early game expansion tactics

[Andy]

I've been using my Great Mother as a combat leader - generally she casts a couple of spells then charges into the fray

currently playing with this setup in four PBEM games and all my solo endeavours - independants ranging from strength 3 to 6

[st.patrik]

To my mind your starting strategy really depends on how you're going to play the game - specifically whether you're going to be a physically or magically powerful nation. If you are going to need lots of gems sometimes it's ok to expand more slowly (like you are doing, searching each province as you conquer it). On the other hand if your main strength is going to be your recruited armies you probably want to give gem searching a back seat.

Early expansion does seem to be pretty important, so unless you have some definite goal for what you want to do with your gems, I would say focus on expansion.

[Gandalf Parker]

Set the independents higher. The AI does better against weak AIs, a smart player picking his battles can be better against strong ones.

Also try leaving out Ermor, Atlantis, Rlyeh, Abyssia, Caelum

[Norfleet]

I find that the use of excessive force is very useful in early expansion. Yes, you could probably take a province with, say, the army you have now....but that would involve a higher loss ratio. Squashing them with excessive force will minimize your losses from attrition, and will allow your army to keep on rolling longer. After all, anything worth doing is worth doing with excessive force.

As a rule of thumb, if there is any doubt in your mind over whether or not you can squash the puny rebels, you need more force.

[ February 12, 2004, 02:31: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Andy]

so what viable options are there for exploration/magic site discovery if I don't use my pretender?

I know there are spells that do the job, but they each seem to only cover one affinity which equates to a LOT of spells if I want to check every province in my empire.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Andy:
so what viable options are there for exploration/magic site discovery if I don't use my pretender?

I know there are spells that do the job, but they each seem to only cover one affinity which equates to a LOT of spells if I want to check every province in my empire.

Acashic Record, Conjuration level 5, requires Astral-3 to cast, will search the entire province and reveal all sites. Using this will require a good source of gem income, though, since it's 25 astrals per pop. If your nation has an astral gem source as part of its home province, you're well set. Otherwise, you can try the cheaper single-affinity search spells to try to expand your gem income, and then do the Acashic Record for a much more thorough sweep of anything left.

Viable options? If you get a Pan with 3 Earth, 3 Nature that is about 95% effective as your pretender with 4 Earth, 4 Nature.

I know the initial urge to find every explored site is very hard to ignore, but it wastes (if you have a national priest who can do it nearly as well) your pretenders time while at the same time could give you little/no results.

You could even have a Pandemoniac casting bowl of blood for you, if you'd like as your Pan searches.

Expansion nets you the territories that you would search. Also, highly searched provinces tend to be juicy targets by opponents (I find it hard not to take provinces with 2+ sites, as soon as I see them).

A more appropriate question would be, what are you going to use your gems on? *and* How fast and how many of these gems do I need in X timeframe?

[ February 12, 2004, 03:18: Message edited by: Zen ]