Hail, Legion VIII Augusta

[brewakeg]

The standards on the Container ship represent the Roman VIII Legion of Augusta.    This legion's history dates from 59 BC to 371AD...over 400 years! 

 For most of it's existence,  it was stationed in the Germanic frontier,  present day Strasbourg, France.

On the standard, LEG= Legion, AVG= Augusta,  MVG= ??  could not find that reference.

 

Good brief history of the legion (3 minute read):

Legio VIII Augusta | Military Wiki | Fandom (wikia.org)

 

[HazeGrayUnderway]

[warheart1992]

First a meme:

Then a march:

 

[HazeGrayUnderway]

@warheart1992

Just one more turn.

Just one more province.

 

That was me back in the day with Rome Total War.

[warheart1992]

3 minutes ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

@warheart1992

Just one more turn.

Just one more province.

 

That was me back in the day with Rome Total War.

Though my personal favourites are Medieval 2, then Shogun 2 and then Rome, I can't agree more. What a groundbreaking game that was.

[Geococcyx]

29 minutes ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

Just one more turn.

Civ player? 

[HazeGrayUnderway]

14 minutes ago, Geococcyx said:

Civ player? 

Played the Civ series since Civ II on my friend's PC.  My first Total War game was Shogun Total War from 2000

40 minutes ago, warheart1992 said:

Though my personal favourites are Medieval 2, then Shogun 2 and then Rome, I can't agree more. What a groundbreaking game that was.

I think the devs have been in sort of an off and on rut since Empire Total War, but it may also be me getting older and my tastes changing.  But in 2000 and entering 2009 when Empire Total War went Live, the devs were on an unbreakable string of success. 

In that time span we had Shogun -> Medieval 1 -> Rome -> Medieval 2

I give credit for Empire Total War for a major era shift and different warfare, but ETW had problems.  Problems persisted with the offshoot Napoleon TW.  Rome 2 was a "WTH" moment for me, it was a big mess and it shattered my faith in the devs.  It was unfortunate because I loved RTW so much, and I hoped it got the proper treatment Medieval 2 did for Medieval 1.

 

But IMO, the best overall effort the devs have done for the Total War franchise was Shogun 2 of 2011.  Even in vanilla form it's a magnificent game.  It oozes atmosphere and they have enough variation between factions that should be pretty much identical.

I'll also give the devs credit for going all out for the Warhammer franchise entry in Total War.  There's a rotating issue of balance throughout the entries, but they went hardcore to expand on them.

[warheart1992]

4 minutes ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

I think the devs have been in sort of an off and on rut since Empire Total War, but it may also be me getting older and my tastes changing.  But in 2000 and entering 2009 when Empire Total War went Live, the devs were on an unbreakable string of success. 

In that time span we had Shogun -> Medieval 1 -> Rome -> Medieval 2

I give credit for Empire Total War for a major era shift and different warfare, but ETW had problems.  Problems persisted with the offshoot Napoleon TW.  Rome 2 was a "WTH" moment for me, it was a big mess and it shattered my faith in the devs.  It was unfortunate because I loved RTW so much, and I hoped it got the proper treatment Medieval 2 did for Medieval 1.

 

But IMO, the best overall effort the devs have done for the Total War franchise was Shogun 2 of 2011.  Even in vanilla form it's a magnificent game.  It oozes atmosphere and they have enough variation between factions that should be pretty much identical.

I'll also give the devs credit for going all out for the Warhammer franchise entry in Total War.  There's a rotating issue of balance throughout the entries, but they went hardcore to expand on them.

Personally having started at Medieval 1, the jump to RTW was insane simply put. Excellent mechanics, unparalleled graphics for the time, amazing music, the game had it all.

Empire is a bit love/hate thing for most historical TW players. It also has to do I think with the beauty proper melee combat has in these games. Many were put off by the line battles and the more ranged scope. That said I have to respect that they tried to make a game covering almost the whole world and even included ship to ship combat. That's a pretty large scope. I would argue Napoleon, due to being more condensed had the more polished gameplay.

