Guide: How to Strategus as a Lone-Wolf

[Uther Pendragon]

Strategus Guide: From a Man, to the People.

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Currently, strategus is a playground for huge clans, factions and blocs, leaving little to no space for lone players that just want to try their luck in changing the course of the Calradia's history. It is often caused by bigger enemies supressing them, lack of motivation, or simply not knowing what to do. I can't help you with the first two problems, but after reading this guide you'll be able to proudly say:

I know how to Strateugus. 

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Strategus requires an untold amounts of patience, as travelling, sending messages to other people and awaiting their responses, takes hours, and sometimes DAYS. Don't get too excited about strategus, consider it as an addition to cRPG, otherwise you may get dissapointed rather... quickly.

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Strategus, strat - cRPG's most developed mechanic, its a campaing on a multiplayer map, where you move just as you do in Singleplayer campaing in Warband, you have your own army, with its equipment, et ceatera. Except that it takes a LOT of time to move, and its definetly harder as you face living opponents on map. But lets not get hasty now, time to explain everything will come, point by point. Because there are many factors that you have to know and understand, if you want to become an effective "Lone wolf"

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To participate in strategus, you must enter the Battles tab on cRPG site of your main character, and there, on the left side (from the battles that I will explain later, how they work) click join Strategus as hero.
ONLY your main character can be used as your Strategus hero, and ONLY he/she can be used in Strategus battles.
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To enter strategus faster, you can always favourite/bookmark this link (http://strategus.c-rpg.net/index.php).

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First off, examine the area where you spawned. I'll use a screenshot here, explaining your surroundings.
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1. Yup, that's you. At the beggining you have 100 soldiers and 1000 gold. The red line shows where you're going. You can always recognise your army by the green ring around it. You start with a white dot, but I'm red because my faction's color is red, same with the line that shows where you're going, it depends on your factions color. Also, your dot size depends on the army size. Its so-called Regular Dot, an army ranging from 100 to 500 soldiers.
2. Village, most common type of fief in Calradia.
3. Castle, usually hard to capture strongholds with big strategic importance.
4. So called Medium Dot, army ranging from 500 to 1000 (?) soldiers. Independent
5. Forest. While moving in the forest, you're dramatically slower, BUTenemies have to come closer to notice you there.
6. A city, usually wealthiest and most heavily defended fiefs.
7. River with a bridge. You can only cross rivers by using bridges, just like in singleplayer.
8. Medium dot, that looks like factionless player. Don't be fooled! If you look closely, you'll notice its creamy color is different from normal white. Its often used by bandits to disguise themselves.
9. Large dot, those are usually war-parties that you don't have to be afraid about, as they have no interest in attacking you.
10. Mountains. If you thought that forests are bad, after trying to cross a mountain you'll consider jungles to be an 10 meters wide asphalt road. They slow you down terribly, always try to travel around them, you'll ALWAYS be faster this way.
11. Little dots (1-99 soldiers), those are usually courageous traders or people meditating in the mountains. Sadly, they often become the victim of bandit attacks, especially if they're carrying any goods.
Sounds easy? Well, that's basic stuff. You think its almost like singleplayer in warband? Its similiar, but at the same time its completely different.

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So if you already entered it yourself, you probably saw something like this to your side:

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From top to bottom: That's your name That's the size of your army, that you can set to different values. (will explain later) Name of your faction. The type of terrain you're currently moving on. It affects the speed of your movement. Your night time: In options (will explain later) you can set when you're sleeping/unavailable to fight, so in case anyone attacks you, you'll be free for the battle (Battle is always set on 24h later from the moment of the attack) Your equipment grade: Depends on equipment:troops ratio, the class of the equipment (value, tier) and amount of it. There are: unarmed, lightly armed, armed, heavily armed and shiny army (So no, buying 5000000 stones won't make you a shiny army.) Your current cargo of trade goods. Mind you, this value is NOT exact (ABOUT 1000 crates), this is what others see when they inspect you. Your exact cargo of trade goods can be seen in "Info" tab. Gold: Your wealth, you can't lose it in battles, you spend it on your army's payment, buying equipment and trade goods. My stats: Click it if you clicked someone else and you wanted to go back to seeing your details (stuff ^ explained here) Move *your name here* to... - Click it, then click on the map to select a place you want to move to. Stop *your name here* - Stops any actions you were taking. You're in the vicinity of *fief name* - Clicking it will select the marked fief for you, making it easier to move there. You spot the party of *hero's name* - Any surrounding you player parties visible for you will be here. Usefull if there's few players on each other and you can't select the one you wish.

