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Gnome.
Elites only, because they're cheap, and you have a bonus to your population.
Assemble fat armies, never send anything out, and never stop. No one will be able to break you safely outside of war, but no one will like having you onboard, either. Have fun, and know that you're making vines proud.
Just load up on buildings that add bonuses to your army, build more offense than usual, and conquer people as quickly as possible, before they destroy you.
You'll get owned by magic and thievery, because 'minor' of either isn't going to help much.
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i would like to note that elf does not have ToG this age. which places dwarf as a more nub-friendly race choice for an a/m
also, elf, DE gnome and human can all make a viable a/t/m, however it requires a lot of work, effort, time and science to accomplish. Not something an in-experienced player should be looking into attempting (and by in-experience player... i mean anyone actually asking for advice from VT2... <no offense intended towards vt> but if you need to ask for advice, you probably do not have enough experience to pull it off)
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Elf has no real disadvantages, while dwarf does.
That makes elf much better for n00bs, but a group of n00bs, all running dwarf, will utterly destroy another group of n00bs, all running elf, because dwarf has 'better' bonuses than elf.
A/T/M is not possible.
I've detailed why already, but it basically has to do with your population not being stretchable to cover all three areas, while also maintaining income, stability, and maintenance.
The last chance to play A/T/M was the old human/sage-combo. You got the following: super-awesome science; +1 defensive dude power; +30% money; +30% science-power.
Since you bought science then, at half the cost of everyone else, with a massive income, awesome defense, and more effective science, it was very easy to rise above everyone else around.
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suit yourself on that assessment, it is possible to play an a/t/m... however it is not possible nor has it ever been possible to do so early in the age. after the halfway mark of the age it can become a possibility thanks to developing your science by draft and by taking it from everyone else. I did so as an elf mystic in age 42 (the age this code is based on) and in both the 2 ages before that as elf/artisan and in age 39 as an elf/warrior.. but i never actually became anything more than an a/m with decent thieves until later in the age. (rough estimate is about 8 weeks into the age)
it is not something that you can just jump right into becoming, you have to plan it out and develop into it over time... and part of that is by deliberately hunting for learns throughout the entire age.
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No.
It's not possible to play A/T/M.
If it was, I'd have been doing that for the past couple of ages, and so would the large majority of all others who know how to play for real.
There's not enough science around for it, because producing it takes too long, and the effects of the two most important ones - BE and population - were significantly reduced, because Mehul didn't think it was cool that people could run all three areas, or that science was so heavily abused and important.
To be A, T, and M, you need to be able to compete with those who run only two of the others.
This requires a very large portion of population, which you won't realistically have.
You can be minor in all three, sure - lower down, this makes you a god, but higher up, this makes you stretched and weak.
You have 3 raw TPA, 3 raw WPA, spread science for both, and just enough offense to break most around your size, while any random A/T will have better T and better A, any random A/M will have better M and A, and any random T/M will have better M and T than you.
Their focused science - say 150% in their favored category - compared to your 50-75% in both - will make it very hard for you to pierce their M or T, and make it very easy for them to pierce you.
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so little you know...
yes it might be a stretch to accomplish, but if you hunt your targets instead of just taking the first decent one that comes along... also note that around 8 weeks in the age, you can have 150-170% in both crime and channeling without ever setting your science draft past limited.. you just have to look for right targets...
and for the population.. it is entirely possible to obtain +15% in both tools and housing by about week 8 of the age... add in something like 20% homes and increase your TGs beyond the normally accepted amount.......
message personally... say in mid december and i'll show you a viable a/t/m who can compete with any a/t or a/m in any department. <can not give you a definitive about overall size, since i have to stick with my kd's range>
though at acres beyond around 3k, obtaining 2.5k bpa is kind of hard
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Look at this way.
With no modifiers, each acre of built-up, non-homes land gives 25 people.
You want 4-5 raw WPA, so you can do magic. You want 4-5 raw TPA, so you can run ops. You also want 85-105 offense per acre, so you can conquer people. 40-55 defense per acre when stuff is out is also very common. Then you want peasants employed, so your buildings have some effect, and so you can pay your army.
Assuming you have 6/5 for your army, you're going to be blowing a minimum of 8 peasants per acre on raw defense, 14 raw on offense, 4 on thieves, and 4 on wizards.
That's 30 peasants per acre, which is 5 more than you have raw - and that's not taking into account the fact that you want your buildings to work, and that it's preferable if you can pay for army.
I'm not a math major, but it's pretty clear to me that even with heavy mods - which you're going to have problems getting, since your peasants will be so low - you'll have massive problems getting the population for this to work.
Now, if you have, say, a 6/6 army or better, it gets a bit easier. If you have a natural bonus to population, it gets that much easier, and if you have a bonus to T or M, it gets even easier.
If you could buy science in large amounts, whenever you needed it, and the only limitation was your income, and pop-science, tools, and income were all more effective, you might have something going, but you'd then still need massive science for it to be anything more than a wet dream - let's say 30% increase in both your ability to aquire science, and the effectiveness of it, plus immunity to learns, so the science is always safe, AND an even fatter income-bonus through being monarch, and an additional one from playing on Genesis.
You need at least 12% increase in population to even reach the raw requirements, and easily more than 33% for people to not laugh at you.
That's 33.25 people per acre, which is still not enough.
