OK, so it was a general question. Well the answer is, don’t build the nation until you have the region layouts!
Jeremy
Totally agree Jeremy.
BTW, this thread reminded me of an article I wrote for Bree on FA setups that a few folks found helpful. I’ll cross-post it here. Some of the formatting was munged when it was carried over from the old forums, but still readable, and maybe even helpful.
The topic says FA sample setups. There’s not much of them.
Yes, you are right. That’s why I posted a possible for scenario for a Rhun surrounded by enemies. I was hoping other scenarios would be shared. I may work up some others…
It would help if people asked about specific situations i.e. “what might be a good setup for a Good South Kingdom when Mordor is evil and Harondor is good” kind of thing.
- Jeremy
I think people considering joining a FA game would really benefit from just generic well designed nations. Thinking about location and neighbours goes into specifics, but first I (we?) need to know the basics of it. 
Here is a basic setup for a Human nation that is balanced between military, agent, economic, and mage power. I’d be more than happy to see an ally arrive at Turn 0 with this setup. Quite durable, no fancy bells or whistles, built for near term and long term success.
Specifics matter a lot. Given the wrong circumstances this nation could easily get wiped out. But it’s a very solid starting point. Hopefully helpful.
Capital in the mountains.
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Thanks for the build. Some Questions tho, 800LC and 5 warmachines, but only at 40. Why? Why the warmachines especially?
Otherwise I can see the seed agent naming more for guard duty, mages conjuring horses and obviously enough emissaries for at least own improvements.
I’ll have to study muuuuuuch more than I thought to be ready for FA. ;D
The 5 WM are just to round out the SNA section point spend to 20,000. There’s little of value one can do with 1,000 points.
The best way to learn FA is just to jump in. Once you get your region assignments and map layout, there are a bunch of us who would help you design a specific setup.
Yes, I agree, just jump in.
Here are some of the game elements that shape even the the most generic setups:
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The loyalty of your capital starts at 75, but the starting loyalty of all your other starting popcenters is equal to the highest emissary rank that you possess. So you almost always want to start with an E60(which as a human you can get one of, for the cost of an E50) or an E50 if you are not human.
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The starting morale, training, weapons and armor (training only for Archers and MA) is equal to the highest rank of command skill, regardless of who you put in charge of the starrting army. So it’s nice to have at least a C40, and C50 or C60 is cool too.
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In FA, the camp limit tends to be reached by turn 4, plus or minus a turn, so you want to start with emissaries out of the starting gate to get down some camps. Unlike 1650, E30’s are ineffective at creating camps so it is best to start with E40’s for making them. Since you likely want to start with an E50 or E60 for your popcenter loyalty, it’s typical to start with 1-3 E40s in addition. Even if you take the SNA for making E40’s, you want to start with at least two or your economy will be cramped.
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Although the 728 - 737 orders all cost 5000 or 10,000 regardless of what kind of character you name, agent skill is expensive in your build points. It is better not to put A10 or A20 on your characters as that eats up valuable build points, and not bother taking more than one or two A30’s or A40’s depending on your SNA’s. (You may need to start with a ranking agent or two if you take scouting x2 and want an effective scout right off; and you may want to start with an A40 or two if you took the ability to name A40’s. Otherwise, one A30 will let you name new A30’s for the same cost as naming any other single-class but will minimize the cost of build points.)
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Many players want the ability to shift their map by a hex or three in some direction, which requires a C-E with some emissary skill. So most players make their king a command 30 and use the royalty points for E60 for humans, E50 for other races.
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Some of the issues regarding surrounding regions is, do you have any breathing space initially or do you need to start gathering troops right away? Perhaps hire-for-free is worth taking. Or are you in territory such as Khand which is bad for infantry, so take conjure mounts.
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There are good articles (including one of mine!) about Fourth Age SNA’s on the website, it’s worth have a read-through on them. In particular, I strongly suggest you do not take any naval SNA except Open Seas, and the Stealth Rank Bonus SNA is IMO not working, as it is too often the case that nations with this SNA never get any stealth at all. Avoid teleport if it is for the purpose of gathering artifacts, except in a gunboat game or where your allies have no nations that can access a large area.
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There is a gap between each player’s imagination of how their nation could be, and what is practical given the region and the surrounding regions. One of the things that make the difference with the better players, IMO(!) is that willingness to give up your dream of building lots of ships, of having lots of agents, of having a Weakness squad, when the environment you are in has other dictates for a successful setup. Have fun anticipating what you would do, but once you get a region, throw it all away and start fresh, and be grounded.
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Bear in mind that if you take artifacts, most of the time what you will get is +500 or +750 combat artifacts, or somewhat more rarely +10 or +20 skill artifacts.
I hope this helps,
Jeremy
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Great suggestions Adam and Jeremy. some additional thoughts:
C40+ in your capital is additionally important for confidence in ChTaxRt. You want to jump to 60% tax rate before your first CreCmp order (so that there is no loyalty hit on the new camps). If your top capital commander is only a C30, chances are you’ll fail or only partially get there (40something or 50something tax rate).
I find M30s are the cheapest way to allow me to get the other 5 or 6 starting characters to be what I want them to be. So I usually have 3 M30s in a starting character lineup. And they can help with RAs, and later ScryAreas - which is hugely important in FA GB games.