Now, a little note: Strategus brings new meaning to "real time strategy". Moving from one place to another can take hours, sometimes days (depends on your equipment, terrain, horses you have).
To increase your speed, buy yourself horses. The type of horse DOES matters, sumpters are slower than all the other ones, so try getting yourself rounceys.

Another note: Its smart to visit diplomacy boards of forums, checking the clans/factions current policy of their territories, borders, free-trade/closed trade areas.
Confused? Good, because its about to get better!

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Trading, the fundament of strategus. That's how empires are built, that's how small rise to power.
Trading, buying trade-goods in one fief (doesn't matters if its a town, castle or a village), and selling them in another brings you profit. Instead of writing a long and boring formula of how the bonus for distance is counted, I'll resort to map example:

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Travelling a distance between, in this example, Tshibtin and Sargoth, gives you a reasonable bonus of 200-220% for your trade goods. Now, what should you make sure of first? 1. Make sure that the fiefs are a free-trade areas, or gain trade permission from the fief owner. Mind you, its all done by talking to people, there's no automatic stuff here or any relations bars. To check who owns the fief, simply click it, and on the left you should see all the info you require. OR contact the faction owner/diplomat. 2. Check the surroundings for any armed dots of 200-300 soldiers. Those can be bandits just waiting for you to aquire some trade goods and later to rob you, wasting no gold themselves. 3. Desing a plan. Know where you will be going to sell those goods, so you don't end up wasting time thinking where/what to do, sitting like a duck. 4. Its a little bit more complicated - You can always set up a trade with another player, exchanging goods with him, you'll give him yours goods, and he will in exchange give you his goods from faraway lands, saving each of you time. Make sure to ask for screenshot of the goods, so you won't get screwed over.

Now, how to check where have those goods been bough from? If you didn't got a screenshot, you can:
1. On cRPG site, go to Battles tab
2. Click on any of the battles there
3. A window should open, click there on name of any player.
4. A new window, with 3 positions to click should open: Factions, Locations, Heroes. Click the Locations.
5. In the "Name:" place, you can type the name of the fief those goods can be from (For example, to check if your partner isn't lying. Typing in Tshibtin will show info about the village, and that it sells Raw Wool.)
6. In the "Goods:" place, you can type the name of his goods, and there see where they've been bought from. (For example, writing Raw Wool will show you Tshibtin.)

Also, here's a nice document showing you (between other stuff) the price rise based on distance you've travelled.

And yes, kittens can be a trade good.

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S&D, or #1 Supply&Demand, determines the amount of transactions you can make in the fief.
S&D rises daily by the amount of #2 prosperity the fief has. You can only see prosperity when you're inside the fief and you click on the info tab.

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Also, while we're at it: Make sure you check the #3 price of the trade goods in the fief. You certainly don't want to buy them at maximum price, and later sell at the lowest one (even with 330% bonus, a 5g sell price is still bad.)

