worlds without the borders

[alexti]

Originally posted by apoger:
>inland map, indy 6, otherwise standard, around 12 impossible AI

That's just about as hard as you can make this game. No shame in having trouble with that setting. It's very crowded. It's almost certain that this setting will lead you to close contact with multiple impossible AI's very early.


>Typically, I would get around 20 provinces by turn 15-17

That's pretty good considering the size of the map. You have more than your share and are squeezing your neighbors.

Part of the issue with this set-up is that it requires lightning fast play. You need not only to take many provinces... you need to conquer a neighbor early. Absorbing a neighbor early and being ready for more is hard. You will need to defeat that first enemy with great efficiency, taking almost no losses. If you expand slow, or take losses, you won't be in shape to handle the others.

Could you give any idea what is fast and how early you need to conquer the first neighbour? At the moment I've conquered my first neighbour at turn 40 (too late I guess) and during the Last 20 turns I've added whopping 2 provinces to my empire. Meanwhile 2 other nations were conquered by other AI, so I'm one of 3 approximately equally strong nations. During this phase I've advanced in death and blood magic, so now I've my borders better stocked with different summons (mostly Pale Riders) and I got a couple equipped Ice Devils. It still looks survivable :-)

Jotunheim is not a fast nation as many troops need lots of production. Furthermore it is hard to stock up border patrols/response teams with these pricey troops while also attacking enemies successfully. As I said... you have chosen a hard scenario.

I don't know which theme you are using, so I'll toss advice for each;

First, as the other gentleman suggested, consider enchantment-1 and using your death gems for reanimations. Those undead will do just fine.

I'm operating in Drain conditions, so I was saving death gems to make few skull mentors to boost research (until getting them, I'm falling behind in research). I was getting ench-1 anyway, so that my death-hags can put some undead on the battlefield (when there's no archers and my giants are on hold in the back, summonned undead seem to work well to soften enemies).

Joutunheim [Iron Woods] relies on stealth, blood, and random magics. None of this is fast, and won't help much in your situation. It's a very poor choice for this scenario. I'd advise skipping this theme. If you must use it, use a pretender that can handle combat, and use mercs as much as possible. Pick a slow developing enemy and try to target your troops for a fast kill. Hurlers work well versus small numbers of high armor troops such as Ulm is likely to have. Javelinists work well versus light troops like Mictlan or C'tis are likely to have. Good luck!

Ahh... My misfortune +3 - of course, I'm playing Iron Woods ;-)

Well, that's my advice, for what's it's worth. Good luck.

Thanks for advice, you gave me a lot of useful info and tips.