“If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, then the general is to blame. But, if orders are clear and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their oficers.” -- Sun Tzu
its amazing how the experts basically spoon feed them the information they need to win like spreading your troops out,,and they seem to just completely forget or ignore it
To be fair to these guys, it took a lot of luck and amazing tactics for the Greeks to pull it off historically. They weren't as stupid as some other teams, but they certainly weren't smart. Dithering and staying on the hill was a bad idea, as was trying to defeat the Persians in a missile exchange. They played Thermopylae when they should have played Leuctra
They allowed the Persians to get the advantage, like the Greeks had to be aggressive against an lightly armed army like the Persians who relied on light infantry, cavalry, archers and masses aswell as chariots. They needed those hoplites to engage the enemy infantry so the javelins can go along the flanks with the cavalry
This brings back good memories i absouloutely adore RTW and Time Commanders. Personally i think they should do this with mount and blade warband napoleonic wars where they get members of the public involved in napoleionic line battles. Would be cool to get more than 600+ people on one server.
Good points about the cavalry. One thing, the Athenian forces at Marathon did NOT perform a double envelopment (pincer) movement. There flanking occurred only on one side of the Persian line.
The thing is in history holding high ground helped alot. But when a general sees the chance to ignore the high ground and engage the enemy its cuz they have the advantage in some ways to meet the enemy without needing high ground. The thing with high ground is because of holding a position to see the enemies movements and the enemy has to fight up hill which is tiring
I like how they say "The greek stay on the high ground! Have they listened to anything?". have they played the game? The phalanx units are stronger on the defensive. Just form a circle and laugh at them. :D
Under that angle you present it, yes you are right. There might be a slight angle of the plain leading to the beach so yes, if soldiers were running with armors they would have a considerable momentum - pay attention though, out of them the center had to stop and move in a controlled way backwards to let Persian center move forward permitting the Greek strong edges to encircle the Persian army.
I would say that the best use of archers would be to maneuver them around to the backs of the engaged enemy who is fighting some of your infantry, getting close, and peppering their backs. Add fire and even if it doesn't kill a lot of them due to armor, it will kill their morale.
I think the game developers put the more defensive and passive Macedonian phalanx (the one with the super sarissa spears)as the more aggressive and pushing Greek phalanx (the ones with the shorter dorian spears)
The Hoplites were farmer soldiers. They farmed for food, and when they time came to fight they fought. The farm labour kept them fit for fighting.Some Greek states such as Thebes had a permanent force of elite soldiers (e.g. Thebes' Sacred Band) which was paid by the state and worked as soldiers instead of farmers. The only exception was Sparta, where no Spartiate farmed. The slaves farmed, while all Spartan males trained as elite warriors. All hoplites except Spartans were farmers
The point was to provide a ticking clock, knowing that the team would see a slope and say: 'we need to defend the top of this hill,' like the Telamon team. You have to remember that (in the first series) the teams were meant to fail, so the post-mortem would be better. ('You did exactly what you should have' is a bit dull.)
The soldier thinks he knows fear. Tell that to the farmer. I have corked off at battle's eve and snoozed sound as stone; now on my landsman's bunk I tossed, sleepless as Cerberus. The farmer greets the dawn with one query only: what calamity has struck overnight?I never knew how many ways a sheep could run ill, or a spring turn sour. Something is always breaking on a farm. You start mending at dawn and don't quit till midnight. Every task costs money on the land, and the landsman never has money
The unit composition is wrong in this simulation. I read somewhere Xenofon or Herodotus wrote that the Persian army at Marathon was entirely comprised of bowmen that could fight in hand-to-hand combat. The only such troop type one can think of would be the Takabaras (marine soldiers of antiquity). The Takabara was the multi-role soldier of antiquity. Armed with a bow & quiver & arrows, a small crescent-shaped shield, a light axe called the Sagaris and dressed in Linothorax (leather armor) that provided a good degree of protection. There were no regular Persian infantry present at Marathon (they were called Sparabara and armed with Spears and large rectangular wicker shields and dressed in quilted linen with laminated bronze scales underneath) nor were the Immortals there (armed with Akinaka sword or spears, dressed in iron scale shirt and carried large oval shield with cut-outs). Neither did the cavalry participate in the battle as they had not yet disembarked from the transport ships to engage in the surpise attack by the Greeks.
