres right away, unless econ is really a major problem at the time.

[Avenger]

Weakest? It's the best whoring/chain recovery bonus you can have. 400 to whore cap in 1-2 weeks mid-age.

[Drys]

It also works like Anonymity to make those acres not ambushable, so if you are in a drawn out hostile with no chance of being deep chained, it could be useful to have it on.

The other part to this and why it's on the War Hero persona (I think) is that using anon means no honor. In theory, war spoils would let you hit and gain honor w/o risk of ambush. Since WH benefits more from honor, that may be where the spell has its strength.

I've never played with it, but it seems that as long as you can keep WS up for each wave then you will still have land coming in at the same frequency as a regular attacker. The only risk is getting overpopped so you can't send troops out after they come back. It might be possible to mitigate this by staggering armies so some attack w/ WS up (e.g., big hits) and smaller ambush armies timed w/o WS. Again I've never played it so I don't know how viable that approach would be.

[StratOcastle]

You can have a lot of fun with WS in the right situations. I experimented with it in age 63 when I ran a solo province in a kingdom shell. Running a human war hero, at the time, had ToG and I would accelerate build to beat my targets army home.

Yes it's great oow. I've long contemplated a nw racket using dwarves with their ability to assemble highly efficient buildings in 6 ticks for free. Strategically loading the province via soldier aid with accelerated training. I can see a dwarf or 3 with a trade balance surplus at a nw shelf in war. Heavy attackers run interference complimenting the dwarf land grab along a nw salient. Depends on how much you use wackamole as a tactical inspiration.

Oow a dwarf can hit out of fort and assemble buildings in 3 ticks. Thus, you can imagine the global strat is a theory worth exploring. I'm of the mind the competitive game is played by the quality of the tick the entire age. If I have productivity in 3 ticks I'm working with a winning formula. The rest is in the details, and that's where it would fail. How your kingdom defends acreage, what the dwarf builds, how aid is handled are just a couple of factors.

Edit: I'll elaborate an example.

Situation being you have 3 dwarf war heroes semi-camping and having meteors MV'd. You have 3 heavy attackers in the nw vicinity and 3 chained attackers in the mud.

You've been running wackamole = semi-chains and still have 3 enemy heavies in nw equivalence with your dwarves and heavies. Dwarves hit for max gains, 3 chained send their extra offense to raze the 3 enemy attackers with 1 tap each. Each of your heavies unleash what they can, hopefully with t/m support. You should be able to nudge gains on the dwarves. Generally a camper will attack immediately after their target sends armies out, so the dwarf would theoretically have time to train specs to reduce enemy counter taps. The buildings would be active in 6 ticks, which may even be effective vs avian core.

WS is situational and can be navigated to best results with a little planning and opportunity. I can only say this as a solo, but it did work. I would sometimes WS with a tap and standard march with other taps.

[Kido]

I can definitely see WS being awesome if/when a Dwarf War Hero core is decent, imo it wasn't this age. For heavy attackers, i just doubt its ever a good situation to use it. I mean, and this may be a tactical decisions thing, the best time to Ambush Orcs and Undead are when they're getting chained, lower gains & lower offense, say you've used WS to prevent that. You're then giving people chaining you better gains making it harder for the rest of your Kd to capitalize on their low incoming land. Which would be even more so in a long drawn out war.

The other use in a team frame that might be ok would be to quickly create some space so you can be aided soldiers from a chained ally - but even then its risky and relies on enemy tunnel vision.

[Shifty11]

As mentioned above
Dwarf War Hero

you can WS your hit and immediately build your land, and have it constructed and have the buildings up and ready to go for your next attack.

Or if you're competing for honor and you want your elites to be protected from ambush, instead of anon your attack which doesn't capture any honor.

Or if you really need to increase your NW immediately to hit a different target which would reap better gains, your land returning home instantly giving you that NW boost.