As for Shogun 2, the fact that they managed to make a single country that varied and interesting a battleground is amazing. What's more impressive is that even with a very limited unit roster the game turned out excellent in that regard. Last, the Realm Divide mechanic meant you had to be kept on your toes all the time if you wanted to succeed. In Medieval 2, as much as I love the game, you ended up becoming too large, too strong, too prosperous, making most enemy factions look miniscule. In Shogun 2 that didn't happen as everyone ganged up on you unless you were prepared after a certain point.  The DLCs and standalones like Fall of the Samurai made it even more worthwhile.

Last, while I like the universe, I dislike the hero-centric direction of Warhammer TW, so not too keen on that.

 

[lbfreitasBR]

57 minutes ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

@warheart1992

Just one more turn.

Just one more province.

 

That was me back in the day with Rome Total War.

Nice! I played them since Shogun Total War, for me it was amazing to have a mix of a game like Civilization with real time battles. Amazing!

[Estimated_Prophet]

3 hours ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

Played the Civ series since Civ II on my friend's PC.  My first Total War game was Shogun Total War from 2000

Yah buncha wippersnapers.

When I first played Civilization, it was a board game.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

3 hours ago, warheart1992 said:

Personally having started at Medieval 1, the jump to RTW was insane simply put. Excellent mechanics, unparalleled graphics for the time, amazing music, the game had it all.

Empire is a bit love/hate thing for most historical TW players. It also has to do I think with the beauty proper melee combat has in these games. Many were put off by the line battles and the more ranged scope. That said I have to respect that they tried to make a game covering almost the whole world and even included ship to ship combat. That's a pretty large scope. I would argue Napoleon, due to being more condensed had the more polished gameplay.

As for Shogun 2, the fact that they managed to make a single country that varied and interesting a battleground is amazing. What's more impressive is that even with a very limited unit roster the game turned out excellent in that regard. Last, the Realm Divide mechanic meant you had to be kept on your toes all the time if you wanted to succeed. In Medieval 2, as much as I love the game, you ended up becoming too large, too strong, too prosperous, making most enemy factions look miniscule. In Shogun 2 that didn't happen as everyone ganged up on you unless you were prepared after a certain point.  The DLCs and standalones like Fall of the Samurai made it even more worthwhile.

Last, while I like the universe, I dislike the hero-centric direction of Warhammer TW, so not too keen on that.

 

RTW changed everything for the TW franchise.  It also got modders very interested in the game, and it followed the franchise even today with later games.  I loved Rome Total Realism mod for RTW.  Europa Barbarorum was there also.  A whole host of stuff.  The modders have followed the franchise and last I saw, the Total War Warhammer games have a big mod following still.

 

Empire TW had flaws but I did respect the jump to something totally different from the ancient, classical, and medieval era games they did before.  A big risk.  I honestly expected them to make a jump into China, i.e. Three Kingdoms era a lot earlier than they did.  Empire tried to do a lot of things, I learned a lot of the history of the era because of me playing the game.  I appreciated what Empire tried to do with attaining a world empire and trying to maintain it.  I remember having a bunch of my British regulars that had campaigned hard in continental Europe or the Americas, and now finding themselves in India!

And the uniforms!  Especially the Napoleonic era stuff!  SPIFFY!  I remember when I got Napoleon TW I was going to play as the British for my first campaign.  I didn't know much of the era's warfare.  Then I saw the French uniforms, and I was suddenly, "Vive la France!"  Focus the artillery!  Prepare the Grenadiers to win this with one last assault!

 

Rome 2 had a lot of potential.  You can see a bunch of great things, especially a huge campaign map compared to RTW.  Modders increased the campaign map for RTW but with Rome 2, you had a big one by default.  But the game was rushed, not ready.

