How long did Roman era battles last?

[screwtype]

I just thought I'd post this because there's been a debate going on about how long battles lasted in this era.

There are some people here who say that RTW battle speeds are "realistic" because people hyped up on adrenalin can only fight for a few seconds or minutes at most before they become exhausted.

In doing a little research on the Roman gladius, however, I came across a couple of articles on Roman infantry tactics.

Both said that Roman centurians had a rotational method of fighting. A man would stand and fight for a few minutes until he became tired, then he would move to the back of the century and a fresh man would take his place. This rotational method enabled the Romans to outlast many of their less organized opponents.

According to one source, the rotation occurred once every fifteen minutes, according to the second, it occurred once every twenty minutes.

Whatever the case, it should well and truly put to rest the notion that battles were over within a few minutes of the protagonists meeting in melee.

BTW In order to help put the scale of RTW into perspective, a Roman century consisted of about 80 men, and there were some 59 centuries to a legion, for a total of roughly 5000 men.

This means that in order to simulate command of one Roman legion, you would need to control almost three full army stacks of 80 man units ~:)

[Byzantine Prince]

I reality these battles could last days on end. The shortest ones I have ever heard of where something like 30 minutes. I don't see anything wrong with the game speed though. Most battles in the game have a very small nuber of soldiers so off course they are gonna end fast.

[The Stranger]

yes indeed in reality they had like 5 early legions (4000 men in each legion)
and in the game you can't even go over 4000 with the romans
and not over 5000 with 20x240 units.

[lars573]

Actually the list strength of a legion was something like 6000 men. You see a centuria (latin for century) had 80 combat troops and 20 non-combat troops. Think along the lines of the signifer and the centurion. In regards to battle length consider that when they say a battle took all day you have remember that it would take a long time, several hour anyway, to get 5000 men aranged for a battle. And the bigger the army the longer it's going to take right. So you have 6 hours of preparation for 30 minutes of combat an hour tops. Not counting if you have reserves you can bring up to keep the offensive going.

[The Stranger]

eh yes that were the late legions after augustus

[Byzantine Prince]

You CAN have 5000 men and even more. But you have to have a pretty good computer or else it won't allow it. Once you have a capable computer you'll need to retype some of the files to make it correspond to how many you can have. I don't think there's a real limit to the number you could have.

[The Stranger]

i have a good PC, tell me. i really like to have huge units on the battlefield
more than 240 a unit i couldn't get till now. so please tell me

[Khorak]

Not to mention battles were not like in RTW anyway. Formations would clash with each other, being repelled or breaking the enemy and forcing them to fall back or flee. Several times formations of men could clash and then fall back from each other to do it again a while later.

In RTW everyone just mobs up, picks a target and goes at it like a giant riot.

[The Stranger]

yes that's true but in RTW battles goes way to fast to do that

well Barbarians didn't do that. but they attacked fought a smal battle, inflicted losses try to breach their line, but when they didn't won they retreated and tried again.

[Byzantine Prince]

Not to mention battles were not like in RTW anyway. Formations would clash with each other, being repelled or breaking the enemy and forcing them to fall back or flee. Several times formations of men could clash and then fall back from each other to do it again a while later.

In RTW everyone just mobs up, picks a target and goes at it like a giant riot.

You can counter that by clickin the attack mouse on the front of or behind the enemy line so the lines stay on their proper positions. Also the ranks to fall back sometimes but I agree with you on this, they should have made that more automatic.

[screwtype]

The point is that in RTW, once the melee starts, the battles are over in the wink of an eye, with large numbers of troops dying and the rest running away. It's pitiful.

In STW, I can remember having epic battles with, for example, just one unit of naginata against an AI unit of buddhist monks. The monks won in the end, of course, but even those little battles could last several minutes, which is how it should be.

[Byzantine Prince]

"The point is that in RTW, once the melee starts, the battles are over in the wink of an eye, with large numbers of troops dying and the rest running away. It's pitiful."

It's gonna be fixed eventually. As long as people complain enough. Maybe though a patch maybe by other means(expansion). I wouldn't worry about it, the game is still greater then any other.

[hoom]

Its wierd because when you do a 1v1 custom battle with two units of similar stats, they can wind up fighting for like 10mins.
But if you do a battle between uneven units/numbers of units, the battles suddenly become much shorter.

