Decisive Battles

[Barkhorn1x]

I'm massivly hung over, BTW. http://212.238.194.39/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Anyhoo...the part I remember is where the most annoying narrator (where is Eddy Mair when you need him?) states that Darius had 250K men http://212.238.194.39/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif

Do the producers even read books?? Let me be clear here, there is NO way that figure is accurate - unless Darius somehow figured out how to implement a 19th century supply system

Hey, I'll bet that next week (Thermopalae [sp?]) - we will hear how Xeres had 1 Million men. Herodotus coudd't be wrong could he??

And the rest of the show was shite too. But the engine looked good.

Barkhorn.

[hundurinn]

Are you talking about the battle of Issus? If so I read IN a book that Darius had assembled an army of 600.000 men. "Alexander the Great's art of strategy" by Partha Bose. And Alexander was already useing forward supply bases a method used in the 19th century and today.

[Barkhorn1x]

Quote[/b] (hundurinn @ July 31 2004,18:22)]Are you talking about the battle of Issus? If so I read IN a book that Darius had assembled an army of 600.000 men. "Alexander the Great's art of strategy" by Partha Bose. And Alexander was already useing forward supply bases a method used in the 19th century and today.
...and that author is an idiot who uncritcally accepts what ancient sources tell him. Think man. Do you have ANY idea of what it would take for an ancient society (a feudal one at that) to equip/train/feed that may men??

On the subject of Alexander using "forward suply bases". His army was only 47K - and I wasn't talking about him.

Mass armies did not come into existence until the early 19th century - due a host of technolgy/social/population issues.

That 600K figure is a fantasy. Alexander was outnumbered by NO MORE than 2 to 1 - and perhaps less.

Barkhorn.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Alexander was apparently outnumbered 5-1, he had around 47,000. I think the persians probably outnumbered him by 3. Maybe somewhere in the region of 150 to 170,000 men.

But some of the numbers saying over 200,000 are quite inaccurate or wildly exaggerated.

[lonewolf371]

Still, I bet most of us wouldn't be able to win such a battle in 3 to 1 odds. Alexander made some great acheivements.

I think I saw/looked at some sort of Decisive Battles preview or something rather online, I can't remember what it was, and I thought it was utter complete crap, way too melodramatic. Kinda like Soap Operas.

[A.Saturnus]

It was quite common in ALL cultures to massively exaggerate army sizes in historical reports. Given the population of the nations at that time, I don`t believe for a second that anyone could have gathered an army even CLOSE to 600,000 men.

[Barkhorn1x]

Another crap episode this week. I really don't like this format - much too short for the info. covered - the battle itself is like 9 minutes. And editing makes the battle VERY difficult to follow.

TC, by comparison, was much better.

Barkhorn.

[Spino]

Well the battle sequences in the Marathon and Gaugamela episodes were fairly entertaining.

The producers did a poor job of recreating Gaugamela. They did justice to the neutralization of Darius' chariots but failed to properly show the oblique formation deliberately chosen by Alexander. Also there was no mention of the Persian cavalry that made its way towards the Macedonian baggage train and the refusal of Darius' mother to accompany her liberators back to her son's lines! Anyway in terms of eye candy the vast Persian army deployed at Gaugamela looked great.

So far the episode devoted to the battle of Marathon is the best of the bunch. The portrayal of the Athenian formation at Marathon was spot on.

I also loved the triremes anchored just offshore at Marathon... ~;)

[Barkhorn1x]

Don't get me wrong - I too liked certain scenes/snipets of these episodes. It's just that - in their totality - they suck IMO. ~:cool:

Barkorn.

[Spartiate]

While i don't for a minute think that the Persian army was as large as some historical texts tell us i also think most of us are over-looking the fact that the Persian rulers would not have CARED about the vast majority of the troops(peasants mostly) only the elite units.Vast conscription would have been undertaken in the immediate area of any battle by these rulers.

[Spino]

Don't get me wrong - I too liked certain scenes/snipets of these episodes. It's just that - in their totality - they suck IMO. ~:cool:

Barkorn.

I agree completely. ~:cheers:

Once RTW is released the only thing that might get me to continue to watch Decisive Battles is if they alter the graphics to depict battles from decidedly different eras of warfare. I'd love to see some modded artwork in action.

On the other hand you can bet I will be downloading the new Time Commanders episodes the instant they hit the internet. TC is well produced and is both frustrating and fun to watch. I read somewhere that the second season of TC is going to cover battles from different eras or warfare. Hopefully we'll get to see some battles from the Medieval and Renaissance eras. It would really be wild if they managed to do some battles featuring the exploits of Frederick the Great or Napoleon.

[Barkhorn1x]

On the other hand you can bet I will be downloading the new Time Commanders episodes the instant they hit the internet. TC is well produced and is both frustrating and fun to watch.

Yes, I agree - how many times do you catch yourself yelling at the screen as the "team" mucks up another one. ~:shock:

Barkhorn.

[USMCNJ]

i'm not a fan of the show. but you do notice nice things about the game.

1) it was nice to see how easily the two units changed position. (when the greeks passed throught the spartans.

2) the dead fade. i realy hate this feature.

[RangerLee]

Will the dead fade in RTW? I hope not the littered battlefield was just awesome emersion into the STW and MTW games. Having the dead fade just takes away from a very large battle. Especially a long battle.