The Orc Diplomacy Guide

The Orc Diplomacy Guide

The orc diplomats have nothing to do with diplomacy. Their interests are to identify threats or enemy composition, identify an enemy’s capacity to wage war, steal the enemy's resources and assassinate the enemy’s commanders.

The Illyriad Diplomat Environment

Each race has a preferential unit. Humans have the strongest assassins, dwarves the strongest thieves, elves the strongest scouts and orcs the strongest saboteurs. Elves have the added benefit of having the fastest diplomats. Meanwhile Orc thieves can carry the most. The characteristics of speed and carrying capacity can be used to identify the type of race that has carried out a theft. This information together with direction of travel and diplomatic growth chart can be used to identify the player who has carried out the attack if that information is not available through other means. Another advantage that an orc has is the fastest build speed in the game for diplomats.

Defending Against Diplomatic Attack

In order to defend against diplomatic attacks using diplomats you must have the Counter Intelligence skill researched. You must also have in your city units of the same type as being used in the attack, i.e thieves defend against thieves, scouts against scouts etc. If your defence is successful then you will identify your attacker if you have the interrogation skill researched. Tier 1 diplomats have a higher defence value then they do attack. Tier 2 diplomats have a higher attack value then they do defence. The attack and defence values of T2 diplomats are higher than their T1 counterparts. The cost of production and gold upkeep will be influential factors to take into account when deciding which to use.

The use of magical runes is an important part of defending against diplomatic attacks. There are three different trees of runes that may be used culminating in the Wards of Insanity, Destruction and Intentions. The Ward of Insanity will drive away 300 units before expiring. It does not affect scouts or spies. The Ward of Destruction will kill 250 units and also does not affect scouts or spies. The Ward of Intentions will kill 400 units of a single type of unit that you specifically target when you cast the spell. It may be used against scouts or spies in addition to the other units. The number of units that may be affected by these spells can be increased by building a Runemasters’ Grounding. More than one of these buildings can be built although additional building have an increasingly diminished impact.

The construction of a Foreign Office available after you have researched Foreign Affairs will increase your diplomatic visibility thereby giving you better notice of impending attacks.

There are various strategies that may be employed to lessen the impact of diplomatic attacks. One is to complement the use of runes with diplomatic units. So if a player uses the Ward of Insanity or the Ward of Destruction then defensive scouts can be kept on hand. If scouts are targeted with the Ward of Intention then having defensive thieves will serve a similar purpose. While the use of runes is helpful they are likely only sufficient against casual or nuisance attacks. Concerted wartime attacks will involve much higher numbers.

Assassins are only effective against commanders that are attached to an army within a city. So they can easily be rendered useless by removing the commanders from the army. If the city square is under military attack then this will not be possible as you will want the armies to have the benefits of having a commander if you are choosing to fight on the square. You can expect assassins to arrive just before the attacking army does. An alternative is to send your army out on a journey. Assassins are not yet effective in the field. Keeping you commanders in your barracks unattached to an army is a good hygienic practice to thwart surprise attacks.

Saboteurs sabotage buildings in your queue. If you are a prestige player you can render them ineffective by only building with prestige during wartime so that you will not have a building queue. T2 saboteurs are more problematic as they can delay the completion of research.

While many look upon a vault as an irrelevant building it has its uses during wartime for a military player. A level 20 vault can hold 47,703 basic resources and protects 200 of each advanced resources from theft.

Benefits of T2 Units

In addition to being speedier and having higher attack and defence values T2 diplomatic units come with additional benefits. T2 scouts will not only report on the composition of military units within a city but will also report on those that are in use elsewhere. T2 spies will provide the content of building and research queues in a city in addition to the buildings that have been constructed. T1 thieves can steal basic resources, beer, books and gold. In addition to these items T2 thieves can steal advanced resources. Horses, livestock, siege blocks, gathered and crafted items cannot be stolen. T2 saboteurs have a chance of sabotaging the second building in a queue as well as delaying research projects. T2 assassins have increased chances of success and an increased chance of killing more than one military commander.

