Tips for starting out

The military and strategy

(collected by Charlie, Andre, Uwe, Orodruin)

When attacking an opponent, you should always attack their main island first. It's best to steer your fleet to their warehouse to eliminate any watchtowers that might be there right at the start. Enemy ships will now arrive, one after the other, allowing you to sink them as they come (sometimes only the ship being attacked launches a counter-attack, while the others just watch; in this case you'll have to click each ship individually to get them to attack). The opposing land units will also arrive to defend the warehouse, where they can then be eliminated rather easily by your warships. Your fleet can now move to your opponents shipyard to destroy it. Two or three warships should be sent to destroy shipyards on any other islands your opponent may have to eliminate his sea power.

Once the shipyard has been torched it's time to storm the castle. If it's on the coast, or very close to it, then your fleet can usually take care of the matter for you. If not, they can blow you a landing zone where you can deploy your army. While the fleet takes care of any coastal watchtowers the army can clean house in the interior. Stonemasons, foresters, and mines are the first to go, and then the workshops. This eliminates any chance of re-supply. Watchtowers are an effective defensive mechanism, and tough to take out. First, the artillery shoots free an attack corridor through to the tower. Then they take out any impediments along the corridor (stay out of range!). Next, a number of cavalry attack the tower directly, followed by ten cannons, who then bombard the tower. Sword fighters and musketeers aren't very useful here, as they're too slow and don't have enough range.

The watchtower will shoot at the cavalry and ignore the cannons. If a cavalryman is hit, he will retreat out of range. One or two cannon salvos should be enough to bring the tower crashing down. This technique will work well with all towers not in range of the fleet. You can also destroy any market places in the area while you're underway, but they won't disappear until all the building materials are gone. Your fleet can take the warehouse under fire repeatedly, and as it will automatically be rebuilt as soon as it has been destroyed, this will deplete the building materials quite quickly. As soon as a piece of land becomes free through the destruction of a market place you can build your own warehouse and market places. If you're fast enough you might even be able to capture a couple of buildings intact!