Turn 1

This thread will hold any info/communication pertaining to the first actual game turn and can be used for expansion coordination issues if so desired.

As a caution, be very, very careful about trying to grab a province the very first turn. Pythium has one of the strongest starting armies (15 medium-light and 15 medium-heavy infantry), and should probably have the best luck at a random first turn strike.

Well, I've got some negative anecdotal evidence for you. The first time I tried it with Pythium, I went for a nice "safe" forest province - I mean, what could be there: barbarians? tribesmen? monkeys? Meh, no problem! That, or a big pack of blood-henge druids and Vines! Ouch!

The moral of the story is, you're almost always better off waiting to see what your neighbors are before attacking. I mean, not just to avoid any nasty surprises, but if you're like me, you're looking for provinces that can give you something you need immediately, whether it's cash, resources, or indie commanders, or some combination of the above (with my Pythium build, I'm looking for resources and commanders ASAP).

If you are not propheting your scout then it might be worth attacking blind a decent looking province with the scout. Put him at the back with retreat orders. Then you will see the complete line out of what you face when you attack the next turn. It makes a big difference if you fight 4 or 14 Knights in a province. And you get to see if there are any nasty wizards hiding there!

Of course you lose one turn of scout movement. And there is a slight chance a wizard / long range attack will get him but you should be out of standard bow range.

I'm reasonably certain my pretender + starting units can take a province turn 1 safely, as long as its not heavy cavalry. So forests are a good bet. I need to run some more turn 1 tests, but if everything looks good I think i'm going to go for it.

Turn 1 received. Doing standard patrol/raising taxes. Looks like we have amphibious mercs available.

Yes, I was going to mention the raise taxes/patrol thing.

if you raise taxes up to say 150% and patrol with your starting army, it gives you a nice gold boost for turn 2.

Could I ask that everyone go into their profile on this forum and set their location to the nation you are playing? It will make it easier to track who is playing what nation

melnorjr wrote:Yes, I was going to mention the raise taxes/patrol thing.

if you raise taxes up to say 150% and patrol with your starting army, it gives you a nice gold boost for turn 2.

With my starting army even 120% is a risk....

Good Luck everyone

LumenPlacidum wrote:Turn 1 received. Doing standard patrol/raising taxes. Looks like we have amphibious mercs available.

If someone isn't using all their starting cash these would be well worth having. Not worth sacrificing your start for though.

These are the good amphibious troops I believe. I have 161 spare, which I doubt will get them, but I will spend if no one else goes for them.

Now that I've seen my start, thanks for the good setup for Bandar Log. I just hope I can get some good events and start my second fort by the 6th-7th turn.

The shipwreckers, led by the coral guard captain or whichever? If you see those they're good even on land and are quite worth purchasing.

If it's just the fishermen then they probably won't be that useful at the moment.

rdonj wrote:The shipwreckers, led by the coral guard captain or whichever? If you see those they're good even on land and are quite worth purchasing.

If it's just the fishermen then they probably won't be that useful at the moment.

It is the Shipwreckers, and they would be well worth getting our hands on. I don't have the gold left over for them though.

No raising taxes on my end - I can't afford a hit to income and resources if patrolling fails.

And no first-turn attack on my part, not after the "blood-henge druid" incident during testing I should be able to hit two provinces (depending on indie opposition, but I have a lot of choices) on turn two.

I'm sending my harpy (stealth +20) to v3, following melnorjr's attack plan. I should reach their cap by turn 3. If needed elsewhere at v2 perhaps, just let me know.

Forging a rawhide shield for my pretender.

If someones going to bid on the merc, please post on the appropriate thread. I can't this turn, I don't have enough gold either.

At some point, when I can get some more forts up perhaps, I plan on using dryad led teams of revelers to disrupt vet economy, cause unrest, while doing a bit of stealth preaching to lower dominion.

I also have fast map move stealthy preachers, If you need an extra push let me know.

Ew. Druids. I ran 20 turn 1 tests and ran into amazons with a priest and lizard riders once. That was disastrous. 1/20 chance of failure is probably too much risk, so that sounds like tax and patrol turn 1 for me (sigh, what I really need is *resources*). I can handle 130% tax, but I doubt my starting units can handle 150% tax. So be it.

I plan on expanding with my GK towards and into the sea asap, since he's at far less risk against aquatic indies (no missile weapons and few heavy cavalry). Also, it means I don't need to divert resources for troops to Kappas to expand into the ocean.

Question 1: Is it more worthwhile to send an early army towards the vet player, or use my early (weaker) army to collect my rearmost territories and be able to send stronger armies towards the vet (and in closer succession to each other at that)?

Question 2: I see a cloud castle 2 territories to my E and a crown to my NW - do those represent anything in particular?

Is there anybody else who would be interested in bidding on the mercenary? I have about 330 spare gold and an extra commander wouldn't hurt since I can't recruit many soldiers due to the huge resource cost.

Joelz wrote:Is there anybody else who would be interested in bidding on the mercenary? I have about 330 spare gold and an extra commander wouldn't hurt since I can't recruit many soldiers due to the huge resource cost.

Well I can't match that but I think they are definitely worth it. They should get you a couple of sea areas (but you only need one) and that kick starts your sea expansion.

I know we have an aquatic nation on each side but we don't want to leave it all up to them as its still takes cash and leaders to go that way.

Ulm is likely to have the cash to keep buying the aquatic troops (at least at the start) once in the water to fund expansion.

Not sure how much you should bid. Everything (330) would almost certainly get them. But I doubt the Vets will bid highly on them as they are only really useful to two of their powers. So you could probably get away with a less???

You might just be better off at using them to clear high-resource territories around your capital first, to jump-start your expansion - they make superb heavy infantry, even on land.

If they're still holding of after grabbing one or two land provinces, maybe consider grabbing some sea? If not, try to get them killed off so the vets can't use them later.

Squirrelloid wrote:Question 1: Is it more worthwhile to send an early army towards the vet player, or use my early (weaker) army to collect my rearmost territories and be able to send stronger armies towards the vet (and in closer succession to each other at that)?

Question 2: I see a cloud castle 2 territories to my E and a crown to my NW - do those represent anything in particular?

Yeah, I'm interested in these answers too. I mean, you don't want to let the vets grab too much territory and set up shop too close to your capital. But then you don't want to have your whittled down starting army destroyed, and leave an open path back to your heartland.

Those who played in previous incarnations of N vs V, what where your recollections on how the opening few turns played out?

Regarding question two, I've seen some of those crowns scattered about the map. Aren't they for marking victory conditions? But I didn't think we were playing with victory conditions...