siege tax question

[Boron]

arryn in general you are right .
for everybody else then ermor ae/sg and pan cw expect for raiding purposes keeping unrest low is a better strat . in the long run you get more money as you said .

but as gandalf would agree i think in certain cases e.g. as caelum or a stealth nation it is a good strat . you damage yourself in the long run too but it enables a much earlier victory over the raided nation .
it's scorched earth
and if your opponent e.g. has a vq and heavily relies on it in early - midgame you have not too much chances beating her directly if not having a sc pretender yourself or i think abysia might get her while buffing with a devil attack .
but since the vq can only be in 1 province per turn if you raid 3-4 provinces per turn you will slowly but surely win .
it's always a question between short run and long run . if you can afford the better long run outcome you chose long run but with special nations like caelum or an equal strong enemy the scorched earth tactic is perhaps better .
another good use is if your enemy relies heavier than you on standard troops if you make a death zone through complete pillaging which forces him to either risk that his national troops starve away or he can only bring Neednoteat troops to battle + commanders or needs to forge supply items .
when you e.g. play against ulm which normally relies longer on national troops than almost
every other race this can be good .

edit : another reason for scorched earth tactics :
if you fight multiple opponents you perhaps can delay some opponents with quite low effort through various raging/stealth tactics while concentrating your main forces on your main enemies .

i myself can't afford to guard every border very well with most nations until lategame .
so concentrating your main forces on one - two enemies while delaying and disturbing the opponent with relative weak forces is nice too .

[ July 25, 2004, 15:40: Message edited by: Boron ]