Tips for Expanding

[Starcomet1]

I usually play as a human theocrat and in the past I have been able to almost complete a random map game, but that seemed to be only because I started close to many independent cities and dwellings (one of them was a dragon dwelling). Since I always play good and focus on diplomacy, I was able to easily vassalize these smaller cities and they would add their income to mine. With 1-3 vassals adding to my income, I could recruit a large army and get a second and third city quite fast.

Recently however, I have not been graced with such luck and I never encounter any independent cities near my starting location anymore and my income is never enough to recruit a large army or have a lot of heroes. I also notice that I am too slow to construct a second city and in my current game I did not establish one till turn 70 which seems too late. Since I am trying to go for a beacon victory, I need at least four cities so I can construct a beacon in each and racial governance XP depends on the number of cities owned by the race and the racial happiness.

What tips are there for expanding quickly with the absents of these dwellings and independent cities nearby as a human theocrat? I guess my major concern are the roamers as I do not want to expand too quickly and have defenseless cities. I like to have two or 3 stacks first before I feel comfortable enough to leave my throne city and expanding outward.

[Starcomet1]

The theocrat guide on here is helpful, but does not offer much tips for expanding or having enough income to grow. I do not want to turn off roamers as they add some challenge to the game when I am not worrying about the other AI empires.

[Starcomet1]

How close should cities be? If they are too close their domain cannot expand as far, but if they are too far then they can be targets for roamers.

[Gloweye]

Dont put your cities closest together, just find nice spots, and such that your city centers are like 8 hexes away from each other, or more if there's no good spots that close.

Cast Paid Absolution to get a little bit more income.

Scout with a couple Cherubs. Note points of interest in your head - those can be independent cities or treasure sites that you are interested in and want to have cities next to. Ideally, both at once. Once you find those, move an army there to clear it out, and a settler if you need a new city.

As a theocrat, interesting sites are mostly the Forbidden Sanctum (Gives resurgence to supports, like the Priest and Evangelist. Human Evangelist is really strong. ). In perfect case, accompanied by a Ziggurat and/or Lost Library, which can boost supports more. Another strong option is the Crystal Tree, which can boost your Crusaders' defense even more. Crusaders are great general purpose infantry, with their lack of movement bonuses their biggest drawback. Infantry are also boosted by Dungeons (and Castles of the Lich King, but those can be a pain to clear). Exalted which are build in a city close to a Dungeon can be impressive, having Killing Momentum.

[Starcomet1]

Originally posted by Gloweye:

Dont put your cities closest together, just find nice spots, and such that your city centers are like 8 hexes away from each other, or more if there's no good spots that close.

Cast Paid Absolution to get a little bit more income.

Scout with a couple Cherubs. Note points of interest in your head - those can be independent cities or treasure sites that you are interested in and want to have cities next to. Ideally, both at once. Once you find those, move an army there to clear it out, and a settler if you need a new city.

As a theocrat, interesting sites are mostly the Forbidden Sanctum (Gives resurgence to supports, like the Priest and Evangelist. Human Evangelist is really strong. ). In perfect case, accompanied by a Ziggurat and/or Lost Library, which can boost supports more. Another strong option is the Crystal Tree, which can boost your Crusaders' defense even more. Crusaders are great general purpose infantry, with their lack of movement bonuses their biggest drawback. Infantry are also boosted by Dungeons (and Castles of the Lich King, but those can be a pain to clear). Exalted which are build in a city close to a Dungeon can be impressive, having Killing Momentum.

Thanks for the advice. Should I not leave a few troops behind to prevent ambitious tier I or II independents from taking it over? Should I rush to research Crusaders to immediately start recruiting them and martyrs?

[Starcomet1]

Since I am a slow builder, I may try playing with city building off and turn the dwelling and independent city to high.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Wow... two cities by turn 70? That is... very late.

Here's the thing about Age of Wonders 3: It is a game about warfare and aggressive expansion. It says so on the loading screen, and it says so for a reason: to inform players like you, who do not naturally like to play that way, that they really should.

This game is not civilisation 5, where 3 cities might make for a nice little compact empire. This is a game of war, where cities are good, more cities are better, and big armies are best. By turn 70, you can and should have a couple DOZENS of cities and armies. (And on all but the biggest maps, you'd be close to or have already won the game. It's not meant to last for hundreds of turns either.)

The best way to see how to play the game is to read the official beginner's guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=424872219

It's pretty great, and also has very nice illustrations.

