no no i wasn't worried about how the game was going, i was just surprised how i kept getting food resources even after getting the adventuring tech - my resources eventually balanced, sort of - still light on arcane and tech resources but i'm cranking out enough food to bring three cities up to level 5 at the same time rather than leveling up one, taking out houses and moving them to another city to take advantage of how many citizens a city can manage on its own without support housing. I'll probably focus on winning by the master spell in this game. Finally managed to pick up two heroes lol this is a bizarre randomly resource free game sometimes, but it's more fun this way. i could have flooded the whole continent in lv1 cities but that would be dull

I'm still playing on "challenging." I'm moving up slowly--but if you are playing on "ridiculous" you are on your own!

That being the case, for my last game at turn 250 I had about 20 cities and one of each elemental crystal so I just garrisoned everybody and went straight to the Spell of Making, and beat the game on a large map clicking quickly through the 100 turns or so it took me to level up and research the spell.

That degree of expansion is fairly common for me.  I am no expert on these sorts of games so I hope this will be at least minimally informative.  Since you asked: the first 100 turns go by pretty quickly with me mostly exploring.  I try to lay down a city in the first 5 turns and put down a materials building first, then tech research, then spell research.  I go to all the inns and random drops, and do all the quests, because early on you can get a lot of materials and gildar that way that help with buildings and, more importantly, pioneers.  My first research is always exploration from the adventuring tree for more nodes, my second is always the 4-person team from military to escort pioneers and garrison, and after that it is varied but often I'll get quests from the adventuring tree because that offers more materials and gildar still, and I do trade from the diplomacy tree before my third city, and get caravans going for extra food.

By turn 100-ish hopefully I'll have at least two pioneers escorted each by a squad of observers about to lay down a couple ciites, with hopefully a couple food nodes and gold nodes under my belt.  Each city should have a tech lab and an arcane lab, among other buildings.

My first spell is probably flame dart, just to protect the sovereign from random encounters, then I start leveling up quickly and my second is fire giant, and after that frost giant.  Their names are "Fear" and "Pane."  Along with a squad of observers and maybe an imbued hero, around turn 100 I can start work on really expanding my empire, which is: turning the AIs city spam to my advantage.  Usually my trail of tears begins with just the fire giant, or Fear, as I spread into the first empire I find, and I research Pane along the way, and then the Lord of Seas, who remains nameless.  I usally garrison newly conquered cities with the fire giant as I move forward, until observers can be moved in from the rear, and I keep training them in my home cities.  For simple protection of cities, a 4-squad of observers + maybe a hero suits me fine until a lot farther into the game.

So that's the idea.  That's how I do it.  I'd love to hear other opening strategies.  I'll probably have to come up with something a little different when elemental giants take a mana cost nerf in 1.1. 

I usually a fairly huge kingdom by turn 200 and have knocked out anywhere from 1 to 3 AI by this point. They're especially easy to take down early in the game, as late-game they build fairly good units like catapult squads. I alwasy play on large maps.

Build nothing but pioneers & observers early on. Buy walking boots for all your heroes right away, and/or travelling cloak. None of them should  be moving less than 3 mp a turn, and you should have at least some 5-movers. In newly settled towns buy caravans, that first diplomacy tech needs to be researched fairly soon. Start taking advantage of the halved cost for caravan routes right away. On large maps, I find caravan routes already set up .. use them to great effect. Once you conquer that first AI, you've typically acquired a well-built up city & start pumping out more caravans, pioneers, and observers, and eventually better combat units. Once you get squads start building them. Well built-up AI cities usually have a higher production rate, I've actually been able to build some 4-man squads on some AI cities in 1 turn. That's a great boon & start using it right away to great advantage. Make "time" your ally, think blitzkrieg not maginot line. 

Anyone that moves 3 to 5 will move 6 to 10 on roads. That's an incredible boon, especially going for conquest on large maps on ridiculous setting as I do. Needless to say, make a beeline for military techs & market improvement so you can raise more money to support a larger military. Choose "increase gilder" each time a city levels-up, you don't need anything else. Make sure you also make a priority: crystal and shards in that order. Crystal are an incredible boon to building more effective military squads in mid-game, shards will also improve your spells, especially if fire shards & fire spells which are strong in attack.

Also, make sure you imbue as many guys as you can, keep your soverign fighting so he can level up more & imbue more champs. If you get to the point where you're wallowing in gilder, buying a longbow or two for some of your champs is a good idea. As far as spell tech, take fire-book and make a beeline for fire dart, fireball, fire-giant, fire swarm. You should have fire giant & whatever that demon spell is by the time you find your first AI, caste it & conquer. If you're very lucky you'll find that sand golem tablet. These monster armies will take down pretty much any AI in the early game before you've gotten squads, mid to late game they get eclipsed by archers & squads. Archer squads & horse archers should be your unit of choice in mid to late game, they're pretty much invincible in combo with strong spellcasters who pick up once your mana runs out.

Spend more your money on units less on buildings. Let the AI build up their cities for you .. when you conquer them you'll get a full plate & make up to some degree what you didn't build up in your own cities.

That's basically it, you should never loose this game even on ridiculous by following the above strategy. This game is a perfect example of Clausewitz's addage: "the best defense is a good offense". The AI is a pushover in the game-as-is. Hopefully 1.1 will improve the AI dramatically.

Out of all the games I've started and worked through, I still haven't cast the Deflect spell even once..lol. I think if I counted all the times out of 400 or 500 playthroughs that magic has been cast against me it would probably still be under ten times. Even since the change to randomize who attacks first I always manage to kill off the enemy Sovereign on my first turn with archers and direct damage spells.

Thinking about all the fights I've faced in the game, in hindsight, the only time I could have used the deflect spell was the fight against the hermit to put the Forge of the Overlord back together.

I can't wait until they switch over the combat system so the AI actually has a real chance to put up a decent fight and get some spells off. It'll be a big improvement I think. As it stands right now the only real challenge I ever face in combat is some of the biggest end game monsters like Demons or Dragons and that's only on the rare times when I'm moving a smaller army and don't see the monster in the woods and get taken somewhat by surprise.

On the other hand it's also annoying as hell having a few prised units taken out on the cheap by the AI with a monster with a super ability. Then it takes forever to replace the losses because of slow build times. Hopefully when they do the tweaks to using population as a resource they'll come up with a new time system for drafting and training units. There's nothing wrong with it taking longer in the beginning to mid game, but hopefully by end game in a capitol city we'll be able to crank out some larger armies in a relatively short amount of time in a time of war.

uhg i just realized some of my last post wasn't posted since i edited it - i must have hit the back button on the browser, not post message 

With deflect I rip through 8- and 12-squads with a lone frost giant and barely break a sweat.  It allows you to do a lot of damage, safe from counter attacks, and doesn't cost a lot of mana.

call me king of the cheesy spells but i find that titan's breath to push units back and mudslide to take away their action points is a very useful tactic to let my magically enhanced (items and spells) 12 man archer squads of doom tear units apart toss a few walls down and you get three turns of shooting for very cheap mana.

edit: oh, and darvin3, is that picture a harlequin ? or something else ?