Generally speaking, you should not get many spies at all. Spies are best used only defensively.
F) Visit Market Place: Send your ladies off to buy some groceries (takes no turns).
- This market place is where all other players do business. Everything you see on sale is put up for sale by another real player.
- So, prices will fluctuate depending on supply and demand.
- If you try selling something, then it will appear on the shelves in 6-8 hours.
- You get to choose your asking price, but if other players are selling for less, then no one might buy your goods.
- If you are a small nation that is far behind, then military units might actually be cheaper to buy here.
G) Purchase Supplies: Wave some cash around for more military units and supplies (takes no turns).
- In the beginning of the game prices are high.
- The only way to decrease prices would be through research in military expense and building military bases. Both methods are not usually worthwhile.
- While you might be able to reduce military expense by building military bases for example, you would normally do even better building something else instead.
H) Generate Cash: Whip your peasants harder to gain more through taxes.
- You spend an entire turn gaining 20% more income.
- A turn to gain only 20% more isn't usually worth it, but there will be times late in the game where this may be useful.
This section applies until you have about 700-1200 land (less if you're an experienced player).
1) During this period of time you should focus on exponentially growing in size.
- Go to the Country Management menu (available only from the main menu). Set your taxes to 32%. I also strongly recommend that you choose to become a Dictatorship government (explained later).
- You should do only one of three things here: a) Build Residential and Enterprise sites b) Build Construction sites c) Explore for more land
- Whenever you build residential and enterprise, try to build an equal number of each. It doesn't have to be exact.
- If you are able to build 5 buildings a turn but only have enough money to build 2, then building only 2 buildings is a waste of that turn.
- In such a case, build a few construction sites. During the turns you spend building construction sites, your taxes will bring in enough money to build all 5 buildings a turn (or even more, since construciton sites might increase this rate to 6).
- When you are out of free land to build on, explore 1 or 2 turns.
- Don't explore too much, because the more land you have, the more expensive it is to build on it. As always, you don't have to be exact.
2) Why should you focus on growth in the beginning?
- It serves to boost your income and infrastructure, and without them, you are limited in your other options.
- Residential increases your population. Twice the people means twice the taxes.
- Enterprise increasese the per capita income. If every person earned twice as much, you get twice as much in tax.
- If you focus on other aspects, they will not be as effective. Since you are growing exponentially, you can easily spend the first 100 turns building nothing but infrastructure and catch up military-wise in only a few dozen turns.
3) Watch your food.
- If your food is getting too low, go ahead and build some farms.
- You don't necessarily have to always be gaining a surplus of food, but don't allow it to drop too close to zero.
- If you run out of food, part of your military will leave.
4) If it's your first time, don't worry too much about wasting turns.
- Have fun and learn, and you'll do fine in the long run.
- In my first game by the time I had spend 600 turns, I was able to beat people who had been in the game longer and had recieved 2400 turns.
- So in the long run, it's more skill than turns.
- For that reason, you can catch up very quickly and make up for lost turns by using the ones you have more effectively.
5) When you do get about 200-500 land, you should start building many industrial sites.
- You should still continue to build residential, enterprise, and construciton sites, as well as exploring for a bit more land.
- However, you should keep building industrials until you have twice as many industrials as you have residential or enterprise.
- For example, you might have 100 residential, 100 enterprise, 200 industrial, 40 farms, and 40 construction.
6) Don't worry about military until you have about 200-500 land (the better you are, the earlier you should start).
- It's highly unusual for people to attack you when you are that small.
- This is because it takes 2 turns to attack, and at this point they might gain only 20-40 land.
- Instead, if you used those same 2 turns to explore, you could have gained an average of 50 land.
- Even if you're at 800 land you shouldn't be worried about being attacked, but you should start building military for the long run.
- Also, after about 1000 land, exploring land doesn't gain you as much, so you'll have to start attacking others in order to gain enough land.
- When you are ready to attack, you are ready for the next section.
Actual example of first 51 turns to spend |
These aren't necessarily the best actions, because I'm doing this ad lib. My starting strategy changes each time I play.
I spend 1 turn exploring. I get 20 land.
Want to see how the country looks? See here
Note that in a real tournament I would be more careful with my turns, but it's just a game and this is just an example. ;)
Also note that I could easily have gained networth faster if I had spent all 50 turns exploring for land. However, that tends to be the biggest mistake some new players make, because not only is their networth inflated, but they tend to have little military. Such countries usually become the target of attacks by everyone else once their 100 turns of protection are over.