Quote Originally Posted by StratOcastle View Post
Wave Derailment

Fact is activity is critical in Utopia in the competitive arena. I've been very active so I can attest to the differences that win wars before they begin. Many midlevel t/ms don't have the activity necessary to defend kingdom interests so we see them rendered nearly useless early in conflict by active competitive kingdoms. This is simply a condition of real life. We can't blame someone for running a turtle to continue playing Utopia.

What can we do? This applies to active players or players that are active during critical moments.

Let's start with Dwarves and Mystic Aura. Dwarves can spam Mystic Aura to block ops. In itself this isn't so spectacular, but we can transform this moment into a rally point. The dwarf will probably go down anyways, but we can make it costly.

Did this last age.. Hilarious fun was had. Works better when you aren't already almost out of mana though.

I expect my T/Ms to be the most active in the kingdom. It is way too easy to disable a T/M that has a predictable schedule, if they refresh all the MS/Riots on the same tick everyday, just hit them with SW (or ET for thieves) the tick before they usually login. It is MUCH harder to disable a T/M that is online every tick to spend their stealth and mana. You can ET or SW (Expose Thieves or Sabotage Wizards) as much as you like, but you will probably expend more stealth or mana than you actually remove.

Now, that is still a viable strat if you do it right at tick, and you have more folks doing it than they have T/Ms. If your attackers can land ET on their rogues, it can be worth it, but you have to be fast. A good T/M will expend those resources at the start of the tick.

As well, you will probably be more efficient doing more damage as well.. For an attacker, you really only need to login the tick before your army returns twice a day to make sure wages are paid and you have options to deal with overpop. More active attackers are more effective, but the returns are much less apparent. That is why when someone tells me they won't be that active, I tell them to go attacker.

Just to toss something in about Hybrids, you need to combine the activity of the T/M with a competency level of managing both roles. If you can't manage a province efficiently, you won't be very effective at either role. Hybrid is a lot of fun to play, but it is challenging to play well.