Zardnaar and Ision,
Just wanted to add my voice -- as a relative beginner reading your articles not only teaches us about game play, but also gives a much greater appreciation of the subtleties that strong players can understand to get the most out of their gameplay. Indeed, understanding how you come to your conclusions, and the thought process involved, is more important to me than the conclusions themselves. I would like to say that they are great, but it just isn't enough! Its really tremendous!
On a historical note -- Crecy lists Tours (Poiters) as one of the 15 most decisive battles in history, and that Martel's defeat of Arabs led to the creation of the Carolingian empire.
Nonetheless, I think Crecy picked the wrong battle! In my opinion, it wasn't the Arab advance from its center in Arabia, across Africa, through Spain and into France that was the decisive defeat -- the MAIN thrust came through the Byzantine empire. The growth of the Arab Empire came after the Arab's defeated the Byzantine's in the 7th century, using superior military ability and the aided by the weakening of the Byzantines in long wars with the Persians. I always felt that the critical battle was the seige of Constantinople, 717-718 AD. It was a very near run seige, but the Arabs lost close to 200,000 men (of course, all such figures are unreliable). The Byzantines somewhat revived and stuck around for a long time -- had the Arabs had defeated them, the Byzantine empire would have fallen 700 more than years earlier!
Anyway, despite Crecy, I always thought the defeat of the center thrust was the critical one. (The Dupuy's make this argument in the Encyclopedia of Military History).
Thanks again!