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Betrayals, sudden side changes, breaking alliances, war declarations despite good relations... It all can happen.
What you need to understand, is that in Strategus there is no honor. Rarely, at best. No moral highground. The higher someone has reached in this long power struggle, the less moral-spine he has. Eventually people come to a spot where they just struggle to gain anything, at ANY cost. You have to keep that in mind, and have some caution in you, whenever you get into interacting with others. Of course, if someone keeps acting as a cheaterous bastard, eventually his fame will stick to him, and no-one else will consider doing any buisness with such person.
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Well, you'll need equipment for that.
To buy equipment, you must be inside a fief. After that, select the weapons tab, and you should see something like this
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Its time I also tell you about peasant gear and how equipment works.
Peasant gear is automatically given to ATTACKED players, and its usually the cheapest armors, few scythes, simple bows, axes, as its called, peasants stuff.
However, you only get this equipment if you're naked, or "unarmed". (See grades of equipment)
In battle, players that will sign up for your battle and that you'll accept, will be able to choose their equipment from the stuff you had in your equipment before the battle.
After an item is used and the player wielding it dies, the item is removed from your equipment. Certain % of items is however regained by you, but its damaged by 2 points. (So +3 stuff becomes +1, 0 stuff goes to -2 level, -2 stuff becomes -4). So, to sum it up: In Strategus battles, you use equipment provided by the army leader, but your character and its build is same as in rest of cRPG.
As soon as you are able to (you have enough money, around 40 000), you should try buying yourself some armors and weapons. But what should you buy?
If you can, you should:

• Buy enough armors (light for ranged and medium/heavy for melee) for at least 80% of players (80 armors for 100 soldiers)
• Buy around 40-50% weapons depending on your army size (weapons can be picked up, looted, so there doesn't has to be that many of them
• Ranged weapons, bows and arrows, only buy them if they are at least +0 (no red arrows next to their names in buying window)

Red arrows? What? ~ You probably ask. Well, in every fief, a default heirloom-level for an item is damaged -2. So the fief owner has to upgrade it (loom it) manually 2 times to get it to "regular" +0. And, while damaged stuff is definetly worse, damaged ranged stuff is by many considered unplayable, so why even bother buying it? Only buy it at the occasion, when you see that its loomed in some fief.

Now, in what ratios? Well, for one bow/crossbow there should be at least 2 packs of arrows/bolts. Still, most important for you should be armors and melee weapons.
Any questions? Feel free to ask if something isn't clear.

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If you go to the info window, you'll see this:
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"Allow the incoming transfer" - By clicking this, you allow ANYONE to send you stuff for the next 60 minutes. You can of course quickly click to change it back. Its rather risky, as someone could use it to, for example, transfer you 50000000000 stones and make you incredibly slow.
Troop Cap: current/maximum - By changing the right value, you increase/decrease your troop limit. If you increase it, you'll automatically start recruiting troops, which costs you strat tickets that you gain automatically for playing cRPG. The more troops, the slower you move and the more you pay them.
Night Time: Its the thing I explained before, set it to times you know you aren't able to be at the computer and play.
Your faction colour: your faction colour, explained in Hexadecimal code. (I feel smarter after writing this)

Also, you may have noticed that the info on the left changed.

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Again, from top to bottom:
Your name. (my name)
Size of your army.
Speed you're currently moving at. the [zoom] button shows you the pixel-placed position of yours on Strategus map, so if you get stuck in some tricky terrain, you can manouver yourself out.
Equipment - overall weight of your equipment, without trade goods.
Cargo - overall weight BUT with trade goods included.
Quick March/Fast Travel - allows you to move twice as fast for 300 minutes, but after its done you get the Exhaustion trait, making you move slower for another 1000 or more minutes. It can even last over a DAY. (more info needed as I could be good as well pulling this info out of my ass)
Gold - Silver. visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Renown - Currently it has no use afaik. Gained by winning battles.
Goods - The exact number of your trade goods.
Action - What your character is currently doing. (Attacking, moving, entering a fief, following someone)
Travel time - The time it will take your character to reach its destination point. Note, it doesn't includes the obstacles you may encounter along the way such as forests.
Strategus Ticks Left - They're slowly used to recruit you more troops. Gained by spending times on cRPG servers. (Weirdly, Strategus battles don't award tickets)

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First lets make sure you attacked the right enemy. To calculate that, look at his:
Equipment grade - it should be at least same as yours.
Army size - Because you're the attacker, ALWAYS bring more troops into the fight.
Also, for attack to set, you require at least 1/3 of troops the enemy has, as in: You're attacking a city of 1500 population and 4500 garisson, you require 1/3 of the garrison troops (1500 in this case.)
If you checked those 2.5 points, you're already having an advantage.

