Strongest setup for races/strongest races

[occasionalplayer]

I have asked that question some months ago. However, many settings have changed since, so I would like to ask again: 

What do you consider the strongest setup for each race (if possible, differentiating between rush strategies and long shot-strategies). Then, which races (comparing their setups) do you consider the strongest?
I still feel it is Barbarians (with the Berserker shenanigans) and Dwarfs (nature-based power rush with rich minerals), but only have an incomplete perspective. 
Thanks in advance!

[Nelphine]

Myrran rich halflings for adamantium slingers (this is basically a risky version of bezerkers as it takes longer to get going, but is far superior.)
Barbarians going for rush bezerkers to get highest army strength fast.
Rich dwarves, eh, not so sure anymore - rich myrran has been toned down a lot. This is the riskier version of dark elf economy.
Dark elves.

I'd personally almost never play any other race. Any other arcanus race is either worse than barbarians in terms of rushing, or worse than dark elves for economy, and 1 pick to take myrran is almost always worth fitting in.

HOWEVER, I haven't played with the new myrran rules, so maybe that 1 pick won't be worth it anymore as often. So maybe high men or high Elf will be a worthwhile choice for economy now. 

Draconian obviously have their own niche for certain playstyles.

I can't imagine ever picking beastmen, trolls, klackons, nomads or orcs, if you want the strongest race for a given strategy.
Lizardmen might have some niche still.

[Sapher]

I can't imagine ever picking trolls

Here is a little guide for you   Part 1, Part 2

[Nelphine]

Sent you a pm responding about trolls.

[Sapher]

Sent you a pm responding about trolls.

We can discuss it here why PM. You ask why trolls are better. Short answer is because you dont need replacements for them. You dont lose trolls. If you lose a war troll that is most likely a mistake that could and should have been avoided. 
Although other starting strategies might be better while aiming to use war trolls in the end. Draconians come to mind. You start with them and you can gather gold for war trolls faster by using flying bowmen. That is a bit random as you need to find and conquer troll city. But chances for that to work are rather high.
If you still think that berserkes are better give us amount of turns it takes for you to win a game on lunatic with 4 AI. Troll game i posted was won in 6h real time and 04.1407.
Turns matter because we were talking about rushing, strongest strategies and such.

[Nelphine]

I don't play to win fast anymore. One strength of bezerkers is that I can play on lunatic and keep all 4 AI alive until they all have very rare spells (and not one city or anything, I mean I can avoid going to war with any at all), and therefore get the most variety out of the game.

I enjoy the game more that way.

Fastest way I've defeated the myrran opponent with bezerkers recently (when I was arcanus, and patch 5.x, I don't remember which) was 1404 or 1405 or 1406. I don't remember, as I don't bother with fast games anymore, so the other 3 were still alive. I LIKE very rares.

I was going it by pm because I don't need a new thread about the power of bezerkers. I've already got one for that.

[Nelphine]

Incidentally, winning fastest, doesn't always mean strongest; fastest includess really good snowballing starts, which you can win with a wide variety of strategies, that might lose the next game regardless of how fast you were this time. Bezerkers win, with no ores, no good starting cities (think islands with mostly deserts and tundra), no neutrals, no reliance on spells to hit fliers, and very little reliance on any early lair (I've had the new weak lairs start on parts of my continent I couldn't get to.)

Not needing an armorers guild, or an alchemists guild, or ores, is huge.

So what I wanted to know, which you could certainly be right about, is what trolls bring that bezerkers don't. And when I can literally build 2 bezerkers for every war troll you build, I really don't care about Regen.

[Sapher]

I can literally build 2 bezerkers for every war troll you build.

Then you probably have a coal. Troll costs 150, berzerker 100

[Nelphine]

Except I don't have to build an alchemists guild (1 bezerkers) or an armorers guild (7? Bezerkers).

So in the first 18 war trolls you build (for every city), I get 35 bezerkers.

For your first 2 stacks, I get 4.

The first 4 stacks from the capital are enough to ensure I control every war for the whole game.

I aim for 9 cities producing bezerkers. That's 36 stacks. I've never had a game where I actually needed 36 stacks of bezerkers to win.


So for the entirety of the game where it matters, I get 2 bezerkers for each one you get.


And because I don't need ores (and actually can't use adamantium), I can get 9 ideal cities from the first 9 city locations I find, whereas you'll probably end up with a mix of normal, mithril, and adamantium trolls (or you'll be forced to delay far longer in order to get a comparable number of adamantium trolls, as you did in the game you posted.)


By the way, I don't ever build armorers guilds. The only race remotely strong enough to do so is trolls (and dark elves against the right opponents), and is why I'm so interested in this conversation. I have always hemmed and hawed about trolls and whether I should actually keep their cities or not.

[Sapher]

So in the first 18 war trolls you build (for every city), I get 35 bezerkers.

Or you get 350 spearman!
Those 18 trolls will easily crush your 35 berzerkers without loosing anyone   
Ok. let's imagine we have a war with a random AI. Where will 35 berserkes be more usefull than 18 war trolls? Remember my trolls always have chaos channels and resist magic also(or at least some)

And because I don't need ores (and actually can't use adamantium), I can get 9 ideal cities from the first 9 city locations I find, whereas you'll probably end up with a mix of normal, mithril, and adamantium trolls (or you'll be forced to delay far longer in order to get a comparable number of adamantium trolls, as you did in the game you posted.)

Nope. I had only adamantium war trolls. All my cities without adamantium were used to gather gold that was used every turn to buy a war troll. The moment i got too much gold i bought 2nd armoured guild in another city with adamantium and started buying 2 trolls every turn.