I agree with the kid. 15 minutes is just too long to wait around. you have to have a real base before then. If you were playing vamp beast (which no one will play if they aren't using the fast mode option) then you can usually squeak by 5 minutes till your first gold without being detected. But in longer games (fire and blood) you CANNOT rely on going undiscovered. If vamps are smart, you will never reach your quota in time, you will just feed the vamp. Decentralizing your operations helps, but not much. The vamp will just walk around the map gobbling up your tents and houses and workers one at a time and get fat.