Yes, but Rome Total War doesn't represent them properly (might be wrong on that one, please correct me), which is too bad. So taking archers and spearmen is the best alternative. And it mirrors the Sparabara system (which wasn't applied during that battle), but was commonly used against enemy archers or horse archers (not so much against Greek hoplites though).
there were some of the Persian horse left on the beach with the infantry in reality but the Athenians but themselves in a position were the cavalry of Persia could not envelop them
English history is resplendent with instances of armies defending high ground/a fortified position. (Hastings, Waterloo, Rorke's drift.) As a result, you can tell English people that there's a ticking clock, and that they need to attack all you like. They won't listen. It's in our psychological makeup to be defensive (sitting behind the English channel, and remembering heroic last stands.) Common sense tends to elude us.
especially downhill unless you wanted to tumble and rolll down the hill unless it was a very gradual decline. I dunno about you but near my house we got a slightly steep slope (has a road on it so its gradual enough). And when you walk down it takes quiet a bit out of your legs to stop from running at an uncontrolled pace and your weight buckles on your knees and feet when you try to control your pace on such a decline. With heavy armor i'd imagine it would be even worse..
Do you remember the first time you played a Total War battle? I do. I remember I had a slightly bigger army than the enemy, but I got wiped. Now I can defend cities against full armies with 5-6 units and destroy armies on the field that are significantly bigger than mine. Just because you're good, doesn't mean they are, or should be.
Rome total war 2 is utter trash, it doesent have enogh different units in it and the engine is still the same for the battles, what would be interesting however would be some medieval battles using medieval total war 2.
I love how they are scared shitless, by the persina Pyjama warriors, u could just tell ur hoplites to form a line behind them and they would just march through
Forming a circle is suicide! The Phalanx relied on the deep ranks to provide pushing power to crush enemy formation(man behind push man in front). The Phalanx had to move to work: they had to push & overwhelm the enemy. The phalanx's right flank (weapons on the right) crushed the enemy's left wing, causing panic. In a stationary defensive circle, the hoplites could not push, or their formation would be broken. The enemy formation could not be destroyed and any circular phalanx would be routed.
Read Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. Check out the Melian Dialogue in particular. Check out Athens' Sicilian Expedition. Little describes Athens' behavior better than this line from the Melian Dialogue: "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must"
Late Sparta only construction defensive walls as they learned from their mistakes at the start of the Peloponnesian War, where 100,000 Spartans and their allies (Thebans, Corinthians etc) were unable to storm/starve out Athens, which was protected by the long walls. Also, the small town of Platea with 500+ defenders could easily defend against thousands of infantrymen with their defensive walls. The Spartans therefore learned from them.
Scythians and Parthians have no javelin units of their own, but I meant more if you're running a campaign army and happen to not have javelins in the army, which can happen quite often. And like I said, all it takes to make archers awesome is using them correctly. Having them fire at heavy infantry is not using them correctly :P You're supposed to use them to harass the light troops and so on, and to flank around the enemy themselves to fire into the flanks or rear of heavier units only rarely.
That's the whole point. The scenario was always suited to the flaws in the players. Chalons required teamwork, so it was given to a team where a small man needed to control everything personally. Telamon required aggression, so it was given to a team with two 'older' gentlemen, with unhealthy obsessions with defending hills, in charge.
There is another thing that the show got wrong was the year of this battle. The voice-over man said Greece 500 years before the birth of Christ. The real battle was fought in 490 BC.
Nicholas Wells Rounded to the nearest hundred. Doesn't really matter anyway since historians agree that if Christ was born at all, it certainly wasn't in 0 AD.
And the first battle I played in Rome total war - I was the julii and I quickly moved Flavius Julius out with 3 hastati, the trairii and archers along with... Quintus? I believe is the heir in 270 BC in the julii family? Anyway - I moved out with settings on very hard (battle diff) very hard (campaign diff) - (I played the hell out of the tutorial). I marched on segesta and showered the rebels with arrows and then pila - and won the battle with 0 losses. Then I went on to conquer the north.
@HawkeyesMKV Yeah lol, they're using the Macedonian models, give them a break, RTW wasn't totally finished (wasn't even released when this was produced)
No...they HAVE to be good. I wonder what they were honestly thinking when they made the show: " Let's have random people come onto the show - with no experience with the game at all and show people how easy it is to command virtual armies ". Well...they forgot to actually give control of the armies TO those people - and when they select people for the show they can AT LEAST select people that KNOW the history.
