Hello there folks! Long-time player here who never felt the need to post until now. I've been doing a bit of calculation after taking a bit of a break before the this round and discovered something interesting about one of the races: when you lose certain units as elves, you gain both networth and overall defense. More that double the bang for the buck, in fact.

I'm talking about the Sylvan Ranger to Woodland Ranger retrain. Effectively, this gives elves not only the cheapest per-capita elite (not to mention the considerable bit of extra spy/mage power thrown in there), but allows for any elf in the game to actually grow every time they lose units in an attack. Why did elves generally dominate last round? The math is as follows.

An elf player begins the round with the cheapest, if not most inefficient defensive/offensive unit in the game. Although not really essential to their victory, it certainly helps jumpstart their building into the next tier of unit: the Sylvan Ranger.

A 5.3/4 unit with 10% reduced casualties, the unit retrains 50% of all normal losses, as you all doubtless know, into woodland rangers. Now from here, let's examine stats and costs.

In the event of losing 2 Sylvan Rangers, the attacking player will be graced with a retrained Woodland Ranger. This creats a 9/9 unit in the time it takes their troops to return. This represents a net gain of 1 defense in return for losing two units. Assuming they leave this woodland ranger at home indefinately, they've given themselves a 1 defense gain in return for the loss of two units, as well as .1 spy/mage power. With any luck, they also got some land out of the deal.

Now what did this cost them in resources?

Each Sylvan Ranger cost them a grand total of 1,200g, 100L (including the cost of the worker to train it). Now let's add to the mix 227.5g, .5L, and 7.5 MD per 1/10 of every spy, again, including the price of the worker.

A woodland ranger, including the cost of a worker to train, is worth 2,825g, 300l.

When the player loses the two Sylvan Rangers, they have suffered the loss of 2,400g, 200L. In return for this loss, they are rewarded with a unit worth 3052.5g, 300.5L, and 7.5 MD.

This represents a net growth in invested resources whenever elves suffer losses. If you'd like some scale, and an elf loses persay 200 Sylvan Rangers in an attack, the net resource gain would be 65,250g, 10,050L, and 750 MD.

Now add to that the fact that they're gaining 1 defense and .1 spy/mage per retrained unit. They've just managed to gain 100 defense and 10 spy/mage power for losing units.

Not bad for something that very well should be gaining them land too eh?

This represents a major problem in balance. An elf started carefully and efficiently in protection and transitioned into building Sylvan Rangers for offense, with a Woodland Ranger defense slowly replacing Half Elves, will gain defensive power after every attack. Assuming the player continues to build Sylvan Rangers for offense, this means they can effectively build one unit and gain spies, mages, defensive elites, and of course a respectable 5.4 attack unit.

A net gain for losing units? A race dependent upon nothing but population and a bit of lumber? It's no wonder the "evil" races are out numbered!

Perhaps a bit of a nerf is in order? Even flameweavers only manage to break even when they attack with a very expensive pheonix. How is it that mass production a unit dependent upon taxes and a minimal amount of lumber can create a net gain?

If you think they are so good, perhaps you should try using them? I agree that they are very good, but I do not agree that they are quite as broken as you think. :)

I have to give you credit though, nice post, very in depth. You just fail to note how slow elves are to get their elite offense going due to their high costs. This means few casualties til late round, and thus not TOO many conversions.

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Zehahaha

Oh on the contrary good sir, I am using them. To do the math is rather usless otherwise... this is just a game after all.

Is it a high cost? Not for what they provide, and certainly not compared to the other races. I'm already gaining over a dozen woodland rangers per attack, and I'm still using some half-elves for quick cost efficiency and defense this early in. Thousands of extra gold already in my pocket, so to speak. And it's paying off, I'm staying very near the top and waiting for the "fast start" races to stall as they always do.

They don't gain per attack, after all.

Edit: And I appreciate the compliment. I don't mean to sell your experience with it short, but the race plays exactly as I described. The cheap HE's to start let you land grab better than nearly any other race as it is.

are you planning to invest at all?

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asof dsafosjdf skd sl lsa ; s sl ;s skf - I have Spoken

Well, I have had a bit of experience with elves.... *Chuckles*

Anyways, good luck to you, I'll be eagerly awaiting your result after the round. ^^

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Zehahaha

Investment? A few shadow elves build sparingly take care of it for you, with any extra food or (on unfortunately inefficient occasions I blame on sleep deprivation and/or clicking quickly to avoid burning my dinner) lumber. It won't max investments, but it puts enough points in to keep you moving efficiently if you build a good balance of them.

That unit, however, is not a major game-balance issue in my observations, so I'll keep that particular part of my strategy to myself for the moment.

Hmm... you do know that the top elf kingdoms in the past have run anywhere between 8,000-10,000 SEs apiece, right?

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Zehahaha

Right. A winning Elf Strat is as follows:


Have a good OOP. Attack as long as possible. Starting a couple days after protection ends, build as many SEs as quickly as possible. Get up to 10k. To do this, you need to stop attacking.

Once you have this, build up op and attack.


