Before the reset

[Shadow]

Hey all,

This round is a really good opportunity to talk about race balances. Please post your custom race stats/spell here before the reset so that we can have a chat about why you chose what you did, what you would have changed once you started playing if you could, etc. Here is me:

Please use this template rather than copy-pasting from the table, as the forum makes the spacing completely illegible.

Race: Magpie
Offense: +100
Defense: +100
Build: +50
Costs: +50
Loyalty: +100
Training: -50
Income: -50
Scouting: -50
Mercenaries: +50
Food: -50
Leadership: +100
Foraging: -50

Race Spell: Goldmine

My original motivation was to lock solo - I have been trying to do it for ages, but the only race that produces enough cash and has cheap mercs (marten) has really poor defense abilities, and the best defending leader race (wolf) has very expensive mercs. So it is very hard to do in normal rounds. Here I had an opportunity to make a cashing race with really good defense. And it worked for about 10 days, before the indies caught up to me (+100 training is pretty crazy).

I put points into build so that I could switch between huts-camps-towers easily without wasting a lot of turns doing it, and I bottomed out my merc prices so that I could get the most bang for my buck.

So: Magpie is a defensive casher.

I learned something interesting this round: Loot actually makes more cash per loyalty than Goldmine (very very slightly, they are actually almost equal). The difference is that loot takes twice as many turns to get the same cash output. So if you have lots of loyalty but not a lot of turns, cast Goldmine. If you have turns to spare but have limited loyalty, loot is your best bet.

[Night Wolf]

Race Love Bird
Offense +50%
Defense -50%
Build  +50%
Costs +50%
Loyalty +100%
Training +100%
Income -50%
Scouting +0%
Mercenaries +50%
Food -50%
Leadership +100%
Foraging   -50%

Basicly Leader race with the ability to make troops If I needed

[Juska]

Attack: -1%    
Defense: +27%    
Build: -5.5%    
Costs: -16.5%    
Loyalty: +24.5%    
Training: +97%    
Income: -50%    
Scouting: -50%    
Mercenaries: -62%    
Food: -50%
Leadership: +79.5%
Foraging: -50%

Spell: Goldmine

Basically I wanted an indy race that could produce it's own food and defend from leader land grabs. All skills not at -50% I decided would have some impact upon me, so I ranked them in order of most important to least and then scaled the points to put into them.

[windhound]

Race: Pike
Offense: +100
Defense: +100
Build: -50
Costs: +0
Loyalty: +100
Training: +0
Income: -50
Scouting: -50
Mercenaries: +50
Food: -50
Leadership: +100
Foraging: -50

Race Spell: Goldmine

Very simple, straight forward leader race.  If I had to change anything I'd increase Build.  I didn't think much of it when I did my race, but holycow negative build is crazy.  Sooo many turns burnt building on land.  Soo many.

Otherwise it worked pretty well.  The added defense was great.  With a handful of troops I held off a good number of attacks.  The added offense was also nice, it was rare that I failed an attack.  Currently -
Defenses    453 (16%)
Attacks    350 (99%)

Thinking about modifying the Defense % code so that it discards repeated successful attacks from the same empire.  It'd give a more meaningful readout, as once someone breaks they'll generally continue to break the 21 or so times.  If they fail they'll usually only fail once.

Shadow, I thought it was pretty obvious that Goldmine was more loyalty hungry but turn conservative.  In general turns are much more precious than loyalty.  You pay a premium for turn conservation. 

[Shadow]

If I had to change anything I'd increase Build.  I didn't think much of it when I did my race, but holycow negative build is crazy.  Sooo many turns burnt building on land.  Soo many.

Never used wolf? ^_^ Or lizard?

Shadow, I thought it was pretty obvious that Goldmine was more loyalty hungry but turn conservative.  In general turns are much more precious than loyalty.  You pay a premium for turn conservation. 

I guess I never really thought about it. I always figured it meant cash output was double, but I never thought about what it was double with respect to.

[Gen. Volkov]

Moocow    

Offense  +0%    
Defense  +0%   
Build    +100%
Costs +50%   
Loyalty +100%    
Training -50%    
Income +0%   
Scouting +0%   
Mercenaries +50%   
Food    -50%
Leadership    +100%
Foraging +0%   

Race Spell : Goldmine

My race could have used a bit more thought. The basic idea was too be able to buy so many troops, it wouldn't matter what kind of offense or defense anyone else had. It would probably have worked, if mercs hadn't been nerfed. I also figured most of the leader players had 100% to Loyalty and Leadership, and +50% to Mercs, so I sacrificed offense and defense so I would not totally suck at scouting and cashing income, to give myself a jumpstart right at the beginning, and gave myself 100% Build so I wouldn't spend loads of cash and turns building on land I took. If not for Shadow's attempt at locking, it may have worked. In hindsight, I should have given myself bigger bonuses to offense and defense, as they were more important than I thought. They seemed to have some effect on leaders, as I was failing missions I should easily have succeeded at, but mostly it was the failing attacks that hurt me, kept me from maximizing my land every run.

[Shadow]

They seemed to have some effect on leaders, as I was failing missions I should easily have succeeded at, but mostly it was the failing attacks that hurt me, kept me from maximizing my land every run.

They don't, it's just that as a consequence of the way attack ratio is calculated, there is a cutoff point at which missions are not possible, no matter how many leaders you get (assuming you are not losing per turn).

Cashing an foraging only help if you use markets an foragers, so I was surpised to see you keep points in those past protection.

[Gen. Volkov]

Cashing an foraging only help if you use markets an foragers, so I was surpised to see you keep points in those past protection.

That was actually an accident. I went one too many turns and left protection before I was actually ready. I just didn't bother to get it fixed. Didn't care enough.

They don't, it's just that as a consequence of the way attack ratio is calculated, there is a cutoff point at which missions are not possible, no matter how many leaders you get (assuming you are not losing per turn).

There must be something fundamental I'm missing about leader missions.

[Blood Wake]

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. My Melocat had good offense, Leader stuff, cost, and build with the pressgang move. I believe that's what it's called, the one that gives you leaders.