Round 1: Hannibal vs. Gustavus Adolphus

[Gurkhal]

Did however Sweden give back all of the territories under Gustav's reign? If not, then I do not belive he can be held responsible for what happened. Not to mention that he also came to the throne at a time when Sweden was locked in a three seperate wars at the same time, against Denmark, Russia and Poland. And still manage to get out on-top of both Poland and Russia, even if the peace with Denmark was hard bouught. But without, to my knowledge, landlosses. Also, Gustav change the entire course of the Thirty Year's war and broke almost teen years (if I've got the infomation right) of unbroken Hapsburg (sp?) victories. Not that bad in my eyes.

Anyway, I can't say that I think any of them were really better than the other. There were to much time between them and they fought with to different circumstances to be able to say if anyone of them would've been better than the other.

[Kagemusha]

Gustav Adolphus. I dont understand why Poles see him always as an bad general.Wasnt he facing the best cavalry in the world of the time in Poland and still could take land from them. While the Hussars were mostly undefeatable in the 17th century.
I think his deeds in Germany show much better how good General he was. He also chanced the army composition and military laws of Sweden the way that rest of Europe adapted later.
By turning armies into armies and not just pillaging and plundering war parties.
Hannibal was the best tactician of his time. But im afraid that he was not the best strategist at all. I think it would have been intresting poll to put Hannibal and Rommel against eachother on one of these polls.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Gustav Adolphus was quite decent in most fields, but not outstanding in any single field. In both diplomacy, strategy, tactics, and politics he made some impressive moves, plenty of decent moves, but also some quite bad moves.

Hannibal is in a way the exact opposite - an overly eager and not very good strategist, a rather poor diplomat and politician, but an excellent an absolutely unmatched sense of tactics.

I voted Hannibal, just because his tale is so extremely fascinating - possibly because time has allowed it to change more drastically than the tale of modern generals.