Quote:
jutetrea said:
High prot units worth the resource cost in early expansion to have more leftover troops?
|
Depends if you have an expander pretender to pick up the slack in early expanding (it will be slower with high rec units).
Quote:
Secure a small/medium border, bulk up and hit with an unbeatable army? Or Keep poking/raiding and then overtax/pillage?
|
You always want to maintain raiding if at all possible.
Quote:
Send mages out early for xp and reduced losses or keep everyone at home for research early?
|
Keep anything that will keep mages away from research to a minimum.
Quote:
Mercenaries? worth it with the chance of a wasted bid? Obviously they're worth it short term but is the wasted bid worrisome?
|
It's usually very worthwhile to big on mercs, but keep in mind your bid must be higher on average if there are a lot of players.
Quote:
sit tight and bulk or expand quickly and paint yourself as a target?
|
As long as you don't get a long ways ahead of _everyone_ else in provinces you should generally expand at max speed.
Quote:
research site searching spells asap or wait till after either evoc 2-3 or const 2-4?
|
It's generally pretty safe to go for the site search spells right away. Of course, if you see signs of an early war brewing be sure and take note.
Quote:
Play nice early or pick an early target?
|
Play nice - it's very hard for an early rush to pay off unless you are much more skilled than your opponent.
Quote:
Try to form a survivor type alliance or go for the largest alliance you can? Based on geographic or strength? Kill the strongest first or ally with em?
|
Ally with whoever you can unless you plan to attack them soon or doing so will more or less gauarantee their eventual victory.
Some misc tips:
*Use indy scouts and troop leaders wherever possible, saves fort slots for mages.
*Don't use most low level summons unless you are already in a desperate war.
*Don't try a recruitable assassin strategy, a couple is a great distraction, many is a waste of money.
*Don't use a human rainbow mage, they are quite weak base and difficult to make good use of besides.
*Use decoys - 1 unit far in front and to the side of your main force, to draw arrows and enemies.
*Don't put all your mages in a big clump on the battlefield, spread them around so something unexpected can't kill them all at once.
*Don't try to equip recruitable commanders with stuff to fight in melee unless you are playing a couple very specific nations.
*Pretenders are mostly for fighting in melee, there are very few cases where having them cast spells from the back is useful enough to warrant bringing them.
*Generally, don't use cavalry or low armor (prot 1-10) infantry.