Quote Originally Posted by ARCHIPPOS View Post
"battles were lasting, historically, not much longer than 1 hour, especially between ''civilised'' people. The reason of such being that the men exausted fast due to the weight of their armour and weapons"

Depends... for example i think i've read somewhere that the battle of Cannae lasted all day long , but this of course was due to the incredible amounts of Romans (some 70000) which were cornered and methodicaly slain, a massacre of such proportions takes some time...

Also it was very usual (for Greek armies anyway) to just stand opposite to eachother in phallanx formations in their bronze armour and under the hot sun for hours and provoke the enemy waiting for even the slightest tactical advantage to go into battle...in every battle there is a psychological dimension into it and Greeks tried to take advantage of this too,tiring and intimidating the enemy... i dont remember any examples now but if you read Thucidides there are such descriptions of pre-battle stalling or even undecisiveness...

fighting in armour would indeed be exhausting for troops but you have to remember that people back then were infinitely more physical... the Greeks especialy were trained from childhood to all kinds of sports spending endless hours at gymnasiums wrestling, running and testing themselves... they even had that contest of running in full armour ... So you see the antagonistic nature of such societies hardened people beyond our time's measures and prepared them for war... also look up for "dromaia efodos" (=running charge) the greek method of dealing with archers running at full speed the last hundred meters separating them from enemy lines and still have the required stamina to stab and push like crazy...

I prefer to play with no battle time limit... this is i think more realistic especialy during sieges where the clock is ticking against the attacker when usually it would have been the other way round... also it's not very realistic to think that any general would order his men forward without having spent every last arrow ,stone or missile against the enemy or taking the time to encircle those determined-to-die-to-the-last troops within the city center...

For battles i usually deploy my troops to the highest possible ground or in woods... i know it's naive to think that the AI will stupidly "come and get me" (it has never happened yet) but a guy can only hope,right??? usually then i have to march my army to the enemy at normal speed which merely "warms up" my troops ...9 times out of 10 the enemy has also camped somewhere were he has an advantage (height, woods)... when fighting on a copletely open field (all my battles with Sakas) i deploy my troops as close as possible to the enemy ...

Deployment isn't about undecisiveness... i never said such a thing. I pointed out that Most (no all, there were battles that lasted all day long, they just don't make at all the majority) battle lasted around an hour, little more or little less... psychological effect is indeed a major part of every battle, you'e right, but then again, that was not my subject! I was talkin about the actual clashing of the weapon, wich is arguably onlyt a ''part'' of the full battle, if we take into account scouting skirmishes, fear and psychological war, then weapon clahes... but sorry, it's a fact that, NOT ALL but most battle were very short indeed, then the two parties seperate, to remeet later or the day after... of corse I'm no fool and I know that there werwe other example of gigantic battle that opposed counteless guys. But that was not the majority at all...

Cheers!