Yes, that's the point. Light troops are weak to missiles, which is why the defender has to avoid missiles hitting light troops, the attacker has to make the missiles hit these targets. This is part of a thing called "Tactics". Very useful word to learn if you're playing these kind of games. And it's not personal preference, as such. It's knowing how to play the game. Though obviously, vanilla Rome is so fucking easy that that doesn't matter. But it's your own fault if you play vanilla.
I totally agree. The team that commanded this battle sucked SUPER BIG TIME. Though I thought it was kinda dumb that the Persians had cavarly in the battle. Though I thought it was dumb that they didn't have that the battle of Plataea in time commanders. That could've been a awesome battle, with the team commanding either the Persians or the Greeks it'd be pretty interesting .
Have you tried the countless mods for Rome: Total War? There are many, and if you enjoyed the movie Troy, there is a mod for that. Moreover, the mod team that created Troy has also created Aristeia, which is a more historically accurate mod that deals with the same time period as the Battle of Troy. There's really too many great mods to mention, but they also have two Lord of the Rings mods, as well. Peace, and enjoy.
The Athenians attacked with a weakened front to pull the Persians in and then gripped them in a vice like formation surrounding their flanks and squeezing them to death.
they should have used a wedge formation with in the wedge the tactical reserves. that way the hoplites are saved from a cavalry attack from the back and they are slowly advancing. putting skirmishers also in the wedge will make sure that the persians die quickly.
Sparta wasn't as much a professional army as an plainly extreme-warrior culture. I don't know if they actually recieved pay specifically after a certain time of military service after a while, but ofc they thrived as soldiers and made themselves and Sparta richer.
In this new timeline the term "marathon" referred to running 26 miles pursued by angry Persians.
Epic necro but this made me lol
“If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, then the general is to blame. But, if orders are clear and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their oficers.”
-- Sun Tzu
its amazing how the experts basically spoon feed them the information they need to win like spreading your troops out,,and they seem to just completely forget or ignore it
To be fair to these guys, it took a lot of luck and amazing tactics for the Greeks to pull it off historically. They weren't as stupid as some other teams, but they certainly weren't smart. Dithering and staying on the hill was a bad idea, as was trying to defeat the Persians in a missile exchange. They played Thermopylae when they should have played Leuctra
Yes Persian had light infantry so crashing it like the Thebans did at Leuctra against the Spartans
They allowed the Persians to get the advantage, like the Greeks had to be aggressive against an lightly armed army like the Persians who relied on light infantry, cavalry, archers and masses aswell as chariots. They needed those hoplites to engage the enemy infantry so the javelins can go along the flanks with the cavalry
true men watch in 240p
Sarah Callaghan truer men watch in 140p
Later to be called the Battle of Snickers.
LOL!
Thanks for uploading all of these. Really enjoyed watching them all this week. Nice one:)
God this was such a good TV show. With the new Napoleon and Shogun games and their systems they could make more of this.
Its actually pretty impressive how well the Athenians did considering how inflexible their army was.
well that was the definition of bloody slaughter!!!!
I was just thinking why didnt they use the noobsquare.
I love that Eddie obviously finds the relationship between Dave and Kerry strange.
This brings back good memories i absouloutely adore RTW and Time Commanders. Personally i think they should do this with mount and blade warband napoleonic wars where they get members of the public involved in napoleionic line battles. Would be cool to get more than 600+ people on one server.
Good points about the cavalry. One thing, the Athenian forces at Marathon did NOT perform a double envelopment (pincer) movement. There flanking occurred only on one side of the Persian line.
This isn't actually Rome total war, its been modified for the sake of the show. So its a heavily modded Rome Total War.
High ground/hills have been the death of a number of teams on this program. They got fixated on defending the high ground instead of attacking.
They tried to refight Hastings...and got an arrow in their eye for their trouble.
@@Tareltonlives maybe they just knew the first part of "picking a hill to .."
The thing is in history holding high ground helped alot. But when a general sees the chance to ignore the high ground and engage the enemy its cuz they have the advantage in some ways to meet the enemy without needing high ground. The thing with high ground is because of holding a position to see the enemies movements and the enemy has to fight up hill which is tiring
I love how they make the Greeks sound so noble and good compared to the Persians.
Even if history says otherwise.
Hm, not always. Have you watched "Time Commanders Battle Of Chalons?" A good command structure and the commander never loses his temper...
