NationStates Jolt Archive

Yay for the randomness!

Anyway...
Who do you think would win if two forces of equal size (military forces, not gravity ;)), one from the Greek/Macedonian armies of the Hellenic Era (phalanxes, emphasis on cavalry) against the Roman Legions (Empahsis on infantry, little of anything else unless you count the Auxilla) at their best?
Both sides have 'standard' infantry, meaning that the pikemen arent all the Royal Pikemen, and the Romans arent all Praetorian cohorts and such.

not knowing that much about warfare from those eras, i'd stump for the Romans cos they were badasses
and had dicipline & plenty of it

Well the romans did win eventually, considering hellenic forces was most of what the romans faced in the east, from the greeks to the selucids.

Problem with the phlanxes and all that was they were highly inflexible even at the best of time, allthough there cavarly was kick ass, but the main point of hellenic infantry was anti cavarly.

The roman's dint really use cavalry so the point of planxes simply went out the window, all the romans needed to go was outflank the mass pike line and the greeks would be utterly buggerd.


Rome total war :p
Good for learning these kind of things.

Indeed.
Having tested this in RTW, I think it depends on the intelligence of the general on both sides.
Y'see, a phalanx is basicaly a meat-grinder for ANYTHING short of an elephant that charges into the front, thus if the Romans run into the front, they lose because they cant get close enough to hit the enemy with their short swords.
HOWEVER, if they are semi-intelligent they can run around to the sides or rear of the phalanx and slice the Greeks (Who cant turn around quick enough on acount of their 20ft spears) into tiny bits.
That and a good long bout of giant rocks tends to break the formation up a bit.

um i think that they would kill each other at identical rates and then retreat at the exact same instant

I would like to say Greek/Macedonian, but realistically the Romans.