 

The Warhammer games in TW were a sharp split from traditional TW games.  Try the tactics, especially a solid line of troops, as you did with older games, you'll get massacred in TW Warhammer.  Very different games.

 

With Medieval 1 & 2, I had a lot of fun playing as the Byzantines.  They had a strategically interesting situation and were involved with all the power plays of the Mediterranean / Near East, and Europe.  The obvious foes are the Islamic powers that you were directly facing but Catholic Europe wasn't any better.

Everyone wanted Constantinople.  The south and southeast demanded most of my resources, but my European neighbors will try to stab me in the back eventually.  After enough time, the European kingdoms start becoming powerful and really pushy.  If the Byzantines didn't "play the game" right, they were taking it up the a** from Europe.

 

Anyways, I have a lot of fond campaign memories from the TW games.  Good stuff.

[warheart1992]

21 minutes ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

RTW changed everything for the TW franchise.  It also got modders very interested in the game, and it followed the franchise even today with later games.  I loved Rome Total Realism mod for RTW.  Europa Barbarorum was there also.  A whole host of stuff.  The modders have followed the franchise and last I saw, the Total War Warhammer games have a big mod following still.

 

Empire TW had flaws but I did respect the jump to something totally different from the ancient, classical, and medieval era games they did before.  A big risk.  I honestly expected them to make a jump into China, i.e. Three Kingdoms era a lot earlier than they did.  Empire tried to do a lot of things, I learned a lot of the history of the era because of me playing the game.  I appreciated what Empire tried to do with attaining a world empire and trying to maintain it.  I remember having a bunch of my British regulars that had campaigned hard in continental Europe or the Americas, and now finding themselves in India!

And the uniforms!  Especially the Napoleonic era stuff!  SPIFFY!  I remember when I got Napoleon TW I was going to play as the British for my first campaign.  I didn't know much of the era's warfare.  Then I saw the French uniforms, and I was suddenly, "Vive la France!"  Focus the artillery!  Prepare the Grenadiers to win this with one last assault!

 

Rome 2 had a lot of potential.  You can see a bunch of great things, especially a huge campaign map compared to RTW.  Modders increased the campaign map for RTW but with Rome 2, you had a big one by default.  But the game was rushed, not ready.

 

The Warhammer games in TW were a sharp split from traditional TW games.  Try the tactics, especially a solid line of troops, as you did with older games, you'll get massacred in TW Warhammer.  Very different games.

 

With Medieval 1 & 2, I had a lot of fun playing as the Byzantines.  They had a strategically interesting situation and were involved with all the power plays of the Mediterranean / Near East, and Europe.  The obvious foes are the Islamic powers that you were directly facing but Catholic Europe wasn't any better.

Everyone wanted Constantinople.  The south and southeast demanded most of my resources, but my European neighbors will try to stab me in the back eventually.  After enough time, the European kingdoms start becoming powerful and really pushy.  If the Byzantines didn't "play the game" right, they were taking it up the a** from Europe.

 

Anyways, I have a lot of fond campaign memories from the TW games.  Good stuff.

Napoleon I would argue is somewhat let down by it's campaign. You are either against Napoleon or are him, with no real options inbetween. Kinda takes away from diplomacy.  The battles however, both land and naval are very fun.

Personally Byzantines were among my favorite factions in MTW2, along with Hungary, Venice and Denmark. They were very unique, with a strong but fragile starting position and the greatest city in the western world at the time. I had a long campaign with my Byzantine army facing the Aztecs in the Americas .

Recently I tried out the stainless steel mod for MTW2 that's pretty much an almost complete conversion. Byzantines got an incredibly unique unit roster.  I would recommend the mod as it adds loads of QoL improvements, cities, factions, events etc. https://www.stainless-steel-mod.com/ just to take a look at the unit rosters.

At some point I'd like to get Attila as well; heard the Western Roman Empire on the hard difficulties is basically one of the more insane things to do, and there's another mod, 1212 AD that's basically MTW2 on Attila.

