The Asian Dynasties

I might well ironically be judging my approach on 1.00 Aztecs, where mace were nto quite so fearsome and unless you outnumbered any musket type quite heavily you would be getting a thrashing. That's 2 now that are sure it will stand up though, so if you are -that- sure I will give it a pop next time. (It also may be based in a time when I was a lot more given to letting troops die rather than pull back and preserve the numbers. The problem of an evolving style! )

I'm sorry to say I did think of the sheep and the farm, just too late. It wasn't immediately obvious (not having 'livestock pen' written on it ) so I didn't notice until late. Very lax.

I didn't even notice the problems at the pit, presumably too fixated on chasing vills and trying to keep Rokk out. More poor response times.

You can set the pit onto itself, but (unless they fixed it, and I sincerely hope they have and I just missed it) there was a patch in WC that fixed the so-called 'fire pit exploit' and one of it's side-effects was that priests would no longer go straight on the pit if you tasked them there. I'll check this out myself offline - I'm hoping you're right, I never did adjust to it and you've clearly noticed.
Edit: Tested this, the priests just stood next to the pit and stared aimlessly at me. In all honesty I doubt ES will ever fix it, which is a shame. Most people already feel natives have enough perks and the fire pit is at the core of most complaints, so I doubt they will do anything that will effectively boost it, even if it's bug-fixing. Again, I hope to be wrong.

Destroying shrines would be great, but Rokk never let me get near enough to whack -any- part of his econ. Fact is he was at strength comparable to me most, if not all of the game and I couldn't get near anything, because if I did he would simply do a similar attack on my more vulnerable town (not made of shrines ) or pick off the army while still trying to pull down even 1 or 2 shrines.
Basically, he was a little TOO good. Or the lack of early FB let him escape, maybe, but we'll see how that goes in testing.

I'm not totally convinced an Aztec has no chance against an Ashi-Yumi combo later in the game. Bear in mind I'll be carrying at least a 10 WP pit, maybe with the 15 vills too if it's a really important fight and I get to see it coming. And what I do that a lot of others may not is include both mace and coyote temple cards plus the more common coyote combat, which would also give the force a fighting chance. After that, it's a case of micro. Sadly my econ is usually badly run as it is (the other Rokk game is as GOOD as it gets ) and at least in my case the game will have fallen apart long before it gets to that stage - so you'll need a better player than me to find out!

Finally, only the FB was defensively placed, knowing I've lost games in the past where the barracks suddenly went down and I've never recovered. The rest, Rokk simply didn't let the chances happen. I went looking, but he was always a step ahead. I would love to have pestered his vills and a shrine or two, but I'd just never get near.
Pit boom - theoretically - might be comparable to a Japanese boom, but my micro is nowhere near good enough to make it that effective. Truth is I have nothing to measure the effectiveness of certain boom styles by, so I just don't know if WP pit boom would keep anyone in it.

It isn't so much a certainty that attacking it will win on my part but rather that defending will definitely loose.



Ah, I was unaware of that. It is all a matter of playing more.



Well, fb, and then make 5 pumas, you can then beseige all the shrines built to the behind of the fb, and if he wants do stop you he has to leave his town open, or send a few units past your fb, which will result in certain death.



I only know that longbow musket from my brits destroys them totally, and Yumi destroy longbow and Ashi destroy Muskets.



The problem is that his boom can be combined with military. You cannot boom against Japs because their army will kill you, so you have to conceed economic advantage to them, and get a better military that means that you can close their eco down.

FB with Pumas IS risky, simply because then I won't have the firepower to beat an Ashi strike on my FB. On the other hand, it does look like an FB on stands up now, especially as Aztec I can have ships delivered to the hut.

A pit boom is not entirely eco. Well, a pit boom is a bit odd, actually.
It would not be the first time - in fact, I think it happens this game - where I have a resource surplus, a limited production facility, and the need for troops fast. To get the numbers out and stand a chance of survival, I whack on the production dance and it speeds troops out far faster than most folks could hope for (at least for much of the game). To an extent it's caused a problem on my part too though, since it breeds the concept that even if your army gets killed, you can spawn another at very hight speed in a pinch if you need it - causing the other player to launch a fatal attack when he wrongly thinks you are totally defenceless.
Still, very bad habit on my part. Bad pit addict.

Only 5 pumas, to sit at the back causing havoc, I wouldn't suggest more than that until you are beseiging his town.