Exploring Your Way to the Top
Why should you explore? Is that what this game is coming too? A bunch of explorers sitting around watering their crops? Well...yeah it is. Land grabbing is very difficult. Once the infamous bug is fixed you will be able to get some land through land grabbing conceivably. However, I'n betting that -50% returns you'll so many trained troops that you could've explored the land and come out way ahead. What if you're at war? Well the ratios haven't really been established yet but this will be difficult as well. First of all if you aren't regent you can't pick the target. Two the regent (if he's smart) will pick a target kingdom with at least one really good target on it. He'll declare war and hit that target himself leaving you with less choice targets. Plus, do you think you can defend yourself from thief and mage specialists and their multis that they'll surely bring in? What if they declare war and hit you while your troops are out? There are people getting 14% returns at -50% now. At war that could equate to 36% of your land in just one shot! Exploring is almost your only option. So how do you successfully explore? Ok. Here's the breakdown.. Troops - a possible ratio is 1 defensive specialist, 1 elite, and 1 thief to start the round moving to a 1 to 1 ratio of elites and thieves later. Soldiers can also help early with your defense but don't rely on them too much because of nightmare and nightstrikes. Use common sense as well with these numbers. A Faerie may be able to get by with going all elites for D. Orcs and Avians will need to train more specialists. Having a decent thief ratio will allow you to steal from cash rich inactives early and larger players later when you start getting minimal amounts from inactives because of your NW in comparison to them. Also keep at least a few offensive troops handy. Even if it's a 100 points. You may have a friend who goes fallow or you may run across someone really stupid who sends out all their troops. You need a few offensive troops to take advantage. Your Build: You have to be cash producing buildings heavy. For most people that means a high % of emplyed peasants and a crapload of banks. Dwarves may do better with a ton of mines along with casting miner's mystique. For most people you can get by fine with only homes, farms, guilds, towers, armouries, shipyards, and banks. I'd suggest at least 2 shipyards, 10 guilds, and 10 towers per 100 acres. I wouldn't go higher than 30% on the homes and well under that amount will probably work better at least early in the game. What do you do? Figure about 1/3 of your cash each day for exploring, 1/3 for buildings, and 1/3 for military. Your D should be good because you will have a minimal offense and because you will flat outgrow the land grabbers. Cast tons of Trees of Gold and Rob Banks as well. Grow as fast you can with adequate defense. If you started the game with this strat you're in great shape now. Almost no one has the offense to hit you and your income is radically higher than most other provinces. Even if your D per acre is comparitively low you'll be so much larger than other people they'll have great difficulty getting enough offense to hit you. You can easily crack 4k acres with this strat and if you execute it well enough and get ahead of the curve you can finish top 100 in the world.....
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