[Khorak]

It is weird though, how sometimes in MTW I'd be annoyed at a unit for collapsing so quickly, and now I'm playing RTW, where the entire battle is over before a couple units have finished duking it out in MTW. Unless it's Viking Berserkers vs. peasants. Then you just get total, horrific carnage for a few moments and running.

[Kraxis]

hoom you must have noticed that in those custom battles it tends to be a nice and flat, generally very bland battleterrain. Neither side gets much in terms of bonus to morale or ability (fatigue). It is just head on and no flanking.
You must also have noticed that when one units is weakened a bit and has become outnumbered it tends to fall apart rather quickly because now each warrior will face more enemies. That is basically what happens in large battles.

I have though seen phalanx vs phalanx battles last an unending time. But I was lucky that the enemy killed his cavalry on my line and I had none.

Back on topic.

Battles lasted a long time... Very long. Hours on end and often days. Ceasar's battle against the Hevetii near Bibracte lasted acording to himself from around noon until the sun had set in the summer. Nasty long!

The way the rotation was dealt with was rather more simple than a man standing with a watch (bear with me here). Rather the troops fought as long as they could, and that was about equal length for equally trained men. At that time hte enemy would be tired to, and a natural tendency to pull back would be in effect.
Who would in his right mind follow an enemy if you are exhaused and he is not fleeing. The lines would simply pull apart and a lull would happen. For some time the troops would rest, drink some water, rotate the troops (or perhaps even whole lines) and pass up throwing weapons (pila comes to mind here). Then one side would initiate the combat again (neither being surprised as they could see it coming), in ht case of the Romans with a new shower of pila. And this would continue until one side was either too tired to keep up or their line was broken, flank turned or had suffered too many losses.

But hten again, those battle would be anything but fun to control. Lots of lulls and basically no control after the first maneuvers had begun. It was most often decided as per the general's initial orders (Cannae and Gaugamela are nice examples of that, rather than micromanagement or individual initiative).

[Chelifer]

Sounds like a hockey game ~:)

What if one side decides to break the unwritten rules and goes for a surprise simultaneous attack with the full force available?

[hrvojej]

Its wierd because when you do a 1v1 custom battle with two units of similar stats, they can wind up fighting for like 10mins.
But if you do a battle between uneven units/numbers of units, the battles suddenly become much shorter.
That's why it would be great if we could mod the individual morale parameters, and not just the general morale of the units. I am more and more coming to a conclusion that the morale penalty for casualties and/or being outnumbered/outclassed is too great, and this is what causes the 5-second mass routs. And changing the general morale might not be the perfect answer, since you also mess up unit matchups and ratios of other penalties, such as morale loss due to being flanked.

With decreased battle speeds, charges are less devastating because units just don't intermingle as much to slaughter half of the enemy unit outright, so it's a bit better. But still, I think that there's something in the particular morale penalties that has changed from MTW which makes the RTW battles so short.

[screwtype]

The lines would simply pull apart and a lull would happen. For some time the troops would rest, drink some water, rotate the troops (or perhaps even whole lines) and pass up throwing weapons (pila comes to mind here). Then one side would initiate the combat again

That sounds rather unlikely to me Kraxis. I've never heard of an ancient battle where this happened. Conceivably where the defending side was considerably outnumbered but in a strong position, you might have waves of attacks, and pauses in between as the attackers reorganized for the next assault. But that's not quite the same as the mutual pause for rest and refreshment that you are suggesting.

Any examples you can cite?

[The Stranger]

well i suggest don't pursiut routing units when defending. i allways put my units in a small battle line of three units behind each other (it's works great with pilum infantry)
the come and rout, then they rally and come again. it can last for 20 minutes and then you fought to the death.

[RollingWave]

The main thing is, RTW battle speed isn't that exagerating.... for the numbers of men it suggest is on the field. in RTW you could have most around 3000 men in a fight while most involve usually about 1-2k... that would be a very small battle in most historical time periods.

obviously, fighting with 10x the men will take a whole lot longer than a battle involving much less number (everything else staying the same). most of the major battles in roman times both sides will have well over 10k men, that's 10x more than what we could achieve in the game, and usually the extra number is not simply a x10 factor, but usually much longer.

