Let's Throw Down - Stables and Ponies, yay or nay?

[domrepx]

Here is a scenario that I ran for my Human province last age.

1000 acres

14 O Spec per acre

75% BE

O specs 14,000.00
Raw Off 70,000.00


% TG – 75% BE Horses Stables Mod OFF
20 18.0000% 0 0 82,600.00
19 17.3100% 600 10 82,820.86
18 16.6100% 1200 20 83,026.32
17 15.8700% 1800 30 83,194.66
16 15.1200% 2400 40 83,346.88
15 14.3400% 3000 50 83,468.20
14 13.5400% 3600 60 83,565.44
13 12.7200% 4200 70 83,638.24
12 11.8800% 4800 80 83,686.24
11 11.0100% 5400 90 83,701.54
10 10.1300% 6000 100 83,698.80
9 9.2100% 6600 110 83,654.86
8 8.2800% 7200 120 83,592.16
7 7.3200% 7800 130 83,494.96
6 6.3400% 8400 140 83,370.56
5 5.3400% 9000 150 83,218.60
4 4.3200% 9600 160 83,038.72
3 3.2700% 10200 170 82,822.54
2 2.2100% 10800 180 82,585.68
1 1.1100% 11400 190 82,303.54
0 0.0000% 12000 200 82,000.00


As you can see a split gave me the highest offense.

The thing is this works for you initial attack in war ONLY because as land come in you do have a chose to build stables or TG but TG can be build and gives you a full use in as little as 7 hours but stable need time to produces horses.

So for me…initially high Stables are great but in WAR TG>Stables….”I think this is what Bishop is saying”

Hopefully my math and grammar all make sense.

[nooblet]

Huh? I wanted to have decent defence OOP, hence the trolls. By reading this thread i see your point. But with my situation having Stables suppplies me with me with more offense in the short term than Training Grounds. Yes TG have a quicker effect than Stables because Stables require time for horses to accumulate. And yes if i drafted and trained naught but Ogres then Training Grounds would be more effective. But i trained Trolls also. I get your point Bishop, put your fangs away. I was leading on from my first posting stating that Stables are worth it at the start of the Age. From what ive learned here it seems Training Grounds would have been better. The benefits of hindsight ...

It is well known that stables are effective for that period immediate outside of protection, but they have a negative impact on how many banks+armories+guilds+towers+mills you can run. For provinces that are only interested in training offense oop, the last three of those aren't really needed, and banks+arms stop being useful at around 30% of acreage each.

I used stables the past two ages for oop as dwarf, and they worked as planned on paper. Unfortunately I didn't have a use for the extra offense stables provided, so it wound up being dead acres and affecting my growth post-protection. Had I not been hampered by a silly size cap, that would have been a large problem later in the age.

(On the defense stuff... as long as you have enough offense to hit something oop, defense is perfectly fine. If I were coming out at 800 acres I'd probably want enough defense to not get 2x'd, and coming out larger saves a lot of time in the long run. The only reason to stay at 400 acres oop is to farm out the gc of inactives and players who massived screwed their protection, and even that might not compensate for the lost benefits of exploring.)

In any case, the 60 ticks required to fill stables are significant for provinces that are trying to pump. For a hybrid race like Elf or Human that needs to pump to be really effective, that is often enough reason to think twice before building stables. It is better to think of stables more as a source of raw offense, then as a mod building, because the way horses grow and work has a large impact on their usefulness, moreso than their offensive power vs. TG which can be determined through simple math. Horse offense is not as vulnerable to gaining or losing acres, and only decays from combat losses, losing ponies if you can't keep armies out 24/7, being stolen, and the rare case of drought when your horses are at home.

[Zobo]

I'd typically raze and build 5-10% stables during EOWCF as an Elf Sage. Then build the remaining 5-10% at my leisure (so they'd fill up either during hostile waves or shortly after EOWCF). Was never a huge detriment to my pumping, and all that extra offense helped me crack rogues and faeries for random plunders. ^_^

Thing you got to remember is you don't rebuild stables during war (nor dungeons). You build things that instantly improve your province, since your land is likely unstable.

