Imperia Online International

Okay, so those are the choices I have in the beginning..
1) economical development
2) attacking with Tier I units
3) fast-upgrading to Tier II units and attacking with those

The problem is I have no idea what to do for each.

1) It seems that the only thing I can do is wait for resources to gather and build/research. I see no ways of making that go faster.
2) Are attacks at low-points players worth my while and is the outcome able to compensate for my economical stale?
3) If I fast-upgrade, am I in the danger for high-points players to attack me with me having nothing to defend (such a strategy will make me quite vulnarable for a week) and, even if I dodge that, with those new points gained are there gonna be players with low enough defenses for me to attack? Or am I gonna end up gimped?

Sorry, this is my first era, so it's normal to learn on the go, but I hate investing time in a lost cause, so I need some pointers to make it all enjoyable.

Tier 2 units are too hard for you to attain immediatly. Complete waste of your time.
When someone hits 50 points you can attack them.
If you build a small army and are on line often you can get a good deal of killing and money making in the first few days. You can then convert that into economy or you can continue building up your military and go the military route.
If you want faster resources, go to r10. Its blitz and everything happens 4x as fast. Its amazing :)

It seems I did not explain myself correctly. I am into my second week in Realm 4 so I can get the Tier II units' researches done until Sunday, Monday at most (I used the calculator to check the resources and time I need). I started on the 14th day, so I am a bit behind everybody. In that new light.. I know I want some ready information that the veterans have earned with the blood of their troops, but help out a newbie here. ;)

The strategy remains the same. You never actually have to upgrade your troops.
I prefer using massive amounts of spearmen instead of phalanx. They die in droves which gives you lots of honor :) ANd each individual spearmen benefits from your armor and melee so they get more bang for the buck. The only downside is the heavier upkeep costs.

IMO, if you want to be at the top, you need to do #1 for a long time, skip #2 and #3, and attack with all-elites when your economy's really good. (you dont necessarily have to do it this way, but again, IMO this is the best tactic). *evil*
hmm....and if you want it may be worth it to have a small raiding party to get gold from undefended provinces and gold coins to give your economy a small boost. :)

If you intend to fight you should go for heavy units ASAP,you can get heavy horses later but the archers/spearmen/swordsmen and catapults especially are a must.With catapults you can easily go for lvl 6 or even lvl 7 fortress.Staying with light units will only cause you trouble if you happen to meet someone who has elites and maintaining a light army to be strength effective as a heavy will cost you bigger upkeep.If you're not such of a war nature pick economical development and later on you'll directly start from elites.

Krum speaks wise! But I suggest you to grow economically stronger first, especially if you are not so experienced, it would be very hard for you to train useful army and to preserve it. Yes, you can research necesery technology soon, but can you train enough army before some1 kill you?

ah, best way is the econimical way in my eyes...but that doesnt mean you cant have troops...train a good amount of, spears, archers, and LOTS of swords, to go out and get your gold for researches...researches as in ..centralisation, melee attack, and range attack..armour..etc...that way you can have a higher amount of researches done in a smaller amount of time. And also this army is gonna put off people from attacking you too,,,its a win - win situation...i think. *pardon*

for economy, population is fundamental (provinces, med, granaries, farms)

ah ofcource  ;) i put eco and i ment to put military  :-X

in a 4 month game, i will build univ and arch to lvl 4, then build lvl 2 inf barracks, then mil acad lvl 2, build fort lvl 2, then trade lvl 2, then 100 sword, every time you log in, 2 times a day, build lumber, mines, granaries after you make 100 sword, then more inf barracks, mil acad, when you reach 1k in swords, use army to attack lvl 1 and 2 fortresses that are more or less unprotected, use the loot to build lvl 3 fortress, mil arch, and fortification, build centralization when you can afford, work in more univ and arch, adding beauracracy, armor, melee, and range when you can, hiring a diverse blend of spears, archers, lite cavalry and swords gives you options,  don't forget to work in tactics, cartography, spies and border forts, mil medicine is important, medicine helps with population growth....thats how i start....but how some dudes grow huge in imperia is still a mystery to me....and i have played for over a year now...

so, what's your highest net worth score so far?