An alternative name for this show could be "How to be a noob at RTW" :P
I like how they say "The greek stay on the high ground! Have they listened to anything?". have they played the game? The phalanx units are stronger on the defensive. Just form a circle and laugh at them. :D
Under that angle you present it, yes you are right. There might be a slight angle of the plain leading to the beach so yes, if soldiers were running with armors they would have a considerable momentum - pay attention though, out of them the center had to stop and move in a controlled way backwards to let Persian center move forward permitting the Greek strong edges to encircle the Persian army.
good thing miltiades didn't have these so called experts as his advisor.\
He would have lost the battle before the battle even begun 😂😂😂
YEAH!!!
I so wanted to be on this show when I was younger...
2:16 "we all are a little bit" Under appreciated joke
I would say that the best use of archers would be to maneuver them around to the backs of the engaged enemy who is fighting some of your infantry, getting close, and peppering their backs. Add fire and even if it doesn't kill a lot of them due to armor, it will kill their morale.
I think the game developers put the more defensive and passive Macedonian phalanx (the one with the super sarissa spears)as the more aggressive and pushing Greek phalanx (the ones with the shorter dorian spears)
The Hoplites were farmer soldiers. They farmed for food, and when they time came to fight they fought. The farm labour kept them fit for fighting.Some Greek states such as Thebes had a permanent force of elite soldiers (e.g. Thebes' Sacred Band) which was paid by the state and worked as soldiers instead of farmers. The only exception was Sparta, where no Spartiate farmed. The slaves farmed, while all Spartan males trained as elite warriors. All hoplites except Spartans were farmers
The point was to provide a ticking clock, knowing that the team would see a slope and say: 'we need to defend the top of this hill,' like the Telamon team. You have to remember that (in the first series) the teams were meant to fail, so the post-mortem would be better. ('You did exactly what you should have' is a bit dull.)
I would love to see Eddie Mair fight Nusbacher in one of these battles. I think Nusbacher would win but Eddie would fight back with dry wit.
The tactic of Leuctra of concentrating and breaking through lines may have worked
Isn't that the music from Rome Total War? I know they use the rome engine, but the music sounds familiar as well.
It's a show where people paly Rome Total War against each other ?
Man, your country's rock.
I wish i went on Time Commanders... might not have been a great teamplayer but... still would been kickass.
these guys didn't really understand the concept of the phalax
@RecoverRedeem That's part of the fun
fucking love this show :) they should make more
It's over, Datis! I have the high ground!
This actually happened to the Greeks in Ionia-they got torn apart by Persian horsemen in the open.
i'm pretty sure the spartans formed a circle shortly before this battle, and i seem to recall the sky turning black with arrows...
Michael you are right. Athens was a city-state not a nation secondly Athens were allies with Plataea and Eretria
Yeah, siege defenses are absolutely my rarest battles.
Also as they had the chance to attack the enemy before the full army was ready being aggressive with what they had was important.
4. Being a decisive factor in winning, although rarely.
lol yea I can see that and you make sense too.
The problem is that stuff like that usually happens.
I hate to nitpick, but that adds up to 100.1%, bro.
HELL YEAH!
And they're my most common battle played in.
The soldier thinks he knows fear. Tell that to the farmer. I have
corked off at battle's eve and snoozed sound as stone; now on my
landsman's bunk I tossed, sleepless as Cerberus. The farmer greets the dawn with one query only: what calamity has struck
overnight?I never knew how many ways a sheep could run ill, or a
spring turn sour. Something is always breaking on a farm. You start mending at dawn and don't quit till midnight. Every task costs money on the land, and the landsman never has money
The unit composition is wrong in this simulation. I read somewhere Xenofon or Herodotus wrote that the Persian army at Marathon was entirely comprised of bowmen that could fight in hand-to-hand combat. The only such troop type one can think of would be the Takabaras (marine soldiers of antiquity). The Takabara was the multi-role soldier of antiquity. Armed with a bow & quiver & arrows, a small crescent-shaped shield, a light axe called the Sagaris and dressed in Linothorax (leather armor) that provided a good degree of protection. There were no regular Persian infantry present at Marathon (they were called Sparabara and armed with Spears and large rectangular wicker shields and dressed in quilted linen with laminated bronze scales underneath) nor were the Immortals there (armed with Akinaka sword or spears, dressed in iron scale shirt and carried large oval shield with cut-outs). Neither did the cavalry participate in the battle as they had not yet disembarked from the transport ships to engage in the surpise attack by the Greeks.
