Cows

Cows are provinces that are fed with Aid by the teammates to grow much larger than other provinces in the kingdom. Once at a large size these cow proinvces typically can make large amounts of resources to support the rest of the kingdom. 
Running these provinces is also known as banking, thought the provinces themselves are rarely called banks to distinguish them from the building banks. Small cows are sometimes called calves
Flogger, the earlier cows I was referring to were not fed but instead fed smaller provinces all they wanted without ruining their trade balance. The feeding (and in turn gbp abuse for more feeding) came later as cows "caught on" and cow battles for dominant positioning ensued. I very much agree with the rest of what you said.
Lews, indeed Desire and others like Mordor did use large provinces for good effect in previous ages. I'm really not trying to claim otherwise or act like I invented being a big province so sorry if it appears like I was. A better representation might be that I coined the word cow and developed/popularized a strategy utilizing an exploring province to aid the kingdom, buy and slay dragons, etc with large attacker (killer) support (later evolving into allied group support) that from that point on became a key component to the #1 kingdom competition for the majority of ages afterwards. Also, I'm not trying to claim that these cows are good for the game, in fact I believe the opposite and have often suggested a better balance between exploring and attacking so that exploring isn't so overpowered.
Scavenger, I abused the strength of exploring combined with an old intentional feature that allowed you to send tb free aid to provinces under 1/4 your size. Despite being good at this strategy, I felt it was overpowered so suggested the strategy I had used (more than once) with good success be weakened. Top kingdom cow naps are a natural result of multiple kingdoms wanting cows. Un-cf'd cows are a naturally unstable condition and either they will cf, or to quote the Highlander, "In the end, there can be only one." The early age "temporary allying up to establish cow dominance" was largely a response by non Absalom groups wanting to ensure Absalom could not establish such cows and in place, they establish their own. Again, I'm not trying to claim this is good for the game, just the result of the situation.http://forums.utopia-game.com/showthread.php?620415-An-interview-with-AquaSeaFoam/page3 on 06/04/24