Okay, so in looking at the saved game, I see that we have captured Hastings but there is a Redcoat SW of the City. What's the overall approach... where possible, we want to be on the offensive instead of on the defensive?
Also, are all troops still going toward Liz, as opposed to Mansa and/or Huayna?
If and when it becomes time to go after Mansa and/or Huayna, who do we go after first? Or do we go after both at the same time?
So, we're sending the entire stack on this path, minus some defenders for Hastings, right? I mean, we're not splitting up our stack at all, correct?
At what point can we consider splitting our stack?
Does healing Catapults help? I.e. Do they do the same amount of collateral damage when wounded or are they much more effective when they are fully-healed?
40%/60% of Land Area... are you sure that you don't want to reconsider in terms of going for an AP victory?
Is there anything tricky that I need to know about the boat chains? It looks like a couple of boats already have a Grenadier on them each... I guess we load as many land units as we can onto the boats and then, near the end of the turn, transfer the units via the boat chain?
Do we really need population points? I mean, if we aren't going for an AP Victory, won't there be a point where we should whip many of our Cities to the bone, particularly some of the junkier Cities that don't have Courthouses? Do you think that this time is approaching soon?
Overall approach? Our stack, on the attack is unstoppable by Liz.
Keep the stack together for now.
Having 5XP on a grenadier is important. Pinch really changes the odds.
Cats don't really need to heal, but if you want to use an injured one to bombard, that's fine too. You don't need to use them to get all the redcoats down to 9.7/14, but a few to start, and then use your judgement between Trebs and/or Grens. Those CR3 Grenadiers pack a punch - if you have the gold, upgrade the remaining CR3 axeman, and possibly use a GG to upgrade+promote another melee unit.
If we go for an AP victory, we need to take a lot of population away from Huayna. Doing that, cultivating a voting buddy, and then waiting for the AP timing to be right won't be any faster than conquering and expanding borders, without the added extra risk of going broke due to voting buddy war weariness.
All troops to Liz for now. It's not like they'll do any good shouting across the ocean.
Boat chains? Nothing really tricky - just some units get preloaded because they don't all enter the chain at the start. There are a couple of extra boats near Bulgar to play with.
Population points? They're what are going to pay for all our cities and units. We also need to be careful not to fall below the AP vote threshold. Sure, whip, but especially in the coming golden age, the production of an actual citizen will most likely be worth more than if you whip it away - big cities are powerful. I'd make exceptions near the front - many cities there are on a whipping cycle - small cities for catapults.
Even junker cities pay for themselves without a courthouse when they're large. Whipping away the citizens just make them more gold-negative.
Forges and markets when needed to keep citizens happy (and increase gold/wealth) are ok (i.e. when there are 2 or 3 unhappy faces), but courthouses are a great way for the governor to hire a spy instead of something we want, for not that much gold, especially if the citizens would otherwise be working.
cities.
