Early game stomps

[ElliotS]

Yes, but by hitting cities the units get hurt and will possibly need to retreat to heal up so a lot more units are needed to swap out injured ones.
This time I went in hit some, retreated to heal up back in again while increasing military and trying to pick off a unit here and there and getting exp.
The risky part is hidden archers can pick off units and suddenly if you lose 2 units thats a big investment down the drain.

The trick is figuring out when you can start swinging every turn to bring it down without losing melee units. If they've got tiles to pillage you can go a bit longer. Your goal would be to bring it down quickly with melee hits and then have an bunch of friendly territory to heal in because you took the city. You'll need plans to defend the healing units and need to plan when and how to pillage the tiles for more healing, but yeah running melee units back and forth isn't good.

 

[andersw]

The trick is figuring out when you can start swinging every turn to bring it down without losing melee units. If they've got tiles to pillage you can go a bit longer. Your goal would be to bring it down quickly with melee hits and then have an bunch of friendly territory to heal in because you took the city. You'll need plans to defend the healing units and need to plan when and how to pillage the tiles for more healing, but yeah running melee units back and forth isn't good.

Well thats when the units with extra move excels and pictish warriors could use mountains to some extent, doing this as a regular spear rush is a lot harder, I mean its not like there is time to road a bunch and there is probably not a gg at this stage.
I took the first Brazilian city that was on a hill with lots of forest and some hills around.
A flatland bare grass/plains surrounded city is a nice target but those are rare.

 

[andersw]

Was considering Zelotry, I missed on thrift by one fricking turn, that spontaneous monastery purchase in capital was costly....
As someone mentioned Zelotry does not leave much room for faith buildings, one option that I have is Cooperation, it is somewhat crappy regarding gold/culture etc but I've felt it does boost faith output on a decent level.

I could go cathedral for more gold but then there is no faith over for zelotry and I'd take Clericalism instead.
That would currently mean +15g from improvements and +26 from cathedrals (13 cities) + extra farms.
Land seems unusually low on pastures apart from capital.

(mandirs, church and synagoges have some use as well)

8 turns until Cathedral of StB is done, I cant be certain but hope I can get it, idea is to grab crusader spirit or defender of the faith.

Any thoughts on this?
edit: (ok now I see why hero worship is good)

 

[andersw]

I like to see screenshots so posting one here, Denmark paid well to have me declare on Greece who is already at war vs Denmark and America.
Tech path currency -> chivalru and next policy will be nobility.
I'm a bit low on science output but doing ok compared to the others.

 

[andersw]

First time playing with Zelotry and damn it was good.
I hit gunpowder around 1200 AD and faith buying cannons (and other units) for the win.
I'm used to spend a decent amount on unit purchases but this kept me going with a very wide front line jam packed with units.
I had to really prioritise armories to keep up.
With Brazil eradicated, Huns, Denmark and Greece vassaled and Egypt resurrected, how fitting, for an extra vassal, America is now pretty much the last hurdle.
I dont expect that much from inca and assur prev crushed by inca will prob just roll over.
With Rhiannon Culture, faith, gold is nice, even production is somewhat ok but some cities are really behind.