[ArIskandir]

6 hours ago, brewakeg said:

 

On the standard, LEG= Legion, AVG= Augusta,  MVG= ??  could not find that reference.

 

There is a re-enactment society that goes by LEG VIII AVGVSTA MGV, their standard reads LEG VIII AVG MGV. Afaik MVG by itself refers to nothing coherent or related to the Legion. I think it is either a case of failed copy/paste, or some easter egg/insider joke. 

https://www.roman.org.uk/gallery/

 

[brewakeg]

2 hours ago, ArIskandir said:

There is a re-enactment society that goes by LEG VIII AVGVSTA MGV, their standard reads LEG VIII AVG MGV. Afaik MVG by itself refers to nothing coherent or related to the Legion. I think it is either a case of failed copy/paste, or some easter egg/insider joke. 

https://www.roman.org.uk/gallery/

 

I did find the link to that renactor society in my first brief research, but couldn't confirm that the MGV  didn't stand for something else.

Maybe I can send the an email this weekend...they should know the MGV origin.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

8 hours ago, warheart1992 said:

Napoleon I would argue is somewhat let down by it's campaign. You are either against Napoleon or are him, with no real options inbetween. Kinda takes away from diplomacy.  The battles however, both land and naval are very fun.

Personally Byzantines were among my favorite factions in MTW2, along with Hungary, Venice and Denmark. They were very unique, with a strong but fragile starting position and the greatest city in the western world at the time. I had a long campaign with my Byzantine army facing the Aztecs in the Americas .

Recently I tried out the stainless steel mod for MTW2 that's pretty much an almost complete conversion. Byzantines got an incredibly unique unit roster.  I would recommend the mod as it adds loads of QoL improvements, cities, factions, events etc. https://www.stainless-steel-mod.com/ just to take a look at the unit rosters.

At some point I'd like to get Attila as well; heard the Western Roman Empire on the hard difficulties is basically one of the more insane things to do, and there's another mod, 1212 AD that's basically MTW2 on Attila.

I played Stainless Steel for M2TW long ago.  Curious to see what's changed since then.

For Empire, I was a big fan of DarthMod.

 

Speaking of mods, one thing I really appreciated that modders did, especially with the older TW games, was putting in, or enabling more, smaller factions to play.  RTW had mods for example, that split up the "Barbarian" factions into many more varied, historical groups.  Heading into Gaul as the Romans was no longer one big green Gallic faction, nor was there one big German tribe faction.

 

I remember little things like in Rome 2 where I got my Legions to the edges of India.  I wanted to expand more around the area but maintaining security and fighting corruption, inefficiency was very costly that far away from Rome.  Anyways, I "accidentally" got into the area because I originally had a war against the Seleucids.  I had beaten them in modern day Iraq which seemed to have caused a military and economic collapse.  The Seleucid remnants get picked apart by her surrounding neighbors and I somehow ended up fighting a bunch of them.

 

On the subject of the near east, some years ago I was on a deployment to the Middle East in the 2010s.  One of the places our squadron visited was Kuwait.  We were on the road to go somewhere and while riding I just stared out in the desert and for some reason, thought about history.  I realized that here, in modern day Kuwait, was the furthest the Roman Legions have ever gotten, doing so under Emperor Trajan.  I thought about the logistics and effort it took to send armies this far, on foot, so far away from home, and measures commanders had to take to make sure their army was taken cared of in a region that was completely hostile to them.  Armies marched everywhere, no modern day transportation to make it easier, faster.

Just sand.  Sand as far as I could see in every direction.  And for the Legionnaires, a long way from home.

