Pretty much there aren't many choices left around here. Sigh. I wish everyone could play they way they want, but it doesn't look like that is possible. So, I will tell you what I did to get through it all in case it helps.
First, when I was doing the tech tree that early there weren't any requirements, but, it wouldn't have mattered if there were, I have always cleared tons and tons of provinces.
Let me tell you why.....scouting times increase and then never stop increasing. By the time you get to my level on Arendyll, you will be facing 2 day 17 hour times and longer. You can never get another scout. The one thing that stops you dead in this game is lack of space. In the beginning it looks like there are miles to investigate and you don't think you will ever run out of spaces to clear. But you do. Then it is a long slow slog waiting, just waiting for the scouts to get done. And waiting. And waiting. And it takes 9 provinces to clear before you get one expansion. So you wish you had your scouts active as can be early on.
Now, if you aren't clearing those provinces, then eventually, your scout gets blocked out. Your scout can't move! Horror!!!!!! That is time you will never get back. Never. sniff sniff. Precious time when all your friends skate past you because your scout was on vacation!
What did I do?
1. I learned how to fight. There is an encounters guide I will link to if that helps. And I read up all I could and I asked other people. Some provinces are really easy to clear if you use the right fighters. You take almost no losses.
2. I rushed my factories as much as possible because even with the fighting techniques I learned, I still get slaughtered. Then it takes forever for troops to be made. So, I built only boosted factories and I cleared all the boosted provinces first. And I produced produced produced! Then I could negotiate those suckers!
3. I quested! And I quested and I quested. If you don't know what that means....on the left are two quests. One is a storyline quest you cannot decline. The other are the "declinable" quests". The declinable quests are in a loop. If you decline one enough times, it comes back around. So, when I collect goods, I made sure the Collect x amount of goods quest was up. When I collected supplies, the supply quest is sitting there. When I collect coins, again, the right quest is up. If you are upgrading a building, that quest doesn't need to be on the screen the whole time. The upgrade main hall quest can be put up right before the building is done upgrading and you get credit for that. When I traded goods, I also set up the gain x amount of goods quest (If I was doing the right kind of trade). Before I fight, I always have the fight 3 encounters quest up or the solve 4 encounters or gain 4 relics quest. If I don't think I can win 3 fights, then I do the solve 4, if I think I can, I have up the fight quest.
Then, with all those coins and supplies as bonuses, I could buy more goods so I could negotiate more! And so on and so on.
Certainly, holding off on fighting until you have upgraded fighters and bigger troops helps a lot.
Another tip:
Keep your fighters being trained! If you have an upgrade on your archers coming up, then every single archer you currently have will be upgraded when that tech is completed. But the upgraded archers cost more to train. So train as many of the un-upgraded archers as you can while they are cheap! Don't use them. Just keep training those weak little arrow tossers! With one swoop, all of them will be as good as old RobinHood!!
There are ways around the roadblocks Inno sets for you. I find it sad that we have a player vs dev game here, but we do. So the devs throw up barricades, and we clever players find ways around them to keep the game fun. (We shouldn't have to work so hard to keep the game fun, should we? But I digress).
Anyway, I hope any of that will be of use to anyone who is stuck in the game at the moment.
Finally, our fellowship always helps each other. Some of us get ahead and then send goods down to the folks who get stuck. Then they get through the tech faster and make more goods and then they can return the favor. Whoever has extra goods at any time helps those who don't. One for all, and all for one. I am lucky to have such a great fellowship, but if you can all decide to help each other like that it really helps.
(Forgive the book chapter I seem to have just written).
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