[Alneyan]

Welcome aboard! Answers given in random order; I was contemplating writing some sort of introductory guide, with some explanations on how things work, what is worth it, and the like. Hmm.

- On the Pretender: your main problem here is that the Pretender virtually mirrors your native mages: your Mystics will have Earth 2, your Priestesses have Nature 1, and your Astrologers can reach Astral 5 with a lucky pick and an item. If you want to focus on your national magic, you should pick higher magic levels, such as an Astral level around 9, for example (and some Nature magic, at least 3, to be able to increase the Nature magic of your Priestesses). If you focus strongly on one path, you will likely want to look at the Pretenders strong in this one path, when available. I cannot think of an Astral mobile Pretender however, besides your national Shedu.

Another alternative is to get a Pretender with offensive capabilities. I have described one such setup (among many) in a recent thread (Looking for a good PBEM setup), with some generic explanations; this setup was a Virtue with multiple paths, perfectly able to take provinces on her own, and a competent mage. She will allow you to defend yourself more easily, while giving you a wider array of magic spells. Another option for a fighting Pretender involves the use of a tough melee fighter, relying on hitpoints and protection, rather than spells for defence; examples include the Nataraja or the Dragons. In this case, you should still consider giving them a path of magic or two to augment their offensive capabilities.

Yet another setup, this time geared for expansion, is the use of blessed troops. If your Pretender has level 4 or more in any given path, your holy troops (when blessed) will gain additional bonuses; at level 9, another bonus is gained. For example, a Moloch with Fire-9 will give your Heart Companions +4 to attack, and flaming weapons, allowing them to deal more damage. You will need a Priestess to bless them, however, but once they are in the field, ten of them or so should do some very nice damage against the independents. The Moloch has also access to Fire Darts (Evocation 1), a Fire spell whose firepower increases quickly with magic levels. The Moloch can cast this spell *very* easily, and do some real damage with it.

Note that this last setup is specialised for expansion, and will likely be hard put against the AI early game tactics. Any Pretender able to take down independents alone should work well, however. Which brings me to my second point...

- Some players considered the AI to be too weak and too easy to figure out. More specifically, the AI has trouble as the game draws on, but it does a fairly good job at swarming you early on. Having a Pretender able to deal with those troops should be helpful, since the AI will almost only field mundane troops, the kind of which a fighting Pretender can take down quite easily.

Your nation is likely at a disadvantage in this stage of the game too: Arcoscephale is not the best nation for building up troops quickly, and a swarm army can be annoying indeed. An option to deal with such "nuisances" is to deploy Elephants, very potent creatures when it comes to destroy an enemy army quickly. However, Elephants are prone to rout, and so you should put other troops in their squad. If you have Hoplites and Elephants in the same squad, the morale of the whole squad will take into account both units: one creature at 20 morale and two at 10 morale will result in a squad morale of... 13.67, much better than the basic 10.

- Speed of expansion: A tough one to answer, as it mostly depends on your strategy. It is possible to go at full speed, and to have more than 20 provinces after turn 10; it is also possible to go more slowly, and search your provinces for magic sites, while building up your forteresses. Usually though, you will want to conquer one province per turn on average at least, and more when possible (when you have two armies in the field).

- Defending provinces: The most common approach is to leave them alone, and to go on ahead, unless said province happens to be a choke point. If you want to protect a province and do not have a fort there yet, you should station troops and mages/fighting commanders (the Super-combattants, or SC in short, able to deal a lot of punishment by themselves); a Strategos will not do much to protect a province. Every single province should have one point of Province Defence, allowing you to have a report of the enemy forces taking the province. If you are planning on leaving defence forces in the province, you should not raise PD however, as it can actually harm you.

Again, the AI tends to be bloodthirsty in the early game, and is likely to attack you very soon. A possible way of reducing this is by raising PD to "strategic" levels: the AI will be less likely to attack provinces with a PD of 11 (and higher), or a PD of 21+. This is unlikely to deter major assaults though, and PD should never be expected of winning against all but the most minor raids alone. The AI will *not* take into account the power of your commanders, and will likely attack your lone Pretender whenever given the opportunity, regardless of the actual power of the Pretender.

- Building: A fort serves several purposes, namely defence (it has to be stormed first), protection of your magic sites and temples, and recruitment of units and commanders. If you build a temple, you should put a fort in the same province, as otherwise raiders can burn your temple to the ground. Multiple forts will also allow you to recruit more troops everywhere, and, above all, more commanders, from scouts to the mages. Arcoscephale can recruit two mages everywhere, and you should use this ability as much as possible (your Astrologers can only be recruited at home).

Exactly how many you should be building depends on your situation, the worth of the province, and your needs, but you should try to protect those provinces you deem the most important first. If you will barely feel the loss of a province, it is probably not worth the trouble of protecting it. Temples are another matter, and you should not need to build many of those: your Dominion strength is of 7, high enough to make you fairly safe from enemy Dominion.

- Commanders: whenever possible, you should recruit mages instead of mundane commanders, especially if you only have one fort. Once you take another province, you will be able to recruit their basic commander(s) there, freeing your fort for mage recruitment. If you need to command troops with your mages, Mystics are your best bet: their Leadership is of 10, but any level of Fire will give them +5 to (regular) Leadership, so a Fire-2 Mystic will have a Leadership of 20.

You should not feel duty-bound to protecting all your provinces however, mainly because you will never have the means of doing so: even if you only have five provinces (without a fort), protecting all five of them will result in only having 20% of your forts in all those provinces, making you much more vulnerable to enemy attack. Mages are best kept in laboratories for research, though you may want/need to use them to fuel expansion too.

The only reasonable defence is to build more forts where you need them, and to keep a reaction squad ready. Arcoscephale has an easier time here, since they have good Astral mages and cheap labs. With Thaumaturgy 3, an Astral 3 commander will be able to teleport around anywhere, and with Thaumaturgy 5 (Gateway), an Astral 4 commander will be able to teleport to a friendly province with all his troops (so long as said province has a lab). So, if a host of enemy troops are going to storm one of your forts, you could Gateway an Astrologer with a bunch of troops, and perhaps a few other mages, to help the defenders.


A last suggestion: if you like a more defensive play, what about picking one of the two underwater nations? (Atlantis and R'lyeh) If you play Atlantis and R'lyeh isn't in the game, you will have a much easier time, since going underwater is hard. You should be left alone then, especially as the AI is going to have trouble fielding a serious offensive under the seas.