Yes, but Rome Total War doesn't represent them properly (might be wrong on that one, please correct me), which is too bad.
So taking archers and spearmen is the best alternative.
And it mirrors the Sparabara system (which wasn't applied during that battle), but was commonly used against enemy archers or horse archers (not so much against Greek hoplites though).
Weren't there also some Scythian archers/axemen there too?
Quite silly that the Athenian Hoplitai captains have shields with the 'L' of Lakedaimon, which were used by the Spartans
The Persians weren't able to use their horses in the real battle..... kinda unfair for the team to let the Persians use them....
Not fair for the Generals, the Persians had their cavalry present at this remake of the battle.
Yep. Why did the experts allow that?
there were some of the Persian horse left on the beach with the infantry in reality but the Athenians but themselves in a position were the cavalry of Persia could not envelop them
If PrinceofMacedon get on here, he'll absolutely demolish the other team without trying.
He would be the Captain, General AND the Military historians. Heck now that I think about it, he would've managed to be the host as well :d
This is the job I want to have
English history is resplendent with instances of armies defending high ground/a fortified position. (Hastings, Waterloo, Rorke's drift.) As a result, you can tell English people that there's a ticking clock, and that they need to attack all you like. They won't listen. It's in our psychological makeup to be defensive (sitting behind the English channel, and remembering heroic last stands.) Common sense tends to elude us.
especially downhill unless you wanted to tumble and rolll down the hill unless it was a very gradual decline. I dunno about you but near my house we got a slightly steep slope (has a road on it so its gradual enough). And when you walk down it takes quiet a bit out of your legs to stop from running at an uncontrolled pace and your weight buckles on your knees and feet when you try to control your pace on such a decline. With heavy armor i'd imagine it would be even worse..
Do you remember the first time you played a Total War battle?
I do. I remember I had a slightly bigger army than the enemy, but I got wiped. Now I can defend cities against full armies with 5-6 units and destroy armies on the field that are significantly bigger than mine.
Just because you're good, doesn't mean they are, or should be.
I read that the Persian cavalry was not present in this battle because, they were expecting to attack the city of Athens itself.
Bring back time commanders using Rome 2 total war!
Rome total war 2 is utter trash, it doesent have enogh different units in it and the engine is still the same for the battles, what would be interesting however would be some medieval battles using medieval total war 2.
Kim Jensen
That comment was before we found out RTW 2 was shit.
Fair enogh :)
They bringing it back
*****
When and where?
can someone tell me what was the purpose of the scouts running through the enemy like that?
Holly fuck a TV show about a bad ass video game lol.
I love how they are scared shitless, by the persina Pyjama warriors, u could just tell ur hoplites to form a line behind them and they would just march through
Forming a circle is suicide! The Phalanx relied on the deep ranks to provide pushing power to crush enemy formation(man behind push man in front). The Phalanx had to move to work: they had to push & overwhelm the enemy. The phalanx's right flank (weapons on the right) crushed the enemy's left wing, causing panic. In a stationary defensive circle, the hoplites could not push, or their formation would be broken. The enemy formation could not be destroyed and any circular phalanx would be routed.
Total War series, this was using Rome Total war from 2004, but there are loads of new versions
did they ever do a series were they used medieval 2 total war
Read Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. Check out the Melian Dialogue in particular. Check out Athens' Sicilian Expedition.
Little describes Athens' behavior better than this line from the Melian Dialogue: "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must"
Late Sparta only construction defensive walls as they learned from their mistakes at the start of the Peloponnesian War, where 100,000 Spartans and their allies (Thebans, Corinthians etc) were unable to storm/starve out Athens, which was protected by the long walls. Also, the small town of Platea with 500+ defenders could easily defend against thousands of infantrymen with their defensive walls. The Spartans therefore learned from them.
Scythians and Parthians have no javelin units of their own, but I meant more if you're running a campaign army and happen to not have javelins in the army, which can happen quite often.
And like I said, all it takes to make archers awesome is using them correctly. Having them fire at heavy infantry is not using them correctly :P You're supposed to use them to harass the light troops and so on, and to flank around the enemy themselves to fire into the flanks or rear of heavier units only rarely.
I would have done the phalax and let the skirmishers to guard the flanks.
