Help With Ancient Warfare Tactics

[gRaider2001]

Hello All!

I was wondering if anybody could recommend any books, videos or websites that discuss ancient warfare tactics? I am really enjoying this game, but do not know much about ancient warfare. Thanks!

[jomni]

Here's the "Art of War" of the western ancient world. I haven't read it myself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_re_militari

[rbodleyscott]

Here's the "Art of War" of the western ancient world. I haven't read it myself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_re_militari

The relevant parts of this are quoted in the game manual.

[MVP7]

For an easy to read introduction into the ancient warfare I'd recommend Brian Todd Carey's book Warfare in the Ancient World. I found it very well balanced book for getting a nice overview of the entire period without getting bogged down in detail or having too narrow scope. The same author's Warfare in the Medieval World is similarly good read.

[gRaider2001]

For an easy to read introduction into the ancient warfare I'd recommend Brian Todd Carey's book Warfare in the Ancient World. I found it very well balanced book for getting a nice overview of the entire period without getting bogged down in detail or having too narrow scope. The same author's Warfare in the Medieval World is similarly good read.

Thanks for the suggestion! I will check it out!

[Pixel]

Also youtube has some good quick videos on Ancient/Medieval battles and tactics such as this one: https://youtu.be/eTCLjxb70cc

Also look at the Historia Civilis channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv_vLH ... R9vbeuiY-A

While this is about tactics more broadly the eight classical maneuvers of warfare section of this wiki article and some of the rest of the list below that section should give you a bunch of ideas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_tactics (covers some of the same ideas as the youtube video above)

Not all will be applicable to the FoGII battlefield though.

There is also the Ancient Warfare Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/anc ... 83068?mt=2
Discussion style format....lots of topics but not always specifically tactics focused.

As some have mentioned the game manual also has some solid tips and is worth a read both for a introduction to the base game's armies and for the coverage of the game mechanics.

[Pixel]

Not too much Ancient stuff on Military History Visualized but I like some of his presentations like this one: https://youtu.be/peNU5EffPYU

Some food for thought about the layers of abstraction in games that may result in gameplay being a different experience then the uncertainty and potential chaos of a battlefield IRL. Interesting to reflect on how different wargame designs either try to model or simplify various battlefield realities in a variety of different and clever ways.

[Ludendorf]

Look up Baz Battles and the Kings and Generals channel on YouTube. They lay out a huge number of different historical battles and campaigns as well as the outcomes.

[pinwolf]

For an easy to read introduction into the ancient warfare I'd recommend Brian Todd Carey's book Warfare in the Ancient World. I found it very well balanced book for getting a nice overview of the entire period without getting bogged down in detail or having too narrow scope. The same author's Warfare in the Medieval World is similarly good read.

I have read the two books after I found them mentioned here before and I can strongly recommend them.
Some excellent summary about ancient and medieval warfare tactics you can find discussed in there:

[gRaider2001]

For an easy to read introduction into the ancient warfare I'd recommend Brian Todd Carey's book Warfare in the Ancient World. I found it very well balanced book for getting a nice overview of the entire period without getting bogged down in detail or having too narrow scope. The same author's Warfare in the Medieval World is similarly good read.

I have read the two books after I found them mentioned here before and I can strongly recommend them.
Some excellent summary about ancient and medieval warfare tactics you can find discussed in there:

Just ordered the books! I look forward to reading them. Thanks everybody for the helpful suggestions!

[wzfcns]

In fact the original “eastern”Art of War stll can help.Althougt most of this book talk about strategy or operation，there are also some tactic tips and military principles in last chapters like 8-11. The version which has Caocao‘s annotation is better，but if you can’t find it（I'm not sure if this version was tranlated to english or not），the original version also good enough.

[bcbarnesRR]

Quick question - In the diagram above, take the example of the Heavy Inf vs Heavy Cav. The diagram shows the Heavy Inf will dominate when defending. Does this imply that they would also dominate when attacking? Or should Heavy Inf. hold back and allow the Heavy Cav to come to them, so that they would be in a defending position?

If your answer is 'read the book' then that's cool, cause I already bought it

[TheGrayMouser]

I haven't read the two books in question but own and refer to Archer Jones book often ( whose schematic appears to have been directly snagged by BTC...)

So , per Archer Jones, this is a generalized overall reckoning of his 4 basic weapons systems from ancient thru early ren.. Take the chart as an absolute. Heavy infantry defends ( ie beats) attacking Heavy cavalry ( they arnt consider on the attack as the heavy cavalry would just trot away. ) Note Light cavalry can attack all heavies ( obviously running out of ammo would happen in real life, per archer Jones this is an abstract matrix of the theoretical capabilities, real life battles can vary of course, with modifiers of terrain, political objectives blah blah blah)

He has different matrixes all the way thru modern times. The age post rifled muskets, but pre artillery dominance where cavalry is absolete, looks like this: Infantry---------> (d)efends Infantry


Anyways , the book is great for the various types of strategies applied thru history, logistical, political, economic, etc, with the factors and options available for each based on attacker defender capabilities. A gold mine for say campaign wargame rules ideas. For example, the operations that lead up to Agincourt were basically a giant raid based on the weakness of the English army ( very small size versus the large population of France) to force a battle that could then lead to political concessions.

[Zardoz02]

+1 for Archer Jones and the diagrams reused in Brian Todd Carey. Jones is a somewhat schematic reading of history which is exactly what we need for FoG II which (as I'm sure all its fans will acknowledge) is a somewhat schematic rendering of ancient warfare. Keeping those Jones rock-paper-scissors diagrams front-most in my mind has prevented me from making more than one desperate charge in the game!

[pinwolf]

Beeing new to ancient wargaming, I bought the DVD with Slingshot back issues from 1965-2015. I can highly recommend it:
-> http://www.soa.org.uk/joomla/slingshot-back-issues

[rbodleyscott]

Beeing new to ancient wargaming, I bought the DVD with Slingshot back issues from 1965-2015. I can highly recommend it:
-> http://www.soa.org.uk/joomla/slingshot-back-issues

Especially some of the articles by me

I recommend the one entitled "Cataphracti equites, cataphractarii and clibanarii". (May 1981)

[MVP7]

Is there free sample issues of the Slingshot?

[Doyley50]

I bought the CD and there is so much interesting stuff there I am wondering when I will get the time to read it all. I can thoroughly recommend it!

[pinwolf]

Is there free sample issues of the Slingshot?

Some sample articles as free download pdf:
-> http://www.soa.org.uk/joomla/downloads

and an Index of topics 1965-2010:
-> http://soa.org.uk/downloads/files/Sling ... 2010-1.pdf

[MVP7]

Is there free sample issues of the Slingshot?

Some sample articles as free download pdf:
-> http://www.soa.org.uk/joomla/downloads

and an Index of topics 1965-2010:
-> http://soa.org.uk/downloads/files/Sling ... 2010-1.pdf

Thanks!