What Do the Statistics Tell Us

The first table sets out the basic information related to orc diplomats. Market cost is the cost to acquire resources valuing horses at 72 gold, books at 495 and saddles at 1160. At this price it is cheaper to buy horses than to make them. Saddles will cost less to make than to buy but will take time to produce unless livestock is purchased. There is a net research point loss when producing books. While the cost to produce these units will be cheaper when producing your own advanced resources, the cost to produce using Centrum market sell prices is indicative of an opportunity cost.

Type Unit Build Time min Gold Upkeep p/h Speed Carry Attack Defence Market Cost T1 Scout Hunter 5 1 18   15 17 73 T2 Scout Stalker 7.5 2 20   36 30 1729 T1Spy Goblin Spy 7.5 1 18   16 16 73 T2 Spy Listener in the Dark 10 2 21   35 27 1729 T1 Thief Goblin Cutpurse 10.5 2 17 71 14 18 569 T2 Thief Plunderer 12.5 4 20 76 34 28 2226 T1 Saboteur Goblin Saboteur 15 3 16   17 20 570 T2 Saboteur Arsonist 20 6 19   40 35 2228 T1 Assassin Poisoner 22.5 5 17   15 17 1732 T2 Assassin Iquadron Acolyte 30 10 19   36 30 2232 Messenger Messenger 30 15 60       1468

Type	Market Cost
T1 Scout	73
T2 Scout	1729
T1 Spy	73
T2 Spy	1729
T1 Thief	569
T2 Thief	2226
T1 Saboteur	570
T2 Saboteur	2228
T1 Assassin	1732
T2 Assasin	2232

In this second table we look at the effectiveness of these units in relation to cost to produce and in relation to upkeep.

Type	Unit	Attack per gold upkeep	Defence per gold upkeep	Attack per gold cost to produce	Defence per gold cost to produce
T1 Scout	Hunter	15	17	.205	.233
T2 Scout	Stalker	18	15	.021	.017
T1Spy	Goblin Spy	16	16	.219	.219
T2 Spy	Listener in the Dark	17.5	13.5	.020	.016
T1 Thief	Goblin Cutpurse	7	9	.025	.032
T2 Thief	Plunderer	8.5	7	.015	.013
T1 Saboteur	Goblin Saboteur	5.67	6.67	.030	.035
T2 Saboteur	Arsonist	6.67	5.83	.018	.016
T1 Assassin	Poisoner	3	3.4	.009	.010
T2 Assassin	Iquadron Acolyte	3.6	3.0	.016	.013

While T2 diplomats have greater absolute defence values than their T1 counterparts, it is more effective to build T1 units for defensive purposes in every case when looking at the cost to maintain. The cost to produce attack or defence points for scouts and spies is a whole magnitude higher for T2 units. Given this one should always build and use T1 scouts and spies. You will need 125 T2 spies for the Gnome’s Brew discovery. The same units can be used for the Allembine Research discovery. Otherwise don’t bother. The reverse is true for assassins where the T2 unit attack and defence points are cheaper to build than the T1. Assassins will most often be used in attack so T2 units will be the preferred building choice. T1 thieves and saboteurs are certainly cheaper to build then T2 units. The gold upkeep costs are relatively similar. The choice of unit will depend on whether you wish to have the additional abilities of the T2 unit.

Other Information

Supposedly, every attack has a 1 % chance of success and every defence a 1% chance of failure, regardless of unit counts.

A level 20 warehouse holds  658,364 of each basic resource. If you wanted to deprive a city, with this kind of storage, of all basic resources and food you would need to use 46,363 thieves provided no beer, books or gold were picked up.

Thieves are a dubious business proposition in peacetime. A Goblin Cutpurse can carry 71 units, costs 2 gold per hour and travels at a speed of 17 squares per hour. If basic resources are valued at 1.1 gold each then in order to break even it must return those 71 units every 39.05 hours. As every venture is a round trip it can only spend 19.53 hours on each leg of its journey. That means its break even radial distance is 331.93 squares. Of course this breaks even only if you send them out again as soon as they arrive and if you have the storage capacity to receive the goods without spillage. Otherwise the break even distance is even less. You also need targets of opportunity within the 332 square circle. T2 thieves that only return basic resources have a break even distance of only 209 squares. This calculation does not count losses due to thieves dying in failed attacks or to runes. If you can recover food, beer or books, and in the case of T2 thieves advanced resources then your return will be better.

