I know I'm laughing at this too. High homes probably worked well back when everything was land based. Back when people talked in terms of OPA and DPA. Problem is when they changed over to everything being networth based, people like gojete and many many others still think of it in terms of opa and dpa.

Yes, higher homes will lead to more opa/dpa and some homes are probably good for be purposes, but I have calculated things for say a 50% home gnome, a race back then with bonuses and leets that suggested a high pop strategy like that. Terrible idea once I calculated everything because with that many extra troops, you're paying a really high amount in wages while not making nearly as much money because you'll be too cramped to put in a lot of armouries and banks in addition to whatever else you might need. Plus your NW inflated meaning higher NW targets who do things right can easily hit you for better gains.

The right ways to improve off and def are about what can do that while increasing nw not as much. tgs, forts, paying 200% wages, horses, sending extra generals into battle, some spells, etc all increase off and def without nearly the increase in nw that you would get by training tons of extra troops. Good players use ratios like opnw and dpnw ideally.

It also works say with thieves. I figured on one hand I could train more thieves. Or I could just build 10-15% td's and get the same bonus for less cost and less nw increase. And when sending them out to do ops, I can send fewer thieves and lose fewer and not get caught as much.

Granted without homes and at typical draft rates, BE does take a hit, but it decreases quite slowly, and I've never felt a 90ish BE to be that bothersome anyway. The only way BE becomes a serious issue is when you run really high drafts, which in nw based gains you shouldn't really do much anyway. Plus there's also tools science to help make up for that.

There's of course also the point that in war, enemy mages will just fireball all those extra pezzies, and make the high homes strategies worthless, whereas with buildings that actually do something you can do stuff because the BE hit is by no means immediate.