How Do You Balance Growth?

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by incognito:
One person posted the ability to build 20 castles by turn 21. Still others are fielding at least a SC or 2 by that same stage. Still others have completed significant research in several fields. In most of these cases, I get the strong sense that they are not horribly unbalanced at these stages ie they did not sacrifice any hope of winning the game to accomplish these objectives.

The thing you're missing is that some sort of "horrible unbalance" is the key to winning in the first place. You generally *NEED* to focus on a subset of the to-do list in order to be successful. Otherwise, you end up being average in all categories at best, having no real strengths to leverage off of. Thus, when we veterans cite having accomplished some monumental task earlier than you'd have thought was reasonably possible, that's because that was our objective, and it likely represents an important element of the strategy we're pursuing. If there's some shortfall in another area....we're not going to tell you about that. Instead, we're going to hide it while bludgeoning you over the head with the thing we're strong in. While we pummel you ruthlessly using the strength we've rushed to develop, you're in no position to exploit any weaknesses we haven't told you about, and are forcing you to find on your own....if you can get out from under being bludgeoned. The "veteran" thing to do is often to intentionally rush for some key instrument at the expense of some other thing....and then bludgeon the nearest victim over the head with it brutally before he can develop an effective countermeasure to it, by which time we'll be larger and healthier, and able to easily rectify the imbalance we created by our initial rush for some instrument. It's much easier to do one thing right, then use that as leverage, then it is to try to do everything at once, have nothing to use as leverage against your opponents, and thus get bludgeoned.

[ July 27, 2004, 19:33: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[LintMan]

Arryn's AAR was a great help in me getting a feel for the game "balance" as you call it. Most other AAR's are less detailed and more fiction-oriented, which is fun/interesting, but can be less useful as a learning tool.

Other thoughts:
Here's a thread with some Posts that might touch on some of what you're asking about.

Order of Expansion thread

If someone has 20 castles at turn 21, they probably have the cheapest castle type and are building a castle in every province; this is a very specialized strategy I wouldn't recommend unless you know why you're doing it and what the tradeoffs are (and there are some)

Getting 1 or 2 basic SC's by turn 20 isn't so hard, especially if that's your targeted goal. Bane Lords don't take that much research, and neither does construction of a few items to start them off.

You might also find some other worthwhile discussions here is you search on particular aspects of your question, ie: research and site searching strategies, super combatants, "castling".

[tinkthank]

One example could be (with some tradeoffs) to slap a wraith sword on a Niefel Jarl; you can do this multiple times by turn 20; with the right randoms, you can toss a pendant of luck and some sort of etheralizer on them too, plus ditto on your pretender, and/or any other little gadgets you can construct, and hence by turn 20 you can have a bunch of SC-type units, if that is your goal. You won't have much of anything else, however, but that isn't the question.

If however the question was: How can I get mulitple SCs (or tons of castles) by turn 20 and simultaneously either a) have a great economy or b) have a kick-butt army or c) have a multifaceted research schemata or d) have lots of neat casters or e) have at least 2-3 mercs or f) have scouted the majority of the map so you know who and where your enemies are and what their weaknesses may be or g) site searched to achieve good gem income or h) conquered strategically significant provinces or i) be able to play in a style that suits me well and is fun for me or j) any or all of the above
then that is a different kettle of fish altogether. The answer may very well be "you cannot".