M2TW, does anyone like the original better

[caravel]

Indeed, and Homer had a good write-up but that Ulysses was just exploiting the weak Trojan AI with that wooden horse thing...

Totally different. Troy didn't have automatic doors that open for friendly units and allow enemy units to slip in.

To be pedantic right back at you: I'll wager more tact and cunning went into ancient and medieval sieges than field battles. The siege engineers of the time, from Archimedes onwards, were typically more cerebral than the field commanders. Medieval field battles, particularly, tended to be unimaginative affairs - form up three battle divisions and have at it, sort of thing. With siege assaults, trying to take the enemy by surprise and overwhelm a weak point was critical to avoiding a bloodbath.

I wasn't contesting that point. When I said "field" tactics I was referring to tactics that don't involved the exploitation of the AI's inability to coordinate it's forces. Attacking on several fronts and winning because the AI simply ignored some of your men, and allowed them to breach the wall unchallenged are not great tactics to shout about. They're nothing new, they're not evidence of a great improvement in the battle engine either. They are simply a matter of deployment.

More to the point - I've only played 3 battles, all sieges, in that PBM so far but they each gave me pause for thought. I could have just barrelled through a breach or even autoresolved, but to say there is no ability to use tact or cunning is just wrong.

I wasn't saying that there was no ability to use tact or cunning. What I did say was that if I was going to be critical and pedantic I could have called all of your tactics AI exploits. In my opinion they are a bit of both. I feel sure that you fought those battles very well, but concentrated on the feints of the ladders, the back door and sneaking in the front door with the routers. The question is, if that were a multiplayer scenario do you believe you would still get away with it?

Edit: I wasn't being hostile, nor picking an argument either, if it came across like that, or if this post comes across as argumentative, then I apologise.