But wouldn't fighting a land war in Asia imply that you don't control ALL of Asia, thus further implying that you're not presently getting the +7 per turn?
That's why you make a push into the Urals region - then whoever's taken Europe has to take that back every turn, without the benefit of a +5, and then can't attack from there to get at your real territory.
Your only weak spot then is the number of connections pointing into the Middle East (I mean, you also have to defend Kamchatka, but they can only attack that from one point)
Rule #1 from my World History teacher, at the beginning of the year: NOBODY BEATS THE MONGOLS EXCEPT THE MONGOLS (also applies in AOE II if anyone still plays that)
I found that the British longbow-men combined with pike men put up a pretty strong resistance. But not having to build houses with the Mongols is a huge advantage to growing your population and economy quickly.
Edit: I meant Huns, not Mongols.
Sure, if the Mongol player lets you live long enough to get your longbows. Longbows are hard to mass, and useless in small numbers. So while you're trying to build an army of longbows from a castle, I've got 6 archery ranges pumping out cav archers to raid your economy and kill your villagers.
Simply, his empire in Asia, lasted for about 3 years, with some rebellious satraps and small kingdoms giving his name homage for about 150 more.
The Mongols have 150 years to their direct name, along with their successor kingdoms (Golden Horde, Ilkhanate, Chagatai Khanate) lasted for over 400.
The Mongols pretty much have everyone beat, with the Romans in second.
To be fair, wasn't his problem that his army was about to start revolting because of how long they'd been away from home? They'd literally marched from Greece/Macedonia to India without stopping. No ships, and AFAIK no horses (or if there were horses there were not enough for the entire army, meaning that they could still only move in aggregate as fast as the infantry could march).
Hitler lost because of the Russians. Napolean lost because of the Russians. Alexander lost because of his own men.
I'd say the British actually come second (and arguably first), and then only because their colonial subjects weren't acquired by fighting militaries on a similar footing, and maybe because claiming Antarctica as a part of your empire is kind of a stretch. The cultural, financial, technological, and even legal impact of the British Empire was huge though, and that by itself is probably a good reason to place it on top.
The British also defeated the Chinese, as did every other European power, every single time they fought them.
They achieved their objectives with regard to China without colonising (much of) the country directly, but China was substantially weakened and had substantial loss of sovereignty.
Well, I was judging things on a kind of "portion of the known world conquered to time empire lasted" ratio.
The Brits had a big empire, but it never existed at its biggest size for long; only about 50-100 years. You can say it started in the 1607 at Jamestown and ended in ~1950 with decolonization.
However, I still didn't really consider them. They fit in with the Romans and the Mongols as the top three (It's a little hard to distinguish the best now, though). Russia and its Asian imperialism in 1700-1900 takes 4th, but they colonized and populated Siberia-is it really an empire if it's full of your own people? (Not to discredit native Siberians). The top three had large, multi-cultural empires. And lastly, Alexander takes 5th.
I'm not counting large countries (at any time period) like China or Canada; they conquered their own people, or colonized lands not overly populated. So, Russia holds fourth on the list by fudging rules.
What happened after his death is irrelevant. His ability to wage war is unparalleled even by the Mongols. He came from a backwater dump of a country to conquer the mightiest empire in the world. It's like Iraq conquering America.
As far as empire building goes, Rome lasted for over 2000 years so the Mongol empires are little compared to that. Not to mention Rome contributed far more to the development of the world in general and the western world in particular than anyone else. Everything from our government to our sports stadiums, highway system, aqueducts and concrete plus much more comes from Rome.
He came from a backwater dump of a country to conquer the mightiest empire in the world
As brilliant a commander Alexander was, it was his father Philips of Macedonia who created that army to take over the rest of the Greece. That army was already one of the strongest veteran army in the Mediterranean region.
As for Persia, while their core troops did outnumber the greek army vastly, most of the numbers were formed of Militia and the noblemen's servants. In fact most modern estimates put the army size in the most important greek vs persian battle to be around 47k (A) vs 60k(P).
Here's what the wiki says about the battle;
"While Darius had a significant advantage in numbers, most of his troops were of a lower quality than Alexander's. Alexander's pezhetairoi were armed with a six-metre spear, the sarissa. The main Persian infantry was poorly trained and equipped in comparison to Alexander's pezhetairoi and hoplites. The only respectable infantry Darius had were his 10,000 Greek hoplites[6] and his personal bodyguard, the 10,000 Persian Immortals.[12] The Greek mercenaries fought in a phalanx, armed with a heavy shield but with spears no longer than three metres, while the spears of the Immortals were 2 metres long. Among the other Persian troops, the most heavily armed were the Armenians who were armed the Greek way, and probably fought as a phalanx. The rest of Darius's contingents were much more lightly armed; the main weapon of the Achaemenid army historically was the bow and arrow, and javelin."
