Quote Originally Posted by [b
Quote[/b] (The_Emperor @ July 16 2004,04:23)]I had a go at your blitz strategy and it failed for me.

A few of the spearmen managed to escape the map.

Unfortunately Byz inf are not very good at chasing down routers.

I was also running on Expert so I had major Loyalist rebellion problems.
i usually play on hard: it seems that the local consensus here is that, in this regime, the AI is at its strategic best. anyways, on expert, given the melee bonuses to the AI side, the lone spearmen unit in Sicily might as well defeat your byz infantry in straight melee which kind of feels wrong to me :)

as to the sicily blitz: if the spearmen escape in the first attack (the second, to be more exact since they will run for the keep in the first one anyways), i just keep going back and forth to/from naples until i get them. or until i can train my first peasant unit in naples that i can use to 'open' the keep gate. :)

another benefit from the going back and forth approach: you don't get loyalist rebellions if you are not seiging the keep but rather just abandon the province.

p.s. also, one should watch out for the sicialian spearmen vices... you don't want to see him turn into a 'brave beyond belief' dude who'd get up to 6 extra valor points if serving as a gen...