Taken from the post "Shûl-nak On Diplomats", Fri 15 Jan 2016, by Shûl-nak


Diplomats are important units to consider in all kinds of situations.

There are five types, each with two tiers except the messenger. Tier 1 types offer better defense:cost ratios, whilst T2 types have higher attack scores and increased functionality, so are better employed offensively.

Scouts

Scouts are perhaps the most important diplomat for military purposes. Tier 1 scouts will give you a report on any resources or troops on a certain square. Tier 2 scouts, when sent to an enemy city, will also tell you the details of all troop movements from that city.

As you can imagine, Tier 2 scouts are of paramount importance in war; you could discover what square an enemy is landing his siege on, see which of his attacks are feints, and choose how best to engage him. As siege encampments are usually filled with defensive troops, being able to camp your own defensive army on the intended landing site can deal serious damage to any enemies whose defensive army is now forced to attack yours.

This is why many military players will choose to fill their cities with scouts, both for offense and defense, and set their Seeking Runes to specifically target enemy scouts. Giving enemies time to prepare to counter your every move will make any engagement far more difficult.

Spies

Spies will give you reports on a city's building and resource levels. Tier 2 spies can also tell you if there are any research or building queues underway.

With one spy report you can see if an enemy has resources worth stealing, how strong their defensive wall is, gain an insight into a city's specializations, and learn whether saboteurs would be worth sending to attack their town due to research and building queues, assuming you sent tier 2 spies.

With two spy reports from the same city you could theoretically calculate the enemy's tax rate and resource gain/loss per hour, assuming they hadn't spent any in the interim. This could be valuable for gauging how vulnerable a city is to spells or units that destroy or steal resources.

Thieves

Thieves, unsurprisingly, steal resources. Tier 1 thieves can steal any basic resource, as well as books and beer. Tier 2 thieves can also steal advanced resources, like spears, saddles and chainmail.

Horses, cows, siege blocks, resources like grapes, hides, and minerals, and the specially-made crafted goods like silversteel swords are currently unstealable.

It's not possible to steal from trade hubs, so your best defense against thieves is storing everything there and simply shipping in what you need when you need it.

Saboteurs

Saboteurs will destroy building queues and delay researches being undertaken in a town. Tier 1 saboteurs only affect the current builds, but tier 2 saboteurs can affect both the current and the next research or construction in the queue.

Saboteurs are units most often deployed in wars, and are a good reason to avoid long research or build queues in conflicts.

Assassins

Assassins can damage or kill enemy commanders. Tier 1 assassins may target one commander per trip; tier 2 assassins can target more than one, and do more damage.

Because assassins can only target commanders in towns who are assigned to armies, your best defense against assassins is simply to unassign commanders from armies when they're stationed at home.

Though this limits their usefulness it can still be devastating in war should you catch an enemy unprepared and kill important commanders, so military players still invest in these in the hopes of capitalizing on a mistake.

Messengers

A messenger's only purpose is to recall armies who are stationed outside the city. They are very fast.


Diplomatic Contingents

This research allows you to attach diplomats to your armies. Currently, only scouts are worth attaching, as other diplomats have no effect on armies camped in the field.

By attaching a large number of scouts to an army you could thwart enemy scouting attempts, but an attentive enemy within diplomatic visibility range of your encamped army could guess your army's size by clicking on it and reading the group size from this table: http://www.illyriad.co.uk/GameInformation/Bestiary

Diplomats who you send out into the world have their own diplomatic visibility range, just like you have around your town. They will also provide this for any army they are attached to.


Remember that unlike military units, diplomats only defend against diplomats of the same type. Scouts vs scouts, spies vs spies, etc.

You can see how much defense rating you have against each diplo type in your diplomacy tab.

http://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/#/Diplomatic