land acquisition methods....

[djtool]

hey y'all...

well i'm wondering how do y'all go about conquering the land. do you take a few lands and then get busy toward beefing up their defenses? Do you plot out where your next fort is going to be and just build a network of forts (leaving surrounding provinces undefended)? I'm curious to see how my betters are playing

[CharonJr]

Well, I am sure that this largely depends if you are playing AIs or humans and how the game itself is shaping up.

In my current AAR (vs. AIs) due to my fairly large army and passive AIs (likely due to my large army) I don't bother building forts at all and just steamroll the AIs, trying to siege their home fortress as soon as possible.

When I am afraid of counterattacks I will build some province defenses (PDs).

Works fairly good till now

Vs. better AI or humans or simply by being later in the game (tad below 50 with this AAR) with more access to flying attacks into my rear areas I am fairly sure that such a tactic would be suicide since my rear area is virtually undefended and my supply lines are fairly long.

So as most of the time with Dom the right answer seems to be "it depends" and be prepared to change your strategy during the course of the game.

Mainly the availability of certain magic spells to my enemies would have a fairly large impact on my defensive behaviour (and thus my offense).

I would try to guess the time of my enemies getting abilities which would endanger my rear areas and beef up my defenses about 5 turns before that time.

Till this time I would try to grab land as fast as possible without blocking the AIs from areas to expand into if I can prevent it since this might force me into war with them which I am most likely not prepared for at this time.

CharonJr

[Gandalf Parker]

Take all surrounding my castle (for the admin points)

Look for special povinces such as ones with Amazons

look for chokepoints I want

take any weak provinces leaving strong ones as free defense or until later in the game when they wont hurt me as much

Consider money provinces and resource provinces but only if it doesnt make me vulnerable

Look at snaking my way across the map. I prefer that to an amoeba growth spreading equally in a growing circle. Especially if my nation has flying commanders or a flying combat pretender

[Arryn]

If you're following my AAR, do NOT expand the way I have been doing. It's not advised unless you have a firm understanding of AI "diplomatic" behavior in SP games, and will get you quickly killed in MP games.

[BkWyrm]

Take all the provinces bordering my keep.

Take stock of dominion to determine direction of closest rival.

Look for any viable chokepoints.

At this point it depends on the size of the game. I tend to start a little conservative and head towards provinces that show little indication of nearby rivals unless there is a nice chokepoint toward the rival Dominion candles. In this case I'll grab the chokepoint. (I'll always send a scout or two toward the rival Dominion candles) I haven't played many games yet or tried out all the starting races, but I tend to methodically make small city states by throwing up more keeps in likely provinces and grabbing all the bordering provinces. By the time I get my second keep running on full admin I've usually located at least a couple of rivals and can then decide on a method of attack.

[Norfleet]

I generally attempt to expand in a manner which leaves me with the minimum exposure possible: Chokepoints, large provinces that shield other provinces behind them, and othersuch that reduce my level of exposure to unfriendlies. One of the things I really love about my favorite nation, Ermor, is indelibly marking my territory in a "what's mine is mine" sort of way.

[djtool]

thankx for the replies

[tinkthank]

I'm not your better, only a newbie, but I'd like to add that I tend to play conservativly and my patterns ditto Gandalf P's fairly well, with one thing to add: I make liberal use of fortresses, especially if snaking. I hate starving, and I like having a larger army around, especially when recruiting mercs far from home. I scout as best as I can, always recruiting a scout if available in the provinces I take in turns 2-5), and try to take my next provinces (the ones not immediatley around my starting province, which I take first unless there is a good reason not to (like tons of knights)). I then go for "strategic building", that is: I try to beeline towards provinces with good units to recruit (in many cases with nations I play: Heavy Cavs) plus resources and build there.

[NTJedi]

Originally posted by CharonJr:
In my current AAR (vs. AIs) due to my fairly large army and passive AIs (likely due to my large army) I don't bother CharonJr

AI opponents do appear as tho they are behaving alot more passively. Ermor had 1,200 troops just sitting in his castle for 15 turns... eventually I acquired flames_from_the_sky which killed 493 of his units. Until patch 2.08 I've never seen ERMOR just sitting on his hands. In this game there was a time he was strong enough to easily kill me... now he can't do anything but dig his own grave. Even C'TIS only conquered 3 provinces after 40 turns. Independent Setting was 6.

Has anyone else noticed the AI opponents as being more peaceful ?? (hopefully its just a one-time experience)

[ March 05, 2004, 19:17: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

[Ed Kolis]

Originally posted by NTJedi:
Until patch 2.08 I've never seen ERMOR just sitting on his hands. In this game there was a time he was strong enough to easily kill me... now he can't do anything but dig his own grave.

Ah, but only after the grave is Ermor powerful!