And here I was going to note that stirrups is one of the major military suggestions he could offer. (Also, combat saddles before stirrups would have horns or other solutions to fence the rider in so they wouldn't fall off so easily while fighting)
And that food conservation was introduced just to make armies more mobile, which Zill noticed off the bat.
But instead, yea, bad (evil) cliffhanger. (Since so many other good comics have suddenly turned into dumpster fires without warning)