First off...
I will build my capital to 40K pop then start grabbing countries.

If i am in a game with more than 5 humans i will try to block as many people as possible (example-taking england from flanders to stop the guy in spain from going to the UK)

I use my cap for armies and everythign builds farms until it can buy 3 troops(I normally only use 2 countries for this)

After I have taken all available independent countries i will switch cap to build a few farms and become advanced.

When the cap is finished becoming advanced I will turn it to taxes and then turn everythign else to production. When i have the capital i will buy up my resources to advanced and 50K or 60K pop then transfer to taxes. Once all countries are advanced and taxing i then begin building cap and all available +2 resourcesup to 100K pop or 150K if war is looming.

If i am not in war or dead yet(captPlanet) I will proceed t build all other countries to 100K pop. These will be bought always and only about 2 or 3 at a time. This process also saves some gold for the inevitable war looming.

At this point i have 100K pop and all advanced, I will then foolishly buy my cap to 200K pop and maybe resources. What I should do instead is tax for about 2 years then build troops in all the countries surrounding my cap, but not in my cap. Put all these armies into my cap until the figure is double my impending target and then a war declaration is made. Normally I give two years so the war is fair and thus more fun.

First year of impending war I spend building up various territories' farms. What I should do is tax the fu** out of my country.

The second year will be building more troops in all border countries. This is also the suggested course of action(buy as many as economicly possible)

While preparing and fighting the war you should spare 1 territory for every 15 you own to be building farms while the rest tax or build troops. This ensures that you will be developing your country and stalemates will eventually end. It is smart to switch up which territories you are developing, build 5 farms at a time before switching.

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Wars
I prefer long wars, that use lots of armies. I prefer building up armies of 400+ becouse to me it seems more fun. I hate early wars, mostly becouse i have little experience with them.

IMPORTANT!!!! keep all territories at multiples of 5K pop as you get more productivity bonus from a 100K pop than from a 110K pop, the math is in the tutorial go read it.