New to this, but started in hard anyway, as I play a lot of strategy and tactics games. With island 20 it got really hard. I only managed with some luck. And 21 seems hard as well.
I just had my record, beating the game in 18 rounds.
I only play speed runs, starting with the middle skeleton land, or playing without money, just giants and skeletons. For some starting positions you need luck to win.
For the speedrun in 18 rounds you need luck as well.
I changed my strategy to building knights from the start on.
Fastest way to victory is the skeleton flooding strategy starting from the country in center, which gives 3 Skeletons every turn.
First turn build.
Round 2. Attack weak neighbour with all troops. Build one big army. Forget about defending. Your army is strong enough to retake everything.
Round 3: your first army is full, conquer evry round a land and build more skeletons. Spend your money on archers
Round 4: your second army is big enough to attack. As soon you have to full armies, send them off to both sides of the map. Dont worry about being cut off from your main land. New troops will do the clean up. Keep rushing forward, unless its a clear defeat. If faced a stronger armie, build one upgrade. Thats enough to beat all armies.
Round thirteen, stop building skeletons and build ogers.
Round 16: Move ogers to the lands, where the aliens attack. Keep saving money. You want around 6000 cash, when they arrive, which can be allready round 17, if you are fast
I won in 39 days without using skelletons or ogres with gunma as starting positions. I used the archer strategie the first 25 days. Than knights. I built a lot of cannons and walls
If you like this game. Try Kdice, a multiplayer version