prepping for beginning expansion

There are a few ways to do this. One of the easiest is having a SC Pretender ready for Indy Whacking on turn 2-3 and take a province a turn with him in that time.

Even without a SC Pretender you can take Territories with the right configuration of units.

The most common and easily usable is the Archer with Melee support.

Usually you will need from 15-20 Archer/Xbows. Your initial melee troops. Set one (1) melee troop in the front of your block of archers with Hold and Attack Orders, and your Archers on Fire Closest.

The rest of your Melee troops held at the very back in a block in hold and attack (in order to keep morale). That one single melee troop has a bomb strapped to his head and is screaming "Praise Allah" after 2 turns, but your Archers will mow down most of the approaching force (Only use Xbows for HInfantry, if you have normal archers or not very many Longbowmen, stay away from Cav provinces) and they will rout.

The reason you need the other melee troops in the back is so you can restock your "Target" for Indy missile fire and melee giving your Archers time to shoot holes in the opponents. You can usually take anywhere from 4-6 provinces on that kind of initial force before needing to resupply.

Another way to kill indies using their morale against them is to put a highly survivable unit in front (Think Van, or Knight) with the main body of your forces on a flank with attack rear orders. You probably have a 50/50 chance that your survivable unit will survive enough for your main forces to hammer into the archer/commanders in the back and cause the entire host to rout.

Last but not least, Cause Fear and Fear Spells are ways to insta-rout most indy provinces. Things with high Fear Auras (PoD is a classic Example) or using spells like Panic, Terror or troops with Lesser Fear auras.

With a fear or spell on units they will make morale check every time they are *hit*. So having at least 1 square of an entire squad in your aura of fear will make the entire squad make a morale check. Such spells as Fire Flies, Shards, or archer/javalins cause alot of morale checks before actually engaging you and causing most fodder (LI) to rout without touching you and 1 to 2 rounds of HI. Then cleaning up the Archers is cake.

Edit: You can also use the AI to split it's forces (especially if you are running a higher end of Indep 7-9). By placing a single melee/missile unit slightly forward on one flank (say the north) and the bulk of your units on the southern flank with specific orders (Again, Attack Archers/Rearmost is good) they will hammer into archers and most likely cause a rout after 1-3 rounds. This works particularly well with commanders so you can have them hold 1 or 2 rounds then begin to retreat stringing out the enemy melee forces letting you have more squares to attack.

[ June 08, 2004, 20:26: Message edited by: Zen ]