Triple Threat - The Joys of Being a Bloodthirsty Barbarian

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by dawidge
I was actually mad when I was forced to start building Swords instead of JWs. After all, I had gold to burn in upgrades, I could crank out a JWs every couple of turns, and they had 2 move points to reach the front quickly. I seriously considered pillaging a road or two.
...

"considered pillaging a road or two."
Doh!!! I could have used that idea a couple of GAMES ago!

[dawidge]

The real beast was that at the time when I was considering doing it, my #1 troop factory had iron in the city square. It would have helped almost every other city crank out the Jags, but my core would still have had to work on Swords.

[MysteryMan]

GLs from warriors?

My biggest beef with using the Aztec is that I have never managed to get a GL from any warrior-type unit, including the Jaguar Warriors. Is this just bad luck on my part or is it not possible to get GLs from certain units?

[Theseus]

It is doable, MM.

(Not that I ever have )

[vmxa1]

I have done it, but not since PTW 1.14. Don't forget our ole friend Fane7 does it all the time. The main reason, is I do not get into major battles much with only warriors. You need to get them buffed by barbs and that is a lot harder to do now. It used to be that you popped a hut with barbs and got an elite right then.

[Egbert]

After reading this thread I though I might give these Jaguar Warriors a test drive even though I much prefer building and don't normally fight much.

Whoa, those boys bad news for the neighbours. I tried them out at Monarch (higher difficulty then I usually play) on standard 8 civ continents map.

It worked out well even though I did some bad things. My first war started when I had only three Jags and my settler was still on its way to my second city site. Umh, I saw a settler so I killed the warrior escort. I largely forgot about my other cities and just churned Jags out from my capital, finished up getting a veteran Jag every turn.

By 510 AD I had captured a very nice little city with a wine luxury from the Ottomans, destroyed an Iriquois city, captured about 10 slaves, extorted 6 or 7 techs, gained a Great Leader and wrecked the Ottomans and Iriquois. They will never be a threat. Everyone hates me but I need not be too bothered about that.

I now have about 16 veteran and elite Jags just near the American border who have nothing to do (there are more Jags in my cities). Umh, the Americans have more cities than me and three techs I don't have. I expect those Jags could entice Abe to join the Aztec "share the wealth programme".

I also have rather long roads going up near the American, Ottoman and Iriquois borders, mostly built by slaves.

This is a good result for me with a warmonger game. With more practice I think those Jags could be really awesome. Perhaps if I were to play a few more games with them I would be ripping through my neighbours. (I hate to think what Velocyrix does to his neighbours ).

EDITED. Monarch level not Emperor. (Nevertheless a better than usual result from my early wars).

[Egbert]

I abandoned that last game, too bloodthirsty for my taste and started a new one. (Played as my favourite English except with Jags as my UU ).

Those Jags proved great for fighting off an invasion of Immortals. Heaps of cheap Jags proved good at taking down expensive Immortals on plains and grassland. Mind you, all of my Jags were veterans and many of the Immortals were regular.

OTH I had no luck trying to capture Rome which was defended by several spearmen, a most disastrous invasion which caused the loss of so many Jags the Persians became emboldened to attack. Er, must remember to look at the ****ing terrain first for once, Rome was on a hill.

[WackenOpenAir]

"Power always wins over finesse. Watch someone like the Undertaker absolutely murder someone like Jeff Hardy in the ring. See what I mean?"

i can asure you, in a real fight, power is the least important thing. in order of importance i would say:

-fighter spirit, killer instinct, self esteem, not letting anything hold you back
-speed
-technique
-power

[MysteryMan]

Extremely true. The trick isn't to have more power than someone else, the trick is to recognize the moment (the chinese call this Shih, it is much mentioned in my translation of The Art of War) where a single grain of rice can tip the scales (also a Chinese analogy btw). By acting when circumstances are aligned to give your actions the most possible effeciency you greatly increase your force multiplier. Think of the difference between a peaceful lake and a raging river, the water itself is no more or less powerful, but the geography around the water greatly magnifies it's force.

There are two extremely important concepts here. The first is the shih itself, which can be likened to a strung, cocked and loaded crossbow. The components of the crossbow have little or no power left to themselves but once properly combined there is much latent power there.

The second is even more subtle, I have heard it referred to as the 'node'. This is the actual action of pulling the trigger on the crossbow, thus releasing all of the latent shih. Know shih, and you know the right place. Know the node, and you know the right time.

If you cannot create shih, you will lose to anyone who can. If you cannot recognize the node, you are wasting whatever shih you have managed to gather.

BTW, if Undertaker beats a little guy, it is only because it is in the script. Wrestling is an extremely poor analogy to real combat situations. Let the little guy hit the Undertaker in the throat with a knife-hand, or kick him in the knee, or catch his big ugly punch and counter with an arm bar, see how much good his excess of power does him then....