rate the races

[Tovarishch]

Humans are awesome btw. They aren't just for tog - 6/4 elites stand up very nicely in a chain situation, and the elite alone basically negates their population penalty (10 combined strength against 8-9, many of whom cannot afford to keep their elites at home or whose elites are not very useful for attacking. Once they can keep some defense at home they're able to avoid most of the mass+learn rape that happens to attackers on land defense, and if they picked sage that learn rape is less effective.

So many people overrate population bonuses anyway... good for starting position but in any war past mintime it starts to mean less and less...

Agreed, humans do stand up nicely. I just came out of war -1200 odd acres but was able to maintain a relatively high offence (so long as I kept vigilant with army in/out). I can't agree with crease regarding econ. War lasted 3 days and in that time I had MS, greed and riots up for 97% of it but despite this I was still making GC enough to draft and train enough specs to mitigate leet losses (this is especially relevant with -50% train time). Especially after being chained, it mattered not what def I left at home as I had high offensive capability, enough to tap the top and come away with great gains - I was always on the up-and-up regardless.

Noobium put it eloquently when he rated humans with: "dynamic momentum".

[noobium]

Further explanation of what I was getting at with this...

Race Type Mode
Avian Attack Endurance
Dwarf Tank Endurance
Elf Turtle Endurance
Faery Dynamic Endurance
Halfling Turtle Momentum
Human Dynamic Momentum
Orc Attack Momentum
Undead Tank Momentum

Attack provinces emphasize damage output through attacking, typically operating with high offense strategies as their ideal in almost every situation. They have bonuses that affect their gains and frequency of hits, and economic bonuses that align with what attackers generally want. Their weak points are that they tend to be economically weak and their troops die off at a rather quick rate; additionally, their overall off/def balance is weaker than a lot of races, so they are forced to stay on the offensive as much as possible. For Avians, their peak offense is also rather weak. Attacker provinces tend to have good nw-efficiency on their units, which allows them to hit in nw range more often than other options, which is helpful along with their gains bonuses. Attackers generally prefer being highly drafted when entering war, though as long as they keep effective attacking power and a proper offense:defense ratio they can function on lower draft rates (but at a marked disadvantage).

Tank provinces are similar to attacking provinces, but emphasize sustainability over damage output. The tanks on average can put up impressive off/def numbers and are usually the best provinces at handling land chains; more important is that the Tanks can sustain their military or economy with minimal support. For Undeads, they have the added benefit of weakening economy and defenses through plague in addition to their reduced offensive losses - for Dwarves, their freebuilding and building efficiency bonus not only saves a lot of money in long wars, but allows them to execute building strategies that are unworkable for other races. Of all the races, the Tanks have the most obvious weak spots; for Undeads, this is their inability to thieve in any way whatsoever, coupled with no particular defense against magic, which makes it very easy to deprive the Undead of peasants and shut down what economy they do have. For Dwarves, the lack of rushbuilding is a small penalty and the need for extra food a slightly bigger one, but their greatest drawback is that they lack any particular strong point as an offensive threat. Both tanks have fairly bad nw-efficiency on their elites, which is slightly compensated for with their bonuses. Of all races, Tanks are the easiest to play and effective in most situations growth or war. Tanks generally want to enter war with a very high draft rate; for Undeads this is due to their offensive sustainability and inability to hold on to peasants effectively. For Dwarves, their bonuses allow them to operate with low income and still build all of their acres; additionally, Dwarves are pretty effective at utilizing the acres and peasants they grab, and through build manipulation the Dwarf has the easiest time boosting their base BE during war, making the BE benefits of lower draft rate less relevant.

Turtle provinces both carry TPA or WPA modifiers in addition to space-efficiency bonuses on defense, and elites that are effective both for attacking and defending. Both Elf and Halfling can play an attacking role in most kingdoms. However, their armies tend to be vastly inferior in offensive output and efficiency than their attacker or tank counterparts, and their ops bonuses do not translate to any extra damage output. The turtles are also quite poor economically. For Elf, they are assisted further by having the better set of bonuses for defending, but their ability to attack is hampered severely by an expensive and inefficient elite, coupled with the difficulty of sustaining effective WPA and TPA on additional acres. Halflings however can look good on paper, but their perfect provinces cannot afford to suffer too many hits or ops which they are quite vulnerable to. Both Turtles can be worn down by attrition, by being hit outright, by targetting their respective weak points, or simply by the turtles not putting out enough damage or economic outputs to compete. Almost universally, Turtles want to be as highly drafted as possible, up to the point of having basically no native economy when entering war.