Absolute best case scenario, you lose all your stables or you can afford to raze and rebuild TGs or something else. Then you run around touting the 20-25% extra offense you get from the horsies while they slowly die to military losses. 15% free land.

Typical scenario, you lose a fair chunk of stables, you free up about 10% land, and you miss a unique by an hour and lose some horses. Still running around with 70% of your original 20-25% extra offense mod, for a third of the land obligation.

Absolute worst case scenario, all your stables are gone and you're left with just a handful of ponies during war. You maybe pick up 4% extra MO from them. Except now you have 15% TGs (or whatever else) up instead.

Absolute absolute worst case scenario, you got deep chained and PKed. Shame you weren't running TGs, cause they would've saved you.

----

Stables are top loaded buildings, that require a charge up period but do not require their constant presence (you can easily benefit from stables for 60 hours after they're gone). TGs require no charge up period, but require their constant presence.

Ponies are also especially helpful for those that use multipurpose elites (Elves/Halflings/Humans). As every 1 stable will free up at least 1 elite from an attack. So you can maximize your defense while making hits, and leave more elites home than otherwise able. This is important since you don't want to send all your elites out (like a heavy attacker), and might have extra soldiers or specs laying around to fill out your attack (1 pony will double a soldier's offense).

Again, alls I'm saying is hybrids should run stables or they shouldn't run offense buildings at all. It's a lot simpler for heavy attackers (who should run more TGs than Stables regardless).

[Bishop]

Stables only take 60 hours to fill from empty. That's hardly an issue for most people, especially when you can run just 5-10% of your land during eowcf as Stables, and then build up the rest after (that way you have to fill less and benefit from greater horse breeding rates). Do stables take more planning and tenacity to use properly? Yes. Do they net you more offense (on hybrids) and building flexibility? Yes.

Making 2 uniques a day is not viable for the vast majority of players. Doesn't mean 1 unique is optimum.

You fail to address my arguments. Your entire preposition of stables superiority is based on flawed reasoning and ineffective tactics.

Lets make this easier for you. Here are some points, please refuse them using a real argument instead of ignoring them.

1) Keeping armies in/out is not viable for the vast majority of players and you can never guarantee it will be possible. This is a practical downside. Arguing paper builds is useless, and assuming you can always keep army out 100% of the time is useless for that exact reason.

2) Horses can be stolen. You clam they are immune, how?

3) Horses add networth, this is a bad thing though you seem to think otherwise for some reason. Please explain how raising your offense and raising network is superior to raising only your networth.

4) Stables take a long time to fill and so cannot be rebuilt to good effect in war. Explain how this is untrue.

5) TGs are instant effect nw-free offense that mod your entire offensive army. What part of this is untrue?

6) You cap out your tgs, then you add stables. Explain why this is not accurate and valid advice.

Again, alls I'm saying is hybrids should run stables or they shouldn't run offense buildings at all.

This is wrong.

[nooblet]

I would argue that heavy attackers are the only provinces that can truly benefit from stables.
Optimizing opa or opnw with a limited percentage of acres devoted to TG+Stables is something provinces can typically figure out for themselves. In the case of OPA, the difference between stables and TG is so small that it's practically a nonfactor compared to the economic aspects of either building type - unless the TG are already built in large numbers and DBE takes effect, or there are more ponies than troops to mount. Economically, TG are a lot easier to implement, but suffer from being affected by BE and land fluctuation. Opnw favors TG no matter what.
One point for stables in economic terms is that if you start the war with horses, your opponent doesn't, and protecting your horses from theft is reasonable, then your provinces have a source of raw offense that your opponents can't have, due to the long time required to fill up stables during war. This does not matter much when looking at provinces pre-war, but it can become a factor in a long war.
Building stables in the middle of a war can work if you start the war with stables, since the time to fill your new stables is much less than starting from 0 ponies. It is still far slower than building TG, but presuming you devote your incoming acres to TG and stables, there should be enough land to build both. Of course these ponies are vulnerable to theft, drought, and any land losses, so until the horses can be sent out again they are highly vulnerable. If a province is being fireballed, it's usually not likely that their buildings will be destroyed or their acres immediately taken, and due to BE a fireballed province can't build more TG to good effect.

