Mike Clough's Strategy Guide

Well seeing as there is nothing at all here yet, here are the basics:

(you can delete this if you want, when something else is here instead)

Building you Kingdom

Firstly, you will need some extra land, so explore until you have enough land to satisfy your needs, but no more that this, as this will make you 'land-fat'. (and more vulnerable to attacks)

The first thing you should build, will always be your workshops, as these make building you kingdom faster. They should also be built up turn by turn, so that you get the maximum benefit of thier effects, every turn.

Next are your farms, and towns, which will supply your kingdom with geld, and very importantly, population, if you plan to have nether units in your army. At this stage you should generaly build only enough to cover the upkeep of the buildings and units, that you will be using during your research period. (This will also prevent you from appearing 'land-fat'.

If you are planning on using recruitable units during your research period, you should build barracks now. Recruiting can also be done over your research period, and wont take any extra turns. However, most recruitable units have a geld upkeep, and you may need to build extra farms/towns to cover it. (thus making you more land-fat!) So i would reccomend using 'summoned' units instead.

If you are planning on using 'summoned' units during your research period, you should build nodes now. (nodes should be built anyway, but are not completely neccesary)

Next are your guilds. These increase your researching ability, and will make your researching period ALOT quicker. These are definately a must. I usualy build atleast 1000, and the gains are still quite resonable even up to around 2400 guilds! Build too little, and it will take months to research everything, build too much, and you will be land-fat, and be bombarded with constant attacks. Try and find a safe half-way point that works for you. (This can also vary depending on the colour of your mage)

You dont need to build any extra forts at this stage, but if you need that extra security, then build a few more. You usualy can't build many a turn, and they have high upkeeps, so aslong as you have say, 6 - 8 or more, this should be plenty.

Barriers are also not realy needed at this stage, and have high upkeeps. Full barrier strength (75% resistances), is achieved by building 2.5% of your land into barriers. (some people will build 2.51% to be safe)

Researching Stage

 (note - you will always be attacked several times when you are researching. This 
  cant realy be stopped, you just have to do your best to survive it.)

No matter what colour your mage is, you should always research every spell you can. A high spell level is a playing factor in many spells, and will allow you to summon more units from summon spells, which is very important later on in the game.

Usualy, it is best to start researching the blue spells, until you have researched the spell 'Concentration'. Casting this spell can increase you researching ability further, and also makes your spells more efficient. This should be cast as soon as you get it, and then dispelled and re-cast whenever your spell level has improved by a significant amount. (concentration cast with a better spell level will give better benefits)

Once all the spells have been researched, you can destroy most of your guilds, and turn them into farms, towns, nodes, and anything else you want. Usualy, it is best to turn alot of these into nodes, so you can cast enchantments on your kingdom.

Now that you have a full range of units for your army construction, you can start building a complete army. You should plan exactly what you want, and in what order, as stacking plays a very major role in battle success.

By this stage, you should have a nice income of geld, and mana, and try not to have a negative population growth. Save your geld for items, or heroes. Heroes are very important later on in the higher rankings.

The rest is up to you, many people have been number 1, with completely different startegies, there is no 'right' stategy, and you need to figure out which one works best for you. Ive been playing for over 6 years, and i am still fine-tuning it.

Good-luck and happy maging!

MikeClough-