After you've attacked someone, and by that I mean you've caught him and locked in combat, a Strategus Battle will be set to happen in 24 hours (unless it interferes with his night time)
Whats the difference between a Strategus battle and normal, eu_1 battle? Well, first of all, Strategus battle lasts untill:

• All flags are taken, all enemies killed (they can't respawn)
• All enemy tickets are killed/wasted
• Time runs out and attackers didn't manage to kill the defenders, forcing them to retreat, lose all remaining tickets

Another difference is that to join a strategus battle, you first have apply. To do that:

• Go to the battles tab on cRPG website
• Click on a battle
• Check for which side you're applying, click "Apply". Don't bother filling in "requested pay" places, or "Application" (unless you're willing to inform him you've got some special skills, like knowing how to use a catapult), but you can check the "Provide Stats" box, so the army leader will see your current build and judge if you're alright to join.

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Also remember to make sure if the leader won't demand your presence on teamspeak, as communication by voice is way more effective in Strat battles


But, if it so happens that you'll be the leader for your army, you have to apply for yourself AND accept possible soldiers. To do that:

• Go to strategus site, click on Battles tab, click on "Show Details" next to a battle
• There you can set up a Public Message, Private Message only for soldiers and accept any mercenaries.

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Well, first of all, examine what did you loot from the battle:

• Any -4 items (broken) you should sell
• Check where the trade-goods have been bought from, then decide where to sell them for the best profit, or trade them for more profitable goods for you

Now, you should consider going back to the trade or anything else you've been doing.

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Strategus is a sandbox game. There's no end to it (except for wipes), so everyone can just keep playing and playing, trying to reach their goal or put their 2 coins into the history. There is a number of things you can consider:

• #1 You can continue trading, and eventually reach an incredible wealth/power that should be reconed with.
• #2 You can try and start your own faction, following the information from this guide and leading your fellas into creating a mighty strategus clan.
• #3 You can also forget any honor and moral rules, and become a bloodthirsty bandit, raiding caravans and independent traders. Or, try your luck and become a mercenary for some of the big factions
• #4 Last but not least, you can attempt to gain a fief, eventually some followers (see #2), and start your own faction.

So far I believe this guide has explained the trading part enough for you to understand it. I will now concentrate on creating a faction, gaining fiefs and managing them.

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Yes, this is slowly losing its "Lone Wolf" aspect, but that's how it is. Strategus rewards numbers.

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To create a faction, simply click the no faction on your left side of the screen in strategus window. Mind you, cRPG clan and Strategus Faction are 2 different things.

Fill the blanks as you feel to (in Color, write something random, as later in Info tab you can just click on the space and use graphic interface to choose the color), and click "Create the new faction!"
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Rank determines the faction member's power, (iirc) from 5th rank you can add people to roster for battles, and from 10th rank you're listed as a leader and you manage the faction

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By this, I mean 2 1 3 FEW important links and 1 important tool that you could (but not have to) get, in order to make your Strategus life a little bit easier.

1. Diplomacy Forums - All big factions post threads there, describing their current policy, wars, alliances, trade agreements etc. Not only big guys, but also little bandits and other ones that you should be aware of.

2. How to prepare for Strategus Fights, a detailed, short guide on how to prepare for any battles, written by kinngrimm.

3. Strategus Rules, explains itself.

4. Strategus Frequently Asked Questions, in case you were too lazy for this wall o' texts here 

5. Free-trade fiefs map by Knute, very usefull if you're unable to get any bad faction to let you in their fiefs and sell your stuff.

6. Addon that sorts your inventory, made by Dodnet. Very usefull.

7. Improved Strategus Toolbelt (By Chy), is,

Reworked strategus info panel (filter by loom level, filter by name, filter by item type, etc... all you ever dreamed of!), need to update the items through the inventory page, when in a fief, so that the info panel information shows up properly.

