Early Expansion Question

[sector24]

Do you guys normally take a province on the first turn before seeing what's there? If you lost that would pretty much be a death sentence in MP wouldn't it? I only ask because one time the province next to my capital happened to have 3 dark vines and 3 bloodhenge druids along with 50 chaff, and blindly walking into that would be a very bad start.

I know it's very nation specific, but I don't see how some nations can support expansion like that. MA C'tis for example has relatively underpowered national units and a bless strategy isn't viable there. What kind of expansion technique would work for them? I normally recruit the elite lizard warriors, but I lose a few every battle and eventually I have to combine two armies into one. I've never been able to expand quickly with nations like that.