[warheart1992]

25 minutes ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

On the subject of the near east, some years ago I was on a deployment to the Middle East in the 2010s.  One of the places our squadron visited was Kuwait.  We were on the road to go somewhere and while riding I just stared out in the desert and for some reason, thought about history.  I realized that here, in modern day Kuwait, was the furthest the Roman Legions have ever gotten, doing so under Emperor Trajan.  I thought about the logistics and effort it took to send armies this far, on foot, so far away from home, and measures commanders had to take to make sure their army was taken cared of in a region that was completely hostile to them.  Armies marched everywhere, no modern day transportation to make it easier, faster.

Just sand.  Sand as far as I could see in every direction.  And for the Legionnaires, a long way from home.

It's truly insane what some empires and armies managed to do logistics wise in antiquity/Middle Ages. Similarly Alexander's accomplishment of managing to even get to India (even though his lines/conquests were fragile by that time) are simply impressive. When you think about Mongols and how some troops from Mongolia ended up fighting western knights in Hungary we can barely fathom what it took to get there in almost every aspect of logistical support.

All that said, the fact that Romans managed to not only get that far, but also create the infrastructure to remain in certain regions for centuries makes them truly unique in that regard. Been seeing some videos and doing some reading on Rome and most sources tend to agree that the level of support and professionalism that the Roman army enjoyed in it's heyday would only resurface in late Middle Ages.

[DudeWhereIsMyTank]

Rome TW with various mods was IT for me.

TW Games were ruined for me when they split provinces into parts. If my ally gets part of province I can't do much... Province will be rebellious and handicap.

Icons on Rome 2 were terrible and so cryptic. 

[HazeGrayUnderway]

12 hours ago, warheart1992 said:

It's truly insane what some empires and armies managed to do logistics wise in antiquity/Middle Ages. Similarly Alexander's accomplishment of managing to even get to India (even though his lines/conquests were fragile by that time) are simply impressive. When you think about Mongols and how some troops from Mongolia ended up fighting western knights in Hungary we can barely fathom what it took to get there in almost every aspect of logistical support.

All that said, the fact that Romans managed to not only get that far, but also create the infrastructure to remain in certain regions for centuries makes them truly unique in that regard. Been seeing some videos and doing some reading on Rome and most sources tend to agree that the level of support and professionalism that the Roman army enjoyed in it's heyday would only resurface in late Middle Ages.

The scope in theater that the Mongols fought is really insane because of where they started in Central Asia.  They fight China first of all, make their way to modern day Korea.  They then fight into the Middle East, namely modern day Iran, Iraq, utterly destroying what was said to be a rich, cultural, powerful center of the Islamic world.  IIRC, Islamic economic and cultural standing was at its peak at the time, then the Mongols destroyed it all.  They carve their way through modern day Turkey and up north through the Caucasus.  The Mongols make attacks against Russia but don't stay around.  They come back later and invade Russia again, in winter... And win.  They event set off to start raids into Europe.  They even had later forays into Southeast Asia and of course, Japan.

Think of the variety of armies, theaters they fought:

Fighting in powerful China.

Campaigning in Korea.

Fighting the Islamic armies in the Middle East.  When Genghis Khan was destroying the Khawarazmian Empire, he chased out the ruler and fought a last battle against them in India.

Fighting the Russians and later other European armies, to include knights.

Fighting the samurai in Japan.

 

They literally had a checklist to fight "Who's Who" of the old world.  The armies were at their peak with Genghis Khan and it also helped that he was stacked with max gold star generals for his Total War roster.

 

Speaking of Mongols, I remember in an old M2TW game, modded with Stainless Steel, I played a French campaign.  When the Pope called for a Crusade into the Holy Lands, I sent a powerful force.  After hard campaigning I had taken Jerusalem and was trying hard to establish myself there.  But then the Mongols came.  I had hoped they'd wear themselves down against my neighbors and be severely weakened by the time they got to me.  Nope.  Just stacks upon stacks of veteran armies led by good generals.  It was difficult having tired out heavy armor knights in the desert against Mongol cavalry skirmishers.  My infantry were getting peppered.  I remember I had lines of spearmen ready to receive the charge of Mongol heavy cavalry, but they carved through like a fat kid eating cake!  My best units were my Crossbows, but I didn't have as many as I wanted.  It was a good, fun part of the campaign, I beat them back but my powerful armies in the Holy Land were pretty much gone.  Yeah, the Mongols jacked up my enemies east and northeast of me, but the Islamic powers in Egypt and north towards Turkey were not touched.  All I remember was the fighting in the region grew more intense as the Mongol invasion destabilized everything there, and I no longer had my stacks of veteran Crusader armies.

