Alexander the Great

[SGE]

Here is an article about Alexander the Great, known by many people as the greatest commanders of all history. He used tactics that were very unusual for his time. Without furtherado here is the link to the article. (I could c/p it, but im not sure if it is allowed.)

Article

PS: If I posted this in the wrong place, feel free to change it.

[Sarik]

Pathetic He Conquerd Defeated Enemys.The Arabs Know Thats A Conquering Force They Conquered Empires Oh My God Actual Empires Not Some Measly Little Nations Or Already Hopeless Country's But You Wouldent Know Anything About That No One Does Its A Shame.Notice This My Friend Every Story About the Ancient World Always Ends Like This ALWAYS "The People,Or The Empire Lived Happly Ever After Until The Arabs Came And Conquerd Them" And Well Thats It It Always Ends There I Wouldent Be Suprised If This Game Ends Much The Same Way.FLAWLESS Victory Is What Get You Recognized In History But Apparantly Not For The Arabs

[Wijitmaker]

'Arabs' - as western civilisation defines the term, won't be featured in the game. They don't really make a name for themselves in world history till about 700 A.D. which is about 200 years after the timeline of our game stops. However, some of their predicessors that inhabited the region of the Arabia will (Persians, Carthaginians).

Arab champions have their place in history. One of my favorites is Saladin.

[Sarik]

Thank You My Friend I Know They Will.Of Cource I Know That This Is Between AD And BC (0 Ad)

I Simply Comenting To SGE Nothing Else.Wijitmaker Thanks For The Input I To Like Saladin But My Favorite Is The Answarr Genral Khalid.Wijitmaker Your Doing A Great Job With The Game Hope It Can Be Finnished Within A 2 year span Cant Wait To Play, With This WILD FIRE GAMES Will Go Big

[Belisarivs]

Pathetic He Conquerd Defeated Enemys.The Arabs Know Thats A Conquering Force They Conquered Empires Oh My God Actual Empires Not Some Measly Little Nations Or Already Hopeless Country's

But Alexander conquered Persian Empire, which had almost still armies larger than that of Alexander. Persian Empire was power indeed in these times.

Persians under rule of Chosroessos conquered much of East Roman lands, they proceeded deep into Asia Minor.

Then East Romans chose Heraclius as their emperror. That exellent commander destroyed Persian army in Asia Minor, then proceeded directly to the Persian territorries and burnt temple in Ctesiphon. This caused Chosroessos to be murdered and Persians begged for peace and returned all conquerred lands back under East Roman rule.

Son of Chossroesos was enthroned to Persian throne, but he was quite young, so regent ruled instead of him.

In these times Heraclius became so ill, that he couldn't stand up from his bed.

Arabs couldn't choose better time for their conquest.

Both empires were signifficantly weakened by long war, east Roman commander (one of best commanders empire ever had) was ill, Persian ruler was young and inexperienced.

So while Alexander had armies weaker in numbers and stood against enemy in full power, Arabs were attacking heavily weakened empires of Persia, East Romans, Visigoths in Spain were in disorder and had no chance to effectively resist Arabic onslaught and Franks were about the same yet they managed to repulse Arabs from their lands.

No offense, but Arabs were in favourable position, not Alexander. But Arabic commander Chalid ibn al Valid (I hope I didn't mess his name) is considered to be really great commander.

[Ephestion]

I dont understand what the problem is?

From what I gather your suggesting that the Arabs conquored everyone and everything and were a mighty force of some nature. Well let me explain things to you. Firstly the Arabs COnquored and then what? The Ottomans Conquoered and then What? Sack the cities, Install corrupted camel riding traders as governors who steal everything from teh people? And then what do you get? Perhaps teh same situation as what has infested everything touched by the Islamic tipartite (Arab, Turk Persian) countries of crumbling economies, lack of higher eduction and morals, the lack of all the things they defeated and neglegted to adopt. The Arabs proper were nomadic camel riding barbarians until 700AD. Much like the Turkomans until 1200AD and much like the Vikings till 1600AD. Alexander was not so much Great for his army although he is always portraited this way, his might rested in teh culture we know as Hellenes. Schools, Administration, Courts, Discipline, morals, philosophy, medicine, science , art, all things of today have their roots in Greek Philosophy. This is not an exxageration but a fact. Even contemporary science such as microbiology or genetics have their roots in Greek writings. It is this plus the word of God which spread in its original form for some 1000 years and before the papacy translated it and used it post 1200AD (The Great Schizm) in liturgy that defined modern Western Civilisation. Prior to that was Ancient Greek Culture which influenced the East to a degree where all things east and west have common ground in the culture of Hellas/Greece. The extent of what was Alexander and teh Hellenes and their empire is by far underestimated. When we say Greece was teh foundation of Western civilisation it was most certainly the seed that created teh cities we have today. Have you ever wondered why we have nations, divided by states, capital cities and within them roads, schools, hospitals, universities, churches agoras etc.... No city in the ancient world had all these things until Alexander brought them to them and today all cities are the birth and idea of what was teh Legend Alexander the Great.

