Why Gnome Freak Full-Elite A/t
ALL THIS COULD BE CHANGING SOON. I’M SEEING POTENTIAL FOR A FULL-SPEC ARMY I MISSED PREVIOUSLY.
Gnome
+40% Thievery Effectiveness
50% Cost Thieves
+10% Population
-15% Birth Rates
No access to Hospitals
5/5 Elite – $300
Freak
Large randomness in all attacks.
Every 7 Elites take up the population space of only 6 peasants
If the only bonuses for Gnomes were the +10% population and elites, that would be enough.
The population bonus is easily the best in the game. Playing Freak with a full elite army increases population even further, usually something like 7.5%. A Gnome Freak with a trained elite army has a base population of about 30 per acre. And that does not include science. Just 100 housing books per acre, puts the Gnome Freak at 33 ppa. No amount of improved specialists, improved buildings, or even Orc elites come close to matching that sort of raw power. Even assuming that an Orc province has 9 elites per acre, which amounts to 9 x (8 – 5) = 27 additional raw opa, does not let it surpass the Gnome Freaks additional opa due to 7 ppa bonuses, 7 x 5 = 35 additional raw opa.
The only way to build a province with more attacking potential is to play another race with Freak and a nearly full elite army or to use a huge science-pump (probably with Humans). Other full-elite armies are very expensive to train and highly pumped humans take a while to build and plenty of resources to maintain.
The thief bonuses and freak randomness just sweeten the deal. The thief bonuses keep costs down and frees up more room for elites by making fewer thieves capable of maintaining a higher tpa. The freak randomness does require that more offense be sent to be sure of a successful hit, but it also deters and bounces enemy attacks.
The Gnome weaknesses are relatively minor. In a longer war we can have population and income problems. But a Gnome with population problems often has a higher ppa than other races in their prime. In war kidnapping can help a little.
Net worth is also a concern. While elites will increase nwpa, they will also increase offense and defense at an even faster rate. This means the more Gnome elites, the higher dpnw and opnw we have.
Gnomes are ready-made thieves. When running a Gnome Freak full-elite attacker, you don’t want to neglect thieves. Thieves can be a great source of income and are very nice for taking SoMs, if you are detail oriented. Keeping 3 raw tpa with modest crime science and about 10% thieves’ dens will give about 7 mod tpa. This is enough to be effective against nearly every attacker. With this A/t combination, we are primarily still an attacker. The thief element is there to assist in combat and to provide resources.
If you look at my age 37 strategy, you can see that 7 tpa, 70 opa, and 62 dpa are easily reachable.
The last reason to play a full-elite Gnome Freak is how easy and flexible it is. There is no difficulty in dividing troops to be trained. And when these troops do attack, you can determine exactly what defense you want to keep at home.
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