What's the best technique for growing your army (FFA)?

I'm getting swarmed by players with massive armies, way bigger than I'm able to amass in the same amount of time. I think I've played enough to not just be getting disadvantageous starting positions (although this seems like a real problem).

Is there a "best" technique?

  • Sit on the capital and amass a single large army
  • Capture territory, thinning your army, at first, hoping to gain larger armies over time?
  • Capture cities (and then sit on them or send them to your capital?)

Should I sweep up my territories as they grow armies or let them sit as a buffer between me and enemy armies?

For that matter, do territories grow incrementally or do they double or something?

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2 Answers

Best is going to be subjective, but you need to find a balance between expansion and having an army stack.

Sitting on your capital to amass a large army means you will lack information on the other player(s) position, and you are missing out on army growth for having territory.

Expansion does thin your army, and over-extending yourself will leave you vulnerable to a single large army charging towards your general.

Cities are valuable, but you will take a short term loss taking them due to their base strength. A city will only pay for itself if you can hold it for as longer than the number of defenders (40-50). You should rarely leave cities without defenders, otherwise an opponent can steal it from you at a much lower cost.

Territories grow incrementally (additive, not multiplicative), producing 1 troop every 25 turns. Note that you don't need to control the tile for 25 turns, all tiles add 1 troop whenever the time is a multiple of 25.

One strategy that I've seen in a lot of winning replays is...

  • Avoid capturing too many capitals early on, they waste your army too quickly
  • Spike deeply into unknown territory, trying to find an enemy
  • Try to capture lightly protected generals

When you capture an enemy general, you get all their armies and territory at once.

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