Early Game, Mid Game, and End Game... What's the goal of each?

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by PhilD:
Oh, and send scouts around. Even if you hear that the AI is predictable. Shield your armies and borders with scouts; that way, you'll know if an enemy army is likely to reinforce the province you're planning on attacking, and you'll see the enemy moving to attack you.

I rarely send scouting forces against the AI, whereas I do so extensively against humans. The stealth ability of scouts is relatively poor, and the AI's tendency to splatter forces around everywhere and buy up large quantities of PD means that they'll get caught fairly often. The AI's behavior is simultaneously predictable(in that it will rarely surprise you) and erratic(in that there's no apparent rhyme or reason to what it does at times), so unless you're very experienced in how it operates, scouting will not tell you very much you didn't already know.

This does not apply to human opponents! Information is the key to survival against a human opponent, and you MUST scout, lest you be in for a nasty surprise.