 

Edit:  I ran into this interesting video on Genghis Khan.  Why he didn't invade India.  He also presented the interesting idea about how and why he waged his campaigns

 

[warheart1992]

35 minutes ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

The scope in theater that the Mongols fought is really insane because of where they started in Central Asia.  They fight China first of all, make their way to modern day Korea.  They then fight into the Middle East, namely modern day Iran, Iraq, utterly destroying what was said to be a rich, cultural, powerful center of the Islamic world.  IIRC, Islamic economic and cultural standing was at its peak at the time, then the Mongols destroyed it all.  They carve their way through modern day Turkey and up north through the Caucasus.  The Mongols make attacks against Russia but don't stay around.  They come back later and invade Russia again, in winter... And win.  They event set off to start raids into Europe.  They even had later forays into Southeast Asia and of course, Japan.

Think of the variety of armies, theaters they fought:

Fighting in powerful China.

Campaigning in Korea.

Fighting the Islamic armies in the Middle East.  When Genghis Khan was destroying the Khawarazmian Empire, he chased out the ruler and fought a last battle against them in India.

Fighting the Russians and later other European armies, to include knights.

Fighting the samurai in Japan.

 

They literally had a checklist to fight "Who's Who" of the old world.  The armies were at their peak with Genghis Khan and it also helped that he was stacked with max gold star generals for his Total War roster.

 

Speaking of Mongols, I remember in an old M2TW game, modded with Stainless Steel, I played a French campaign.  When the Pope called for a Crusade into the Holy Lands, I sent a powerful force.  After hard campaigning I had taken Jerusalem and was trying hard to establish myself there.  But then the Mongols came.  I had hoped they'd wear themselves down against my neighbors and be severely weakened by the time they got to me.  Nope.  Just stacks upon stacks of veteran armies led by good generals.  It was difficult having tired out heavy armor knights in the desert against Mongol cavalry skirmishers.  My infantry were getting peppered.  I remember I had lines of spearmen ready to receive the charge of Mongol heavy cavalry, but they carved through like a fat kid eating cake!  My best units were my Crossbows, but I didn't have as many as I wanted.  It was a good, fun part of the campaign, I beat them back but my powerful armies in the Holy Land were pretty much gone.  Yeah, the Mongols jacked up my enemies east and northeast of me, but the Islamic powers in Egypt and north towards Turkey were not touched.  All I remember was the fighting in the region grew more intense as the Mongol invasion destabilized everything there, and I no longer had my stacks of veteran Crusader armies.

 

Edit:  I ran into this interesting video on Genghis Khan.  Why he didn't invade India.  He also presented the interesting idea about how and why he waged his campaigns

 

In general Mongols are mostly portrayed, like also the video mentioned, as barbarians and savages. This coulnd't be further from the truth. Complete religious freedom, almost complete security along the Silk road, focus on meritocracy and efficiency, some of the most advanced messenger systems across a vast empire. It's incredibly impressive, military victories and tactics aside. Yes they were capable of acts of incredible cruelty, but so were most armies at the time. There are some accounts from the First Crusade that literally describe the victorious Crusaders wading through blood up to their ankles in Jerusalem.

Back to the Mongols, and tied to religion as well, are also western perceptions of Mongols at the time. From considering them as saviors of the Holy Lands, to  Popes often exchanging dignitaries with Khans.

