Guide: Some basic notes on expansion

[Admiral_Aorta]

Originally Posted by John_Madlock

I believe it is true. In the first and only castle recruiting researchers is a waste of commander recruitment slot. I believe recruiting a site searcher or even spy, commander with special skills, prophet chassis or something like that is better option. In the beginning of the game you don't have many gems for forging or summons and if you put all your mages to research you don't have battle mages, so you don't need research.

others have already covered it but this is a bad post. national commanders are never worth getting, you should always get mages. spys can be useful but you should never be getting them if you can get a mage instead. Magic becomes immportant almost immediately, and if you fall behind in research you have little chance of doing well later, even if you have extra provinces because you focused on expansion over research.

[John_Madlock]

Originally Posted by Admiral_Aorta

others have already covered it but this is a bad post. national commanders are never worth getting, you should always get mages. spys can be useful but you should never be getting them if you can get a mage instead. Magic becomes immportant almost immediately, and if you fall behind in research you have little chance of doing well later, even if you have extra provinces because you focused on expansion over research.

I agreed it's true when you have couple of castles already. But I think best for research is build these castles ASAP. This is a snowball effect - number of castles where you can buy mages - not a few additional researcher that you were buying in your capital in the first several turns. Same about magic sites, search for them ASAP.
I was talking about resercher mages, not about site finder or mages for lab building.

[momfreeek]

*snip* double post

[momfreeek]

Originally Posted by Admiral_Aorta

Magic becomes immportant almost immediately, and if you fall behind in research you have little chance of doing well later, even if you have extra provinces because you focused on expansion over research.

As a complete noob I was much more effective with land, money & troops than mages and early spells and I've not had a problem catching up with research. I'm still not sure how magic is important that early (I'm not questioning you, just verifying my noobness). Its good to know what is expected in games with more experienced players.

[jotwebe]

For a beginner I think it might be a good idea to focus on expansion first. When the lack of magic makes itself felt in midgame, at least he/she will have made it that far. And in a newbie game especially, being behind in research isn't necassarily an insurmounable problem.