Dynamic provinces are usually considered economic workhorses due to their native ToG and economy bonuses, but they are also the most versatile provinces; Humans because of their elite and science bonuses, Faeries because of their spellbook. Both Human and Faery are particularly effective at economic warfare, both from their own money generation and by generally having t/m advantages over their opposition. Their greatest drawback is their space-inefficiency and relative lack of peak power compared to attackers, especially Faeries. Of all provinces, Dynamic typically get the most profit out of playing an a/t/m, and are the best situated to do so. Dynamic provinces tend to function best when they can plan for pumps and raise their science levels, and while they often want to be highly drafted they are often the most capable at operating at low draft rates and the most capable of utilizing Homes-heavy strategies.

Momentum and Endurance refer to the general conditions for which each race is in their prime element, relative to their counterpart of the same type. Momentum kingdoms often depend on being able to inflict heavy damage early and use that momentum to build up their provinces while damaging their foes, while Endurance kingdoms play to counteract those things and wear down momentum provinces, ultimately building to the point where they hold the momentum along with the likely spellcasting advantage. This doesn't necessarily mean that the race is good at either of those things, only that it is their preferred element compared to their counterpart. For instance, Halflings are not particularly suited to coming out swinging and leaving themselves open to a chain, but they generally want to play in kingdoms that have enough forward momentum to (a) feed the Halflings and (b) draw the target away from them as much as possible. Likewise, Avians can die horribly in long wars if they lose troops, and their choice of attacks in the early war should be primarily to protect your long-term interests against threats; in the long term, their assets are in wars among the smaller provinces, where their weak offense is less relevant and their speed and frequency of damage+kills more relevant. An Avian in a short war is probably not doing much more damage than the momentum alternative, but their speed does allow them to set up the later stages of conflict.

Note that generally, a kingdom will plan around Momentum or Endurance as a whole, rather than having each race play to seperate things. Most kingdoms have both types and are able to plan which side they would play based on their circumstances. Building choices and personality also have a great impact here, with momentum favoring more offensive buildings and modifiers when starting a hostile and endurance favoring more economic buildings (but still keeping lots of offensive potential).

Of course kingdom planning and strategy has a large impact on what people do, and just about every race can play either way...

Anyway I'm probably just rambling and thinking too much about things.

[crease]

edit

I dont see avian as a momentum or endurance based attacker, considering you listed humans as momentum based, unless you are only considering avians vs undeads/orcs. Humans and dwarves faceroll avian for momentum in core vs core. Dynamic attacker perhaps, and against a standard setup dynamic momentum even, but mostly cause they ARE against a non turtle setup of orc/undead

[noobium]

relative to the counterpart of the same type (in this case, avians vs. orcs). it's a given that avian is based off of attacking, the point is that in a long war, the orc is reliant on being able to continue tearing down big defenses to be at its most useful (momentum), while avian is better at fighting small vs. small where orc gains, kills (of very few defspec/elite in most cases), and better offense mean less. like i said, it's not a perfect division, and not strictly adhered to at all times, but the avian is tagged as such more for its weakness in early war than its strength in late war... though avian has some early advantages in being able to land their second and third waves sooner, thus potentially sparing the top in the long term.

pez regen is potentially a momentum trait, but that regeneration is a double-edged sword early on (more pez to kidnap or overpop with, fireballing is fairly easy early war when runes are plentiful and most wpas are intact). orc draft is much more of a momentum trait. still, the point is that the essential function of orcs and avians is similar.

human (and faery for that matter) is a pick that can function well in both momentum and endurance situations, but one is a lot better at initiating momentum and benefitting from it than the other. the essential function of both races for economy is the one constant. the comparison isn't between human and orc or human and dwarf, because humans don't play like orcs or dwarves or undead. humans don't do as much army-in-army-out stuff as other core attackers, and aren't obligated to send everything out on every attack... being able to control their defense level at home is a large part of making Human work, and sometimes it's better to semi-suicide with the human, eat a chain and fight at the bottom than to sit and wait for most of their knights to leave to desertion+combat kills.
human really works when they can keep elites home and stay ub, buying time to build up their provinces. humans are the only really solid attacker that can do this - dwarf comes close but in far fewer circumstances, and tog+income is more fluid than freebuild for economic uses.

i forgot to add that avian speed means that they suffer less damage from landchains should someone do so, which means needing to send fewer soldiers to avert defspec/elite losses.