The problem with Elves:

Yes, you gain defense. However, you lose offense in gaining that defense. You also do not gain *that* much defense, until later in the round. Early on you still lose NW on attacks. It's not until late round (read- 6th week) that you can even *think* about stopping to train defense and only build offense.

To win with Elves, you need to have VERY good investments.

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2005-11-24 4:32:21 CET Jigoku[# 59] was deleted by an administrator. Reason: excessive lameness

Mission: Change in OOP Times is a Success. Looking for a new mission.

*Mutters*

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Zehahaha

*nods*

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asof dsafosjdf skd sl lsa ; s sl ;s skf - I have Spoken

*giggles*

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Anger not the dragons, for thou art crunchy and tasteth good with ketchup.

Yes, Elves have close to immortal offense. But I don't consider that they actually gain military power, it's just that their conversion cover up for the losses.

The conclusion that they gain miltary in terms of resource-cost of the lost SRs, and the gained WRs has a flaw in it, which is that no (top-)Elf would train WRs for their current price. It's not like that if WRs would cost 1k gold more than they do now, that Elves would gain 1k gold per converted WR resource-wise (if you don't take into account the ability to sacrifice units).

Nonetheless, Elves are a powerful race. But in shorter rounds, their abilities come less to use, and then they suffer from their high-cost military. Also, next to the conversions, I consider their spec, the Half-Elf, a maybe equivalent powerful advantage of Elves.

*Is suddenly haunted by trauamtic memories of last rounds realm imps*

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I don't have a dirty mind, I have a sexy imagination. XD

Where's the quantitative evidence folks?

The only arguement being made in defense of elves is cost effectiveness, and that no elf possibly could manage to build mass Sylvan Rangers.

Might I remind you that of the top 20 in land last round, 10 were elf? Roughly half of the top 50 were elf.

What were they doing? According to a few dozen spy ops I threw around throughout the round, they were using the Sylvan Ranger to Woodland Ranger trick. This "just making up a few units" brush off is indeed the reason they were able to win!

You claim a "nearly immortal" offense. You say that they "don't actually gain" military power. I question whether you understood what I was attempting to get across.

The point is not offensive, it is defensive.

They lose two units with 4 (count that 4 each) defense, a total of 8 defense lost, and gain a unit with more than double what was lost defensively, as well as spy/mage power. I am not suggesting they gain offensive strength, I am noting that every time they lose a unit, they gain defensive power and efficiency.

This is not the measily shadow sylph conversion of the shinobi, nor is it the "break even" of the flameweavers. This is not the 10% resource return of animators. This is a net defensive gain. Are you arguing that to lose two of a unit is more cost effective than many races' equivilant units, and get in return more than twice what you lost is "fair"? If so, I'd have to guess you've played in the top 10 elf kingdoms for a few rounds now. No one likes their fun ruined after all.

Of course no intelligent elf would purchase a woodland ranger! Nor would the creators raise their cost by 1000 gold. On the same mark, would the admin be able to lower the price of a Woodland Ranger so they would not see a net resource gain? It would, in effect, make them less than the price of any other equally powerful elite, not to mention the spy/mage power. Not to say they are not already thanks to the "conversion." Your speculation is moot.

An elf player can, and does, build massed Sylvan Rangers, and in return for attacking with them (not even successfully, necessarily) is rewarded with spies, mages, and defensive elites more cost-efficient than any "evil" unit, with perhaps the stated exception of the far more expensive trolls with their population nerf. This is not "making up power," this is "being handed nearly the most efficient elite unit in the game for attacking."

Elves don't have to worry about converting to the "uber unit" as other races might consider. Trolls have to specifically convert from cheaper units to their cave trolls, after all. For elves, the race does it for them. Nor do elves have to worry about building spies or mages, realistically. The race does that for them as well.

This is not "making up," this is not "just a fair turn." This is also not "opinion." This is mathmatically accurate evidence that this race is actually being given a cheap elite/spy/mage combo which unbalances the game, backed up statistically by last round's final outcome and what builds they were observably using. If you'd like to argue with me on it, give me numbers to support why exactly it is "ok" for elves to have a net defensive/spy/mage/resource gain on every attack, not generalities.

Now let's talk short rounds.

I won't argue that an elf can't get the full effect in a short round, but the effect is never the less still there. They still gain spies, mages, and net defensive power for less than a single one of the units would have cost. Even a few days off the bat, they can easily be putting their resources to work twice. Oh, and then that "most cost efficient early unit in the game" thing kicks in with the half elves... espeically if we're talking less than three weeks short.

Give me math if you want to argue with the net gain, not "well it seems fair to me" while we have half or more of the top players in the game using this race, with this offensive/defensive converting strategy, to win.

Elves need a huge nerf. When 12 races play and 1 holds half or more of the top positions, some others with no representation in the top 50, there is an obvious problem with balance.

You know, Aristotle has won a round with elves before, right? :P

The man knows what he is speaking about. ^^

BTW, yes we all know elves are broken in a six week round. :P

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Zehahaha