Elf/Sage, A/m or a/M

[nooblet]

Stables add nw, and more importantly take time and acres to fill... acres and time that you might be using for guilds or banks during peace. The point is that thinking of Stables as the equivalent of TG is a flawed analogy... if you want to run stables instead of TG it works, but it is a really minor difference with a lot of tradeoffs. My personal stance would be to find the acres that let me run more than 20% TG+stables, or forget about heavy offense mods and focus more on econ and defense buildings. Just building average TG or stables puts Elf in a position where they're still inferior to pure attackers, but lacking other things to compensate for it.

Playing Elf/Sage as a heavy attacker with emphasis on offense power outside of war means that they can better translate that offensive power to Learn and Plunder gains, while being in a good warring position should the need arise. Elf's native economy is not going to be competitive enough to sit and pump for long.

[Zobo]

Stables also do not need to remain built to remain effective. You can run 0% stables and still have the offense bonus of having 15% stables.

I addressed that concern; if for some reason you can't afford to have a building up for 60 hours, then of course you can't use them. But 60 hours of build up time with stables for days of no need during war is a pretty nice trade off.

I can't help it you can't manage a little building juggling, but saying stables are not ideal or optimum is ridiculous. Because for Elves, Faeries, Halfers and Humans, running some stables is the best way to boost offense.

And you say you'd prefer to build a more defensive/econ attacker, then stables become more powerful. As squeezing in just a couple % of stables can net you a 20% Offense boost.

I didn't build a single training ground last age, and I was plundering faeries and halflings all age long. While not optimum for max offense, this worked well because in war, my MO didn't get diluted as soon as land came in, and I was able to move 15% of my land into other buildings, depending on the course and sort of war. Barring the 60 hour charge up period, pure stables are more flexible and provide a larger, more stable, Offense boost than pure TGs.

[br3nt00]

i have yet to read exactly what they are bickering about. but i look forward to it next time i get a free 30min

[nooblet]

Mostly irrelevant crap. It's funny because the whole stable thing was an offhand comment... build whatever works. *shrug*

[Bishop]

TGs> Stables. This was put to bed years ago.

[BruceLee]

for warriors and high elite value races (orcs/undeads) yes TG > stables 100%

but for everyone else i believe a mix of TG and stables provides optimal offense in various situations throughout war.

[Blockhead]

and avians... The best way to get over there lack of stables is to run high offense and high training grounds.

[nooblet]

The point I was making... if you are building stables you probably want them to modded by TG to get the best results. If you're not aiming to maximize OPA with stables, what are they doing for you? Even if you follow the math that stables give you more OPA, you'd still want TG since you're already committing to making high offensive power a part of your strategy. Dedicating 15% of your land to stables and stopping there just makes a province that is average, just like 15% TG by themselves is average - but a lot more reasonable since TG don't have the same opportunity costs as stables.

tl;dr version: 15% tg / 10% stables is good for Elf attacker with 8+ epa. Season to taste.

[Zobo]

For high elite value races, TGs win hands down. For warrior (that are not orcs/uds/dwarves), stables are even stronger.

You can't honestly say a halfer A/T should run 15% TGs, when 15% stables will give them a 25% offense boost?

A mix on elves/humans/halfers/faeries is only viable if they're suiciding and already running high stables. Otherwise stables give a bigger offense boost. Warrior OME is additive, so compounding TGs does not create larger bonuses (unlike stables, which multiply against OME). For instance, a halfling warrior (mostly impractical I know) would get 143% extra offense running full stables and no TGs. Where they'd only get 132% extra offense running 15% TGs.

[Bishop]

Why are you looking only at the offense boost?

[itchm]

jesus christ...

Stables vs Tg's again?!

One is a static effective building which provides a minor offense boost that doesn't require employees [so it makes u less money, but helps ur BE].
The other is a DBE affected building that provides a major, thought depreciating, offense boost, a bit of cash, and its existence lowers BE [at a point].

If you can't do the math to figure our how to combine the two within the amount of land that you want to dedicate to offense you are pretty screwed o.O

To address the OP's question, and thus remain true to the thread.

I recommend you start the age as A/m and work towards ending the age as a/M, a prov that starts the war as a turtle with good econ and finishes on positive land, having remained UB. So you need to be on the high end of ur KDs acreage.
Choosing sage, is basically choosing hardmode for wars 1 and two, and if you lose both those wars its hardmode for the whole age :(

[Zobo]

Both employ peasants and thus both affect BE. Silly billy.

[nooblet]

The funny thing is that I don't even disagree so much with Zobo, but people gonna pick fights.

Usually, Stables come out of land that is used during pumps, so that is something that should be kept in mind.

On the 7 point elite races, their primary role is usually offense anyway... using stables on them is mostly a matter of whether you don't need defensive or economic buildings or barracks, since heavy TG is practically a given for any high-offense strategy. I dunno, I used stables on 9 point elite races and they were still useful, so using them on Orc/UD now shouldn't be much different. I've been in kingdoms that don't do the pumping stuff that skilled kingdoms do, so that affects decision greatly.

[Bishop]

Both employ peasants and thus both affect BE. Silly billy.

One adds nw, one doesnt. This is not an insignificant point.

[goodz]

1) your going to want around 20% guilds in war. Maybe even 25. Spells damage is based on guilds %. So if you want your fireballs to kill 7% vs 4% your going to want more guilds then 10%.

2) I would run an a/M. Keep like 8-10 DSPA. then you will have around 30-40 opa. Your going to need ~40% of your land in towers/guilds so I would probably run farms/barracks/stables/forts/thieves dens

For now lets say you run 4 tpa/9dspa/5 epa. that will leave you nearly 70% drafted. But as you get science honor youll find more space :).

a/t/M imo is best way to run elf. Otherwise all your runes get stolen :P