Early Expansion Question

Lord_Bob · #1 October 13th, 2007, 05:20 PM

For Multi-player, what is a good amount of provinces to have at the beginging of the second year, after 12 turns?

7 Provinces? 10 Provinces? 14 Provinces?

This is without an expansion pretender or dual/triple bless.

Evilhomer · #2 October 13th, 2007, 05:35 PM

Totally depends on how your start is/what nation/strategy etc you are aiming for. As a rule of thumb, I discard any strategy that don't give me atleast 10 provinces at turn 10. So I guess the answer to your question is 12+ is an acceptable number of provinces at that point. With some nation you can look at 25+ if you are doing good.

Meglobob · #3 October 13th, 2007, 06:16 PM

Yea, I agree completely with Evilhomer.

You should look to take a minium of 1/per turn in your 1st year. Anymore is a bonus.

There are some exceptions, such as Caelum with its mammoths and any nation with elephants. Those should look to expand at least twice as fast, ie 24'ish provinces by turn 12.

When taking a dual bless or starting with a awake combat pretender you should look for similar number of provinces ie...24 by turn 12.

Nikolai · #4 October 13th, 2007, 06:27 PM

It depends on where on map you are, how many provinces per player on map, and how soon you want to fight. And of course, on graphs on/off :-)

If you are in middle of map, with six neighbors, and have three times as much provinces, because of a super fighting non-flying pretender... you may be in trouble.

Velusion · #5 October 13th, 2007, 08:05 PM

I'm partial to always expanding as fast as possible and usually base my strategy/build around taking 2/turn by turn 4 and hopefully 3/turn by turn 7.

sector24 · #6 October 13th, 2007, 08:24 PM

Do you guys normally take a province on the first turn before seeing what's there? If you lost that would pretty much be a death sentence in MP wouldn't it? I only ask because one time the province next to my capital happened to have 3 dark vines and 3 bloodhenge druids along with 50 chaff, and blindly walking into that would be a very bad start.

I know it's very nation specific, but I don't see how some nations can support expansion like that. MA C'tis for example has relatively underpowered national units and a bless strategy isn't viable there. What kind of expansion technique would work for them? I normally recruit the elite lizard warriors, but I lose a few every battle and eventually I have to combine two armies into one. I've never been able to expand quickly with nations like that.

Lord_Bob · #7 October 13th, 2007, 08:44 PM

Ok, so my Patala strategy is a little slow. This is bad because someone is going to be really mad if you take a province they have claimed, even if you can just slaughter their army. Need to claim quickly. Ok.

It kind of looks like, on a 15 province per person map, that by the end of the first year you are going to have contact on all fronts?

Velusion · #8 October 13th, 2007, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Lord_Bob said:
It kind of looks like, on a 15 province per person map, that by the end of the first year you are going to have contact on all fronts?

Usually - yep.

Lord_Bob · #9 October 15th, 2007, 04:53 PM

Sadly, after reviewing the effects of elephants on any troop I am going to have to retire my original plan. Which means I might as well say what it was.

By following this recruitment path:
1-Guru
2-Nagarishi
3-Nagarishi
4-Nagarishi
5-Yogi
6-Nagarishi
7-Whatever

It is possible to reach Alteration-3 on turn 8.

Using a Guru or Yogi monkey to cast Body Ethereal on 2 Nagarishi, and them casting Iron Skin(2x), Quickness(2x), Earth Might(1x), Blessing(1x,10% regen. + +2 reinvg) then the monkey runs and the Nagarishi hold for two turns and then attack closest. They win against anything unless the Blessing misses. The Guru always gets away, but sometime the Yogi will get hit by an arrow. "Casualities" are taken when a Nagarishi sucumbs to Cupcake Lust and becomes Heroically Obese. Other than that, a Nagarishi may pick up a non-damaging affliction, or one that forces into research, rarely.

However, elephants SMASH to efficiently for me to follow this plan.

sector24 · #10 October 15th, 2007, 05:26 PM

So while we're talking early expansion, what is your expansion technique? I'm a radial expander, taking every nation that borders your capital first, so you can get more resources. There's also a bonus for weak nations when two nations that border your capital also border each other (making a triangle). You can attack from your capital and your newest conquest at the same time, then combine forces and send the commander back to the capital.

Anyway, the downside is that towards the end of the expansion phase you're walking to the front rather than taking provinces. Is there a consensus on what is the most efficient technique?