Any good tips for starting out?

[Drysh]

hmmm.. None of the above.

I start with half my troops with each commander to get some resources quickly. After that, it depends on the type of commander.

I suggest using your commander only in the beginning of the game, because it will be probably your stronger unit at the time. After a while is too dangerous to loose him, and he won't make much difference in a fight. You may loose your bonus (some of them) if your commander dies. But some commanders may be used the whole game (like the Warlock after binding 3 or 4 earth elementals) and some should stay home to be more efficient (like the Shaman).

To protect you base, leave 2 soldiers there in the beginning, and recruit some more later. This will prevent the lone independent to take your base.

Strategy 4 is the only one that can defeat the computer with "gods reborn" adversaries on an enormous world.

[Drysh]

Some tips:

1. With the SHAMAN: use domination on the commander of enemy armies. Without the commander they won't move anymore. Several dominations may paralize your enemy, leaving only a small army for you to defeat. Make traps for your enemies by sending a single commander close to their base and letting an army kill him, so their army is far away from other commanders when you dominate its commander. For leaders that have high magical resistance, use the toten pole twice and the shaman once for nightmares, and use the last actions of the shaman for possession.

2. With the WARLOCK: After every battle, check how your fire and earth elementals are. Bind those that are wounded or worse. Multiple binds of these two elementals are cumulative!!! Enjoy your warlock with 200 hit points and one-shot-one-kill fireballs.

[capnq]

I haven't played enough games to decide if it's a good strategy, but I usually keep the big leader in the citadel with a token defense force, and send the assistant out with everything else to explore and capture resources.

I haven't played yet on a difficulty setting high enough to require sending both leaders out right away, but I usually find some reason to send the big leader out fairly early on.

[kongxinga]

Hmm, I will try the half half technique and see how it works.

Stacking the sub commander leader with the lord often means the difference between no casualties and 2-3 dead units because of the damage soak and additional firepower.

When I tried sending my sub commander out flagging resources, after 3-4 turns a large neutral stack frequently ganks him. That's 60 or so gold down the drain for maybe a +6 gold cash flow. Pretty bad trade. That's how I started putting him with the lord.

My citadel often dies to those huge roaming brigand stack, but leaving enough forces to deter that will leave my main stack to weak to kill anything. Does this happen to anyone else?

I tried the warlock and he is way cheesy. Capture mines, take cities, and watch the gems flow in. In fact all factions with more than 1 resource (ie gold and fungus, gold and sacrifice) seem much more powerful than the factions with one resource, except for the necromancer, who has a very difficult start.

Do all factions eventually get 2 free leaders? I tried the troll King, and after a few turns you would get a funny surprise. I won't spoil it, but it is hilarious. Even the agarthans get a new leader sometime into the game.

[capnq]

kongxinga said: My citadel often dies to those huge roaming brigand stack, but leaving enough forces to deter that will leave my main stack to weak to kill anything. Does this happen to anyone else?

I routinely leave a garrison of only two missle and two melee units in a citadel, and it hardly ever gets attacked. Maybe I just don't have the difficulty set high enough.

I think the most critical thing is to seize a second citadel as soon as possible. You only need to hold one to stay in the game. (Just to make sure I'm being clear, I'm using "citadel" to mean any fortification that lets you recruit troops, not just the big ones that each player starts with.)