Age 89 revised

[StratOcastle]

Avian: tactician
Avian: tactician
Avian: tactician

Dark Elf: cleric
Dark Elf: heretic
Dark Elf: mystic

Dwarf: cleric
Dwarf: cleric
Dwarf: rogue

Elf: mystic
Elf: mystic
Elf: mystic

Faery: heretic
Faery: rogue
Faery: rogue

Gnome: cleric
Gnome: heretic
Gnome: heretic

Human: rogue
Human: war hero
Human: warrior

Orc: warrior
Orc: warrior

Undead: war hero
Undead: war hero

[StratOcastle]

Lot of moving parts to achieve a logical build, but I enjoyed shuffling things.

So I noticed gnome got chastity as a racial, but I didn’t have it supported, so they pull heretic duty. Their pop bonus allows them to adapt to builds that require a glut of diversity.

Freeing up heretic, I decided to let the dark elves become peacocks flying into rainbows.

While we’re not on the subject; human is not a caster race, so don’t squander cleric on humans. It’s like throwing half the build away when humans can science their way out of about everything else. I ran a human tac a while ago and the thing was a glutton for rune expenditure. So yeah, don’t piss on cleric and human simultaneously. If you’ve played a cleric in war it’s like being a hot chic: your phone never stops ringing for support. Think economically when you chose cleric races.

Faery finally got to double up on rogue, and the heretic is there to do structural sabotage on harder targets. Nightmare can shed an enemies tpa a little so you can pry them open with heretic sabotage bonus. I like to think heretics, rogues and mystics coop on targets with befuddling defenses.

I wanted to give the elves a little more color, but the troop thingy pretty much makes them belt fed pointed eared mortars. Cool spell array and the flat bonus makes it easy to live with.

Dwarf rogue is for the BE freaks, and human rogue is a delayed gratification build. It’s the one that begins to ruin enemy happy places deep into war. The nerd has arrived late to the party.

I think the human war hero can be sneaky good. When you start drawing honor and science together but your not the orc or undead on the kingdom page, you can get some good buildup to poke the unsuspecting.

PS: While it has always been a truth, the new elite bonus helps clarify that any race can march like an attacker. We had -10% pop in The Faery Circle and I couldn’t tell. I was hitting enemy faeries full army home.

PSS: I’m waiting to see if scientific insight remains on human. If so I might have to do a faery cleric
to cast SI on the elf contingent.

[W1nd]

I like the mixture you chose for your kingdom but I feel like you should have more faery rogues or possibly two dwarf rogues. Why bother with human at all in a TM position?

I like the idea that every race can march and I loved that aspect when they brought it out in genesis. Happy to see it may actually come to pass in WoL.

From what I see this could a faery attacker age, which is always really fun, it will be curious to see what the final changes are but so far looking good for faery attacker :D

I get the SI thing but still is it better than feary? as faery gets all racial spells.

What is your reason for choosing all the races?

[StratOcastle]

Thank you.

This is the feedback I need because I’m essentially retired. So I’ll work the rogue back to dwarf(at least mentally).

The reason for the race array I will explain below. Since this forum fell to discord traffic I stopped explaining the format.

PS, The reason I might seemingly squander Faery on cleric to SI elf mystics is because I’ve run Faery cleric and embraced combat with any province make within 20% up or down in nw. I’d retaliate even higher just for the challenge. The Faery cleric is the attacker build that I over several wars faced every threat from full blown heavy attackers to super thieves and mages and either maintained or persevered under tremendous ops and chain attempts. I’ve played Faery cleric in ages when the build was nerfed and consider the design as sound as any could be.

I will attempt to avoid building the Faery cleric because they cursed them with such a good stealth bonus, lol. My main concern is to get the ops running provinces as much love as possible. If that means I have to build a human cleric I’ll stomach it.

SI is quietly the best spell in the game. I just don’t want the devs to know because my beloved Sage personality is no more.

[StratOcastle]

THE VIRTUAL KINGDOM

This draft is a virtual kingdom template based in the premise of game balance. The idea came from my time in a kingdom called The Faery Circle run by Palem, a retired(?) forum mod. The Faery Circle was a uniracial kingdom full of faeries and I imagined what the opposite composition would be.

