Musings on getting the most out of the early game

[quantum_mechani]

Good points, particularly this one:

Ironhawk said:
-If your nation starts with a scout I "probe" promising provinces on turn 1 with it. This simply means attacking that prov with the scout (or any commander for that matter) set farthest back and ordered to retreat. This will reveal the exact composition of the indy force which can mean the difference b/w success or failure.

This has the added bonus of often giving your scout a heroic ability. That may not seem like much, but there is a variety of uses for heroic scouts. Quickness or precision ones are great for equipping with ranged/spellcasting magic items, awe or toughness can make them neat solo raiders, and of course almost anything on a Jotun scout makes them even more useful...

[Endoperez]

quantum_mechani said:
This has the added bonus of often giving your scout a heroic ability. That may not seem like much, but there is a variety of uses for heroic scouts. Quickness or precision ones are great for equipping with ranged/spellcasting magic items, awe or toughness can make them neat solo raiders, and of course almost anything on a Jotun scout makes them even more useful...

And when you take into account that Jotun Scouts have better stats than your starting Jotun Herse... And a Jotun Scout that has had Heroic Quickness for over ten turns is pretty powerful once you have researched Construction and give him few items, armor makes the most difference but other items are very useful, as well. And of course, if you prophetize him...

[Morkilus]

Thanks, QM. This is perfect for those stuck in n00bville like me. Does everyone do the tax-heavy thing at the beginning of the game until a stable army is built? I usually wait a couple turns while researching a good spell for my pretender to fire, but that hurts in those very difficult research games.

[quantum_mechani]

Morkilus said:
Does everyone do the tax-heavy thing at the beginning of the game until a stable army is built?

Well, I can't speak for everyone, but I usually (unless, say, I'm surrounded by heavy cavalry provinces) move out my starting army plus whatever I built on the first turn to start conquering on turn two. With a combat pretender, he often stays behind at first to research buffs, then starts conquering solo.

[Ironhawk]

One point that I just thought of: The dilemma of whether to prophetize one of your starting commanders or to recruit one and prophetize that. What do you folks do?

[Truper]

Personally, I don't find patrolling for dollars on the early turns to be worthwhile. The loss in population can be significant, and you will eventually lose more than you gain - although there is certainly something to be said for having higher income *now*.

As for prophets, it depends entirely on nation. If I'm playing a nation with level 4 priests, you can be sure I'll recruit one on turn one, and prophetize him on turn 2. I love having a prophet who can Smite - it just feels so *right*. On the other hand, if I'm playing Man, which has no high-level priests, I'll ususally make the starting Castellan my prophet.

[quantum_mechani]

Truper said:
Personally, I don't find patrolling for dollars on the early turns to be worthwhile. The loss in population can be significant, and you will eventually lose more than you gain - although there is certainly something to be said for having higher income *now*.

As for prophets, it depends entirely on nation. If I'm playing a nation with level 4 priests, you can be sure I'll recruit one on turn one, and prophetize him on turn 2. I love having a prophet who can Smite - it just feels so *right*. On the other hand, if I'm playing Man, which has no high-level priests, I'll ususally make the starting Castellan my prophet.

The thing about turn one patrolling, by the time the expense catches up with you, it should have easily paid for itself with faster expanding.

I very much agree about prophetizing though, it all depends on the nation. If you are playing Niefelhiem, not many people are going to pass up a Niefel Jarl prophet. And if you are Man or Ulm with nothing particularly eye-catching to prophetize, you might as well do starting scout or commander. That is an interesting choice in itself though, scout prophets can stealth preach and spread dominion where you want it later, but they have a tendency to die when moral supporting early battles.

[thejeff]

quantum_mechani said:
Well, I can't speak for everyone, but I usually (unless, say, I'm surrounded by heavy cavalry provinces) move out my starting army plus whatever I built on the first turn to start conquering on turn two.

What strength indies do you usually play with?

I usually play high (8 or 9) and it takes awhile to build up an army tough enough to take even the weaker provinces.

As for prophets, while Smite is nice, I usually find that getting the full army blessing and moral spells at Holy 4 is at least as important. So I won't usually prophetize a starting commander unless the nation only has Holy 2 priests. Getting divine blessing is especially important if you're playing a bless strategy, obviously.

[Boron]

Forgot one thing regarding sitesearching:

Unless you play a <40% site frequency game Pythium should sitesearch via accashic. This way they save valuable magetime.
Arco can also consider using Accashic.

[WraithLord]

Boron said:
Forgot one thing regarding sitesearching:

Unless you play a <40% site frequency game Pythium should sitesearch via accashic. This way they save valuable magetime.
Arco can also consider using Accashic.

I'm not so sure about that. Astral gems can be put to so many good uses, especially by Pythium and Arco. They can be used for teleportation, spying, mind hunting, wishing and so forth. IMO With so many good uses for astral it's better to waste the other gem for remote site searching.