Warlords: Strategic Conquest

You command 18 thousand infantry and 5 thousand archers, each drilled and trained to be the best. Although you have no support units or advanced machines, you know that the battle is often not won by the best equipped, but by the most decisive.

Your territory contains little infrastructure or arable soil. Although your castle is a majestic fortress providing a big defensive advantage for an occupying army, you decide it is time to set out and do battle. You will bring all 23 thousand soldiers with you. Crown Prince Lurdu, your eldest son, will stay and defend your capital from potential invaders. You have not spent as much time with him as you would have liked and he has grown into an insolent, manipulative, and petty brat. Lurdu's only saving grace is that, like you, he always finishes what he starts, all the way to the end. Retreat is never an option.

To your East is the ocean. You wish that one day engineers can devise a sea-faring vehicle that hold up in its tsunamis, but for now, the ocean is an impenetratable barrier. To your West is a barren desert. No people reside in it, and its conditions would decimate your army if they were to march through it.

Beyond your Southern border is the medium sized territory of Governor Toleron. It is a land of dense forests and dry plains. His subjects are loyal to him and he has an army more than three times the size of yours, at 90 thousand troops. Fortunately for you, Toleron is a peacenik and using them solely to defend his empire. He has pledged not to increase the size of his standing army and is not at all an aggressor.

To your North are small Mongol tribes. They are neither organized nor united and are too distracted with each other to defend against you. While they do not own much technology or infrastructure, if you conquer them you will gain some additional tax revenue and possibly reinforcements, as well as strike more fear into the hearts of would be enemies.

Where do you expand your kingdom first?