Note the time-table on that map screenshot under "scout for treasure". That is only 5 turns. Sikbok has conquered his first neutral city by turn 3! He's settling his first city before turn 10. He has fought 10 battles in those 5 turns.

You do not need to be a ruthless warmonger. Finding neutral cities and vassalising them is a perfectly fine way to play, and can be quite effective. You just need to do it quickly.

Summon cherubs and use weak tier 1 units to scout as much of the map as possible, starting from turn 1. Do as many quests as you can, and bribe any city who's demands are not completely unreasonable.

Have your leader and his army travel the map looking for treasure, fighting as many battles as possible against neutral creatures and exploring as many tombs, ruins and dungeons as you can, all to get more gold which you can use to bribe cities.

Build settlers and roads between your cities. Put the cities in good locations next to treasure sites.

Use the Convert skill (on your hero and/or evangelists, when you get them) to get more troops for free, or have troops from dungeons/farms join you when you rescue them. If you can, use mana to summon troops, but as a theocrat you can only summon Cherubs natively - and they suck. Still, with some specialisations you can do this. (Fire gives hellhounds, wild magic gives elementals, etc.)

Most of all, just get in the mindset that this is a (relatively) fast-moving game where you always need to be doing something. You do not need to be attacking anyone you see, but you do need to be exploring, scouting, fighting battles, looking for places to settle, dealing with monster spawners, and doing quests for/bribing neutrals.

The AI isn't that smart, but it is more competent than that of many other strategy games, and given enough time it will manage to build up enough to steamroll a slow player.

[Starcomet1]

Originally posted by Iguana-on-a-stick:

Wow... two cities by turn 70? That is... very late.

Here's the thing about Age of Wonders 3: It is a game about warfare and aggressive expansion. It says so on the loading screen, and it says so for a reason: to inform players like you, who do not naturally like to play that way, that they really should.

This game is not civilisation 5, where 3 cities might make for a nice little compact empire. This is a game of war, where cities are good, more cities are better, and big armies are best. By turn 70, you can and should have a couple DOZENS of cities and armies. (And on all but the biggest maps, you'd be close to or have already won the game. It's not meant to last for hundreds of turns either.)

The best way to see how to play the game is to read the official beginner's guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=424872219

It's pretty great, and also has very nice illustrations.

Note the time-table on that map screenshot under "scout for treasure". That is only 5 turns. Sikbok has conquered his first neutral city by turn 3! He's settling his first city before turn 10. He has fought 10 battles in those 5 turns.

You do not need to be a ruthless warmonger. Finding neutral cities and vassalising them is a perfectly fine way to play, and can be quite effective. You just need to do it quickly.

Summon cherubs and use weak tier 1 units to scout as much of the map as possible, starting from turn 1. Do as many quests as you can, and bribe any city who's demands are not completely unreasonable.

Have your leader and his army travel the map looking for treasure, fighting as many battles as possible against neutral creatures and exploring as many tombs, ruins and dungeons as you can, all to get more gold which you can use to bribe cities.

Build settlers and roads between your cities. Put the cities in good locations next to treasure sites.

Use the Convert skill (on your hero and/or evangelists, when you get them) to get more troops for free, or have troops from dungeons/farms join you when you rescue them. If you can, use mana to summon troops, but as a theocrat you can only summon Cherubs natively - and they suck. Still, with some specialisations you can do this. (Fire gives hellhounds, wild magic gives elementals, etc.)

Most of all, just get in the mindset that this is a (relatively) fast-moving game where you always need to be doing something. You do not need to be attacking anyone you see, but you do need to be exploring, scouting, fighting battles, looking for places to settle, dealing with monster spawners, and doing quests for/bribing neutrals.

The AI isn't that smart, but it is more competent than that of many other strategy games, and given enough time it will manage to build up enough to steamroll a slow player.

Well I have not played in a while so I have gotten very rusty. I know that this game requires that you constantly do stuff every turn to stay ahead, I am just a slow and thoughtful strategist and like to play defensive. I always send out cherubs and units to clear out dungeons and treasure sites, but I hate leaving behind weak units to defend my city. I almost won my first game where I tried to get an allied victory and my second game did great as I destroyed an evil empire. I just had independent cities and dwellings to help me out along the way is all. I guess I will try to aggressively build settlers even when I still only have one army stack.

[Starcomet1]

Thank you for the guide and tips.