Strategy Submission Guidelines

Please read this before submitting strategy articles.


General Guidelines

We are looking for thoroughly thought-out ideas that have been played and tested prior to having been submitted to us. A couple of paragraphs usually is not long enough to discuss a strategy in-depth. There is no limit to length, but an entire book might be too much for a reader to understand in one go. Use your own judgment. A couple of screenshots makes a great accompanying visual aid for describing strategies.

Please check your spelling and overall structure before you post your draft- a few errors are to be expected but please take some time to look it over before you post it. Don’t worry if it doesn’t fit in with any specific section, that is our part (adding another section for a good article is no hassle at all- good articles are worth it!).

When you feel your piece is ready for submission, post it as a New Topic in the Guides and Articles Forum. There, you will receive comments, praise, criticisms, as well as ideas on how to improve your piece. Edit the post as necessary. When you feel your article has passed scrutiny, proclaim it in a reply as ‘Ready to publish.’ We will then invoke the Two-Day Rule to give the critics a last chance to seek improvement, and then we will post it to the relevant sections.

Please send all pictures as separate attached files in an email to a moderator of that forum. (Without that, we cannot publish the article as it was intended.)

While we will not search the web for duplicates, be advised that plagiarism of existing articles (from this or other sites) is severely dealt with.

Guidelines for General Strategies

This is the most general of all articles. It should be clear what the article is about, so the article summary is very important. If the article doesn’t fit into any other categories, it probably goes here. Please note that this applies to General Strategies for both the Battle Map and the Campaign Map.

Guidelines for Multiplayer, Custom Battle and Historical Battle Strategies

These articles are basically a description of the initial position, your aims in the battle and how to achieve them. There are many ways to do this, but the simplest is to go through these three points in order. Screenshots make very useful visual aids in battles, especially if they have been well captioned. Character codes for your unit setup are nowhere near as clear and are to be avoided.

Unless your article is about a historical battle, please state in the summary what the sort of conditions the battle is meant to be fought under. For example, a strategy based on manoeuvring with cavalry will be most effective on a flat, open map and will suffer on a hilly, forested map.

Guidelines for Faction and Map Overviews

Faction Overviews are an assessment of a faction’s strengths and weaknesses. For the battle map, a brief word about every unit is expected (although grouping similar units together is fine). Some factions are particularly good at fighting some other factions and particularly bad about fighting others, this sort of information is particularly useful to the beginner, who these articles are aimed at.

For Campaign Overviews, the battle detail needn’t be as detailed, as the focus is on the campaign section. Which useful units can easily be recruited is far more important, especially which units are most effective against the forces you are likely to be facing and can be recruited early on. It is also worth adding a section on some recommended campaign goals (eg. control Gaul as far South as Massilia by Turn 15 as the Britons).

Map Overviews are a look at the tactical situation on individual maps, where to fight, where to avoid, who to fight as and who to avoid. Open maps favour cavalry and missile units while forested maps favour infantry for example.

Guidelines for Opening Moves Guides

Opening Moves Guides are a step by step guide to the first few turns of the campaign, no more than ten at the outside although five is more common. A specific set of objectives should be given and the guide should explain how to achieve this and why it is a better position than the initial one.