Strategy guide

These are basic pointers for a first campaign. All of them follow from the rules in How to play; none of it is hidden.

The first months

• Claim an empty city at once. Every house sends officers to the unclaimed cities in its first month. In your first turn, move an officer with at least a few hundred soldiers into a neighbouring unclaimed city. Send some grain too: travelling soldiers eat 1 grain per 10 soldiers on arrival.
• Start projects in every city. Idle officers achieve nothing. Scholars can take on long projects (up to 3 months) without needing new orders each month.
• Do not let anyone stand idle. Each officer gets one action a month. A city with three officers should usually give three orders.

Money and food

• Gold arrives only in Month 1. The tax is population × tax rate × (100 + economy), so Workshops pay off every January. Economy is the best long-term investment in gold.
• Grain arrives only in Month 7. It depends on population, tax rate, farmland, irrigation and cultivation. Planting in months 1–6 raises that harvest, then resets.
• Waterworks protect you. Floods destroy grain unless your levees are high. They also raise irrigation.
• Budget beats crowding. A project's monthly effect depends on its budget and the average politics of the officers. Each extra officer adds only +3. Two officers on two separate projects usually beat two officers on one.
• Tax between 25 and 50 is neutral. Above 50 loses 2 trust a month; below 25 gains 1.
• The market changes every month. Sell grain when the sale rate is low, because you get more gold per grain. Buy when the purchase rate is high, because you get more grain per gold.
• Budget soldiers' food. Every 1,000 soldiers eat 100 grain a month and cost 10 gold each January. Running out of grain makes soldiers desert.

The people

• Trust drives growth. Population grows each month by population × trust ÷ 20,000. A trusted city grows quickly, and more people means more tax and more recruits.
• Relief is cheapest in small cities. The trust gained depends on the grain given relative to population. The officer's presence helps too.
• Avoid unrest. If trust falls below 20, the city revolts and loses gold, grain and people. Levies and drafts both cost trust.

Officers

• Keep loyalty above 25. Officers below that may resign. Rewards are cheap, and an officer with high presence gains more from them. Always keep enough gold for salaries.
• Search, then recruit. Free officers are hidden until you find them. Recruiting is more likely with a bigger offer and a recruiter with high presence. It is harder against high-valor officers.
• Put roles where they work.

- Scholars for long development. - Marshals for long training. - Captains and strategists for one-month jobs of every kind.

• Prepare an heir. If your sovereign is captured or retires, you choose a successor from your healthy officers, and everyone else loses 10 loyalty. Think twice before sending the sovereign into battle.

Armies

• Draft or hire. Drafting is cheap but new soldiers have training 20 and morale 40. Hiring costs more, but veterans arrive at 55/55. Training 75 or more gives a unit one extra hex of movement.
• Train and rally before a war. Training and morale multiply a unit's power, as do soldiers and valor.
• Use equipment.

- Cavalry move far and deal 20% more damage to foot on open ground, but do 20% less against archers in forest or hills. - Archers hit at range with no reply. Keep them behind your foot. - Equipment is not lost when soldiers die, so sets can be reused.

• Scout first. A report shows the garrison and its officers. Invade with clearly more soldiers than the defenders, and carry grain for the whole siege: 20 days × soldiers ÷ 20.

Battle tactics

• The keep wins the battle. A unit standing in the keep when you end the attacker's side wins at once. The gate stops attackers until it is broken, but the wall does not cover the whole flank: look for a way around.
• Terrain matters. Damage is divided by the target's terrain: forest and an intact gate by 1.2 (about 17% less), hills by 1.3 (about 23% less) and the keep by 1.4 (about 29% less). Lure defenders into the open.
• Attack the weak, not the strong. Melee damage depends on your power against the target's terrain, and the target hits back at 60%. Check the preview: it is exact.
• Watch morale and stamina. Rally when morale sinks. A unit at 0 morale flees. Units that end a battle with 20 stamina or less come home injured for two months.
• Know when to leave. Withdrawing loses 5% of each unit but saves your officers from capture. Officers whose units are destroyed on the losing side become prisoners.

Diplomacy

• Gifts lower hostility for certain. Every 20 gold of gift lowers it by 1, with no dice roll.
• Alliances are easier when hostility is low. The chance is 65 − hostility + presence ÷ 3 + offer ÷ 20, within 5–95%. An ally secures a border for 12 months, and you can ask them for aid.
• Breaking a pact is costly. It adds 30 hostility.
• Surrender is a late-game tool. It only works when you have three times the enemy's soldiers and twice their cities.

Late game

• Delegate quiet cities. Set safe cities in your interior to Prosperity so you can concentrate on the front.
• Use convoys. Gather gold and grain in your border cities for the next war.
• Recruit from rivals. Disloyal officers in a neighbouring enemy city can be tempted away once you have a current report on that city.