Is there a route written up for this game? Or is are there too many decision points and you actually have to know what's going on? Thanks for any help.
There's a lot of RNG to contend with but my general route is as follows:
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Choose Gemfire Scenario, Blanche Family
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Set message speed to 0.
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If Keyla (Province 1) attacks Owen (Province 3) 1st round, it's a reset.
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On Owen's turn, buy most troops (this will prevent Keyla attacking)
NOTE: If you have the Lyle "seed" (see Speedrun terms/tips - https://www.speedrun.com/gemfire/guides/54k3y) you can immediately go for Adryl/Andrew/Walther/Seth defections even without Ander banished.
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Use anyone to try and defect Pender (Province 19) and Raith (Province 18), they are easy defects.
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Use Gweyn to try and defect Hubert in Province 28 (she has best chance of success)
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If Lankshire family spreads/not land locked, usually reset. Geoff is an easy defect (Province varies), and Shabard (Province 20) is stubborn but there is a chance of defect.
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Go for the Ander bait strat with 10; move 000 troops to 15 in hopes Ander attacks you there. You can retreat and then attack Ander in 15 later on with a strong force and might get capture. When Ander is banished, you can easily defect Adryl (Province 9), Andrew (Province 2), Walther (Province 8) and Seth (Province varies) and surrender Lyle.
NOTE: If you get Pender, Raith, Hubert, Shabard, Province 15 and 16 along with your starting provinces (essentially you need to possess 12 provinces to surrender families) you can surrender Divas as soon as possible.
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Move all your troops to your Province 10 - you need a strong front to push through Lyle if you fail defects. You will need to corner Ander and win (usually fighting off Adryl first).
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Defect Kelvin (Province 25) and Alaine (Province 29) to get Tudoria down to two provinces and surrender them. Sometimes Bradley makes it out there, he can be defected easily, too.
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If you move all your troops to Province 25 and 27, and entrust those two provinces, they will wipe out Province 24 in 3 turns/attacks (2 fail, 3rd is success). That gives you a chance to surrender Tate family.
So by now you should have Divas, Tudoria, Tate - that usually leaves Lyle being worked on, and Lankshire being worked on.
Lyle, you have to get down to two provinces to surrender them - if you have enough troops, you can fight or rely on defects. If you got the Ander bait, you're in good shape for defects.
Lankshire, you have to defeat them - they do not surrender. If Eselred isn't landlocked in Province 22, a fight there will leave you having to fight his backup, Elford. But if he is landlocked, the strategy is to plunder him till he has no food left and then take Province 22 with an entrust fight.
It's a very loose "route" because how the computer uses their turns can change the course of everything. You should never see a battlefield if you use Entrust properly; and you should be done by September (before harvest comes because then it's really hard to get through fights).
But watch a few of the runs and you will see the general idea of what we try to get done in the first couple of months.
Really appreciate this. I should be doing some attempts (aka one finished attempt) at some point soon!
Well I am glad to see you actually enjoyed the game in the end and I do hope more people play it.
The big tip: You can turn off animations in the battlefield (we don't usually see the battlefield in the run but for beginners, the battlefield's poor AI is certainly easier to deal with then relying on Entrust/Computer decision). But with animations off, you miss the charm of the game but it's much faster.
Yeah I definitely would recommend a first playthrough to anyone trying to speedrun this game. A lot of the mechanics were lost on me in the "route" (no fault to you). Once I understood the game mechanics, it was a lot more enjoyable and I could probably follow the notes a little closer
