Aristotle wrote:
- total inflexibility. If you have a certain defense economy, and one of the competitors decides to make an offense-push, you're done for. At most you can do is then training no offense, and just investing the diamonds into walls
Also the other way around, if you have overkill dp and low op, it's difficult to increase your op. A 3/8 unit is far from optimal as attacker.
Yes, I agree. The game mechanics for Animator don't really support an explorer path. But the tree guardians can make a real boost to the defense if wisely used. Few competitors, unless they are an offense kingdom can rival an Animator's all defensive capabilty. As I would believe for other races. Animators are not in a serious disadvantage in this area. Use crystal soldiers for offense. I don't ever need to send steel guardians in all of my attacks and I could hit many with the same npa 15% more of my land size.
Aristotle wrote:
- population, or rather workers. Late game, you can have such a high resource-economy, that you actually can't train enough workers to keep up with that. More homes can help, though the problem is still there. It used to be even worse, when collectors were still trained from workers instead of peasants.
I agree. But I believe this would be the same case for other races as well. A kingdom approaching its optimum use of pop in the military area always have this problem. However, this is my first time playing in Elevron. So I don't really know the comparative race advantage others have over animators in this area.
I am also puzzled that you did not mention an income problem when you hit the optimum use of your pop. Given your inclination to have homes, I would presume your income would be a real problem when pop starts dwindling.
Aristotle wrote:
- you need a steady stream of land. If you don't get land for a couple of days, you can't get rid efficiently of your gold. Also, if you get a lot of land suddenly (like at OOP) you have to make a choice to either be less efficient (by building overkill processors, or warehouses that stay empty for a while), or to build mines, knowingly that later you might need to destroy them because you need more warehouses/processors/homes.
For animators, gold is primarily used for training workers, collectors and building or even for exploring new lands occasionally. I don't think there would be a problem of "too much gold" on your hands if you plan your income level wisely. Getting land, I presume is always the business of all Elveron players. So there, I don't think any animators would want to sit around feeling satisfied over a constant land mass. About having too much land to chew, I believe you are right over the dilemma of processors vs warehouse. It depends on how fast you want to expand. Using more processors would help a fast expansion. But there is a limit to that before the benefit/cost ratio becomes too low to sustain the path. Also, you would have a defense problem, a.k.a getting too land fat and vulnerable. I suppose the problems of constant or exponential growth holds true for all races, not only the animators.
Aristotle wrote:
- imps. With the low population and a lesser need for gold, the banking-imp is less powerful, while for other races it amplifies a lot. Also, other races can afford to sit down after the OOP-gains for some time, to work up their imps. An animator can't do that, since they need constant land, and their imps don't allow them to accelerate the same way as imps do for other races.
Contrary to your belief, I think its the imps that helps an animator greatly over the other races if not leveling the field. Why would an animator wants constant stream of land that he can't defend or build? There is no need for a constant stream of land unless optimum level is close to being reached as in other races as well. At OOP, if an animator wants to stay stagnant like other races do, thery could always use the warehouse-heavy path. To add to their imps with resources as well as training a pool of collectors. And who says banking imps don't help animators. Ahh right, you did xP. I disagree here, once your pop goes low and income becomes a real pain, banking imps are the one that helps keep the collectors flowing into your new warehouse.
Aristotle wrote:
Yes, the formula I made last age (round2 last age) is still a model, with all simplifications and assumptions in it. Also, it's a guide, an aim, not a thing which tells you what you exactly need to do. You still have to make decisions yourself
A guide, no doubt. But its too detailed to be just a guide. Any newbie taking your formula at face value would be stuck at some stage. It needs a reworked! xP
But seriously, kudos for your effort.
I was led into structural problems by the posts above yours. (I don't blame them) I think I have got the ins and outs of the Animator race after much fumbling since.
To Gabriel,
Sorry, I don't have a real formula. I adjust my building percentage every few days to attain the most efficient way to achieve my growth objectives.
There is one real big problem facing an animator though. That is I find steel guardians way too expensive. Maybe the developers can lower it to 1200-1500 iron ores next round? Or increase the collectors' ore production? This race has potential, but hard to compete against the rest with the high Steel Guardian cost.
