Ephesus 498 BC

[MengJiao]

What were the Athenians thinking at Marathon?  Worrying about what had happened 8 years earlier at Ephesus?

[MengJiao]

What were the Athenians thinking at Marathon?  Worrying about what had happened 8 years earlier at Ephesus?

  This game certainly makes you think about the dynamics of all these Classic battles.  And it does bring out some of the choices if we accept some very reasonable assumptions such as the one that Tanagra shows what late 6th century (eg around 510 BC) or earlier hoplite battles were like -- which in turn gives us some idea of what the Athenians were thinking at Marathon.  Here are some of the things they may have had in mind:

1) Against hoplites, you want to come in as quickly as you can while maintaining a solid line and as much cohesion as possible -- so don't run (and as the Hoplite game reminds us over and over -- hoplites were 90% militiamen -- there were just not that many different things they could do with much success -- they could put in a good, relatively fast, shock attack -- with some luck, but anything else was more and more risky)
2) But against the Persians, who can generally move faster than you can and are definitely a more professional army,  there are some contradictory options:
     a) if they have cavalry -- let them get close then go at a run to disrupt their command control at least (this seems to have worked in my first run-through of Ephesus 498 BC)
     b) if little or no cavalry -- then what?  No point in letting them get closer, but not much point in doing a solid anti-hoplite thing either
     c) so you get the crazy solution used at Marathon:  go at a run and build your line to end up with disruptive wrinkles in it and hope the first shock turns things your way -- though there may have been some other refinements such as not wearing as much armor and thus depending even more on the first shock.

[MengJiao]

What were the Athenians thinking at Marathon?  Worrying about what had happened 8 years earlier at Ephesus?

  This game certainly makes you think about the dynamics of all these Classic battles.  And it does bring out some of the choices if we accept some very reasonable assumptions such as the one that Tanagra shows what late 6th century (eg around 510 BC) or earlier hoplite battles were like -- which in turn gives us some idea of what the Athenians were thinking at Marathon.  Here are some of the things they may have had in mind:

1) Against hoplites, you want to come in as quickly as you can while maintaining a solid line and as much cohesion as possible -- so don't run (and as the Hoplite game reminds us over and over -- hoplites were 90% militiamen -- there were just not that many different things they could do with much success -- they could put in a good, relatively fast, shock attack -- with some luck, but anything else was more and more risky)
2) But against the Persians, who can generally move faster than you can and are definitely a more professional army,  there are some contradictory options:
     a) if they have cavalry -- let them get close then go at a run to disrupt their command control at least (this seems to have worked in my first run-through of Ephesus 498 BC)
     b) if little or no cavalry -- then what?  No point in letting them get closer, but not much point in doing a solid anti-hoplite thing either
     c) so you get the crazy solution used at Marathon:  go at a run and build your line to end up with disruptive wrinkles in it and hope the first shock turns things your way -- though there may have been some other refinements such as not wearing as much armor and thus depending even more on the first shock.

  So how do you fight the Persians?  You can bust 'em up in terms of command control (at the expense of your own, of course), rout their infantry, drive back the chariots.  And here is half-way through turn 2 of Ephesus 498 BC: