Quote Originally Posted by Tomi says
Two units face to face took 2 full minutes to before one routed being 3/4 destroyed. Does not sound like much time, but as I watched blow by blow close up, it seemed like an eternity.

Not sure about this one. Was not able to pit two same type units against one another, which would be a better way to judge.

I do remember (I think) in Homer's writings that the armys at Troy could fight all day and not sustain any losses.

The actual combat could be beefed up in rate of active fighting (more hacking per interval) and the possibility of an actual kill reduced I guess

But on the other side, I think the encounters in MTW lasted much to long
I have had similar observations (with the exception that MTW battles didn't last too long.) With two units of similar low level upgrades, the combat time is reasonable (although most likely quite short by historical standards.) However, when you get multiple units things go nuts in a hurry, especially with the "swirling" of formations that the AI is fond of. Units rout in a couple of seconds.

From what I've read, the phalanx and legions could fight for some time without many casualties, the positions would shift, and if they should become flanked, things would collapse rapidly. In ancient battles, loser casualties are often about 10 times those of the winner and losing armies are often nearly annihilated. To be more realistic, battle would need to be much slower, and instead of having your numbers decline rapidly with combat, your morale/cohesion would decline and fatigue increase. Eventually a formation would be flanked or otherwise overcome and collapse. Most casualties would come in the resulting rout. There would be gameplay issues from trying to do this historically, but it does illustrate some of the apples to oranges comparisons when trying to compare the game engine to normal combat speed.

Imagine how exhausted a man must be to surrender when they know what sort of tortured fate awaits them (in that time)? If they had any energy left they would fight to the end, because the death is swifter. They would have been utterly drained by battle. If you have run a marathon or boxed 8-10 three minute regulation rounds you can get an idea of what physical and mental state they must be in at the end of a losing battle.