I agree with Jeremy that the Stealth SNA is bugged and doesn’t work. So don’t pick it. If it were to actually work, it would be darn cool to combine with A40 and +20Scout to create an agent nation. But it’s 8k of down-the-drain SNA spend. In FA 45, my nation with that SNA, hired agent after agent, retired them, and rehired, over and over and got 1 agent with stealth. It was ridiculous. Clint says I just had bad luck. But, multiple Uncover Secrets revealed that nation had the Challenge Rank Bonus - and guess what bonus many of those iterative agents came into game with??? hmmm??? yep, challenge rank bonus. looks like a duck. quacks like a duck. walks like a duck. It’s a duck.
Dave
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+20 scout or doublescout? I don’t think stealth affects scouting, but might be wrong. I think stealth affects the dicerolls of several actions, but not automatic orders.
well, if the stealth SNA worked, then you can just afford:
+40 Agent -8k
+20 Scout - 4k
Stealth - 8k
but since it doesn’t, then you can do:
+40 Agent - 8k
doublescout - 9k
and whatever other SNAs you feel are interesting.
I believe that stealth does help scouting and all other agent activities. IMO.
On a new topic, a common mistake (IMO) that I see players make is to spend SNA points that help their nation survive, rather than help their nations be victorious, in regions that don’t require it. If you are beleaguered by enemies in nearby nations and expect to be driven out, then taking a hidden major town makes sense. But if you are equally matched in your area, then spend the points where they will help you overcome the opposition and wear them down to THEIR hidden backups!
Jeremy
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BTW in the thread “3-allegiance gunboat – good or bad” there is a thread about a specific map I proposed for such a scenario, that attempts to balance out the regions.
The North Kingdom in that is grouped with Rohan and Northern Wastes but is otherwise surrounded by DS and FP enemies, and can expect a bitter battle where he will be picked apart from many sides. In considering this, I came up with a new idea where he abandons his homeland and lets the DS and FP fight it out against each other! He starts with major towns at 2121 and 2212 and command-mages that can cast major return to get to those popcenters right away and conjure mounts and hire cavalry, and a hidden town that he can improve right away. I don’t post it here because it is a unique situation – NK is rarely surrounded by enemies since as a neutral he can just join that alleigance. But go check it out if you are interested!
Jeremy
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I would like to see the MAA SNA affect conjured hordes.
That’s definitely an interesting conversation, along with other things I think people would like to see. But you may want to re-post it in a new thread maybe call it “FA Changes I’d like to see” since only people will see it here that are interested in sample setups.
Jeremy
In one game, Near Harad had a difficult challenge to set up as Free Peoples. But let’s take a look and see if there is some way to set up that might work.
Umbar, South Mordor, East Mordor, Far Harad AND the South Kingdom were all enemy. Only Umbar and Harondor were going to be allies, and this was a gunboat game, so no way to talk beforehand. And East Mordor and Khand were played by the same DS player.
Now this sure looks to me like a difficult position, especially if you consider this was before racial bonuses when one could be Dwarves and start with two castles! It seems to me that the best strategy would be to help Umbar and Harondor take out Far Harad so that they could then focus eastwards, but it would also be important to avoid the South Kingdom swooping down on him.
So I have created a setup which is one way to go. With a capital at 3334 and a C60, he can remove the bridge right away; and with cavalry and enough war machines to remove a fort, he has a good chance to help take out Far Harad.
I went with an Elvish nation because I like starting with an M60 even before they added the +20 mage artifact, but you could do this as Dwarves to make the C60 cheaper and take three M40’s.
Food for thought,
Jeremy
You might think, why not take a hidden popcenter? Well firstly, in order to get the road bonus, you would either have to hide a town or major town on the road, and the DS would easily be able to identify that you are missing a popcenter and that it must be one of two hexes. But more importantly, to hide a pc in this scenario is to say, if they take out my nation I want a backup hidden major town that I will have built up from say a village. But, if they have taken out your nation, then surely Umbar and Harondor area also going to be taken out!
You HAVE to put a stake in the ground and say, thus far, no farther. Put all your eggs into one basket. Use every SNA you have for offensive (or economic) benefit and don’t worry about trying to survive the loss of your homeland, because if that happens, there won’t be any reason to stay in the game.
It would be a hard situation to play, you’d have only T1 diplo to try to coordinate an attack against Far Harad as well as plan fending off the eastern powers.
Jeremy
I have recently found that starting a King / Prince character with decent emissary and a resonable mage rank, means that early on the character can move, cast a spell (usually a 415) and create a camp. This is incredibly useful as you can map out enemy unknown regions very quickly using this method as your character can move to camp where you need to scry.
Also the guide linked above and suggestions will be a little out of date because of the new racial bonuses. I’ve already found that these have changed the ideas around setups immensely and am still weighing through the rammifications of it. For instance the Dwarven bonus means that an early attack on the nation is much harder, but that the economic cost of all the extra fortifications weighs down on the econmy. Elves getting 4 levels of free hiding mean that you may want to look at priorirtising a higher level mage to be able to learn Reveal pop against them.