In the Upper Ranks

**Ilneval** Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:39 am

posted by Stimpy

Quick question for the experienced managers out there.

Only recently have I entered into the upper ranks (Top 100) of warriors. Having no real experience to draw upon, I pose the question. When your warrior is up in those ranks, what do you expect their stat/skill trains to be like?

In particular, I'm just concerned with the number of trains, not the ending stat/skill value.

As an example, do you want your warrior to have 2-3 master skills when they breach the Top 100 fights? Do you look for stat trains of 6+ across the board minimum?

I'm looking for a broad bar to gauge my warriors by. Having talked to several managers a long the way, I know everybody has their own preferences, I'm just curious what those are from other guys.

Do tell fellas, let's get some discussion going.

stimp

**Ilneval** Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:40 am

(Date Posted:09/26/2009 6:13 PM)

Personally i would expect to have each of the money stats to be increased by 5 and I would think that you should have a minimum of 4-5 masters, but really it depends on the individual warrior. If we are talking Half-Orcs, then I would say 2-3 masters would be pretty good, but I would expect the stats to definitely be increased by 5+ for each.

Basically, the finesse warriors would be the first part, and the brutes more like the second part I mentioned, but that is just my opinion.

I'll give you an example:

Faceless has 123 fights, 8 masters and 20 stat trains

Flawed Legacy has 88 fights and 4 masters with 20 stat trains

so maybe that will give you an idea where you need to be in that fight range

(Message edited by Ilneval On 09/26/2009 6:17 PM)

**Ilneval** Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:41 am

originally posted by Stimpy

(Date Posted:09/26/2009 8:25 PM)

Thanks for the response Ilneval.

As always, it seems like it comes down to the individual warrior. which is why I'm curious about a baseline as to what a veteran manager would consider competitive.

I know I'm hardly breaking new ground with some of my approaches since the game is so old. However, I do notice that everybody seems to have a variation on how they train their guys along the way. Or in how you use your warrior--it makes little sense to master a weapon you don't use.

Again, thanks! I hope this topic will produce some discussion.

As for me, I have a guy that before 100 fights already has +8 to a stat. Having not done this before I have no real clue if this is good or not. Conversely, I have a warrior with +7 on the money stats. so I figure +8 may not be all that great. However, I was experimenting and got +8 pretty quickly, so I really don't have a comparison. Was I lucky? Getting +7 on a bunch of stats for one warrior was easy enough though. Sometimes I wonder if I just quit trying to train too early.

stimp

**Ilneval** Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:43 am

(Date Posted:09/26/2009 9:31 PM)

The difficulty of stat really depends greatly on your starting con and the level of the target stat and how many times you have already trained in it.

For example getting a 17 str to a 25 (8 trains) with a 25 con isn't too entirely hard. but doing the same thing with a 17 con would be nearly a miracle. Getting 10 trains in a stat that started as a 3 isn't so hard with a 25 con, but with a 10 it's nearly impossible. All depends on the circumstances.

The number of masters is equally relative to the warrior setup. One of my warriors, Trolly, only had 1 master at 100 fights. But considering he only started with a 3 int, I can't really complain all that much. It is less than I hoped for, but it was my choice to start him as a 3 int warrior afterall.

(Message edited by Dux_Mortalitas On 09/26/2009 9:33 PM)

**Ilneval** Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:44 am

Posted by Poppa Balrog

(Date Posted:09/27/2009 7:38 AM)

See, that's why Dux is so damn good at this game, he can get a starting 3 INT guy to 100+ fights. It wouldn't even occur to me to try, because it would be an exercise in futility. I never make a guy with less than 10 starting INT now, just because I get frustrated too easily when there aren't any trains going on.

So with a minimum starting 10 in INT and CON, I would expect 5 trains on every stat (yeah, I train PRE too) and 3-5 masters, although being reasonably close in a few others. That being said, I'm not that good at keeping them alive once they hit that level. I'm convinced that strategy takes on a much more important role than base ability of your guy.

**Ilneval** Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:45 am

Posted by Stimpy

(Date Posted:09/27/2009 10:10 AM)

Thanks for the response Dux. I recall much of what you mention from the BP Handbook and previous discussions, but I'm glad you brought it up as it adds another spin to the conversation.

Your point made, let me pose the question then. Wouldn't a good starting point for CON then be 17-18? That would put you reasonably within range of a 25 CON after trains--this is possible as I've done it with more than one warrior. Then use that 25 CON to raise other stats considerably higher than one would have been able to do so earlier? I also have another guy currently who has bumped up CON +6 already, and still under 50 fights. So that doesn't seem to be too daunting of a task

Of course, this then forces you to have lesser stats at conception than say a 12 CON might have. Though, that is a different topic.

Still, all in all, it seems that stats of +5-6, and 2-4 masters seems to be somewhat of a baseline to guage your warriors improvement by in order to at least be competitive design-wise?

