Slitherine

Here's one strategy that has all my tips from my AAR's in one place.

Let's start with the worst case scenario, one region with one population. Set the citizen to making a food structure first. The citizen won't starve away, because the region must have at least one population. After a while, this is finished and you start to grow to population 2. Now build something to produce infrastructure. Continue making one food and then one infrastructure building until you have about 10+ excess of each. Now shift all the citizens to culture ASAP. At this point, concentrate building structures to produce money, manpower and metal, in no order. These are necessary for military units. You'll get events to trade one for the other. As you grow, continue to maintain an excess of food and infrastructure. If your region were part of a province, then it would grow faster, because the province total of food and infrastructure gets averaged over each region, allowing small regions to get ahead quicker. So make it a point to conquer the provinces for the regions you start with. Thus, even if you start with regions that have a single population, you can grow every region up to be a vibrant member of your faction.

If you have a province where each of 4 regions has the same military building, then your units get a boost to the effect of just one. So four Training Grounds give 5xps for the first building, plus half that for each of the other three to units made in the province. I choose one province with Iron as an intrinsic trade item (used by many Military buildings) and make this my National Arsenal Province (NAP). I set all of the population in the regions to build military infrastructure almost exclusively. When the regions are max population, then I switch as much of the population as possible to food production, to grow up to the next level quickly for more military infrastructure. As the Seleucids, by turn 100, my cavalry were level 3 and my infantry level 2 with three Military Academies and a Provisioner. This allowed me to produce improved units after I reached Tier III civilization.

Military Expertise (ME) is a national trait that gives your faction a bonus in leadership and troop training. Its a ratio of the total number of military buildings by their level divided by your number of regions. So, if you have ten regions and each has two level one, red structures, then your ME would be two. Since you want a high ME, all of your regions should build every wall that shows up, since this also gives you a defensive bonus. I got my ME up to 5 and my Generals were mostly 1-1s with some 2-0s and 0-2s. A Mercenary Recruitment Center and an Archery are rather simple to make in each developed region. This would allow you to raise a group of mercenary infantry and cavalry with some skirmishers for support in an emergency, while further boosting your ME.

Now that you have a well-trained force with good Generals and a secure homeland, here is the stack composition I use for the FOG Empires combat mechanic. Each region has a frontage value that you can check by cursoring over the round icon at the top left of the region menu window. It lists the max number of units in the front row of a battle in this region. The largest value is 16, so I make a stack with 16 of my best infantry supported by as many of my best skirmisher types, with eight cavalry to cover the flanks. I call this a Battlegroup (BG). For rough terrain where the frontage is eight or less, I split a BG into two equal halves, or Divisions and use just one. Also, I've found that a stack of eight light cavalry can maintain order in a region with high unrest. The stack suppresses 1% of revolt and usually keeps a region from rebelling. The military term for such a formation is Flying Column. You can bounce one back and forth each turn between two regions in unrest to maintain order in both.

At sea, Heavy Warships rule. I had one in battle with 9 light warships, and after 9 combat phases, I won. I do use light warships to scout during peace time. So build as many Heavies as you need to win control of the sea. I put them in one or two big stacks and sweep through enemy sea zones from one end to the other, destroying everything they meet. Just be sure to return to a sea zone where the fleet is supplied.

Know your foe. As with light warships, station a single light cavalry in garrison at your border regions. These can observe enemy units massing for an attack. You don't need a scout in evey border region, just enough to observe every enemy border region. Also, before you attack another faction, spend some effort to size them up. When you use the diplomacy icon on them, the icons can describe their faction and leader traits. In addition, you can see their interactions with other factions. You can also use the Ledger to see the stats on their faction. Check the region menu of areas you target for conquest. Do they have a stock of food to supply your army? What's the defensiveness and garrison look like, The icon next to the frontage icon will reveal that info. Sun Tzu wrote that you should know your enemy as you know yourself and you shall win a hundred battles without loss.

On the Diplomacy side, I often get Objectives that are of no use to my faction. I just call up the faction where these objectives are and Relinquish them. This may not work if they are a Client State. Once, I eventually got three nearby objectives that worked fine.

Here's the thing about trade. Let's say, you can have gold and silver in every region, but it won't get used if no structures need it. On the other hand, you may be trading a lot of Iron, especially to your National Arsenal Province. If you grow your regions as I described above, you'll probably have lots of cattle, sheep, flax, salt, lumber, charcoal pits, and studs. Your NAP needs iron, coal, leather, flax and horses, etc. So the food and infrastructure you built along the way now supplies the NAP you chose for lots of internal trade. Always check the free region trade items you have and make buildings to use their items. Some structures, like Trading Centers, improve region Trading Acumen and others like roads and some harbors increase trade range. Build these in regions doing a lot of trading.

Slaves accumulate in your Capital if you don't have slave markets. Try to have one in a region close to an area where you are going on to the offensive. You get a slave for every battle you win and too many will increase unrest. Occasionally you get an event to free some slaves. Take the top left option which can reduce every slave's unrest level throughout your realm.

That's all I got for now. Good luck!

Great guide !! After reading I have past 150 turns for the first time lol

Thanks, and welcome to the forum!

How the society choices work:

viewtopic.php?f=534&t=98058

Nice guide.

Thanks! Is there anything else I should cover?

Gray Fox wrote: ↑Mon Feb 15, 2021 8:04 pmIs there anything else I should cover?

Given Goals and Decadence. I try to ignore the goals, so it doesn't help. Do goals are mandatory?

By "goal", do you mean a region that is selected by the AI as an Objective for your faction?

Gray Fox wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 2:28 amBy "goal", do you mean a region that is selected by the AI as an Objective for your faction?

Yes, sorry, I meant Objectives

Okay, here's what I do. First off, objectives grant one point of Legacy for as long as you hold the region. Highest Legacy score wins the game. Also, from the manual:
"Secondary Benefits of Legacy
If you are at the top of the legacy table and in tier III of the CDR then
there is an extra 5% chance each turn to gain a progress token.
If you are in the top 10% of the legacy table and in tier I of the CDR,
the chance of a negative progress token is decreased by 5 percentage
points."
Thus, getting some Legacy points per turn going early on will certainly help. If you start slow, some of the regions you would target anyway may be chosen as Objectives by your leader. Later in the game, I often get Objectives that are just useless. Then, I use Diplomacy with the faction that holds the Objective and I just give it up. Some players want cash in return to do this. Just be careful not to offer this to some faction's Client State. Your faction will lose face. Finally, you can target a faction and use Diplomacy to trade for the Objectives they hold. When I do this, I eventually take the rest of the province where the Objective is, too. Good luck!

Thanks. But I don't really care winning, but just playing, surviving without so expanding.