In any of these events, TG only help stables work better. Stacking effects iz guud.

[Zobo]

Sorry for not addressing all of your concerns explicitly, and instead addressing other posters in the thread. A lot of your points I have argued against in past threads, so I do not fancy repeating myself if at all possible, and rather address new concerns that I am not familiar with to try and root out a better understanding for myself.

But since you insist...

You fail to address my arguments. Your entire preposition of stables superiority is based on flawed reasoning and ineffective tactics.

Lets make this easier for you. Here are some points, please refuse them using a real argument instead of ignoring them.

1) Keeping armies in/out is not viable for the vast majority of players and you can never guarantee it will be possible. This is a practical downside. Arguing paper builds is useless, and assuming you can always keep army out 100% of the time is useless for that exact reason.

2) Horses can be stolen. You clam they are immune, how?

3) Horses add networth, this is a bad thing though you seem to think otherwise for some reason. Please explain how raising your offense and raising network is superior to raising only your networth.

4) Stables take a long time to fill and so cannot be rebuilt to good effect in war. Explain how this is untrue.

5) TGs are instant effect nw-free offense that mod your entire offensive army. What part of this is untrue?

6) You cap out your tgs, then you add stables. Explain why this is not accurate and valid advice.



This is wrong.

1. Saying that something is not practical for some players is not a use to debase optimum offense. I have managed (with little difficulty) to maintain armies in/out every war short of one last age (which I didn't bother with for other reasons). You have up to an hour to make your armies transition out. Anyone who is stuck on a relatively strict 2 unique a day schedule can manage this. Those that can't manage 2 uniques a day, have bigger problems that maximizing 5-15% more offense.

Armies in/out is the second thing a province should work on after getting onto a 2 unique a day schedule. Keeping armies at home leave you vulnerable to increased losses from combat and MS.


2. Assuming you manage armies in/out, the window that your horses can be stolen is very small. If you want to argue typicality, most KDs will not camp peoples' armies as they come home to steal horses. Horses can't be stolen when they are out, so if you pull your intel before your army comes home (ideal anyways, since your TPA will be buffed and make it easier to pull the intel). Hence, in ideal situations, horses are immune. In non ideal situations (where your army sits home for 10-50 minutes), your horses are still immune for the remaining 22 hours of the day.

I never said stables were easier than TGs. For those that can manage a little tiny bit of micro, they can simply net more offense and flexibility.


3. Hybrids typically have very low NW. Their elites are very light on NW. Adding a couple thousand is not going to break anyones back, and in a war setting, NW plays much less of a role.

Out of war, having a higher NW will reduce the likelihood of someone scouting you out for plunders and land grabs. I don't know about you, but when I'm looking for random targets, I look for low NW/Acre targets. I want someone with lots of peasants (to increase the likelihood of them having lots of gold) or be underpumped and fat (so that I have more land in my NW range to grab from).

I understand that NW helps to "bracket" out races to an extent, but it's a very light tweak. Barring the NW-game strats (like all soldier halflings) which are no longer viable, NW just isn't that huge of a factor for warring KDs.

And in fact, my raised NW has come to my advantage many times, as I was suiciding (semi-intentional to drop land OOW), and I was closer to the NW of the faeries and halflings I was trying to plunder. A plus! Hooray!


4. I never said stables should be rebuilt in war. In fact I've blatantly said stables should not be rebuilt in war. Capacity buildings should not be built in war (stables/dungeons) because they take time to kick in *and* build. The entire idea is that you come in with higher mod offense and then shed the buildings to increase flexibility. I.e. a dwarf could come in with 15% stables, raze them all after making their first hit, and build TGs, effectively netting the benefits of 30% built land. This is a little more difficult now that they lost QF and must now manage their barracks more finely to tune it to their personal schedules.


