Fortress to Province ratio

[lch]

I usually build 1-2 additional forts myself in early game. Other forts I take over from other players. If I reach the "late game, too much money and nothing to spend it on" phase of the game, then I tend to put it into forts+temples, too.

[Seve82]

In mp puting fort on all vp provinces is quite important to prevent quick wins by some teleport/sneak/flying thugs/armies.

[DonCorazon]

I will build a few forts early on at key strategic points and to avoid having to move men over difficult terrain, but by late game, I just take them over from others. aka "We DO Not Sow".

By late game I actually find them a hindrance at times when for example I want my mages to be researching in a province, but also involved in defense. Having a fort makes that a problem and I have actually destroyed forts for that reason. Also, by late game, conventional troops are less relevant so I'd rather be spending my money on mages.

[das123]

Some of you have mentioned in this and other posts that you aim to have 20 provinces by the end of year 1 (12 turns). How is this possible? The most I have got after the first year is about 6 or 7.

Can someone please explain (or point to a thread) that shows what you do each turn to get this?

[Endoperez]

Basically, a pretender that can take one province/turn from turn 3 or 4 forwards, preferably without any troops support. That will basically double your expansion rate.

Very high-power bless is another option, but it depends on a nation. Strategically fast (mapmove at least 2), resource-cheap sacred units are more useful than slow, resource-intensive sacreds, and having multiple attacks will double Water 9 or Fire 9 bless effectiveness, and quadruple Water 9/Fire 9 bless effectiveness. MA/LA Vanheim's mounted Vanir with F9W9 bless are perhaps the most common example.

Learning to expand well with national units is also important. Most expensive unit isn't necessarily the best, because numbers matter, and "missile units scale better than melee units". The latter means that even though X number of melee and missile units are both unable to conquer a spesific province, 2*X missile units can conquer it, but 2*X melee units can't. This works especially well with nations like MA Marignon, who can boost their crossbows with Flaming Arrows in middle-game.

[MaxWilson]

Mercs can help in the early game because they don't cost extra resources, just gold. Other than that, it depends on your nation, but most starting armies can do pretty well against indies on the default settings (independent strength = 5) if you just toss in 10-20 missile units. A key point: use your Prophet or other priests who can cast Sermon of Courage or (even better) Sermon of Courage + Smite.

Beyond that, it's hard to get specific without talking about a nation and/or pretender build. Here's a link to a DAR (During Action Report) that I just started: http://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/...-part-one.html

You'll see that it's early fall (Turn 6) and I own 7 provinces. I did take a good bless (E10N6) and one tough province (knights) was conquered using a blessed Adon after my mercs got slaughtered, but 3 of the 7 provinces were conquered using the starting army + Prophet + 1 turn's worth of slingers, plus one Ahiman Anakite. One province is of course my capital, and the seventh province was conquered by the aforementioned mercs on the third turn before they got killed against the knights and heavy inf. (Turn 1, Prophetize starting commander and send out scouts. Turn 2, look at intelligence reports and decide who's weak, send out troops. Turn 3, battles actually occur. In this case I took 2 provinces on Turn 3, none on Turn 4 (picking up troops) 1 on turn 5, and 2 on turn 6.) I'll probably try taking at least one territory per turn with both of my current armies until they suffer some kind of disastrous defeat, and build more armies at home in the meantime. One thing that can slow down expansion is getting too worried about casualties, and thus trying to build up overwhelming force before you attack. It's usually not necessary, and you can skip tough provinces in most cases and/or leave them as perimeter guards.

Really, most indies are pushovers.

-Max