What's the best technique for growing your army (FFA)?
I'm getting swarmed by players with massive armies, way bigger than I'm able to amass in the same amount of time. I think I've played enough to not just be getting disadvantageous starting positions (although this seems like a real problem).
Is there a "best" technique?
- Sit on the capital and amass a single large army
- Capture territory, thinning your army, at first, hoping to gain larger armies over time?
- Capture cities (and then sit on them or send them to your capital?)
Should I sweep up my territories as they grow armies or let them sit as a buffer between me and enemy armies?
For that matter, do territories grow incrementally or do they double or something?
12 Answers
Best is going to be subjective, but you need to find a balance between expansion and having an army stack.
Sitting on your capital to amass a large army means you will lack information on the other player(s) position, and you are missing out on army growth for having territory.
Expansion does thin your army, and over-extending yourself will leave you vulnerable to a single large army charging towards your general.
Cities are valuable, but you will take a short term loss taking them due to their base strength. A city will only pay for itself if you can hold it for as longer than the number of defenders (40-50). You should rarely leave cities without defenders, otherwise an opponent can steal it from you at a much lower cost.
Territories grow incrementally (additive, not multiplicative), producing 1 troop every 25 turns. Note that you don't need to control the tile for 25 turns, all tiles add 1 troop whenever the time is a multiple of 25.
One strategy that I've seen in a lot of winning replays is...
- Avoid capturing too many capitals early on, they waste your army too quickly
- Spike deeply into unknown territory, trying to find an enemy
- Try to capture lightly protected generals
When you capture an enemy general, you get all their armies and territory at once.