[jags_domain]

On 2/25/2021 at 11:51 AM, warheart1992 said:

First a meme:

Then a march:

 

There is a discussion that there take over were defensive in nature.

[jags_domain]

On 2/25/2021 at 4:08 PM, Estimated_Prophet said:

Yah buncha wippersnapers.

When I first played Civilization, it was a board game.

CV 2 the greatest game of all time

[jags_domain]

On 2/25/2021 at 11:08 AM, brewakeg said:

The standards on the Container ship represent the Roman VIII Legion of Augusta.    This legion's history dates from 59 BC to 371AD...over 400 years! 

 For most of it's existence,  it was stationed in the Germanic frontier,  present day Strasbourg, France.

On the standard, LEG= Legion, AVG= Augusta,  MVG= ??  could not find that reference.

 

Good brief history of the legion (3 minute read):

Legio VIII Augusta | Military Wiki | Fandom (wikia.org)

 

Thanks for putting that info together.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

2 hours ago, warheart1992 said:

In general Mongols are mostly portrayed, like also the video mentioned, as barbarians and savages. This coulnd't be further from the truth. Complete religious freedom, almost complete security along the Silk road, focus on meritocracy and efficiency, some of the most advanced messenger systems across a vast empire. It's incredibly impressive, military victories and tactics aside. Yes they were capable of acts of incredible cruelty, but so were most armies at the time. There are some accounts from the First Crusade that literally describe the victorious Crusaders wading through blood up to their ankles in Jerusalem.

Back to the Mongols, and tied to religion as well, are also western perceptions of Mongols at the time. From considering them as saviors of the Holy Lands, to  Popes often exchanging dignitaries with Khans.

Just ran into this bit of fun today!

Spoiler

Warfare in the ancient, classical world, sometimes into the medieval era, was brutal.  Towns, cities would be destroyed.  From what I understand, sieges were costly in time and effort, even for the besiegers.  If the defenders lose then there's a lot of angry invaders killing, looting everything.  Sometimes the victorious general cannot restrain his men when they get into this level of rampage.  Losers in a war could literally get eradicated and disappear from history.  There's no real guerilla war like we know it today, because victorious armies would just simply kill everything.  Different kingdoms, empires, tribes in the old days were not shy about complete eradication.  It was done on a small scale against villages, farms.  It was being done in a larger scale against towns and cities.

Crash Course has an old video on the Mongols, a lot of both good and bad.  Very tolerant of different beliefs, promoted security for trade (travel across the Mongol Empire from China to the Middle East with a gold plate on your head, you'll be safe).  But they were also quite brutal in war and were not shy of total annihilation of people.

37 minutes ago, jags_domain said:

There is a discussion that there take over were defensive in nature.

I've ran into that, the earlier video I embedded goes into that.

Genghis Khan's actions can be looked at as revenge to slight past insults, betrayals.

1.  Imperial China has long tried the commonly used practice of large power using politics, resources to keep external powers, rivals divided.   Lots of empires did this, especially the Romans.  China did so to keep the Mongols and various tribes divided, weak.  When Genghis Khan unites the Mongols, who are among the first he attacks?  CHINA, for revenge.

2.  Qara Khitai Khanate was taken over by someone that Genghis Khan had defeated earlier during his unification days, so they were next on the list.

3.  While beating the Chinese, his conquests took him to the southwest.  Borders now shared the Khawarazmian Empire in the Middle East.  Then the famous story of Genghis Khan sending envoys, but the ruler there is scared of the growing Mongol threat and has them seized and executed.  This is a huge insult to Genghis Khan and he literally destroys the Khawarzmian Empire, the jewel of the Islamic world, over this.

4.  Western Xia and the Jin Dynasty were vassal states to the Mongol Empire.  When war was to begin between the Mongols and Khawarzmian Empire, they were obligated to support the war effort.  They declined.  They expected the Mongols to be mired down in the Middle East but that didn't happen.  Genghis Khan returns and exacts terrible retribution for betrayal.  These are the last of his campaigns.

