Oh, lord, the countless hours I've squandered on war games...specially on computers...but even before computers were generally available.

You want to keep your peasants alive, do you? Probably a difficult proposition, but it depends on how realistic the game mechanics are.

Some general principles of military strategy:

1. Don't unnecessarily divide your forces!

2. Attack where the enemy is weak, defend where the enemy is strong.

3. Defensive position is inherently stronger than attack. Therefore, given relatively equal forces, it is usually wise to find good defensive terrain and dig in. If the other side is foolish enough to attack you (which they may well be) you wait until they're sufficiently weakened and then counterattack and break them up. You can defeat an army twice the size of your own by this technique, if they attack foolishly and expose themselves. (example: Confederate victory at Fredericksburg)

4. If the enemy is weaker, and inclined to defend a strong position, you must either:

a) Outflank him (forcing him to move)

b) cut off his sources of supply (again forcing him to move)

c) wear him down with bombardment by artillery, aircraft, etc. until he's weak enough to dislodge or overwhelm by direct attack.

5. Use your strongest elite units to launch crucial attacks, use your weaker units to mop up or hold defensive positions.

6. If possible, keep a reserve force ready, in case things don't go as well as you had planned.

The general rule with computers is...at first they play the game better than you do, because you're not familiar enough with the game mechanics yet. Later, you can almost always outsmart the computer, because human imagination can virtually always beat the machine when it comes to strategy. A lot of computers seem to think only in attack terms, for instance, and have little idea how to retreat and defend effectively. This causes them to do truly idiotic things at times, like abandoning an ideal defensive position for no good reason whatsoever.

I don't much like games where despots slaughter noncombatants, as they tend to be chaotic. I prefer encounters between professional armies. I suspect to win your game you will have to pillage and despoil your neighbours before they get the chance to do it to you...a sort of "beginners course in barbarism". I detest such games. Age of Empires is of that variety, and as a genuine military game it absolutely sucks.

A smart commander figures out how to win with as little expenditure of life and materiel as possible...not how to kill everyone in sight.

Anyway, keep trying and see how it goes.

- LH