Keith Larson
A Wild Boar
It has been a very hectic week for me. But let me jot down a few of my observations for the team to consider. I agree with CivSteve that we need to concentrate our forces and set up kill zones. Use horses rather than other units for MP duty and dont unnecessarily risk horsemen.
I am also in agreement with the Paris plan and the disconnecting of Iron after the upgrades and building lots and lots of warriors. As we are finishing off the French I will get back to my pillaging theme. The team seems to be in agreement, but as of yet it really has not been implemented. I believe we are at the point we cant ignore the power of pillage any longer. Two areas it will be especially helpful. 1) Disconnect AI saltpeter. This will keep our knights effective longer. 2) Keep Greece without horses and economically weak until we can turn our attention to her again. We really have to make this a team effort if it is to be effective. 10 turns is not enough time to move the pillager to the place we need. The only effective pillaging we have done is my disconnecting of the Greek horses, but look how much pay-back we have gotten for that! I was only able to do this however, because the horses were reachable within my turn set.
The temptation is always to use the pillaging unit for something else. The tyranny of the urgent has kept us from the important. For example, our pillaging army has never left our territory. The waves of swordsmen seemed urgent, but what was really important was to deny the AI iron so that we would have been facing archers instead. If we had done this we might have some of those Legions we lost still with us.
May I suggest we rename any unit we send on a pillaging mission a name like ACME Demolition, clearly state the target tiles and the rest of the team honor those plans and follow through.
I am also in agreement with the Paris plan and the disconnecting of Iron after the upgrades and building lots and lots of warriors. As we are finishing off the French I will get back to my pillaging theme. The team seems to be in agreement, but as of yet it really has not been implemented. I believe we are at the point we cant ignore the power of pillage any longer. Two areas it will be especially helpful. 1) Disconnect AI saltpeter. This will keep our knights effective longer. 2) Keep Greece without horses and economically weak until we can turn our attention to her again. We really have to make this a team effort if it is to be effective. 10 turns is not enough time to move the pillager to the place we need. The only effective pillaging we have done is my disconnecting of the Greek horses, but look how much pay-back we have gotten for that! I was only able to do this however, because the horses were reachable within my turn set.
The temptation is always to use the pillaging unit for something else. The tyranny of the urgent has kept us from the important. For example, our pillaging army has never left our territory. The waves of swordsmen seemed urgent, but what was really important was to deny the AI iron so that we would have been facing archers instead. If we had done this we might have some of those Legions we lost still with us.
May I suggest we rename any unit we send on a pillaging mission a name like ACME Demolition, clearly state the target tiles and the rest of the team honor those plans and follow through.
(but then again, the resulting product might not be what you want, knowing the way these workers do their job)
. We've built 4 more cities, 2 up North, 1 on the Southern Tip and 1 to finish our distance 6 ring in NW. I rushed FP in Veii; it's pretty central to our current core, and will allow us to use a future GL to move our Palace to a new core, once established. 2 More Settlers have been generated and are heading North to assist the future invasions. Most cities are building Warriors for MP duty and future Legion upgrades; we had 30 Knights to start with (down to 26), and have built 6 more Horsemen for future upgrade.
