-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 3
Strategy Guide
The wide variety of games makes it hard to be specific, but this guide will try to provide the big picture and some general techniques. You'll need to do things differently, depending on your game's rules.
Your power can grow exponentially early in the game. Every turn not spent hiring men and raising funds puts you significantly behind the other factions.
From the nexus, you will almost certainly have 6 exits (unless there is a multi-hex nexus). There will be one to two hexes of each main terrain type, spread over the world. Choosing one likely will be the hardest choice you make.
-
plains: highest potential for income (up to 3k / turn), as well as livestock (vital for boot strapping into phase 2 of your empire). Of course, everyone else knows this, and will likely be aiming for the plains.
-
mountains / forest: second best for income (up to 1500 / turn). Mountains provide iron (and later, mithril), while forests provide wood (and ironwood). You'll definitely need access for phase 3 of empire building.
-
swamps / jungles: marginal regions (about 300 / turn). Both terrains provide some iron, and a good amount of wood. They also have herbs (needed for several tools, and healing).
-
hills / deserts: nearly worthless. A good source of stone if you ever need it. Also worth exploring for the man types available.
-
tundra / wasteland: totally worthless, apart from the man types present.
If the nexus is a city, you can leave a unit there to allow you to send out scouts to other regions later. Regardless, you'll need to pick a direction, and prepare to invest most of your starting funds to grow your empire in phase 1.
In this phase, use taxes to grow your empire. Each man costs about 50 silver, and can generate 50 silver in tax revenue (assuming no rivals - two factions can actually tax the same region). Remember to allocate 10 silver for combat training, and 10 silver for maintenance before tax revenue comes in.
In this phase, you begin to grow your own food to allow more silver for hiring and possibly buying goods. The importance of this stage will depend on the value of food (which is a setting in the game engine), and how much you can get.
For example, if food is worth 10 (the default value in stock Atlantis), a farmer (or rancher) at skill level 3, with a tool (bag or lasso) will produce 5 GRAI (LIVE) - worth 50 silver. That is the same as a tax man.
But, if food is worth 50 (the default value in True Atlanteans), that same farmer is as good as 5 tax men.
In this phase, you produce the weapons of war, and devote all your silver to hiring soldiers. You'll need supplies of iron and wood for weapons (iron for swords, wood for crossbows, iron and wood for battle axes). You'll also need tradesmen to do the work, as well as man types with suitable skill specializations.
In a large game, you might be able to have multiple factions working together. One to tax, one to produce materiel. You'll be dependent on your allies, but you can be more powerful than any single faction.