This strat has several pros:
* Amazingly quick rebounds
* Get to the top fast
* You can break practically anyone within reason
* Immune against most hawkers
* You'll have good defense with a lot of troops
There are some cons:
* No guards: land is valuable
* If you aren't careful, you could spiral into a lot of losses
Before you start, you've gotta do a quick check on the game you are playing.
1. How much money do you get for food selling?
2. Which is the best offensive unit, considering also its food consumption? Food consumption is lower the more expensive the unit is.
3. Do the players generally have a lot of hawks?
4. Which race has the best offense, a non-negative defense, and a non-negative hawk bonus?
OK, you're ready to start.
Starting
1. For your first turns in protection, scout completely. Then wait for full turns.
2. Sell all your food, then set your army management to 100% of your mass troop type. You chose this in (2).
3. Take out a max loan.
4. Build 50% barracks, 25% huts, 25% foragers. If you can sell food for a good price (i.e. above$8-$10), then take away 5% of the barracks and make them foragers. If a lot of players use hawks, take away another 5% from the barracks and add it to the huts. For example, you could end up building 40%-30%-30%.
5. When you've finished building, sell all that you can of your mass troop type. Now set your army management reasonably. This is the hard bit, and you have to play it by ear. Try setting it to something, using a turn foraging, and adjusting by what you get. You want to get about average amounts of each troop type, but 1.5-2 times the average in your mass type. This is hard, but it will come with practice.
6. Execute the Raise Defenses mission 10-15 times.
6. Forage 50-100 turns. Now you can start attacking!
Attacking
-You will have to spend a lot of your time attacking.
-Attack juicy, fat targets. Ignore your personal feelings in this, like revenge. Every 4-5 attacks, stop and build. Low health leads to weaker attacks and higher losses.
-Sometimes, it is advisable to pummel someone hard if they attack you, just so they will be discouraged from attacking you. In general, however, this isn't a good idea, because you are weakening yourself.
-Don't be afraid to hit targets 10, 15 ranks above you. It is always better to hit landfat targets under or near you, but you can probably break the higher ones too.
Keeping It Up
-Periodically sell food and troops to generate more cash. Keep an eye on your food and cash, and how much you make/lose per turn. Building can be very dangerous if you start with little cash/food: you could wipe out most of your army.
-Periodically do Raise Defences 5-10 times. You never know when you are coming back to the computer.
-Attack a lot. This is not a pansy game, you have to attack to feed your crazy economy. Remember, if you have too many troops on too little land, you can't support their growth - it tops out! If you are very anxious, demolish barracks to make foragers.
-You may still have more hawks than many other people: regularly try espionages and hawk battles. Some games also have Embezzle and Rob Granaries.
End Of A Run
-At the very end of your run, spend time just regaining troops, either by foraging or training (if your game has that). Sell your food at the very end, and buy troops on the black market. You can sell those at the beginning of your next run.
-If you accumulate a lot of runes, it is a good idea to spend them healing after attacks, if the game has that. Or at the end of your run, instead of foraging/training, use Forage and Loot. Then sell food and buy troops.
If Attacked
-At the beginning of your run, to rebound, just sell all your troops that you can, except for your mass troop type. This will make a lot of money. You will still be able to attack fast and successfully to rebound. DO NOT forget to buy food as your foragers may have been partly destroyed in an attack.
Diplomacy
-This is really up to you!
Each person does diplomacy differently. Obviously, it is important, but this is about the strat.There's more, if I remember something else, I will come back here and post it in an edit. Note that these apply to all Promisance games, not just FAF. Thus, I haven't included FAF-specific stuff, like attacking for food and cash (which can be quite useful!), etc.
