Early expansion strategy

[Loren]

A post in another thread brought up an issue.

The person making the post was suggesting an expansion rate that I see no way in the world of attaining.

What is a reasonable early expansion rate and how should it be obtained??

[Shovah32]

Well you should be conquering atleast one province per turn from turn 2 onwards(your starter army with whatever you recruited first turn) and by turn 15(if you havnt run into other players) you should probably have atleast 20ish provinces(these figures without a heavy bless/awake SC pretender)

[Meglobob]

If you can get 20 - 30'ish provinces by turn 20 then you should be in a good postion. Of course it does depend on map size. A awake pretender/blessed troops/elephants etc...helps alot.

[KissBlade]

Easily attainable by this post:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

[Gandalf Parker]

A) send out scout. maybe toward farmlands or chokepoint.
B) put mage/pretender on research,
C) put everyone else on patrol.
D) turn taxes to 200%
E) purchase mercenary (optional in MP)
F) purchase troops best chosen to fill needs in the troops you have + the mercs (if you still lack shooters or large flankers then get those)

Turn 2:
Move scout.
You should now see your neighboring provinces. Pick one you can win since the next one and the one after that will be getting reinforcements. Also consider if you are most in need of gold or resources in selecting which ones to attack first. You want to be able to continue straight around your capital so if there is a blocking mountain you should start one one side of the other of it so you can swing full circle around your capital without having to take a two-turn sidestep. But most important is one you can win.
Attack that choice, and turn taxes back to 100 so you wont kick up your unrest.

Purchase mercs, purchase another leader and troops.

Turn 3:
Move scout.
Set defense to at least 1 on that new province. Check recruitables to see if there is something extremely useful.

Have the first army move to the next capital-neighbor. The new army#2 should be able to attack that same province. You MIGHT try sending them to a different province but that tends to take VERY good understanding of all the battle formulas to take that chance.

At capital purchase mercs and new leader with troops

Turn 4:
you get the idea, repeat until all of the capital neighbors are taken. THEN you can pick a direction to expand in (maybe you found another nation by then?). You can consider buying scouts, or mages, instead of a leader each turn.

Personally, I avoid spreading like a big puddle. I prefer to take a line toward the other nation leaving indepts on both side of it. Its easier to defend. Later as I send out armies I will take out the side sections.

[Gandalf Parker]

KissBlade said:
Easily attainable by this post:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

Thats a great post. Remember people that the Dom2 forums are still up and searchable.
Interesting to note that most of the people adding to that thread became beta-testers for Dom3

[Xietor]

I think it depends on size map and number of other players, and difficulty level. Typically i play cradle of dominions or a map about that size with at least 16 computer opponents and at times 2 human opponents as well.

If you get a area on map that has choke points, rush quickly to secure choke points. But if you expand too far and you are stuck in the middle of a map, you may find yourself facing 6-8 enemies in the game by turn 10 or so, and if more than 2 declare war on you, you may be in trouble.

I typically play the ai on difficult, which can be challenging if you get a crappy spot, and they can be annoying if they attack you while a human foe has free time to harass you.

[Gandalf Parker]

this game is full of "if" and "it depends" and variations. Thats what I love about it. You tend not to get an answer as much as you get 50 different answers. reminds me of Linux