So, what does it does? Well, it adds a plethora of eye-candy features, like:

• Filtering the items based on: Type, loom-level, name
• Showing your items without the info UNDER them, instead, the item stats pop-up when you hover your mouse OVER the desired item.
• Shows you over-all amounts of the certain item types you have. For example, 1500 body armors, 700 helmets, 400 one-handed weapons, etc.
  

Also, here are few docs with rather useful information.

Here are Google docs versions.

Distance bonus
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AndZsiPEJtczdFRuQjBQbHJUZ2twV1RjTHB6YmRhc1E#gid=3

Total upkeep
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AndZsiPEJtczdFRuQjBQbHJUZ2twV1RjTHB6YmRhc1E#gid=5

Upkeep per troop
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AndZsiPEJtczdFRuQjBQbHJUZ2twV1RjTHB6YmRhc1E#gid=4

https://docs.google.com/document/d/117tuiDHh4AzB7dVvGpmEMT3WeQUq6T1_Ly27OZm7fFM/edit Guide written by Artyem of Dracul posted here without asking him Hope he won't mind, this document could contain certain things I've missed, for example the Town Center section. 

With the knowledge of the current diplomacy, and the toolbelts, you should have a little easier and more safe time in Strat. At least you won't enter an closed-border country and you won't get brutally punished by border guard.

And, of course, remember the golden rule: Never help anyone, unless you will profit from it.

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After a little struggle, you have gained a fief? Or did you bought it, or did you just gained it by an accident?
Doesn't matters, you still must know how to manage it! So, first difference you will see will be in Info tab

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1. The general fief information visible for everyone, the population (takes part in defence against sieges, but not against raids), troops (garrison, defends against all sorts of attacks but costs gold to upkeep, unlike population) and gold stored in fief, that's used to pay for the troops. Note, troops in fiefs costs less money to upkeep than an field army of same size. 2. The troops, gold and equipment stored in the fief, available for transfer for the fief owner to be moved to any other character close enough/inside the fief. Acts as inventory of the fief. 3. The taxation, goods price and prospertity management options. Tax is the additional gold paid by the seller (of trade goods) to the fiefs bank. Low tax - seller heaven, high tax - owner heaven. Goods price is the cost of buying/selling goods in this fief. Its (usually(?)) the same value for both buying and selling. High price - seller gets more gold for selling here. Prosperity is the value of Supply&Demand growth in the fief every day. The higher, the better for all parties 4. Economical information of the fief, such as the name of the trade goods that can be bought here, amount of prosperity (daily S&D growth), tax, goods price. 5. People inside the fief. If they're from your faction, you can see amount of troops and gold they have. If they're not, you'll see blanks instead of numbers. You can kick them out of your fief, for example in order to attack them. 6. Ownership change menu - Using this, you can transfer the ownership of the fief to any person inside the fief. All those operations cost production points. Their gain depends on the type of the fief. If its a village, it'll gain 1 PP per day, castle - 3 PP per day, town - 5 PP per day. You also use PP to upgrade items and discount them (lower their price). visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Now lets move to Weapons tab (two-handed weapons, for the example need)
When you hover your mouse over an items image, you should see something like this:

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Shortened Military Scythe, a good all-around two-handed weapon. Its not of much use when its damaged twice, so what you would want to do is increase its heirloom level twice, to +0 (normal) level. Under the item, you can see the HL +1 [1 PP], the +2 variant and price -5% [1 PP] First 2 options are about increasing the aforementioned heirloom level, mind you that above the +0 level the price in PP increases dramatically. Last option is about discounts for the item. Very useful for high-tier expensive gear, the cost in PP of discount also increases the more you use it on one item. visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Discounts work the same way.

Also, note, in case of siege-gear, you MUST heirloom them those 2 times in order to buy them.

25-05-2014: Come to think of it, writing this guide felt like being a dwarf in Dwarf Fortress who was taken by a "Strange mood" and had to create something...
Also I lied about future updates, apologies.

[Ronin]

Great!

Edit: Can you tell how to change the nighttime?

