I'm glad it's not me up next, cos this would have put me for a dilemma. I'm happy for others to go attacking with Archers, but I've always been pretty woeful at in my games. Like sending 10 Archers/Swords who all fall at the hands of a couple of Spearmen. Last time I tried it I had 15+ units, mostly Archers, against Spearmen; same result. The thing is, if my first 4 or 5 Archers all die with just taking 1 hitpoint off a Spear, then I tend to go on attacking, thinking that my luck will change. Of course it doesn't. I ended up frustratingly quitting that game after losing 15 units with still a couple of Spearmen standing. No Archer rushes for me anymore.
So I've learnt to accept the dominance of the fortified Spearman in the AA. In my own games I rather attack a little later when I've got more advanced units and a more developed empire. I rather see the tactics of others deployed in this game and try to learn from that, but in my own games I indeed start off quite defensively. The first wars are often fought in my own territory, and on initiative of the AI. But then I use the advantage that fighting in my own territory gives me to weaken the enemy first.
And my default strategy involves building up a warchest that I use for upgrading units.
I'm not afraid to get over my support limit. Once I counted 40 native workers in my game, while I had only 10 towns. I was in Republic, so I was 4 times over my support limit on workers alone. But I rather accept a financial squeeze than not building what I feel I need to build.
The tactics chosen in this game are very different from my own, but I'm curious to see how it pans out. I'm just not sure whether you can expect a strike expedition in my turnset when I feel the timing isn't right.
