Hello,

There was a discussion in our team chat about the price of vassals, so I thought it would be nice to share that little bit of information in the general chat as well:

Apart from the relationship with the cities/dwellings, one of the other metrics to calculate the price is the distance to your closest city, so if you would settle right next to a dwelling your price would be 0% extra gold!  

Example:
Size of the city/dwelling: 330g
Relationship: -15% (-49g)
Distance from your closest city: (46 hexes) +78% (+257g)
Total price: 330-49+257=538g

Good question Zytozid, not sure there is a simple answer though!
Like you say, a turtling approach and wait for the enemy is a very bad idea!
What I would say is though, create a path with your main stack, which take into account to never be very far (3-5 turns) from your closest city, so that you can safely get back to avoid a total disaster. 
Obviously scouting is very important, especially 1v1, so where your main army is not present, send scouts in that direction. Also pay close attention to sites cleared (usually some kind of glow around it, even when covered in fog) will give you an idea of where the enemy is. But obviously your scout need to have seen that area for it to be helpful.

All of that information in combination will give you a good idea of how far away the enemy is!

To be able to foresee a rush, and take relevant actions, you need to have an indication of how quick the enemy is moving, so once again scouts are pivotal. If I was the victim of a rush, I would sacrifice all city upgrades to just rush out infantry, irregulars, cavalry to be able to have a numeric advantage, since the rusher have no way to bring produced units if he is indeed rushing you. 

The problem with facing a Rogue, Theo or Necro is that they will pick up units on the way, so can have a very strong army when approaching you. Then the counter would be to create choke points, so that the enemy is forced to attack you 1v3, 2v3, or 1v2.

There is endless scenarios, but it all filter down to scouting and being able to track the enemy and in that way be able to take adequate actions!

I'd like to know ways how to stall a game. How can I prevent a game to end early (an enemy to win early) if I have classes like Dreadnought that are better in late game? Just stay in cities and keep them defended will be a slow death. Are there viable tactics against early aggression?

Also, one related problem is that everyone knows WHERE the enemy city is in a tournament game. That's one of the biggest drawbacks of these maps.

That was really worth reverting the turn to see you skip it again.... I sent you a message through the in game system but it seems you didn't receive it: please check your email notifications are ON for other players' turn and your own turn (in the PBEM lobby, click on our game and its settings) and same for notifications of messages here.

So after Vassals and AD, what should we discuss?

I'm with Hiliadian for these eact resons: If it takes too long (and to me it already does alittle bit) people losei nterest, won't learn and may even leave the-battlefield. Just my opinion, though and I can understand you very well, 2 days is not much for a single player to do his turn. The problem is it adds up...

I'm going to revert it for you this time.
I'd rather keep it at 2 days as we're 8 players and it already takes a lot of time (+ I believe it's better to keep a good pace for an Academy game if we want to avoid losing the newest player when they lose interest in AoW3).

Would it be possible if we can change the turn timer to 3 days instead of 2? I swear each time I go to play my turn I just miss it by a few hours.