After you end Act 1, you’re transported to Act 2, losing your research and gold income and having no way back. This is fine, as long as you made sure to research Ironclads, a unit you had no real use for in Act 1, and have a bunch of extra gold saved up. If you didn’t research Ironclads, you’re probably in trouble.

If you hurried through Act 1, though, you can enter Act 1 with only a few research points and things researched, and the odds are that you won’t have many useful mercenaries. You’re dumped into a map with a single territory that has 8 gold and 3 RP a turn, your only options to expand require you to get transports across the water and hope they don’t get intercepted. You won’t be able to reliably reinforce those territories from your mainland until you can counter the enemy navy. Those who breezed through Act 1 in a hurry can find themselves screwed and surrounded. It doesn’t help that the enemy capital, unlike every other map, is right next door.

I watched Swen’s review of the final build Twitch.tv cast, and so I knew that Act 2 starts you on an island and transports can get intercepted, so I made a point of researching Ironclads before leaving Act 1 the first time I entered Act 2, and my second time in Act 2, the extra time I needed to beat the chapter on Hard left me with the funds to get 6 Ironclads at once, which basically let me clear the seas of enemies.

But how is someone who didn't prepare supposed to know that?