Could Caesar Fly?

**oudysseos** · 09-13-2008, 07:13

I had just finished reading Robin Waterfield's excellent book on Xenophon, and was looking at a map of the region that happens to have Caesar's Civil War battles located and it struck me that Xenophon and his Merry Men took the best part of 6 months (September 401 to spring 400) to go 6 or 7 hundred miles (maybe 1,000 kilometers) from Cunaxa (basically Babylon) to Trapezus.
Now that's 2 turns in EB terms, and although I haven't tried it recently, if I remember correctly (fight for proper English!), even a young family member on his own couldn't make it from Babylon to Trapezous in 2 turns.

But that's not the point, I'm not trying to get the EB team to revise movement rates. What I meant to say was, Xenophons journey was nothing compared to the way Caesar hopped around the map. I mean, Alexandria in February of 47, the Battle of Zela in May, in August of 47 he's quelling a mutiny in Rome, invades Africa in October, the Battle of Thapsus in February of the following year, by November he's off to Spain, wins the Battle of Munda in March of 45, returns to Rome, reforms the Calendar, and writes the frickin' Commentaries as well. All in 12 turns? No way in hell! It'd take me 12 turns to march an army from Alexandria to Zela alone, which he apparently did in 3 months max (That's 1 turn)! That's at least a thousand miles in half the time it took Xenophon to go 2/3 of the distance. Is that even possible?

Without provoking the wrath of the EB team, my question is that known military campaigns (Xenophon, Alexander, Caesar, etc.) seem to be impossible to reproduce under EB/RTW conditions. Yet the movement of armies in EB has always seemed realistic to me. It's a conundrum: are movement rates in EB toned down for balance purposes, or was Caesar flying around on Bartix Airways?

**Foot** · 09-13-2008, 07:23

Because RTW is a turn-based game it is impossible to have realistic movement speeds. An army could march about 15 miles a day, though there are cases of much longer marches in a day, but speeds above 15miles could not be maintained for long. 15 miles a day is 105 miles a week is 420 miles a lunar month is 5475 miles a calender year is 1370 miles an EB turn. You can understand why we cannot have realistic movement for EB characters, in one turn a character could travel from northern France to Rome quite easily. That game wouldn't work.

Foot

**oudysseos** · 09-13-2008, 07:36

Oh I understand completely, and as I said the movement in EB always seems fine to me. But Caesar's speed really jumps out as exceptional, so I guess I was just going 'Wow!'. Perhaps it's the case that my assumptions about how quickly and easily one could actually travel in the past are wrong. As Foot said, 15 miles a day is not unrealistic (and didn't Stonewall Jackson regularly cover 30 miles a day or more?), so as long as you keep going, day after day, long distances do get covered quicker than you think. But, have any 'Caesar Speed' traits been considered? Or does it exist already?

**Foot** · 09-13-2008, 10:59

If you continually use up all your movement points in a turn you'll begin to get bad traits about over-working your troops. Just because you can move 100 movement points a turn doesn't mean that that is the normal amount. I think you need to leave 10% of your movement points to not qualify for over-working of the troops. Over-working your troops but getting away with it are the caesar traits. Caesar's movements are not overly impressive, nots a 100% markup. As for 30miles a day, if you intend for soldiers to fortify their camp and the end of the day, 30 miles is not realistic. At a even 3 mile pace (which isn't unreasonable for a fully kitted out soldier plue baggage train) it would take 10 hours to march the full 30, add into that the necessity of foraging for food for several thousand and you can quickly see that 30 miles is pretty doable in friendly territory or in europe where there are lots of youth hostels, but when you have pitch camp and up sticks every day it gets kinda impossible.

Foot

**konny** · 09-13-2008, 13:02

Originally Posted by oudysseos

As Foot said, 15 miles a day is not unrealistic (and didn't Stonewall Jackson regularly cover 30 miles a day or more?)

Jackson was notorious for having mercylessly forced marched his troops: Shenandoah Valley is still today one of the best examples for outmanouvering far superior forces by squeezing the last out of one's men.

Usuall speed of pre-industrial armies on avarge to good roads can be estimated with about 20 kms a day , when allowing for a day of rest every third or fourth day. So Xenophon's 1,000 Kms could be done in some 60 to 70 days (in known territory, on roads and not intercepted by hostile activities!).

**Connacht** · 09-13-2008, 19:04

Perhaps movement points bonuses given by paved and highway roads could be increased, so that normal armies don't get from Finland to Sicily in one or two turns across hostile and wild lands but highly developed factions can see their armies move quickly through their advanced provinces. Or not...?