They should've got a total war let's player in on this.
God sometimes watching this show can be painful lol
That's the whole point. The scenario was always suited to the flaws in the players.
Chalons required teamwork, so it was given to a team where a small man needed to control everything personally.
Telamon required aggression, so it was given to a team with two 'older' gentlemen, with unhealthy obsessions with defending hills, in charge.
The hill is never the answer.
Dave is seriously batting above his average with Kez
28:19 rookie mistake, should’ve selected hoplites and pressed backspace to bring the pikes back down haha
You should see the Stamford Bridge episode,Mash (The Blue Kid) Was so annoying and they just formed a infantry blob and nothing else.
Pheidippides run first to Sparta for help 240 km and then back, then , next days , ran the 40 km (25 mi) from the battlefield near Marathon to Athens
There is another thing that the show got wrong was the year of this battle. The voice-over man said Greece 500 years before the birth of Christ. The real battle was fought in 490 BC.
I'm pretty sure he meant the same as $19.99 book , you know , the twenty dollar book.
Nicholas Wells
Rounded to the nearest hundred. Doesn't really matter anyway since historians agree that if Christ was born at all, it certainly wasn't in 0 AD.
I could out-wit these amateurs with four units of Greek Spartans and two peasant archer units...Although, this is a bit old.
Yes. It would be cool to make this again with Rome 2!
Well done Sherlock. Cracked the case yet again!
I think thats part of the fun, its like watching a train wreck.
And the first battle I played in Rome total war - I was the julii and I quickly moved Flavius Julius out with 3 hastati, the trairii and archers along with... Quintus? I believe is the heir in 270 BC in the julii family?
Anyway - I moved out with settings on very hard (battle diff) very hard (campaign diff) - (I played the hell out of the tutorial).
I marched on segesta and showered the rebels with arrows and then pila - and won the battle with 0 losses.
Then I went on to conquer the north.
Wow! All they had to do was charge with a wide line. That is all the Athenians actually did with more troops in the centre and flanks.
@HawkeyesMKV Yeah lol, they're using the Macedonian models, give them a break, RTW wasn't totally finished (wasn't even released when this was produced)
One ping Vasilli, one ping only please.
No...they HAVE to be good.
I wonder what they were honestly thinking when they made the show:
" Let's have random people come onto the show - with no experience with the game at all and show people how easy it is to command virtual armies ".
Well...they forgot to actually give control of the armies TO those people - and when they select people for the show they can AT LEAST select people that KNOW the history.
It would be fun to see PoM vs these people
Yes, that's the point. Light troops are weak to missiles, which is why the defender has to avoid missiles hitting light troops, the attacker has to make the missiles hit these targets. This is part of a thing called "Tactics". Very useful word to learn if you're playing these kind of games.
And it's not personal preference, as such. It's knowing how to play the game.
Though obviously, vanilla Rome is so fucking easy that that doesn't matter. But it's your own fault if you play vanilla.
totally bloody agree, it is only the rtw players that know what to do on this
When Rome 2 comes out are they gonna use that to make these again?
I totally agree. The team that commanded this battle sucked SUPER BIG TIME. Though I thought it was kinda dumb that the Persians had cavarly in the battle.
Though I thought it was dumb that they didn't have that the battle of Plataea in time commanders. That could've been a awesome battle, with the team commanding either the Persians or the Greeks it'd be pretty interesting .
Have you tried the countless mods for Rome: Total War? There are many, and if you enjoyed the movie Troy, there is a mod for that. Moreover, the mod team that created Troy has also created Aristeia, which is a more historically accurate mod that deals with the same time period as the Battle of Troy. There's really too many great mods to mention, but they also have two Lord of the Rings mods, as well. Peace, and enjoy.
The Athenians attacked with a weakened front to pull the Persians in and then gripped them in a vice like formation surrounding their flanks and squeezing them to death.
Hopefully they'll reboot this with Napoleon Total War.
They are
they should have used a wedge formation with in the wedge the tactical reserves. that way the hoplites are saved from a cavalry attack from the back and they are slowly advancing. putting skirmishers also in the wedge will make sure that the persians die quickly.
that would be a dream :D
Sparta wasn't as much a professional army as an plainly extreme-warrior culture. I don't know if they actually recieved pay specifically after a certain time of military service after a while, but ofc they thrived as soldiers and made themselves and Sparta richer.
HELL FUCKING YES