[noobium]

Elf!

Why are so many elves afraid to take in acres? I'd think if you can't take in 30% of your acres and still be reasonably functional, you were probably a ****ty Elf at your starting size. Thoughts?

[Cry0]

Without reading any of these blocks of texts because it is late and I am tired.. any province that uses WPA would be horrified to take in 30% of their land unless the war is over.

[noobium]

Without reading any of these blocks of texts because it is late and I am tired.. any province that uses WPA would be horrified to take in 30% of their land unless the war is over.

lol.

i'd take acres and the econ/mil to fill them over no econ/mil and slightly higher success rate most of the time. econ and troops don't have a failrate and don't cost runes or mana, spells (both yours and those cast against you) have a chance of failure and will cost runes and mana regardless.

there are many good reasons for an elf to hold back their acquisition of acres, but worrying about wpa bloat absent other factors (AW/Prop and thief defense to prevent those things primarily) is one of the lesser concerns. like i said, if taking in acres makes you incapable of being an effective caster, you were probably similarly bad as a caster on the smaller size. it matters mostly for casting against other static mages and for magic defense, which can be a valid concern but is also too situational to qualify as horrifying. it's not too difficult with enough depth in mystics to pick a caster to hold back in order to target those difficult provinces, or to target those static mages by other means.

i'd be more worried about positioning and timing, if i can afford to wait for attackers to bloat and pick them off at a more opportune moment. why waste elites and unnecessarily expose an elf when there will be a better spot later? but sometimes later is a really bad time, and sometimes early is a great time to cut down an attacker. the other major concerns are thief protection (touched on above, it takes time for new tpa and watchtowers to come in and that gap is potentially fatal against rogues), and the rather obvious concern that chains and massacre are a pretty bad situation should they happen. so, if i like to fill those elf acres with econ which can be reasonably secure and accomplish tactical goals in the process, it's a double bonus for something that can be negligible. a third benefit to doing this is that it keeps the acres off my attacker core, where - depending on setup but almost always the case - i really, really would rather not have the acres if I can help it. bloat on attackers has a 100% chance of hurting their attacking efficiency with very little upside, particularly for undeads.

for faeries, reflect is a pretty nice deterrent against instant damage ops, or at the least mutes the damage of those op runs somewhat. faeries also can do a lot more with the extra econ they get for grabbing acres. the only problem is that it's difficult to stack the acres on faeries, and it's a little harder for faeries to secure their provinces against a determined op run.

[tetley]

Yeah landro, because a halfling A/T with 5 TPA and 20% dens can't do riots.....???

[Landro]

Yeah landro, because a halfling A/T with 5 TPA and 20% dens can't do riots.....???

Halflings are perfect for doing riots. Where did I say differently?

[Cry0]

I guess let me change the statement then, how do you effectively grab 30% of your land as a elf/faery (assuming mystic)?

I am faery, I generally am 100% elite going into war to be able to have the DPA i need along with wpa/tpa. After 24 hours of waves and a dragon kill I have been hovering just above the point of being breakable by trad marches.. sending out would open me up to be chained down and taken out of the war. Not to mention i can hit a chained attacker on land defense but only for the 5 acre crap. The only way i see t/m getting the bigger gains is if the KD is opening waves with NM/NS runs to open an attacker for t/m to hit for 100 acres with minimum army out.

[noobium]

I guess let me change the statement then, how do you effectively grab 30% of your land as a elf/faery (assuming mystic)?

I am faery, I generally am 100% elite going into war to be able to have the DPA i need along with wpa/tpa. After 24 hours of waves and a dragon kill I have been hovering just above the point of being breakable by trad marches.. sending out would open me up to be chained down and taken out of the war. Not to mention i can hit a chained attacker on land defense but only for the 5 acre crap. The only way i see t/m getting the bigger gains is if the KD is opening waves with NM/NS runs to open an attacker for t/m to hit for 100 acres with minimum army out.