Another thing on battle was that usually in larger confrontations neither side will move in very fast unless they are positve (or precieve positive) of their superior strength. for example Ceaser vs Pompey, both side faced off on the field trying to lure each other to attack for days before they finally engaged, the battle itself didn't last all that long as Pompey's cav charge got demolished by a surpise hidden wing of ceaser.

Let's face it, fighting on walls or in cities in RTW (if both sides are relatively close) takes forever, that's kinda realistic, but most ppl don't like it much either.

[The Stranger]

yes that's true. in wall battles i usually use double speed. you know what, we just like to complain about the bad things in the game and take the good/great ones for granted

[HarunTaiwan]

This is the one thing that is actually realistic about the fast speeds, is that the general could not micromanage too much once it hit.

Yes, maybe a wing, or the Cav, but not each single unit.

[hrvojej]

In TW games one thing I really like is total control. Some small things are ok, such as the command delay, but I wouldn't enjoy it half as much if it took some derivation of hands-off approach. I loathe the games that take the "operational" point of view, and just let you issue some general commands to your troops after which you can only watch the battle unfold.

And wall battles take forever and are not really interesting because 1) only one unit of each side is fighting, the rest sit and wait; and 2) not much is going on in general since only two units (out of say 20) are fighting. Having the AI rout on contact in 95% of the open-field battles is however not fun for me.

[The Stranger]

well then stop wall fighting and start street fighting.

[Red Harvest]

The main thing is, RTW battle speed isn't that exagerating.... for the numbers of men it suggest is on the field. in RTW you could have most around 3000 men in a fight while most involve usually about 1-2k... that would be a very small battle in most historical time periods.


Sorry, but this part about the speed is patently false. If you believe that a formation of armed men will cut another to pieces in seconds you are mistaken. A group of armed fighting men against naked unarmed men would take longer than RTW combat in many cases. A person's innate defense (survival instinct) is higher than what we see in RTW. And formations rely on *mutual* defense. It usually would require more than one successful blow to eliminate an opponent--even if the wound was itself of a fatal nature it does not necessarily incapacitate immediately (especially fatal bleeders.) Single combat can end very rapidly (but then again even old bare knuckled boxing could sometimes take many hours.) Fighting in groups generally takes longer.

Small battles were not uncommon...you just don't hear as much about them as they are generally considered skirmishes. In reality they were probably more common, but they rarely were recorded in detail.

Even after legions of Cannae were surrounded and defeated, it took hours for Hannibal's army to kill the trapped mob. In RTW if you could render such a large battle I doubt it would take more than a minute or two.

[The Stranger]

no longer but that's because your computer can't handle it.

[Kraxis]

Sounds like a hockey game ~:)

What if one side decides to break the unwritten rules and goes for a surprise simultaneous attack with the full force available?
It wasn't unwritten rules, but both sides were already fighting at full force. To make the line more powerful you had to extend the lines. That is what some people did (the Greeks) while others created reserves (the Samnites and Romans).

So both lines tire equally fast (of course not perfectly the same but warriors tend to be evenly fit). That will after some time create a situation where neither side are fit for attacking each other (if you are tired you will instinctly use what strength you have left to defend yourself rather than attack). So if I pull back the other guy will heave a sigh of relief. When we have seperated a bit I can change my place with another guy in my formation. That guy is bright enough to know that charging in right away will only get him killed (lots of enemies vs him alone). So he waits until all the tired guys have retired to the rear (he doesn't want to have his back open as well, what if a few guys fall a few meters away, opening in formation with nobody to plug). That can take some time in rather dense formations, and it isn't as if they can just open it up very much (consider the distance the outer guys have to move if that was attemped). While all that is being done he will most likely want to take a break himself, he has been pumped up on adrenaline too, possibly even pushed a bit or been pushed around, that can tire you. It will take a lot less time than the frontliners, but it will still need to be done before the guy feels confident enough to attack (few people would feel confident in an attack if they were already quite tired withouth having traded blows with the enemy or having marches a long distance).
That done the guy needs to build up his courage again, yelling curses and throwing stuff usually helps a good deal. And then the two sides can clash again with his side as the initiators, the other side could concievably finish this faster but if wouldn't catch the others off guard, as they would most likely have finished their rotation at the very least. Thus the formation would be in position to recieve the enemy.

