Roving Clans guide

[allybhoy]

I shoved this up on steam, but I thought some people might be interested here as well

I think I found my new favourite race, the Roving Clans. They look really weak on paper, but they are actually one of the more powerful and fun races I played. They are probably also the most flexible. First things I should say I’m a turtler and builder, but they should also be fine for a bit of fun with the mercenary, privateer armies. Here’s a short guide of some of the strategies I used. Apologies for any names I got wrong. I'm not in front of the game at the minute.

For the initial start you need to try find a nice balanced area. The Clans are a mid/late game race, and you need to get your first city up and running quickly. You’ll need to buy a hero quickly, so cash is vital. Science, food and production are all required as well. The usual river-based enchanted forest is ideal! But anything else with a good balance is great.

The quest is very much worth following. It gives you perks and buildings that will help you win. After the first couple of quests, you get an item that boosts production. You have to equip it to a Wind Walkers hero and make a one-off building. This is why you need the gold, to buy the hero quite quickly. If you played a bit of the game you’ll know the Wind Walkers are the production race, and the hero gets nice boosts to production all through the skill tree. Keep going with the quest, it gives you a few more skills that help your trade. It’s worth going all the way to the end.

The Wild Walkers hero will be your builder throughout the game. With the quest item and a few perks the hero can knock up a city in no time. Plant a new city near some forest, assign the WW hero and watch the buildings shoot up almost every turn. Have a look at the region and what it is good for, make the buildings and then shift the city to the optimal location for its specialisation. I thought the moving city skill was a waste. It’s not, it’s very useful. One thing to be VERY careful about is that when you pack the city up, the region goes neutral while you move and the AI can slip a settler in and steal the area. Never move in winter as it takes more turns, and try plan your end position before you begin so you make the least possible moves. If there are two industrial areas that you can choose to incubate and one is slightly worse than the other, but closer to the river/sea/other area you finally plan to settle, then it would probably be best to chose the closer one.

The other heros you’ll probably need are the Clan ones for trade and other ranged heros for your armies, since you’ll rely on your horse archers a lot. I watched a video guide for the Roving Clans and the narrator said the Clan hero was the worst ever city governors. That may be true for other races, but for the Clan they are awesome. Let them sit in the city and boost your income by an amount that would make a Broken Lord blush. They boost your trade routes and let you trade with cold war enemies. By mid game you are rolling in cash. Obviously the ideal skill is Imperial Highways to open up trade. Give this skill away to your enemies to open up external trade routes. The perks you want here are the one that lets you trade during cold war (Black market I think it's called) and the one that negates winter penalties (I'm going to test if this works with trade next game and update). Both are at the top of the skill tree, so try drop some Red Sang from the market to boost the XP.

Next we have mercenary armies. These are great for defending the realm with their double hit points. A good ranged hero helps them with extra damage and attack through skills and items. Is another race beating you? Drop the hero, slip on privateer masks and melt one or more of their cities. Even though I’m primarily a builder, it’s incredibly fun, and you get an achievement if you destroy a friendly city.

The reason I say they are the most flexible is that you can win any way you want. Conquest? Send in the mercenary armies. Science, cash? Place your cities in the optimal locations and get earning/researching. You can even wait to see what resources you are landed with before choosing. Just build generic all-round cities till mid game and then if you have a lot of titanium it will be easy to hit the science route, glassteel for economic victory etc. Best of all, the wonder..just get your biggest city in a region with a large forest, assign your Wind Walkers production monster and move the city to the best production location available, activate some dragon bones luxury and watch it shoot up.

Missing anything? Well once the trade routes are up you are rolling in cash. Just buy what you need. For lux, redsang is nice to get your heros along the skill tree. Anything that boosts trade, cash or science works just as well. In fact, I don’t think there’s a booster that doesn’t help one way or another.

I hope you found this interesting. Tips or abuse welcome

I've edited the original post due to the feedback. Thanks guys

[FerrusPugnum]

Thanks for some great ideas re the Roving Clans. I am not sure this has happened to you but I found out the hard way that when you move your city the region becomes neutral again and a nearby AI will send a settler in and steal it from you. I lost a couple great regions that way and ended up losing so beware.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

Mercenaries are quite powerful, especially with the right dust upgrades (I tried that with the cultist custom faction and it was pretty deadly).

In general as the price remains the same at the different game speeds, mercs become more powerful at the slower speeds due to the cost of units.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

I would wish to point out that trade wise ironically the roving clans are weaker (due to their winter reduction on trade), and that it is simply a free commerical and science with peace.. which is more benefitial for people who lack in influence points or only briefly enter trade.

[ZoSo]

Originally posted by Blackwidow:

Mercenaries are quite powerful, especially with the right dust upgrades (I tried that with the cultist custom faction and it was pretty deadly).

In general as the price remains the same at the different game speeds, mercs become more powerful at the slower speeds due to the cost of units.

I'd like to correct this with a little modding. How much more should mercenaries cost at 'endless' speed?

[allybhoy]

Fergus, I should have mentioned only move the city in summer and no more than two turns!

