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Clausewitz and Sun Tzu are classics, but for epic battles closer to realism, I rather recommend the Total War series than Age of Empire. Mainly, because in rea

Clausewitz and Sun Tzu are classics, but for epic battles closer to realism, I rather recommend the Total War series than Age of Empire. Mainly, because in real war, troop morale is a main factor - and the best war tactics are those, that crush the enemies spirit and not their bones. This is a main quote from Sun Tzu(from the back of my head): if you manage to route the enemy forces in panic, you gain more, than slaughtering them all. Because they will spread the fear of your troops themself. (but this part is not captured well in total war, as there you gain indeed benefits from high body count and enemy troops remain the same fighting spirit, even if they ran away in terror all the battles before)

raducu 5y ago
My favorit parts was about the honorable leader being exposed to being shamed, that's a good introduction to Machiavelli and real politics. Also where he says that great victories seem obvious and seamless because of great preparations of the leader -- like lifting a hare doesn't seem a great feat of strenght. But the stuff about tactics is also very good, though on second thought when to attack and when not to, strength ratio and forces positioning probably is more about strategy than tactics. Also about the political ends and not just the military, even though he says when the decision to go to war the political lord should not interfere with the decision of his general is usually turned on its head a lot and people often forget that war should not be an end in itself and the military should not get more power than the political and ultimate strategy is not about the military. War was the worst outcome in the day of Sun Tzu as much as today and overall people were much worse after a war(except for a very small minority)-- like the people who think US should have kept the Vietnam war going, or that WW1 Germany military was betrayed, or USSR should have hept on fighting the Cold War and so on.
denton-scratch 5y ago
> but this part is not captured well in total war If you can rout the enemy force in TW, it then becomes massively easier to destroy them completely. Soldiers that are running away can't do much damage to their pursuers. As soon as you turn your back on your enemy, your chances of being killed increase dramatically. If you rout your enemy in TW, you are offered the choice to accept a victory, or to continue fighting. Unless I'm bored, I always run them down; I don't want them retrained and reinforced, to come back later with added experience points. In Napoleon TW, the best units for running down routed enemy troops are light cavalry. I suspect that's what lancers were really for.
- Someone 5y ago
  If people learned from what happened to others that running a way isn’t a good idea, wouldn’t they get more motivated not to do that? Is that not modeled in that game, or is the effect so small that it doesn’t make a large enough difference?
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    In some TW games this is slightly modeled in, in the sense, that a unit might choose to fight till death, rather than running away, when they are surrounded and they have nowhere to run. So then you open up a way .. and they will try to run again, which is easier to finish them without own casualties. But those are hardcoded algorithms. The units do not really learn. (that would be awesome, but is very very hard to implement in realtime in a proper way) They just improve their stats with experience. So they get stronger in stats in either case, even when fleeing every single battle.
  - shadowofneptune 5y ago
    At least for Rome Total War and Medieval II, experience does mean a difference. A veteran army will fight for several times longer against overwhelming odds than a newly recruited one before breaking. It also depends on training: even green Roman troops will last longer in prolonged battle than green Gallic ones. Do not remember how later games deal with that. One thing the author of this series stresses is that battle is very emotional and you can't learn from a book that running away is a bad idea.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  Sure, in a single battle you want to route the enemy as fast as possible. But my point was, that in the next battle all those troops that ran away are fully restored, so yes the winning tactic is to have light cavalery to chase them down, (which is what they were used for in real life, too.) So Sun Tzus advice to sometimes let the enemy run away on purpose, so their fear infects other enemy troops for easier future battles - is not captured.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago

raducu 5y ago

My favorit parts was about the honorable leader being exposed to being shamed, that's a good introduction to Machiavelli and real politics. Also where he says that great victories seem obvious and seamless because of great preparations of the leader -- like lifting a hare doesn't seem a great feat of strenght. But the stuff about tactics is also very good, though on second thought when to attack and when not to, strength ratio and forces positioning probably is more about strategy than tactics. Also about the political ends and not just the military, even though he says when the decision to go to war the political lord should not interfere with the decision of his general is usually turned on its head a lot and people often forget that war should not be an end in itself and the military should not get more power than the political and ultimate strategy is not about the military. War was the worst outcome in the day of Sun Tzu as much as today and overall people were much worse after a war(except for a very small minority)-- like the people who think US should have kept the Vietnam war going, or that WW1 Germany military was betrayed, or USSR should have hept on fighting the Cold War and so on.

denton-scratch 5y ago

> but this part is not captured well in total war If you can rout the enemy force in TW, it then becomes massively easier to destroy them completely. Soldiers that are running away can't do much damage to their pursuers. As soon as you turn your back on your enemy, your chances of being killed increase dramatically. If you rout your enemy in TW, you are offered the choice to accept a victory, or to continue fighting. Unless I'm bored, I always run them down; I don't want them retrained and reinforced, to come back later with added experience points. In Napoleon TW, the best units for running down routed enemy troops are light cavalry. I suspect that's what lancers were really for.

Someone 5y ago
If people learned from what happened to others that running a way isn’t a good idea, wouldn’t they get more motivated not to do that? Is that not modeled in that game, or is the effect so small that it doesn’t make a large enough difference?
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  In some TW games this is slightly modeled in, in the sense, that a unit might choose to fight till death, rather than running away, when they are surrounded and they have nowhere to run. So then you open up a way .. and they will try to run again, which is easier to finish them without own casualties. But those are hardcoded algorithms. The units do not really learn. (that would be awesome, but is very very hard to implement in realtime in a proper way) They just improve their stats with experience. So they get stronger in stats in either case, even when fleeing every single battle.
- shadowofneptune 5y ago
  At least for Rome Total War and Medieval II, experience does mean a difference. A veteran army will fight for several times longer against overwhelming odds than a newly recruited one before breaking. It also depends on training: even green Roman troops will last longer in prolonged battle than green Gallic ones. Do not remember how later games deal with that. One thing the author of this series stresses is that battle is very emotional and you can't learn from a book that running away is a bad idea.
hutzlibu 5y ago
Sure, in a single battle you want to route the enemy as fast as possible. But my point was, that in the next battle all those troops that ran away are fully restored, so yes the winning tactic is to have light cavalery to chase them down, (which is what they were used for in real life, too.) So Sun Tzus advice to sometimes let the enemy run away on purpose, so their fear infects other enemy troops for easier future battles - is not captured.
- denton-scratch 5y ago