As has been mentioned before humans tire out very very fast in melee combat, look at boxers for instance and they wear next to nothing and conserve their strength greatly while being in superb shape, still they are tired after about three rounds. So some sort of rotation is needed fairly often. Doing this while still engaged is to say the least very dangerous. For a while you are very vulnerable and your enemy will know it (you have to express your wish to the guy behind you and battles aren't exactly silent so it will have to be done with a firm voice or gesture).

This isn't mentioned anywhere sadly, but that makes sense. Nobody back wrote about small scale tactical fighting. It was either individual heroics or fairly large scale fighting that was described. And why should we ever hear about it? We have much the same lulls in modern infantry warfare, but we hardly hear about it. Attacking infantry halts after a while to rest, but we only hear that the attack either succeeded or failed, that this or that unit took that position or lost it, but we hardly ever hear how this was done minute to minute. Why should ancient authors be any different.

There were battles where this would have been hard. Battles such as Cannae seems obvious (carthies fall back a bit and Romans break out), but even then it is not impossible. The poor Romans would be tired too, bunched up as they were. Those on the outside would be reluctant to step forward to give those behind room to move (ever seen a crowd the police has cornered?). Also if the carthies didn't rotate they would not be able to contain the Romans as their men at front would simply be too tired to be able to kill or stop the Romans) and integrety of formation would be critical too or else the Romans would have been able to push through.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

That sounds rather unlikely to me Kraxis. I've never heard of an ancient battle where this happened. Conceivably where the defending side was considerably outnumbered but in a strong position, you might have waves of attacks, and pauses in between as the attackers reorganized for the next assault. But that's not quite the same as the mutual pause for rest and refreshment that you are suggesting.

Any examples you can cite?



I have heard of this, in a famous Irish battle (not world famous) Brian something or other was fighting the Vikings and some Irish rebels. He had brought some Viking mercenaries with hm and as it turns out the Vikings and Irish would often pull apart and take a bit of a rest. The battle did last quite a while and eventually Brian and many of the Viking leaders were killed. Brian won the battle and lost his life. Guy that killed him died a slooooow death.

Just to prove the point, they did part lines for a rest and let's face it the Irish were honorouble(sp?) but the Vikings were not. It had nothing to do with honor and everything to do with taking a practical rest so that both sides could meet again and resume killing each other.

[screwtype]

Not much detail there Uesugi, so I hope you won't mind if I remain sceptical.

I'm not saying it could never happen - and I certainly think with small numbers of fighters, particularly untrained or semi-trained, it might be possible - but I doubt very much it was the norm, particularly with large battles and well trained troops.

For example, look at the Roman system I mentioned above. Now if their line was four deep, and a man at the front fought for fifteen minutes before being replaced, that means the guy who moves to the back gets 45 minutes rest before he has to enter the fray again. So why would the Romans need to take a break?

And some more questions that bug me are, how exactly do you break off from combat when you have a bunch of guys pressing forward from behind you? Does everybody get tired and decide to break off at the same time? Does someone give the order, and if so how do you break off multiple units from combat in an orderly fashion? And what's to stop the enemy from taking advantage as you try to disengage?

I can certainly see it might be possible for one wave of attackers to falter and run when their attack fades, but it's hard to imagine an entire battle line just sort of deciding to take a smoko because everyone's getting tired.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I was just screwing around at school searching google for random stuff, so I don't remember a lot. Try searching for Irish warriors 1400 or something, that is one thing I looked for.
I have no idea how it happened, but it did. Maybe all of the troops became too tired to fight anymore and they all walked away without turning around or something.....

[Spetulhu]

I was just screwing around at school searching google for random stuff, so I don't remember a lot. Try searching for Irish warriors 1400 or something, that is one thing I looked for.

You mean 1014, The Battle of Clontarf.

[master of the puppets]

i think the battles are suitable for a game of this scale

what i want to see is this game (played on some super computer) carrea with 50,000 romans and 40,000 and make the battle last the historically accurate 20 hours ~D

cool, costly, and maliciosly devestating to global population

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Clontarf sounds familiar. I had no idea of the actual date of the battle, just what I was searching for, I was doing a bit of research for CTW and found something interesting to read instead...