How did u spec your main character ?

[5uperJ!mmY™]

as per topic, im still confused about how should i allocate points.

[Pixel Peeper]

The whole point of it is that you can put points anywhere depending on how you want to play.

If you're planning on slaughtering everyone and razing the whole damn continent, diplomacy won't be much use to you. If you're planning on avoiding fights as much as possible and befriending/recruiting natives, it's probably a good investment.

Technically, there are no wrong choices. The only mistake you can make isn't while allocating points, it's playing in a way that ignores the strengths and weaknesses that you yourself chose.

[waku waku]

how much diplomacy do you think would be enough to somewhat reliably pass hard checks?

[Ando]

its one half of the coin, it matters also what units you choose, since each unit will give +1 to a stat; for example the scholars i think give +1 diplomacy.

so you have to consider that as well. there is definitely bad choice for choosing units though :P

[Arakash]

I started off with Survival really low, which in retrospect is a bad idea for a first character :)
I went the peaceful route, but i probably shouldve taken higher diplomacy for it.
My highest was Tactics, Scouting and Learship, which meant i was fast and could usually get the upper hand before battles.

As the other posters have said, you also have to pay close attention to who you take, as youll be stuck with them for a while. Both their stats and their personality types will have a huge effect on your gameplay syle.

[Mauman]

Having played the game a few times through on hard (tempted to try insane)....I have a few thoughts.

1. Tactics is a hard thing to give up since item usage is based on your BASE tactics and not the big number you likely have from all of your soldiers.

2. Tactics can be used instead of diplomacy in many ways. This means that you can max out tactics and dump diplomacy, but it's really really painful to do the opposite.

3. Scouting is nice, but not required. It's something to have a decent score in but I wouldn't go nuts. If you want to have tactics AND dipolomacy this score can safely take a hit, just don't give it a large hit.

4. Healing is this games dump stat. With a skill of 1 and two initial doctors (plus in-game recruits), you'll be swimming in medicine even on low resource settings. NOTE: This only applies if you get good at the combat. If you suck at combat you might need this one, but if you're losing constantly you might want to reavaluate your tactics.

5. Survival, while not neccessary, is a damn fine thing to have. It's nice to be self-sufficient in this game (it can save you a ton of headaches). However, food retrieval is based on a formula of (x + survival/2 rounded up) where x == number of hunters hunting on success. So you want it to be an odd number.

minor spoiler: There's a free +1 to your base survival in mexico. I won't say where. So you might want an even value after all

6. Leadership is another nice skill have high up. But if you're willing to sacrifice food, you can afford to keep it at mid ranges (no less than 6 in my opinion).