Age 91 Proposed Sketchy Details

[StratOcastle]

Avian: cleric - 8/3 and faster or I’d never
Avian: cleric - when it’s not a random target it’s a tac

Dark Elf: heretic - the cleric of ops/sabotage
Dark Elf: mystic - it misses till the 3rd day of war
Dark Elf: sage - fury plus insight means involved

Dwarf: artisan - factory with turrets
Dwarf: artisan - pay to double and you’ll understand
Dwarf: cleric - nightmare resistant cleric

Elf: sage - honor/science duality
Elf: war hero - honor stack
Elf: rogue - it’s really because you’re cheap

Faery: heretic - harder target ops
Faery: mystic - air superiority is one key
Faery: mystic - air supremacy is turning the key

Halfling: heretic - harder target sabotage
Halfling: rogue - you get one because they ruin everything
Halfling: rogue - you get two because everyone knows it

Human: sage - science stack
Human: war hero - honor/science duality
Human: artisan - reflect plus artisan resistance

Orc: tactician - it’s the 15% both ways and war spoils
Orc: warrior - sturmtiger for 8ft of reinforced concrete
Orc: warrior - sturmtiger for admiring smoking craters

Undead: tactician - war spoils makes them the old war hero
Undead: tactician - war spoils with plague makes people angry

[StratOcastle]

Cleric:

The last 2 ages I’ve used the cleric personality to protect the avian from its dismal +15% damage penalty. While I don’t consider it prohibitive in offense, it’s maiming in defense. It’s that, out of war, any province is subject to however many randoms may come its way. The penalty requires meta to overcome; in our case, diplomacy. This leads to the drastic non-use of the build which is otherwise outstanding for players in less organized kingdoms. The build essentially forces casuals to choose cleric. It’s not a bad cleric, by the way, but ideally I see dwarf as the current best option.

While there are several aspects that make a cleric fit any race, dwarf right now has the spell “mist”, the dwarf efficiency bonus, and a 6/5 elite. I’ll be the first to tell you I practically ignore nw ratio and I do that because the scenario of nw backfiring, in my experience, is less felt than heard.

What really matters is how well you preserve your defensive prowess. Being able to load the box with pure elites because your a 5 in defense minimizes the effect of dark elves with full mana who are out of chewing gum. Stack mist with gs and you’ll understand why I’ve been a cleric advocate for ages on end. Hanging on and sloughing chains is the pinnacle of game changer status. Your kingdom will never notice, but the enemy sure will. My whole playing time could be summed up as a guy who ate the most attacks and was still in the top 3 acre gainers in more wars than I can remember.

Victory feels great, but it’s not the acres. It’s the economy my provinces had retained war after war that went unnoticed. It’s the aid my province was able to provide; the retained tpa for spying and funding dragons. Being an attack magnet so more fragile builds could excell and press forward to win. Cleric is a powerful personality that in real kingdoms don’t have the limitations of this virtual template.

PS A very close second to the dwarf is dark elf. These options have shadowy similarities with the dark elf being the superior camper and being able to cover more territory with self spells. I’ve had satisfying results with faery cleric, but this virtual kingdom template limits the number of options. The dwarf leans toward whoring kingdom ideals which I tend to favor, personally. Dark elf has a great elite and ability subset that favors warring; even the explore penalty plays toward war biased kingdom strats.