5. I never said that was untrue, though you could say that the buildings involve take up NW. :) And you don't even need stables to be built to be of use. :P But I digress...


6. I'm under practice of capping Stables (on hybrids, not Dwarves, Orcs, Undeads) to my planned offense values. I then build with those stables, during war, what will most help us depending on the pathing of the war. I get the offense boost of stables and the land flexibility.



The biggest point is to hybrids. A more defensive hybrid will not benefit from large land swaps (and thus the ease of replacing stables in war). However, they will also need less stables to fully mount their offense. I will likely be playing much more defensive this age and will only require, guesstimating, 8% or so stables to cover my out army. You would never be able to get 20% raw Offense boost from 8% TGs.

I'm also encouraging the Halfer a/T/Ms in our KD to run 3-5% stables this age, as they'll be making bucket hits and will enjoy a 25% *raw* Offense (before their Honor OME is applied) bonus from running such a negligible amount of land.

Are stables more difficult to utilize? Yes. Can they be better? Yes.

[dexter444]

I like horses but don't run stables in war... I raze my stables as soon as I send my horses out at start of war / wave try to run army in army out and steal to replenish any I lose

[Persain]

1) Keeping armies in/out is not viable for the vast majority of players and you can never guarantee it will be possible. This is a practical downside. Arguing paper builds is useless, and assuming you can always keep army out 100% of the time is useless for that exact reason.

to be fair if u build a high % of stables raze them and rebuild them in tg, who cares if u miss an army-in-army-out, u still end up with the same mod off had u simply gone TG instead of stables. plus IF your able to not lose the horsies you end up ahead


Thats y i always run 10-12% stables and then 10-15% Tg, raze stables and run 20-30% TG

[Bishop]

I didnt forget about this, i just didnt have time to give it a decent response, here goes.

A lot of your points I have argued against in past threads, so I do not fancy repeating myself if at all possible, and rather address new concerns that I am not familiar with to try and root out a better understanding for myself.

But since you insist...

Imagine how i feel having to show my calculations by first principles every few months. I know a lot of players who refuse to post here because they have to explain everything all over again in each new thread. We should probably work out some definite strats and sticky them.

1. Saying that something is not practical for some players is not a use to debase optimum offense. I have managed (with little difficulty) to maintain armies in/out every war short of one last age (which I didn't bother with for other reasons). You have up to an hour to make your armies transition out. Anyone who is stuck on a relatively strict 2 unique a day schedule can manage this. Those that can't manage 2 uniques a day, have bigger problems that maximizing 5-15% more offense.

Armies in/out is the second thing a province should work on after getting onto a 2 unique a day schedule. Keeping armies at home leave you vulnerable to increased losses from combat and MS.

Paper builds look great but are not practical, homes being a prime example. If you can 100% guarantee you will never leave army home at tick (which you can't) then your argument have merit, for the vast majority of players it will not be effective though and you have to factor that in. Persain makes a good tactical point though.

2. Assuming you manage armies in/out, the window that your horses can be stolen is very small. If you want to argue typicality, most KDs will not camp peoples' armies as they come home to steal horses. Horses can't be stolen when they are out, so if you pull your intel before your army comes home (ideal anyways, since your TPA will be buffed and make it easier to pull the intel). Hence, in ideal situations, horses are immune. In non ideal situations (where your army sits home for 10-50 minutes), your horses are still immune for the remaining 22 hours of the day.

I never said stables were easier than TGs. For those that can manage a little tiny bit of micro, they can simply net more offense and flexibility.

You said horses are immune to ops, they aren't. Drought also affects them.

3. Hybrids typically have very low NW. Their elites are very light on NW. Adding a couple thousand is not going to break anyones back, and in a war setting, NW plays much less of a role.