Finally some time between exams.

So, this is what I did so far. You can point out everything wrong.

First I rushed into getting 5 provinces, building forts till level 3 only in the capital and mountain and forest (my first) province. I filled them both with archers, got fortification 1 to surprise my enemies and then concentrated on economics. Got my other 3 provinces, went for Uni and Arch lvl7, rushed heavy archers, got Bureaucracy 4, Medicine 5, Bureaucracy 8, Fort 4 in my mountains (where I keep the resources, I guess it's ok to say it here, for this is not my ruler name), Uni and Arch 10, going for Fort 5 at the moment and still 1k Net Worth (keeping me away from the bad guys).

I got Border Outposts 3 in the beginning but haven't upgraded since. I get spied on by lvl9 and lvl10 Spies, but I guess those guys don't have the guts to try clashing their armies against my 1k+ Heavy Archers in a mountainous terrain. It's not worth it. Not to say they need to build at least a 500+ points worth of army to have any chance of getting my walls down before they run away, making it nearly impossible to stay in range.

So, I got quite some space to breath and develop my economy further. But what to do? Is it time for war already? Or if I want to stay a farmer for the time being, what should I develop? More Medicine? More Uni/Arch?

uni/arch, medicine, granaries & bureaucracy for a start

More Bureaucracy?

Ok, major question, to around what levels? I am already to the point that I have to wait for a whole day for those upgrades. And each new one will cost nearly twice as much!

15 would be considered good enough for a whole era. what lvl you need to have atm - figure out yourself ;)

I think 16 lvl is needed to get 100% efficiency for 5 provinces including 8 (4 colonized provinces).... :)

about 50k....

well to get good, you need to have access to the computer all day (other than the 6 mandatory offline hours). twice a day isnt enough. if your army's in your base, you can't go afk for more than 1 hour or so. you need to be online at the time of attacks (unless you're sure that the guy is having his 6 hours off). farm for the first half of the game; get many provines (at *least* 7) and high uni/arch & med/granaries/bureau. if you do that (and you don't skru up), you can get way higher than 50k.

What you've done so far seems pretty good! All the suggestions here seem good too, but Bureaucracy gets really less efficient every 4 levels. You can find the economy calculator here (http://www.codegrrrl.com/imperia/downloads/ImpECal124.xls), which includes a function of how long things take to repay themselves; specifically I think the Bureaucracy calculator will help you consider if you want to research it further. Though at this point, since time is becoming a limiting factor rather than resources, better uni/arch may be essential just for not waiting whole days on a research, remember that they're not only saving you money but also time.

just build up gran/med/ buro, and make lots of iron mines, dont make any stone, just wood, and lots of iron. As soon as the iron hits 5+ gold, you ll grow exponantionally!!

eco has to be so good that you can build 7 level fortress every day.

Bob Marley!  :o damn veni-wannabe.... :D

Q-B is recommending eco first  :o :o :o
Wow there be no question then stormtrooped... follow the the advice of Kupo & Q!

Er, ubernooba (miss ya) ;), I don't think frijoles has ever had anything resembling an economy so hence question about networth is kindda pointless  *freak*

The key with most strategy games such as this is to build up your research and development first, whilst the resources and funds are piling in, build a small garrison in your fortress to act as a safety net. I would strongly urge anyone who is very new to this game to try a newish realm, whereby everyone is concerntrating on building themselves up economically rather than militarily. As well as everyone else being so far apart to worry about an invading army!
Then like so many have said before when the time is right, build the ellites and try and conquer!

if u're new here, u should read it...this is a great strategy and it works even better 'cause u're late in the era...

http://www4.imperiaonline.org/forums/int/index.php?topic=706.0
 *bear* *bear* *bear*

that has them as slaves of a strategy, tell newbies to better play a little by themselves first, to know their style, than they can follow one of the many strategies known.

necro-poster? *hmm*