Makotolia: Brax: yeah, I knew from wikia that he's one of the weakest, but I figured if I got him early, he might still provide some edge, since I can save some time by delaying building my army and focus on building the economics early on.
With a few levels, he can help keep an army on the move, and he can use items that you might find. He works until you can get better.
Makotolia: Normal units: I also found that neither swordsmen or spearmen reliable, and thus have been hesitating about building any unit so far. As for pikemen and paladins, I still have a long way to go, it seems.
Paladins are still a long way off, since they require an Armorer's Guild and a Cathedral, both expensive buildings at the end of an expensive building chain. They are worth the cost, but you can't really rush to them.
Pikemen are within your reach, though. They only require a Fighter's Guild, which you usually want to build before starting serious unit construction anyway. A city with a Fighter's Guild builds new units as Regulars instead of Recruits, and higher level units are significantly more effective. The other main building to consider building before starting serious Pikeman construction is an Alchemist's Guild to give your pikemen magic weapons.
Makotolia: Magic spirit: yeah, I melded the nodes I took. That's the main reason why I value them so much after all. Yet again, since I haven't built any normal units, I didn't sent guard for them. But maybe it's not that urgent in my case, since the continent is solely occupied by me now, and it's located at the NW corner of the world, so I only need to guard against south and east, in which directions my scout spirits are marching.
If you don't have a spare unit, then just remember to glance over your nodes every so often and make sure they are still showing your color. I don't want to bother with that, so I just send a spearman over to sit there and let me know if a wizard tries to take my node (they usually don't when I've got a guard, since they'd have to fight for it).
Also, keep in mind that the world doesn't have any actual corners. The only edges are along the top and the bottom; the left and right sides of the map are joined together.
Makotolia: Now that I read through your opinions, I have the feeling that the most significant underlying problem of my play for now may be that I don't have much idea about the building part. What to build and when to build them? It's a problem to me. So far I've focused solely on civic building, trying to improve the population growth and production rate (granary-market-farmers market-settlers-sawmill). I was not really sure as to if I should built sawmill, miners guild or ship wrights guild right now.
For a brand new town, I'll have it build housing until it is size two or three, then it starts constructing other things. I might start a barracks while it is size 2, since a barracks doesn't have upkeep. If I don't need the city to make units, then I'll set it to Trade Goods once it has all the buildings I want it to make (or housing, if it can grow significantly faster by building housing).
My early town buildings are focused on those that provide food and production, looking for the cheap buildings first. So I typically build a granary and farmer's market as soon as I can. Other early buildings are a Sawmill, Library, and a Shrine when rebels show up. I'll push toward a Forester's Guild, a Sage's Guild, and an Alchemist's Guild when I can, with a Bank coming shortly after. A temple and the later religious buildings are generally only priorities when the number of rebels grows and I've already got the core production boosters in place. I'll make an Armory and a Fighter's Guild whenever I want to start building units to go fight.
A miner's guild is fairly expensive, but you do want one eventually. I'll generally build one when the city has a lot of its core infrastructure in place and it doesn't need to be making units.
I wouldn't bother with a Shipwright's Guild unless you want to start building boats or when you're ready to build a Merchant's Guild. Shipwright's Guilds and Ship Yards don't provide an inherent bonus.
Makotolia: Thanks again for all this detailed info! I guess I should start to invest some time in learning about the races and their normal units on wikia. Now that I think about it, I've known my enemies quite well (through wikia), but haven't known my own arsenal as well...
If you care to read long, winding posts about some of my experiences with units (and the reactions others had to my posts), then you can check out
this thread. I spent some time trying out units that I don't normally build and giving commentary on my experiences.
