MP: EA Oceans of Land - (Noob game) [running]

[13lackGu4rd]

Originally Posted by rdonj

To achieve a ridiculuos expansion like the ones I was talking about earlier, you need an awake SC, the ability to make an expansion party each turn from turn 1, and a second fort coming out early in the year. It also helps to have a good start location, and you can't really afford to lose expansion armies if you want to hit a number like that. Seriously though, it's not even worth considering that you'll have more than 20 provinces by the end of year one in a real game.

I must disagree with you here. an awake SC is needed for nations that have crappy starting/national armies and can't otherwise expand fast enough(10-15 provs) and hold off an early rush. a ridiculous expansion, 20+ even 30+ if map allows, requires a new expansion party every turn, usually a very economic expansion party. for example Mictlan/Lanka who recruit their H1B1 mage and 8-10(depending on starting dom) Jags/Palashankas every turn. they'll achieve quite a nice expansion by the end of year 1, assuming the map allows it. a more radical example would be Baalz's EK(Eagle King) expansion with Caelum, that starts on turn 5! but on turn 5 you get 4 provinces, on turn 6 you add 5 more, turn 7 you add 6 more, etc, as much as the map allows you to. and with MM3+Flying you can really cover A LOT of ground, hypothetically on turn 12 you'll have 61 provinces!

but obviously such large expansions are usually impossible, because maps usually allow 10-15 provinces/player, not more than that. so in order to get those 20-25 provinces by the end of year1 you have to beat your neighbors to their own "natural" expansion territories, and perhaps even start an early war with a weak neighbor.