Boot Camp - Finished - Soyweiser/Jotunheim wins!

[Valerius]

Some thoughts on expansion:

If you don't have archers recruit indie archers. Very useful in dealing with things like barbarians. Even if you do have archers you may want to recruit indies to free up resources at your cap for recruiting other troops.

If you are attacking a province with archers use decoys. Just put a couple of units in a squad and place them in front and a little to the left or right of all your other troops. The archers will attack the first squad that comes in range (your decoy) and keep targeting it until it is killed/routed. Archers work best on massed targets and sometimes those decoys will survive quite a long time (sometimes the whole battle).

When facing heavy cavalry put your worst troops up front to absorb the first strike from the lances. Just as with archers, feel free to recruit indies for this rather than using cap resources.

If you are using an SC to expand don't attack a lizard province. Lizard shamans will cast curse on your SC. This will greatly increase your chance of receiving afflictions when wounded. Lizards are actually pretty hard hitting with two attacks per round but even if you escape that battle unscathed you've increased the odds of picking up an affliction along the way, impairing your expansion and reducing the deterrent effect of your SC. Being cursed is especially dangerous for pretenders without regeneration. BTW, use archers against lizards the same way you would barbarians.

Recruit indie scouts. Intelligence is very important and early on also has the added bonus of allowing you to contact other players and work out a deal before your expansion forces accidentally collide.

After you take whatever provinces around your cap you need for resources aim to expand outwards and set your borders. You can always come back later and take indies inside those borders. But don't be too aggressive. If you box in another player they may just attack, feeling they have no other choice. Also, if you take the province lead (especially a large lead) you'll become a target.

[durecellrabbit]

Originally Posted by Valerius

Yeah, I consider heavy cav/knights to the the worst overall (well, aside from things like those air mages that will lightning you to death). Barbarians can pack a punch but if you have archers or can recruit indie archers you can deal with them easily enough.

There are quite a few tough ones I run into semi often like the evil druids and undead that I have trouble with. There are others I've only run into once like Pegasus Cavalry, Kappa and the Dwarven guys so I don't know how strong they are.

Originally Posted by Valerius

Some thoughts on expansion:

If you don't have archers recruit indie archers. Very useful in dealing with things like barbarians. Even if you do have archers you may want to recruit indies to free up resources at your cap for recruiting other troops.

Using Indies is something I'm unsure about because they often have quite low resource provinces so I can only get a handful of soldiers per province and it seems a lot of work and time to get them into your army. I guess this could be because I have too little indy generals. I do get some to fetch troops from my capital but at points they'll end up standing around doing nothing and I feel like I wasted money on them. I think I might be getting too little scouts as well. It's hard to know if I just want a few or if I should be buying commanders regularly or if there is a balance and what it is.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by durecellrabbit

There are quite a few tough ones I run into semi often like the evil druids and undead that I have trouble with. There are others I've only run into once like Pegasus Cavalry, Kappa and the Dwarven guys so I don't know how strong they are.

Depending on your type of expansion force, the amphibious guys with the nets can also be very dangerous. Trapping your elite units while the chaff beats them to death.