The virtual kingdom template numerically arrays both race and personality as evenly as possible. The wiggle room is in which races and personalities don’t evenly divide into 25 provinces. This exercise allows the observer to contemplate not just the balances
here, but the apparent weakness and strengths in their kingdom and competitors.

For instance, when I scan a competitor kingdom page, I’m evaluating the totality of nw, acres, races, personalities, typical and atypical nuances. This is how you can recognize a good or lucky player. I’m able to see players who might be very good but attempt to hide in nw critical junctures.

Good kingdoms tend to be gleaming in certain uniformity and have a slightly off typical pattern. In other words, they know the hing points to the pincer of unbreakability on nw top and resplendent bottom. But I digress.

Initially I invited players to submit their own version of the virtual kingdom so we could learn as a community. The ambiguity of the virtual kingdom helps hide what a fully realized kingdom of any composition(example: 23 orc, 2 faery) may be in game. This way we can compare strategy and tactics we’d like to share without displaying our entire doctrine. Here we compare the wiggle room and not the core principle. I still invite players to submit questions or versions of their virtual kingdom.

[StratOcastle]

I should mention the reason I invite comparison is because I’m a decidedly intuitive thinker.

If you’re not aware, most people break to being mechanical or intuitive thinkers, with more balance one way or the other. Utopia is loaded with mechanical thinkers because the game is mechanical cigarettes for the soul.

I’ve enjoyed great success in gaming over the years and joined utopia when I freed myself from my X. Because I played paper & pencil for decades I already had great feel for what’s effective. That said, I can’t even mathematically solve a ratio. I can eyeball it, but even with a calculator I’m lost on it. Thus, I invite all you mechanical monstrosities to offer guidance.

While I can offer a new naive player my experiences I’m sure most will gravitate to the hard numbers to confirm their fears or endeavors. Any time I let someone sit my province it’s always “messed up” when I return because intuitive and mechanical thinkers operate in different spheres. My provinces will always look like a crack den to a mechanical thinker, but I know what’s under every pile of clothes or stack of papers. I mention this so if a stray intuitive thinker happens by; “hello”, you’ve found the other one.

[StratOcastle]

On the Tangent ~ You’re Strategic Mind

History:

In a long war with both sides exhausted there was a moment killer instinct ran through my veins. While my kingdom was winning the enemy was marshaling forces to break our top. Their armies on the way home, I had enough stealth to evaluate a few throne pages, but was essentially blind because my tpa was mutilated. I couldn’t see their armies. I had 1 general(I relay tap) and no hard intel other than kingdom page “army home” numbers. My kingdom was asleep.

It occurred to me we had a dragon that wasn’t paid for and wouldn’t be before the bulk of the enemy waved. I was flat broke. It was then I decided to plunder one of the enemies based on the throne page intel and launched the dragon. The enemy made the decision to cancel the wave to achieve WD as safely as possible.

Contemplation:

Lots of kingdoms like to shell orcs and chained provinces don’t want orcs in the mud with them. If you have orcs with those nice bonuses then make sure they can build up great trade surpluses out of war.

Ingredient 2 is your gnomes pop bonus and a modified system of what we use to call soldier ball.

If you can let your orc use the bulk of their offense to break hard target t/ms then reward them by nightmaring/striking enemy core provinces. Enough so that soldier aid will allow the orc to multi tap for life saving acres. Everybody wins except the enemy.

This also begins the genesis of a nw dmz which is a tactic I used for years to prevent myself from being chained. I’ve been accused of self centered behavior by observers but the noble fact is I do it as an economic lever. By practicing self defense, I preserve an economy which allows me, rather than our t/ms, to render aid to our chained provinces. Our t/ms should be barreling toward unbreakability rather than running a self destructive charity. Meanwhile I’m solidifying a buffer zone of nw and acres which prevents enemies from wildly swinging the fortunes of war because nobody knows what a flank is. My focus is shortening wars by creating situations unpalatable to grinder kingdoms who would otherwise fight on because nobody knows what a utopian flank is.

These are musings I share because I’d rather face challenges than dominate.

[Sweetiepie]

Keep posting it's appreciated