Out of war, having a higher NW will reduce the likelihood of someone scouting you out for plunders and land grabs. I don't know about you, but when I'm looking for random targets, I look for low NW/Acre targets. I want someone with lots of peasants (to increase the likelihood of them having lots of gold) or be underpumped and fat (so that I have more land in my NW range to grab from).

I understand that NW helps to "bracket" out races to an extent, but it's a very light tweak. Barring the NW-game strats (like all soldier halflings) which are no longer viable, NW just isn't that huge of a factor for warring KDs.

And in fact, my raised NW has come to my advantage many times, as I was suiciding (semi-intentional to drop land OOW), and I was closer to the NW of the faeries and halflings I was trying to plunder. A plus! Hooray!

NW efficiency is one of the most important considerations in the game, right up there with space efficiency. Having higher offense with unchanged nw is better than having higher offense with higher nw. If tgs and stables give the same offense you should pick tgs every single time based purely on the nw factor.

4. I never said stables should be rebuilt in war. In fact I've blatantly said stables should not be rebuilt in war. Capacity buildings should not be built in war (stables/dungeons) because they take time to kick in *and* build. The entire idea is that you come in with higher mod offense and then shed the buildings to increase flexibility. I.e. a dwarf could come in with 15% stables, raze them all after making their first hit, and build TGs, effectively netting the benefits of 30% built land. This is a little more difficult now that they lost QF and must now manage their barracks more finely to tune it to their personal schedules.

Dwarves can rotate (and should) easily, not every race can though. I agree with you that you shouldn't rebuild stables i war, i didnt see you say that you shouldn't before.

5. I never said that was untrue, though you could say that the buildings involve take up NW. :) And you don't even need stables to be built to be of use. :P But I digress...

The post i was referring to was disputing what i was saying, thats why i broke my arguments down into points so we could see where we disagree more easily.

6. I'm under practice of capping Stables (on hybrids, not Dwarves, Orcs, Undeads) to my planned offense values. I then build with those stables, during war, what will most help us depending on the pathing of the war. I get the offense boost of stables and the land flexibility.

Humans should probably run TGs primarily also due to their high number of offensive troops. Apart from that you should cap tgs (even if 5% caps them) before you consider going to stables for reasons outlined above, namely net worth and the fact that tgs have an effect on your entire offensive army - not just what you can mount.

The biggest point is to hybrids. A more defensive hybrid will not benefit from large land swaps (and thus the ease of replacing stables in war). However, they will also need less stables to fully mount their offense. I will likely be playing much more defensive this age and will only require, guesstimating, 8% or so stables to cover my out army. You would never be able to get 20% raw Offense boost from 8% TGs.

I'm also encouraging the Halfer a/T/Ms in our KD to run 3-5% stables this age, as they'll be making bucket hits and will enjoy a 25% *raw* Offense (before their Honor OME is applied) bonus from running such a negligible amount of land.

Are stables more difficult to utilize? Yes. Can they be better? Yes.

With low offense stables would be better, i agree. I dont think stables are bad i just feel TGs should find a place in builds first.

[tetley]

do people actually kidnap horses? (i play an avian mostly, serious question)

[Bishop]

Yup, free offense is not to be sneezed at, especially as it costs them defense assuming you catch them before they send out.

[tetley]

i didn't know horses contributed to defence(canadian spelling) at home.. learn something every day eh..

Bishop, so what %tgs and %stabs do you run?

I think you make a good point about certain key and indisputable strats being stickied. Would make it easier for new players :D

[Bishop]

Whoops, i should have said offense, not defense. I run about 15% tgs and 5% stables.

[Treiln]

Stables and ponies - yay or nay. Oh I see what you did there ;)

[jmiedema]

So Bishop, if stables are worse than TG's in almost every situation, why do we not have changes to make stables more competitive? Maybe take networth away from horses, or make them worth 2 offense points instead of 1, but have stables hold 30-40% less (also helps them fill up faster/be more combat effective quicker). Perhaps if you increased the horse growth rate to 2 horses per stable per tick they would be more valuable to keep around in war.

I dunno, it just seems that if it is such common knowledge that they are worse, we should do something about it..