Early Expansion Question

[Szumo]

For the MA Shinuyama question, i believe goblin shortbow archers are very cost-effective (as are monkey ones).

And the most important thing for fast expansions is to be able to take out indies without significant losses. Which means either combat pretender, good sacreds or lots of archers (preferably more than one thing from that list).

I try to take 1st province on 2nd turn, and start to take 2 provinces from turn 5 on. So i consider 20 to be decent result after 12 turns, anything less means you're not doing that well (may vary if map is crowded of course). If i run out of space during that time, i'll try to to secure NAPs with every of my neighbours except one, and rush that one to get his provinces.