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I just ran an expansion test using a Dom 9 Kraken F2A3E3D3N3 with full negative scales except Luck 3 and Magic 3. 1st year ended with 16 provinces and 9 gems per turn. Kraken attacks a province a turn out of the gate, while your starting income goes to Meteorite Guards as resources permit and Shambler Thralls! Prophetize your starting commander and on turn 2, give him the guards and thralls and hit a land province. The Kraken continued to take provinces and I started recruiting Starspawn mages until I got 2 with picks I liked (2W) and sent them out searching behind the Kraken to snag the W and S sites it would miss. I kept cranking Meteorites and Shamblers for a couple turns until my prophet swung back home, grabbed them and took a few more land provinces.

I kept expanding until I ran out of indies and at end of year two I had: 27 provinces, 4 fort/lab/temple including my cap (none of which were sites). I was a little slow on gathering research (Conj 4, Evo 2, Cons. 6 and Thau 1) but was cranking out 335 RP a turn by the end of year two. Gem-wise, I only spent gems on site searching, an empowerment for clams (I had forged 1 clam by end of year 2) and a hammer. I had 238 gems in the bank and 31 gems per turn coming in. I supplemented the Kraken/Starspawn searching with Tiamats, Arcane Probing and Dark Knowledge. I also ended year two with 31 Starspawn mages and 11 Starspawn priests.


My conclusions from this test: Early expansion should not be done in a conquer/search/conquer/search pattern. My opinion is that the pretender should carve a straight line and then, lacking new lands to conquer, turn around and site search his own tracks. Taking provinces quickly means more money sooner which means more forts, labs, mages, research and troops sooner. I also think that your national troops are viable for, and should be made all throughout, your entire expansion. The combination of a handful of Meteorites to soak an initial rush and shamblers to dish damage (supplemented later with small amount of freespawn chaff) makes for rapid expansion on land and water both. The last consideration towards shambler thralls over crab hybrids is you can suicide the thralls in your first war to avoid paying the upkeep. That's much harder to do with aquatic hybrids.

I also think that the combination of Magic 3 and Luck 3 is invaluable for the boost in random gem income. Like the expansion test Chris posted earlier, I had no death gem income whatsoever from pretender searches and Tiamats, but I was able to blow the 30+ death gems I had gotten through events on Dark Knowledges until I rolled up a small death income.

Prophetizing your starting commander and heading immediately to land lets you snag a small chunk of land and firmly entrench your dominion in it. I don't expect the idea of starting an early shooting war with Ryleh over a few dominion-addled provinces rather than just focusing on checking their dominion is a good proposition. Unless everyone decides to obliterate you because you're Ryleh, but then hey .. what's a be-tentacled encephalophage to do?