Stimp

**Ilneval** Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:45 am

posted by Dux

(Date Posted:09/28/2009 8:46 AM)

Great question.
Well, yes, that is a great way to go. It is in fact what I did with Misery.
However, you don't always get warriors with cons that could start at 17, so it's good to have a lot of variations that can produce great long term results.

That's what got me to come up with the hour-glass warrior concept. I have enough occasions when my starting rollup started with 3-5 con, so instead of fighting that situation and trying to make it fit a mold that it was never going to, I decided to see if I could work with it as it was by compensating in other areas.

To me that is the real fun of the game, taking most any new rollup and coming up with something that has a decent chance to do well even at 100, 150, 200 or more fights. Sometimes you find some great original setups that way!

Most of my warriors are rather odd as far as con and int go. I have a lot of super low con starts and low int starts. I have warriors that started off low in both too. Take Pitt Lord (Horc) he started off with a con and int that when added together equaled 12. Yet he is currently at about 160 fights with a pretty solid record and 13 kills (7 of which came in the 100+). No sure how many trains he had at 100 fights, but I would guess he had 2-3 masters at that time (5 currently) and two more soon to be masters. At 100 fights he had most every stat up at least 5 and two were up 7x.

Then you have a warrior like Penetrator, who has 8 masters and 4 stats all trained up 7x. At 140 fights, I would say that is rather exceptional for a 15 con and 13 int starting warrior. Merciless, who started with an 18 con and 10 int has only 4 masters (2 at 100 fights) and most stats up 6X each. Rather pitiful considering the number of points he has tied up in con and int.

You win some, you lose some...

So now that I have written all this, I guess I would have to say that if you started a 12 con/Int warrior, you'd be able to expect an average of 2-4 masters and 5-6 trains in each of the main stats at 100 fights depending on how you trained them.

**Ilneval** Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:46 am

posted by Stimpy

(Date Posted:09/28/2009 10:36 AM)

No doubt Dux. Getting a CON, or any stat, to consistently be a certain value is undoubtedly a nice feat. That said, I've been very fortunate in that regard in that over half of my warriors started out at 15+ CON and single-digit PRE. So, needless to say, this topic is intriguing me more due to my circumstance.

The great variety in successful designs is what makes this game rather exciting. So I'm always trying to do something different. However, I do find myself sticking to a script sometimes when I see certain stats at, or near, certain values.

I also notice that even between two warriors with similar CON and same race, that the ability to train stats seems vastly different. I notice this with skills and INT. In particular, my 20 INT warriors seem to learn skills very quickly, but seem to hit a plateau at 6-7x. Whereas I have <= 15 INT warriors who have no problem mastering in a skill very quickly, sometimes within 25 fights, most often between 25-50 fights. Often times, this has to do with percieved difficulty. There have been times where I just keep trying to learn a skill because I keep learning it consistently along the way. Other times, I change my train attempt because it seems like it isn' working. So there is then no effort on a particular target. Again, this is off topic.

Back to topic...

Again, I appreciate the insight. Getting 2-4 masters and +5 across the board in stats seems to be roughly a concurrent line of thought.

Thanks!
stimp

**Ilneval** Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:47 am

posted from Dux

(Date Posted:09/28/2009 11:27 PM)

I know a lot of my esteemed collegues would disagree with me on this.
But I still think that trains are determined by only 4 factors.
1. Con or Int
2. current level of the skill or stat
3. number of times it has been trained.
4. A random roll

Of the 4 factors, the random roll ranks at the top of the list in terms of actual impact.
There is a theory that each warrior has a preferred set of weapons and or training areas.
If you train them in their preferred area, they will do well, but if you choose to train them in a non-preferred area, they will train poorly. I don't think there is any way to really prove it one way or the other, but what I would suggest is taking a 1d6 die and rolling it a 1000 times and writing down each roll. You'll get some really amazing streaks of the same number and sometimes you will go for huge lengths of time without seeing a repeat. This is what accounts for some warriors having great training and others having near zilch - in my estimation.

If my theory is correct, there is no point in switching away from a train that is not coming quickly in order to choose another train where the first three factors are equal.

The proof of my theory is that my warriors do very well rather consistently in this game. I don't think they would be as successful were it not for training efficiently. I simply set my goals for training and keep them steady until the trains come. Little or no fiddling. Eventually they come or the warrior dies as was the case with The Barkeep recently.

(Message edited by Dux_Mortalitas On 10/11/2009 6:39 PM)

**Ilneval** Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:48 am

(Date Posted:09/30/2009 5:59 PM) By Stimpy

Yeah, I was thinking training went something very similar to that. I just find it odd how sometimes a guy will train very easily, whether it is a 1-2x, or a 8-9x. It could all be my perception as it is very hard to quantify the difficulty of training a stat.

Stimp

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