Re: EA Oceans of Land - (Noob game) [running]
 

what "dominion" score means?
btw, i'm jealous of kailasa income

--edit
C'tis, land of the eternal sand, declare this: male beings of inferior races lock your mothers, wives and daughters because Niklatu, aka as "Animal kingdom's version of Chuck Norris" , is here.

Re: EA Oceans of Land - (Noob game) [running]
 

The dominion score is how many candles each person has (I think).

10-12 provinces should be fine for this game. In general it would probably be better to aim for 15-20, or just less than the leader if you want to ward off potential aggression. It's possible to get completely crazy, insane numbers (like LA agartha with 38, or MA ulm with 40) but that's never going to happen in an mp game and you shouldn't even try :P

Re: EA Oceans of Land - (Noob game) [running]
 

Is there any reason *NOT* to build a fortress in every province you own?

Re: EA Oceans of Land - (Noob game) [running]
 

fortresses are expensive but yes, building them all over can be a good idea if you can afford it.

Re: EA Oceans of Land - (Noob game) [running]
 

Because fort will be prevent resources "sucking" from other forts and sometimes is better a single fort with a lot of resources than more forts with less resources

Re: EA Oceans of Land - (Noob game) [running]
 

yes, the first is that forts are very expensive, so you usually can't afford it. the other is that forts have an admin value which controls the amount of resources and gold(I think) a fort can take from its neighboring provinces as long as those are fortless.

Re: EA Oceans of Land - (Noob game) [running]
 

How do you get so many in one year? Research Alteration and some Mages become indie crushing Thugs?

Re: EA Oceans of Land - (Noob game) [running]
 

nah, that only works for a few specific nations... your starting army+whatever you can recruit on your first turn should be a solid expansion party for most nations. than you can and should form another expansion party and continue expanding with both. if your nation has solid sacred units than you can use a bless, which makes expansion even quicker as you don't need that many units to expand, but your scales will be weaker than normal and your pretender would likely be imprisoned. there are also regular units that can expand very fast such as elephants, chariots(mainly the large Hinnom ones but even the regulars), etc, which allow you to form quick expansion parties too, and without the investment in the bless.

generally some nations can expand better than others, but having less than 10-12 by the end of year 1 is generally considered very bad, unless the map is small, crowded, you suffered unlucky indy events, etc.

Re: EA Oceans of Land - (Noob game) [running]
 

Admin value does not cause a fort to grab gold from nearby provinces. It does, however, cause the province to produce a bit extra gold supposedly. I've not really noticed any significant increase in gold from building a fort though.

To achieve a ridiculuos expansion like the ones I was talking about earlier, you need an awake SC, the ability to make an expansion party each turn from turn 1, and a second fort coming out early in the year. It also helps to have a good start location, and you can't really afford to lose expansion armies if you want to hit a number like that. Seriously though, it's not even worth considering that you'll have more than 20 provinces by the end of year one in a real game.

Re: EA Oceans of Land - (Noob game) [running]
 

I must disagree with you here. an awake SC is needed for nations that have crappy starting/national armies and can't otherwise expand fast enough(10-15 provs) and hold off an early rush. a ridiculous expansion, 20+ even 30+ if map allows, requires a new expansion party every turn, usually a very economic expansion party. for example Mictlan/Lanka who recruit their H1B1 mage and 8-10(depending on starting dom) Jags/Palashankas every turn. they'll achieve quite a nice expansion by the end of year 1, assuming the map allows it. a more radical example would be Baalz's EK(Eagle King) expansion with Caelum, that starts on turn 5! but on turn 5 you get 4 provinces, on turn 6 you add 5 more, turn 7 you add 6 more, etc, as much as the map allows you to. and with MM3+Flying you can really cover A LOT of ground, hypothetically on turn 12 you'll have 61 provinces!

but obviously such large expansions are usually impossible, because maps usually allow 10-15 provinces/player, not more than that. so in order to get those 20-25 provinces by the end of year1 you have to beat your neighbors to their own "natural" expansion territories, and perhaps even start an early war with a weak neighbor.