Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Send pretenders!
Some thoughts on expansion:
If you don't have archers recruit indie archers. Very useful in dealing with things like barbarians. Even if you do have archers you may want to recruit indies to free up resources at your cap for recruiting other troops.
If you are attacking a province with archers use decoys. Just put a couple of units in a squad and place them in front and a little to the left or right of all your other troops. The archers will attack the first squad that comes in range (your decoy) and keep targeting it until it is killed/routed. Archers work best on massed targets and sometimes those decoys will survive quite a long time (sometimes the whole battle).
When facing heavy cavalry put your worst troops up front to absorb the first strike from the lances. Just as with archers, feel free to recruit indies for this rather than using cap resources.
If you are using an SC to expand don't attack a lizard province. Lizard shamans will cast curse on your SC. This will greatly increase your chance of receiving afflictions when wounded. Lizards are actually pretty hard hitting with two attacks per round but even if you escape that battle unscathed you've increased the odds of picking up an affliction along the way, impairing your expansion and reducing the deterrent effect of your SC. Being cursed is especially dangerous for pretenders without regeneration. BTW, use archers against lizards the same way you would barbarians.
Recruit indie scouts. Intelligence is very important and early on also has the added bonus of allowing you to contact other players and work out a deal before your expansion forces accidentally collide.
After you take whatever provinces around your cap you need for resources aim to expand outwards and set your borders. You can always come back later and take indies inside those borders. But don't be too aggressive. If you box in another player they may just attack, feeling they have no other choice. Also, if you take the province lead (especially a large lead) you'll become a target.
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