My first game as the Doviello - the verdict: difficult

[Iblis]

Last night I played two games as the Doviello and struggled quite a bit. I played both leaders and had some more success with the barbarian trait leader (forget his name). I appreciate that they are essentially playing the barbarians and that they're not supposed to be able to compete with the others commerce-wise, but I still had problems get even a little way through the tech tree whilst maintaining an army.

Would people recommend waiting for bronze working before expanding with them so they can establish next to a copper node and then start axe man rushing, or is constant early war with beastmen a viable strategy? I know that the raider trait means you can really clean up pillaging cottage tiles but that still left me with no money for an army or research, but then I start war quite early and so there weren't that many cottages to take.

On the side I LOVE being able to work with the barbarians, makes the game vast amounts of fun.

 

[Sureshot]

i find with raider leaders you can mass produce units and fling the low level ones at any odds, and you end up with several highly promoted warriors capable of conquering all your neighbours

 

[Sareln]

I found that as the Doviello I could run quite successfully with a smaller force than normal (non-bar leader) because of the raider trait. Heavy defense vs. the barbarians gets you some elite troops, and then when copper becomes available you can upgrade your elites and start going for broke on your neighbors. I also find the conquest tech & civic are incredily important since the extra XP is awesome and the ability to get the City Raider promotion is key.
In my game I didn't focus too much on expansion and ended up with 5 widely spaced cities which covered quite alot of ground. Thankfully copper popped within the borders, and I just sorta went to town on my two nearest neighbors and then had a consolidation phase.