I haven't bothered too much with those 5 acre ticky tack hits as a Faery this age, unless they are causing overpop or i'm just looking to pad acres near end of war. Better to save armies for a time where I can hit a target in range.

The rest is straightforward if you can use attack calculator and set up your army properly. Fat attacker * Skinny t/m = farm for t/m. Lots of other steps can be involved to get to this point, with nightmare+nightstrike being one of them. Elf has it even easier because they should enter war with enough elites to break attackers without heavy nm/ns, and 5/4 5defspec is a lot easier to work with for turtle attacking than 4/5.

The key is to have all your t/m hit at the same time, and use attackers to finish dropping the fatty out of range and into overpop city. Ideally, doing this is also removing one of the largest remaining offenses from a position where it can do significant damage to the top, and even better if that fatty can be forced into overpop that forces offense to release. t/m don't army in army out - just pick an hour that is convenient and tactically useful to strike and rally the t/ms to hit then.

Usually it takes time to be in a position where it's safe to send out with t/ms, and it doesn't always happen if a kingdom is loaded with strong attackers.

If I had my choice, I wouldn't pick Faery as Mystic most times (in warring kingdoms anyway). Too much space required to keep effective WPA and TPA and an army that has a fairly hard time post-chain, makes it hard to balance with defense let alone offense. It works but Faes generally want to emphasize TPA, and Mystic makes that a little harder. Elf, Halfer, and Human make better mystics imo, but the latter two are a lot harder to utilize effectively (and I really don't like Halfer/anything unless I had perfect activity and a near-perfect kingdom organizationally). Fae/Mystic is probably easier to operate than the latter two though, and more people are familiar with how to play faery t/m than halfer or human attacking mages.

[noobium]

Dwarf!

Is it me or is Dwarf kind of poopy this age?

[crease]

Dwarf!

Is it me or is Dwarf kind of poopy this age?

what? whats wrong with dwarf, it can compete blow for blow with any heavy attacker and outlasts them all easy. DBE buildings of a dwarf are worth 151% of those from a non dwarf, there is no comparison to its chain/op resistance. With the strength of raze for pop control and building removal on chained provs you can't overlook the free builds even more so this age then any other. If you arent willing to raze dwarves every unique until their off dies then you are going to lose the battle of the chained provs. If you are willing to do it you arent getting any build creds or as many acres yourself. It also has similar flexibility to avian in being able to massacre/raze freely, but does the job better because of free builds and better turtle. Dwarf rocks. \o/


Cant see past dwarf merch for best bank either.

[noobium]

I dunno, but 6/3 5.5nw is tied with Faery for overall nw-efficiency on their elite. First war I was able to pick apart Dwarves with our Faeries and Elves quite easily - really awesome when i can make safe landgrabs in range with the first wave, and no t/m preparation on target to boot. Circumstantial but can figure how that goes with nm/ns preparation and fully prepared attackers.

I could see Dwarf being great under the right situations and they are *****-annoying to fight economically, but dwarf offense can slip away so easily...

[crease]

I dunno, but 6/3 5.5nw is tied with Faery for overall nw-efficiency on their elite. First war I was able to pick apart Dwarves with our Faeries and Elves quite easily - really awesome when i can make safe landgrabs in range with the first wave, and no t/m preparation on target to boot. Circumstantial but can figure how that goes with nm/ns preparation and fully prepared attackers.

I could see Dwarf being great under the right situations and they are *****-annoying to fight economically, but dwarf offense can slip away so easily...

in my last war i was able to have -50% losses -35% land lost and -60% damage combined from both WT parts and still stack up similar offense to our undeads AND hit quicker. Pers' are irrelevant to this ;) i was first priority for being fbed, success on that was limited but i never had any econ due to banks always bottomfeeding me alone and limiting my max pop. My offense dropped at a slower rate than our undeads, although this was down to personality, and the free op resistance offered by extra land space meant it was ignored by thieves. Dwarves are absolutely designed to be a ***** to take down, if they are free acres for TMs and easy to op then theyve done something badly wrong ;)