Yes the East had cities as did Persia they had massive empires infact but their cities were filled with other things not related to higher learning for example not one city Alexander conquored had a book store. The types of city is different it housed people together much like SOmora and Gomora.

However, no modern nation could compare with this the era of awakening and later enlightenment. It was never the armies of Hellas that made her Great even though they had the finest till 1453AD.

[Belisarivs]

You sound like someone who loves Byzantines (perhaps you are Greek), well, I won't oppose you much because I love Byzantines, too, but we are speaking about military and I'm arguing, that Arabs didn't conquer empires in full power while Alexander stood against inferior enemy. It isn't truth at all.

But you are putting Persians to the same group with Arabs and Turks and I can't agree with it. Before conquest of Persia, arabs were just bunch of barbarian horsemen, but in Persia they learned much of knowledge about architecture and so as Persian nation was highly developed. Arabic numbers we use til today.

[Ephestion]

The Medes were Hellenised as they were descendants of a Phrygian branch in Anatolia. The Archemenids were under Mycenian and Minoan influences both hellenistic civs through trade into that region. Greek cities were established in the region from 2000BC - 500BC. The colonies were almost inactive for a long time causing infact a decline in the economic state of Greece which by the year 340BC reached a zenith when trade was almost impossible to achieve with the east due to the increasingly dangerous and growing restraints forced by the Persians (known by their various names Medes, Archemenids, Persians etc). When Persians proper took over the Hellenic colonies and cities as well as administration we notice ancient forms of writing reverting back to hyroglyphics. Further suggesting that the only thing in favour of a greater Persia was military strength and not architecture nor other writings. Infact there are only a few poems preserved of the ancient legacy of Persia further suggesting their favour for ficticious material over non ficticious. In cultural terms ancient Persia lacked many things. However, like the Hittites or other waring tribes it didnt matter because their lands were vast the center of authority was monarchial or dictatorial and the forces and mobilty able to be raised were phenominal. It would be like a Russian Powerhouse of expendable human soldiers but unlike Russia, armed with the finest equipment. Now Persia was infact divided into states or regions each one in itself was a Powerhouse like Babylon, Pallestine, Israel, Egypt and so forth. SO yes when Alexander set on his mission he was opposed by what were the most powerfull armies of the time. There were none greater than Persia and the component civilisations were at a zenith of military power despite their decline in cultural advance. Overall yes Persia had weakned some of the peripheral regions such as Greece, teh Black sea trading, and even CHina felt their strangle as well as India. But India for example lacked government of teh type needed to mobalise and co-ordinate such a vast military campaign against the Persians. Unlike Persia which was already under teh influences of Greece for some 1200 years, they did not establish a mode of war similar to what was considered teh norm of teh time. For example it waqs by no mistake that armies even in china or rome faught the same as the Greeks post Alexander. Nor was it by the same token a matter of coincidence that the modality of war was common between Britain to India, South Russia to Africa. By modality I mean the arrangement of Infantry, Cavalry, Archers and so forth. Greece introduced these into Persia before Alexander meaning the modality of War between Greece and Persia was similar making such a war very difficult far more so than what he encountered in India despite the shock tactics of ELephants.

[Paal_101]

The Persians already had the mixed arm force concept down before Alexander invaded, and it was developed internally. When they conquered new people they were forced to implement the new troops and weapons into their army. Alexander was able to achieve a level of teamwork between his arms that the Persians did not, but that said the Persians were far from weaklings.

As for the massive Persian armies, the numbers were meant to scare the enemy. Persian kings preferred to scare an enemy into surrender or a negotiated settlement rather than fight. The biggest bargaining chip possible is the presumed imminent threat of total annihilation, hence a massive army of sometimes hundreds of thousands of men. It could also be argued that if the Persians had focused more heavily on horse archery the Macedonian phalanx could be defeated. But by relying on javelins the Persian cavalry was vulnerable to attack from Macedonian heavy horsemen.

Plus hoplite warfare was big in Italy for 200 years before Alexander thanks to the colonization of the Greeks.