SPECIES: The Badger

[Zephyrus]

I have a somewhat faulty and unreliable memory, so if this is inaccurate, feel free to skip the first paragraph or two.

Anyways, I remember the TSR days. WBII back then was pretty different. People tended to get power, keep power. But they were never invincible. There were squirrels with 3:1 A/D ratios. Those were fun. Pity I took a break before I figured out how to use them, and just massed otters. My loss? Yawrp.

The other thing was the badger. Don't expect me to recall everyone's race; I can't. I do remember many badgers, though. Badgers were overpowered. They had +OFF +DEF, and things I can't remember. Though I suspect they were also positive in industry and/or build and/or magic.

We don't have that badger here any more. Pity. Or, rather, a chance for the races to be semi-even. We only have the badger of today.

Let's take a look.

BADGER
<span style='color:blue'>+16% Offense</span>
<span style='color:blue'>+8% Defence</span>
<span style='color:blue'>+4% Build</span>
<span style='color:red'>+8% Costs</span>
<span style='color:red'>-8% Magic</span>
+0% Industry
+0% Income
<span style='color:red'>-12% Exploration</span>
<span style='color:red'>+8% Market</span>
<span style='color:blue'>-8% Food</span>
<span style='color:blue'>+6% Runes</span>
<span style='color:red'>-6% Farms</span>

(Because I am lazy, I submit here, and possibly return whether today or tomorrow.)

[Zephyrus]

After a few IMs, I've been told the TSR era badger had large bonuses to offense, defence, industry, and hawks. Heh. Apparently more overpowered than I thought.

The current badger is a standard race. It's what I would recommend to new players. It's a fairly aggressive race that's neutral on the hawk-indy spectrum. That is, badgers play by hitting hard, fast, and do so using both troop production and hawk power. A badger is definitely an industrial race (assuming no middle ground), though. After all, it has a +off +def and -hawk.

The attack and defence bonuses are the badger's most prominent feature. An attacking bonus rivaled only by the otter (and hare, though that is rare) means the badger can break through most defences. It can successfully mass a single troop with the freedom to convert to a different strategy at any time. The defence bonus isn't as large, but still very useful, allowing badger to be the second choice in a strategy of massing guards.

A badger will not be the same as a standard otter troop-masser in attack, nor a shrew guard masser in defence, but reaches a more than fair compromise between the two.

A badger has hawk- and runes+. This is actually logical according to the books, as badgers preferred their physical strength but still had loyal support from their followers. A hawk- means that a badger should not choose to rely much on hawk loot. It does work, but those doing it often enough are better off as squirrels. The rune+ isn't all that good, but certainly not bad, allowing a badger to do more than just utility missions.

A badger does not expect to win against squirrels, but it's not too far off to have a ratio great enough to break industrials and fellow hybrids with a moderate hawk investment.

Badger is for people who are aggressive, but not entirely so.

[Urran Voh]

Badgers are a great race for anyone to play. They can be used in so many different ways it's not funny.

True, a Badger is not the greatest Hawk race, but it can be very effective since most people won't expect you to Hawk. Build most of your land into Huts to run a basic Hawk strategy. When necessary, buy as many troops as you can on the Black Market and sell them on either the Public or Clan Markets for storage (the later is preferred since you can ask clan mates to not buy them). Continue this strat for a few runs, and if you want to keep most of the land you collect, build a few (no more than 20% of your total land) Guards and take all your troops off the markets (be sure to sell before you run your next turns).

Though if you do like raw power, the badger can deliver. When first starting, build most of your land into Barraks and Markets with a few Foragers thrown in to keep food. After you make several successful land grabs, start building Huts and Guards. Use your huts not for Hawks themselves, but to perform utility missions and espies. Now you're on your way to the top ten!

[IFman]

the TSR badgers were amazing. If you wanted to break, nothing else would suffice.
hehe +216% attack

[Devari]

216+ was a typo. It was actually 21 or something. Easy breaks were because of the insane troop ratios.

[Ruddertail]

I played WBII for a month or so. However, I do remember. Badger + 24% Off, + 16% Def, + 18% Hawk. Can you say "Hooooonk!!!"?

That was insane, with the squirrels. 27/9 in the northlands... Unfortunatly, I never made use of them, I was too stupid to get advice from an expert about strats, and ran a mixed strat the whole time, with about equal amounts of troops. (I ran that dumb strat untill about two days before the full release...)

But anyway. The purpose of this topic was not to think back to WBII. So I'll stop... Come back when I've got something important to say...

[Zephyrus]

Yay for offtopic stuff?

Badger gets its power from its attack, not industry bonus. Really, a shrew and badger will have equal strength after a certain amount of turns in a fixed environment of indying. But here's the thing, having less troops, the badger pays less upkeep. Though when it comes to selling off troops, the badger has less to spare. So, it evens out, except shrew still ends up on top with its defence bonus. Badger, though, still has its runes bonus, and can make extended hit runs beyond the capacity of a shrew by using hawk healing.

Badger can always be played like otter. Neither has an indy bonus. The otter has a few more percentage in build and attack. It can hit a bit harder, and uses less turns when buliding. But otter has build, attack, and not much else. Badger comes in, takes land, and here's the thing. At the expense of its last hundred turns or so during a run, a badger can go off and guard mass, making hawk battle the only way to break it.

It's not that badger is better than either race, just more varied, while they are specialized.