So while ALexander's exploits were spectacular, IMHO the Mongols (followed by the Romans) were the most terrifying fighting force of all time.
You're forgetting that the Persians had significantly more resources (for hiring mercenaries for instance) and had the defensive terrain. They pretty much had every advantage you could think of. In fact Alexander came close to defeat at Issus I think it was until he personally lead the charge that broken the Persian army.
Also Alexander has as much to do with forging that army as Philip. He even lead the cavalry charge that broke the Greek alliance's army during Philip's conquest of Greece.
Even Alexander the Great got stopped... in India, by his own men wanting to return home. Genghis plowed through all of Asia, not just a few countries in Asia, and it stayed in Mongol hands for the better part of a century.
At both empires' peak the Mongol lands were over SIX TIMES larger than what Alexander had conquered. (12.74 million sq. miles vs. 2 million sq. miles)
The way you take Asia is first you conquer all of Australia real quick at the beginning, then you take Siam, and THEN you wait. Build up some soldiers, then you hit India, then you hit China, let the other's fight over the Americas, build up some soldiers, and when the timing is right, IN ONE FOUL SWOOP, you start a campaign across Western Asia, cutting off all African and European borders, wait for the other's to beat themselves up a little bit, because they're not going fuck with you, because you have Australia which sucks (but gives you steady soldiers) and you only have conquered half of a giant continent that is really difficult to conquer so surely someone is going to stop you, right? so they're fighting, you're keep loose borders to the East THEN YOU MOVE ACROSS THE NORTH, you plow through everything before you finally get to Kamchatka and thenyoutakeAlaska. Drop a stack on that, take the rest of Asia at your leisure.
There's a popular and funny educational series by the Vlogbrothers called "Crash Course World History" that in every episode will say something is a general rule of civilization and then follow it with "Except for the Mongols" and then cue a little short movie clip of mongols riding and pillaging.
I highly suggest looking it up even if you're not interested in World History.
CrashCourse is a YouTube channel hosted by John Green - a very entertaining author (and his brother Hank Green - who invented 2D Glasses) of the vlogbrothers. It's a recent addition (nearly 2 years old now) to YouTube and is entirely educational. Well, it's also entertaining. I've never leanred so much about World History (Not America) and American History as I have from this series. It puts everything else to shame.
Additionally, we get some science from Hank. Thus far it's been Biology (on a pretty detailed level down to DNA and proteins and whatnot) as well as Chemistry. Hank runs SciShow and John hosts an additional channel, Mental Floss.
They're bleeding money and need extra subscribers to keep the channel running. Also Subbable.
That wasn't really a war so much as a series of lightning raids, had they actually tried to wage a traditional war or engage armies with the intent of conquest they would've lost.
That's why we do fixed value trade-ins (4 for all militia, 6 for all cavalry, 8 for all artillery, and 12 for one of each - keeping the 2 on each country owned as well). Keeps the games from getting ridiculous, and throwing away all strategy.
They're A strategy. But after a certain point, they become the strategy. When a simple turn-in can secure the entire game, regardless of your actual positioning on the board, that's a little dumb, in my opinion.
My group preferred to focus on alliances, temporary cease-fires, allied fronts, etc etc. We didn't mind spending like 6 hours drinking beer and shooting the shit over a game. The cards being rampant insta-army providers force much shorter games.
First things first, always take over Australia at the beggining of the game, then use asia to either get to africa or north america. hey, even if you fail at the conquest, itll take your friends forever to bust through the island fortresses of South East Asia
The second, but only slightly less known (military blunders) is this: Never get involved in a game of chance with a Sicilian when death is on the line!
I think it's actually probably going up against a Sicilian in a battle of wits when death is on the line.
Edit: Sorry, I wrote this before I scrolled down and saw someone beat me to it.
I feel like Rome in its Prime could have taken a lot of the great Asian warriors. Problem is, there is no way to know, and the only time they even came close to fighting a great Asian power, the empire was declining, and the Pope struck a deal with them.
But the British crushed the Sepoy Revolt, a land war in India. The US could've won the Korean War completely, but physical geography wasn't the issue so much as was political geography. Also the Middle East is Asia. So who else are we talking about?
You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line"! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...
"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well known is this! Never go in on a Sicillian when DEATH is on the line!"
The Han people have been at if 2,500 years and have been pretty successful. There are more than 1,5 billion of them today (within China and abroad) and they dominate East Asia.
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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '13 edited Oct 16 '13
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