[MaxWilson]

I find mercs are most useful at the start. 150 gp Brave Breakers can take 3-4 indy provinces before they fall apart, for instance, although you might get more or less depending on luck. Combine them with 30 gp Victor's Villains to extend their lifespan. Usually at the very beginning I'm production-limited more than gold-limited, and a merc company can make the difference between taking 4 turns to conquer all the provinces adjacent to my capital and doing it in 2 turns.

130% instead of 200% because I couldn't remember how good C'tis was at patrolling. My goal is to increase income for a turn without building up any residual unrest that will tie up the patrolling army for the next turn, when I'll need it for expansion. That is, either I'd have to accept the income hit from higher unrest, keep my army on patrolling, or else lower taxes. None of those is desirable, but if I set taxes at 130% or 140% (more for some nations, e.g. Caelum) I can get a turn of "free" income and still have my army usable for expansion on turn 2. Technically I *could* expand on turn 1, but I'd be doing it blindly, so I want my army to be doing something useful while it's hanging out waiting for the initial scouting reports.

I'm surprised the fear helps, since you have to be fairly close for it to work. I guess you're sending him into melee, which I tend to avoid because I hate getting afflictions on a non-recuperating/non-immortal pretender. Just a quirk of mine.

Yeah, 1 PD for the commander. Basically, if someone/something conquers a province I just want to be able to watch the battle. It's generally not worth it to me to buy a bunch of PD early on just in case a random barbarian horde drops on me; just take it back with an army. It does, however, help to know exactly how big the horde is and that's what the 1 PD gets me.

One thing that I didn't do in that test game that I should have done, is to built a High Priest instead of a Lizard Heir to lead my third army (IIRC on turn 7). C'tis has relatively low morale, and so having an extra caster for Sermon of Courage never hurts. Especially with chariots, because even though they don't usually break, when they do they trample your own forces. If I had extra gold I might buy a Lizard King instead of a High Priest, because Smiting can make a surprising amount of difference in combat vs. indies.

-Max