Some humble Tips and Advice for beginners

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
The holder of the fortress gets the income, while the holder of the province gets to set the tax rate.

This is incorrect. The holder of the province gets both the lion's share of the income, and gets to set the tax rate. I have dozens of save games that can prove it.

[Kel]

Originally posted by Arryn:
The holder of the province gets both the lion's share of the income, and gets to set the tax rate. I have dozens of save games that can prove it.

Interesting. I assume they don't get the benefit of the administrative increase to the provinces income then ? (since they don't own the fortification).

Anyone have a more specific idea on what the "lion's share" might be, percentage wise ?

Just curious,
- Kel

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Kel:
Anyone have a more specific idea on what the "lion's share" might be, percentage wise?

The reason I used the phrase "lion's share" is because the defender does get an income also. But the defender's income is smaller than the besieger's, from what I've seen.

I think the attacker gets the province income, all of it, and the defender gets just the admin income. But this is just a guess. Some testing, or word from the devs, would help pin this down.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

This is a good resource for beginners.

Please add a section on province defense. This is a part of the game that most beginners and many intermediate players don't know about or forget. Province Defense helps against restless natives, bandits, and invading armies. Any amount helps against restless natives to some degree. 5% or more helps against bandits. 10% or more helps patrol the province against enemy stealth units attempting to scout/spy/assassinate in your territory. At 10% I believe you also get a small squad of your base denfender unit, with one leader. At 20% you have two squads, and a pretty good defense against invading armies early in the game. The costs of PD escalates rapidly, so there is a point of diminishing return--which you have to decide upon. 0--10% costs 50 gold; 0-->20% costs 200gold; 0-->30% would cost 400gold (I think). Once you have paid, you don't have to pay again. You get the effects permanently--unless the province is taken from you!

Another tip is taxation. When you have a province with restless natives, you can reduce the problem by reducing taxes. Change your tax rate to 80% and people will start behaving themselves. Check back in a few turns--if you are back to 0% upset people, then change your taxes back up to 100%. Otherwise your province could get worse, and you could lose taxes and resources--and population--in the long run.

OTOH, these might be better in an intermediate manual, as newbies have enough to worry about with this extremely complicated game!!

[Arryn]

Cost of 10 PD (ten units + a leader, not 10%) is 55.

Cost of 20 PD (20 units + 2 leaders) is 210.

Type of units in your PD is explained in detail on page 9 of the user manual. You get one of the unit type in table #2 per PD point from 1 to 19, and 1 of the type in table #3 per PD point 20 and higher.

So, if you are C'tis and have 25 PD (in your capital), then you have 1 Commander, 1 Task Master, 38 militia, and 6 slave warrior. Arco's capital would have 1 Hoplite Commander, 1 Mounted Commander, 19 cardaces, and 6 light cavalry.

[ March 03, 2004, 00:45: Message edited by: Arryn ]

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Arryn:
Cost of 10 PD (ten units + a leader, not 10%) is 55.

Cost of 20 PD (20 units + 2 leaders) is 210.

More precisely: cost of going from (n-1) to (n) is always n gold, so that buying (n) PD from scratch costs (n+1)*n/2 gold.

Also, one should keep in mind that PD always start dead center on the battlefield, with no special orders (so that defaults to Attack Closest for non-archers, and Fire Closes for archers, I believe). It might be important if, say, you are Abysia and have PD commanders with a fire aura: if you have non-Abysian troops stationed there, they will typically get burned by the PD commander's aura. So if you're building indie units in a province that might get attacked, it may be a good idea to have a commander and set them apart from the center. (I've lost a good number of troops to this)

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by PhilD:
Also, one should keep in mind that PD always start dead center on the battlefield, with no special orders (so that defaults to Attack Closest for non-archers, and Fire Closes for archers, I believe). It might be important if, say, you are Abysia and have PD commanders with a fire aura: if you have non-Abysian troops stationed there, they will typically get burned by the PD commander's aura. So if you're building indie units in a province that might get attacked, it may be a good idea to have a commander and set them apart from the center. (I've lost a good number of troops to this)

I always take my automatic Province Defense army into consideration. For many of them you can turn a mediocre PD force into something powerful by adding shooters. If any province can make any shooters I try to add the same number as the PD I put there.

Some nations can use more commanders, some gain alot of boost by adding flyers. Its different for each one but definetly worth thinking about.