09-06-2016, 08:57 PM
Sorry for diverting the thread Op
Then you'd be very silly and your bronze age kingdom wouldn't last very long.
They require an army, an army with weapons, Cavalry and supplies.
What do you imagine a great leader would do with a desert tribe's farmer horde. Have them doing jumping jacks and working out with rocks like some goddamn rocky montage.
War is all about resources If you don't have metal you don't have swords or metal armour. If you don't have a surplus of food large enough to feed a professional army then you don't have a professional army. If you don't have the gold to hire mercenaries then you don't have mercenaries.
Let me give you an example. The medival Japanese never developed shields. This wasn't because they didn't see a strategic value for them, every other civilization on earth developed them for a reason. It was because Japan has no hardwood trees. This led to a heavy preference for the spear the weapon that society's usually move beyond because shields are so effective at stopping them. Spears can be used by any old peasant so the Japanese never had a need to develop fully professional armies like their western medieval counterparts, relying on Ashigaru right up to their modernisation.
So we see how lacking just one resource can drastically alter a people's military development. The cradle of Christianity lacked most resources the only resource they could increase was manpower.
meridannight Wrote:Goes against every perceptive observation of the world. I will take one man of the caliber of Philip of Macedon, Julius Caesar, or Napoleon or Alexander the Great, instead of 10,000 men.
Then you'd be very silly and your bronze age kingdom wouldn't last very long.
They require an army, an army with weapons, Cavalry and supplies.
What do you imagine a great leader would do with a desert tribe's farmer horde. Have them doing jumping jacks and working out with rocks like some goddamn rocky montage.
War is all about resources If you don't have metal you don't have swords or metal armour. If you don't have a surplus of food large enough to feed a professional army then you don't have a professional army. If you don't have the gold to hire mercenaries then you don't have mercenaries.
Let me give you an example. The medival Japanese never developed shields. This wasn't because they didn't see a strategic value for them, every other civilization on earth developed them for a reason. It was because Japan has no hardwood trees. This led to a heavy preference for the spear the weapon that society's usually move beyond because shields are so effective at stopping them. Spears can be used by any old peasant so the Japanese never had a need to develop fully professional armies like their western medieval counterparts, relying on Ashigaru right up to their modernisation.
So we see how lacking just one resource can drastically alter a people's military development. The cradle of Christianity lacked most resources the only resource they could increase was manpower.