[Uther Pendragon]

Community Q&A, stuff I've missed in the guide

1. How to change your nighttime

• Go to the Info tab in Strategus site
• In the Night Time: write the hour you're going to sleep, for example 23 if you sleep from 11 Pm and onwards.
• In the next bar write how long do you sleep/consider yourself unavailable to be at the computer and play cRPG, strategus battles, etc. For example, 15 hours if you're able to play in the afternoon (23 pm *15ticks* = 14 pm next day)

This way, if anyone attacks you during this nighttime, it won't be set on 24 hours later, but at the end of your nighttime, so you can actually play the battle
You can't change the night time 2 hours before AND 2 hours after your night time starts/finishes

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2.There is no auto-planning for your character movement on the map.
Which means, you will have to make all river crossings and around-the-mountains ways yourself, setting one destination point after another.

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[Vermilion]

Nice work..

You may want to link something like this http://forum.meleegaming.com/diplomacy/open-trade-fiefs-map-and-info/  and mention that these can change at any point so check them regularly.

Map speed- can easily catch someone new out.. buying too many goods and becoming an easy target
100 troop + 100 goods X + 100 goods Y = Normal speed (around 14 m/m)
100 troops + 101 goods X = Slow speed
100 horses + 100 men + 100 Goods = Fast speed (around 34 m/m)
100 horses + 101 men + 100 Goods = Normal speed
etc

Also horse type does matter ... well Sumpter Horse are slower than the rest.. rank doesn't matter

bridges and routes... those who have played native may not know it doesn't auto plan route AVOID water

You mentioned signing up for others battles but not making a thread to recruit for your own (could be important for people going alone, esp new people)

[Uther Pendragon]

Thanks for noticing all the screwups, will correct them

I'll try to link current diplomacy stuff going on, trying to highlight "bad' guys and "worse" guys, + free trade fiefs map

I got little time today, but tommorow I'll rework what I did so far, and add few more points.

[Arthur_]

you could add some things here from

http://forum.meleegaming.com/strategus-general-discussion/strategus-4-faq/

[Uther Pendragon]

Its mostly numbers and formulas, + stuff thats not really usefull for new players, but yeah I added some of FAQ to my guide already, also I noticed that I skipped S&D topic completely visitors can't see pics , please register or login

[Ronin]

I have a question about quick march, what happens if you chase a party and use quick march. The quick march lasts for 500 minutes, but the battle preperation is 24 hours. So what happens exactly?

[Uther Pendragon]

I have a question about quick march, what happens if you chase a party and use quick march. The quick march lasts for 500 minutes, but the battle preperation is 24 hours. So what happens exactly?

After those 500 minutes, you'll have exhaustion for next 500 minutes that reduces your speed by half (?), so its only reasonable to use it if you need to run away from something/get to the safety fast.

Battle preparation has no effect on quick march, it'll just end, turn into exhaustion, which will also end and it'll be all back to normal

[Jarold]

Nice guide I actually might get into strategus now!

Oh damn I guess I tried starting out earlier...got me a lot of ticks....the question is can I supply a big army?

Is there an upkeep cost on equipment or troops i'm wondering?

[Vermilion]

There's no upkeep on equipment but there is on troops.

Under 500 troops it's not that much if you're trading frequently.. Above that however it can be quite expensive (much cheaper having them in a fief than on you... but that requires you to own and protect a fief)

[Jarold]

I'm not sure if im reading this close enough but I have one more question. How fast do you gain troops? I left it going for 10 hours came back only 15 troops were added.

Strat newb!

[Uther Pendragon]

You gain them pretty slow, I don't know the exact troops per hours rate, but something around 25-30 daily? Thats why having allies who do nothing except for sitting somewhere, just gathering troops and transfering them to you is pretty nice

[Grumpy_Nic]

+1, very nice guide. I've been thinking about returning to strat for some time now but after reading this I know why I quit, waste of time.

Very well written, nice effort.

[Uther Pendragon]

Updated, modified few parts.

Sorry for the delay of the fief-management part and state-making, but I prefer having current-time experience and example to base my instructions on

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Aka: I need a fief, and despite being one <---- I could use a normal village