[warheart1992]

16 minutes ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

Just ran into this bit of fun today!

  Reveal hidden contents

Warfare in the ancient, classical world, sometimes into the medieval era, was brutal.  Towns, cities would be destroyed.  From what I understand, sieges were costly in time and effort, even for the besiegers.  If the defenders lose then there's a lot of angry invaders killing, looting everything.  Sometimes the victorious general cannot restrain his men when they get into this level of rampage.  Losers in a war could literally get eradicated and disappear from history.  There's no real guerilla war like we know it today, because victorious armies would just simply kill everything.  Different kingdoms, empires, tribes in the old days were not shy about complete eradication.  It was done on a small scale against villages, farms.  It was being done in a larger scale against towns and cities.

Crash Course has an old video on the Mongols, a lot of both good and bad.  Very tolerant of different beliefs, promoted security for trade (travel across the Mongol Empire from China to the Middle East with a gold plate on your head, you'll be safe).  But they were also quite brutal in war and were not shy of total annihilation of people.

 

Sieges were absolutely dangerous affairs for everyone involved. As a besieger you didn't even have to get killed by a defender; diseases like dysentery were big killers at the time with armies. As for the  Mongol video, they were very brutal indeed; places like Nishapur or Baghdad were absolutely decimated and the amount of dead is in the millions, which for the tools of the time is something unhead of. In terms of how brutal they were in general however, they were more or less along the same lines as most conquering armies at the time. Besides, they often used misinformation to terrorize populations and get them to surrender instead.

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44 minutes ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

Just ran into this bit of fun today!

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Warfare in the ancient, classical world, sometimes into the medieval era, was brutal.  Towns, cities would be destroyed.  From what I understand, sieges were costly in time and effort, even for the besiegers.  If the defenders lose then there's a lot of angry invaders killing, looting everything.  Sometimes the victorious general cannot restrain his men when they get into this level of rampage.  Losers in a war could literally get eradicated and disappear from history.  There's no real guerilla war like we know it today, because victorious armies would just simply kill everything.  Different kingdoms, empires, tribes in the old days were not shy about complete eradication.  It was done on a small scale against villages, farms.  It was being done in a larger scale against towns and cities.

Crash Course has an old video on the Mongols, a lot of both good and bad.  Very tolerant of different beliefs, promoted security for trade (travel across the Mongol Empire from China to the Middle East with a gold plate on your head, you'll be safe).  But they were also quite brutal in war and were not shy of total annihilation of people.

I've ran into that, the earlier video I embedded goes into that.

Genghis Khan's actions can be looked at as revenge to slight past insults, betrayals.

1.  Imperial China has long tried the commonly used practice of large power using politics, resources to keep external powers, rivals divided.   Lots of empires did this, especially the Romans.  China did so to keep the Mongols and various tribes divided, weak.  When Genghis Khan unites the Mongols, who are among the first he attacks?  CHINA, for revenge.

2.  Qara Khitai Khanate was taken over by someone that Genghis Khan had defeated earlier during his unification days, so they were next on the list.

3.  While beating the Chinese, his conquests took him to the southwest.  Borders now shared the Khawarazmian Empire in the Middle East.  Then the famous story of Genghis Khan sending envoys, but the ruler there is scared of the growing Mongol threat and has them seized and executed.  This is a huge insult to Genghis Khan and he literally destroys the Khawarzmian Empire, the jewel of the Islamic world, over this.

4.  Western Xia and the Jin Dynasty were vassal states to the Mongol Empire.  When war was to begin between the Mongols and Khawarzmian Empire, they were obligated to support the war effort.  They declined.  They expected the Mongols to be mired down in the Middle East but that didn't happen.  Genghis Khan returns and exacts terrible retribution for betrayal.  These are the last of his campaigns.

You clearly know your information about China.

Thanks