Quote:
Originally Posted by Calahan
I am just a third-party follower of this series of games, but don't forget that giving a noob a nice chunky gold increase on his capital just means an extra bonus to the vet that takes it off him 
Joking aside, my outsiders advice to the noobs is to get the SP practice games going, and learn to conquer Indy's with the minimum number of troops possible. Since that is where a large part of the vets advantage over the noobs occurs in the first 10-15 turns. Some of the nations with good sacreds only need 3-4 troops to expand with using the right bless, so sending an army of 20-30 of the same troops can sometimes translate into expanding 5 times slower than a vet would in the same circumstances.
For example, try MA Ermor with an S9 bless. Use an army of Thaumaturg + 4 Shadow Vestals + 4 cheap Tower Shielded arrow decoys. This costs about 300gp and will take out most Indys, and what is key is that it can be recruited every turn to maximise quick expansion.
This is just one quick example, and there are many more like this for practically any half decent bless nation. Even some of the non bless nations have tough enough troops to allow expansion with just minimum numbers (eg.Abysia). And the best way to learn them I find is through trial and error in SP games  Since the first few turns of SP games are very similar to the first few turns of MP games. It's only after those first few turns that MP and SP games vary completely. |
Very good information, true the right selection of troops (and Vets know all that stuff), is I'm sure more efficient at expanding than simply clobering the indies with numbers, though I am sure both will work. The noobs I am targeting though, have very little SP or MP experience working with the different units of each nation and the in's and out's of n4 bless versus a n8 (or is it n9) bless.
Personally, I have never really taken the time to experiment with such things. (I just recently learned that there is another level of bless beyond level 4!). Some noobs just pick units they like and use those to expand with. But I am noobs noob if ever there were one or a more casual player if you will.
I am glad we do have a fan base though. Lets keep the input coming, especially from outsiders.
I am going to try an experiment with terrain types and starting location income,etc. I'll post my results in a bit.