Try 40%, or 35 people per acre. Now it's doable, but it's not really enough, and 40%, even back then, took some massive, massive numbers.
If you add homes, you get 8 extra raw peasants per acre - modded, that's 46.2 people per acre.
This isn't realistic, because you're not going to blow that much of your land on homes, since you want fat mods.
You solve this by getting, say, 40% BE, and some 250% crime and magic. Add 200% food, and you can run almost no farms. Income isn't a problem - 50% science, plus all bonuses, takes care of that.
Assuming you get even more science into magic and thievery, you can lower your raw, and still maintain superior T and M to others.
Tell me, young sir, how your elf managed to aquire anything even remotely close to those numbers. They're extreme, yes, but they're what you need to have if you want to pretend you're A/T/M
in a realistic fashion - which, in itself, isn't realistic, because it stretches you so thin, you have to take extreme measures to accomplish it.
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with 1400 bpa you can attain +18% to population, with 13% homes gives you about 30 peasants per acre.. this also leaves enough raw science to get +110% in each crime and channeling, along with +20% from tools and 20% in alchemy... if you can come up with say 2k bpa, you can increase your base population science to around +25% (from science alone) which will put you in the range of 32-33 ppa, not including homes.
with 1400 bpa and 13% homes on 2k acres you should be able to support 32 ppa, with 2k bpa, that is easily stretchable to about 37 ppa, decrese your over-all raw wizard and thief numbers to 3.5-4, and rely on having +100-150% from science in both crime and channeling.
I'm no longer going to argue this point with you.. you say it can not be done, so therefor you limit yourself by accepting that it is impossible. As long as you keep believing that it is impossible to be an effective a/t/m in the game, it will always be so and you will never be able to find a way yourself to accomplish it... I guess its just too hard for you to cmoe up with on your own. And what is wrong with taking extreme measures to accomplish something ??
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VT2 is right Nobody. Where you play, probably a ghetto, a/t/m is easy, because everybody you play against sucks. Top KDs don't run a/t/ms, unless t/ms are sending some off to hit chained provs.
Period.
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Nobody: 1400 bpa is something you get late-age, not mid-age, especially if you are not playing human sage. Even then it is not easy to maintain your province, and the moment you start hitting for land your bpa goes to crap, and your A/T/M just spontaneously combusts. You can run a minor on the side of A/M, A/T or T/M, but that is the most I would give it.
What we are saying: it -can- be done, but it will never be a viable or effective build on the higher player fields. You can probably own ghettos with it, so have fun down in the mud.
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lmao, 150-170% in crime & magic, and +18% in pop by mid age? cant be done, unless you going to get LD like mad and run human whit ****load of libs.
a/t/m, maybe possible whit gnome/sage whit honor marq+, but dont thinks thats going to hapend in decent kd's.
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VT2
please help me, can you give me a strat for human sage? pls post it in my topic thread in strategies. thanks so much!
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What started out as little more than a joke to get back at the mods have become something far more useful and serious.
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Every age we get 4 or so princes. Using last age bonuses if one of them happens to be a gnome/mystic he can do a sudden conversion at the eoa for:
50% homes
22% TD
12% towers
10% guilds
6% farms
with +28% income, +20% BE, +13% pop, +160% food, +28% combat gains, +120 thievery and magic
for (25+5)(1.15)(1.13)(1.22)=47.5617 population per acre
Then dividing your population into
25% elites (11.89 per acre)
25% def specs (11.89 per acre)
10% thieves (4.76 per acre)
15% wizards (7.13 per acre)
25% peasants (11.89 per acre)
You get 78 mod opa without generals, 85 mod opa with all generals, 121 total dpa with MP, 67 practical dpa with MP. Because your npa of 252+ is so high, your opn and dpn are sufficiently diminished. Your offense and defense are both too weak to attack immediately, so you'd have to turtle and op for awhile until your opponent is weak enough for you to attack. Not to mention as a prince, your opponents would be ready to take a chunk out of you at the first opportunity =P. Without barrackses your attacks will be limited to 16(.85)=13.6 days which again weakens your attacker status, to be made up for in your stronger thief and mage statuses.
Your income/acre is 11.89(2.25)(1.22)(1.28)=41.78. Your wages/acre on 200% is 11.89*2*.5*2=23.78.
You have no barrackses, no TGs, no forts, no stables. You need a good deal of homes in order to get the population to sustain this scheme. You can possibly remove some homes and TDs for some power suppliers if you'd like.
Possible conclusion: you might do better with higher power as an a/t, a/m, or t/m rather than an a/t/m as a prince even if it's feasible.
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You're a gnome. Gnomes are annoying, but frail and weak.
People know this.
The moment you send out, you're going to bleed. The easier and juicier you are, the faster you're going to go down.
If you're viscount or above, and you want to preserve that rank, it's in your best interest not to ever send out, for any reason, and to always stay in war, so people won't feel the urge to raze you to pieces because you outrank them.
85 mod offense doesn't impress anyone. Even ghettos are used to seeing gnomes with 5817667175175175715½ mod offense. Just like all gnomes, your offense is not realistic, and sending out is never going to be safe, or even be guaranteed to accomplish much of anything.
The above post pretty much proves how useless it is to pretend that honor is badass, and that gnome is awesome and untouchable.