[allybhoy]

Blackwidow, I still found I was coining it. Does the cold operator perk affect the weakness? Also the black market? skill means you can trade even in war

[FerrusPugnum]

I have moved cities successfully but was moving a city to a much better spot with an army nearby. before i could plant it and use the army to stop the ai it had crossed the border and dropped a new city.. i was doomed after that and of course my own fault. i think it had to move about 4 turns across a territory.

[allybhoy]

I usually only move a few spaces. I'd have broken my monitor

[Momo]

How much army do you need to build? My first run was a mess, because when I encountered the Vaulters they stomp me with a beefy army.

Or if you have few troops and suddenly there's a big army crossing your borders, what can you do to survive?

Thanks for the tips and I'm sorry for my bad english

[Fantasien]

Originally posted by Momo:

How much army do you need to build? My first run was a mess, because when I encountered the Vaulters they stomp me with a beefy army.

Or if you have few troops and suddenly there's a big army crossing your borders, what can you do to survive?

Thanks for the tips and I'm sorry for my bad english :beatmeat:

A bit long for this, please bear with me:
1. For your standard army, build archers at the start because they are fast to train. You may use them and your initial troops to scout for settling areas (but dont overdo it or your productions will suffer). Scouting is very important because you have to be prepared to settle cities as far apart as possible, and you should try to find out where other players are asap.
Subsequently, focus some infantries and any anti ranged since your militia are anticav. It's ok to mix in any strong lesser faction troops

2. Because you cannot make war, your focus is to push for every economic boosts such as building up population and rushing dust growth. Every city should train some defence if you have nothing to build.

3. DON'T ever be happy to find other players near you! If they are friendly; good, do whatever it takes to make them your ally if possible (hard on early eras). If they are war gods, be prepared.

If someone else really ended up making war on you, start using the ability to move your cities and districts (the unique ability every Clans city have).

Ideally you should move them such that none of your cities border the enemy, and you should scatter the locations of your cities (try not to settle the cities right next to each other so it's difficult for enemy armoes to find all your cities and wipe you). If things go bad and your opponent knows where your city is, prepare to burn the city.

[Nova Solarius]

Originally posted by Baron William:

Originally posted by Momo:

How much army do you need to build? My first run was a mess, because when I encountered the Vaulters they stomp me with a beefy army.

Or if you have few troops and suddenly there's a big army crossing your borders, what can you do to survive?

Thanks for the tips and I'm sorry for my bad english :beatmeat:

1. For your standard army, build archers at the start because they are fast to train. You may use them and your initial troops to scout for settling areas (but dont overdo it or your dust production will suffer). Subsequently, focus some infantries as your militia are a balanced cav

2. Because you cannot make war, your early game must focus on every economic boosts such as building up population and rushing dust growth. Every city should train some defence if you have nothing to build.

3. If someone else really ended up making war on you, start using the ability to move your cities and districts (the unique ability every Clans city have). Ideally move such that none of your cities border the enemy, and you should scatter the locations of your cities (try not to settle the cities right next to each other so it's difficult to find all your cities and wipe you).

I would like to point out that the post you responded to has been posted over two years ago.

[Momo]

Haha, while the coment above is true, this are nice tips non the less. I eventually make my victory with the Roving Clans (I find that hiring mercenary armies and make them look "neutral" it's a heck of a tool for keep war lords in check).

There's a moment when your just have too much dust and you can practicly insta-buy everything

[Nova Solarius]

Originally posted by Momo:

Haha, while the coment above is true, this are nice tips non the less. I eventually make my victory with the Roving Clans (I find that hiring mercenary armies and make them look "neutral" it's a heck of a tool for keep war lords in check).

There's a moment when your just have too much dust and you can practicly insta-buy everything

You can never have too much money.

[queenelise9830]

I am a newbie, and one of my only two easy-difficulty victories to date was with Roving Clans following bits of this guide while still playing my way. I like military, so it might seem strange for me to play as the clans, but I like them anyway because of merc comforts and early privateers. In the aforementioned victory: After setting up my dust production using the Wild Walkers tricks in this guide, I pillaged the crud out of all the Mezari extractors I could reach, got them to attack my pillage forces, had my Yirmaks and one of my three Fotios(other two were on my turf as defenses) pwn their troops, and meanwhile slipped some privateers in to start a nice little seige on their capitol. They tried their best but they just couldn't stop me. And the crazy bit is that they themselves had already captured the capitol of the only other empire that I had for competition that game... Roving clans supremacy lol.
EDIT:
One issue I have found is that the market doesn't always like to sell the hero you want, in my new normal-difficulty game It's almost turn 50, an empire has era 2, I have the sisters of mercy hero but still no Wild Walkers hero... without him this whole guide falls apart fast.

[lambdoid]

Having a major problem with my Roving Clans game. The first factiion quest involves hiring a hero of a specific race, but I can't because there aren't any heroes of that race in the market. There was one initially, but I didn't have enough money. When I eventually had enough to buy the hro, the hero wasn't there any more.