Re: Newbish question
 

Some SP tips:

After the independent expansion phase, each AI is going to look to go to war with at least 1 opponent in order to expand. If your borders are not well defended, it's going to be you. Entering a war makes you even more vulnerable, so another opponent will declare war on you, and another and another.

The AI will only declare war on you if it perceives the tangible gain of at least 1 province. It will never attack you if you have a reasonable defense on every border province.

So, the trick to surviving in SP is to put on a strong front long enough for the AIs to choose to attack each other rather than you. One way to do this is to put 21 PD on all your borders. However, this is an extremely poor use of gold, and does not work in multiplayer. However, for chokepoints, and provinces with 7+ neighbors, it might be worth it.

Another way to do this is to have a reasonably large army (40-100+ units) just walk along your border provinces. Large and imposing units seem to help, such as Hydras, Elephants, Troglodytes, etc. The goal is to look like a tough nut to crack, and eventually the AI will pick on a weaker neighbor.

Look at the army size graph. The nations with the smallest army are the most likely to be attacked. Sometimes having large numbers of ultra elite units hurts you here because you appear weak. If this is the case, build a ton of independent archers, woodsmen, crossbowmen, etc. just to boost your graph.

When you do get into a war, the easiest way to win is to force the AI to attack you on your terms (which it will). The best situation is a chokepoint, where you can pump the PD and put a large force to annihilate all attackers. That's rarely feasible, it's more likely that the enemy will raid you. Rather than chasing them around, your closest army should either go right for their castle (shutting down their production) or stand their ground in the most defensible location, while reinforcements from your castles move forward wiping out raiding parties.

You're going to lose a good chunk of cash from lost provinces, but a defensive approach is very powerful in single player. The reason being that the AI has a bigger army than you do, but once you destroy that army, they can't rebuild like you can. You simply have to outlast them, even if you lose a few provinces initially. When you kill enough raiders, what happens is the AI has almost nothing left other than what it can produce in the castle. Then you can take back all your provinces and start the offensive.

Hope this helps get you to the mid-game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Newbish question Regarding Luck Events per tur
 

Why coudn't you play a one person game.... by eliminating all rendom players... and build and emprie.. and see how many luck events you get. With no other players.. they should all be random...

Re: Newbish question Regarding Luck Events per tur
 

Because the only player left is the winner - game over.

Re: Newbish question Regarding Luck Events per tur
 

I did my tests like that. All the nations were humans, and I had multiple nations at the same time to test various scale choices at the same time. I just didn't bother to conquer 50 or so provinces with everyone while writing down all events and marking down how much gold I've gotten and how much gold I've spent. I can start the game with 9 provinces for everyone, and then fast-forward for turn 30 or 40 or something and check out how much money everyone has.

Re: Newbish question Regarding Luck Events per tur
 

You could just build a few SCs and attack the AI. A well equipped Cyclops or Prince of Death usually eliminates the AI nicely since it doesn't know how to fight them. But I guess that's almost cheating. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Newbish question Regarding Luck Events per tur
 

I wasn't clear.

Human control (you) two nations. Start with 50 territories each or so.

Sice you won't be casting any spells... luck will be the sole cause of random events.

Re: Newbish question Regarding Luck Events per tur
 

It would take a while to accumulate 50 territories, which makes it kind of a tedious test to run. You may feel differently.

-Max

Re: Newbish question Regarding Luck Events per tur
 

You can set how many territories each nation controls at the start of the game when you create the game.

Re: Newbish question Regarding Luck Events per tur
 

But only up to 9, I believe

Re: Newbish question Regarding Luck Events per tur
 

The maximum is indeed 9. That's why each nation only had 9 provinces in my test games.