I'm transporting various warrior cultures from our earth to a different world...

God i love Rome. I heard that before the fall they were close to an industrial revolution. Is that true?

rome's virtue was that it started near a bunch of more advanced neighbors than itself, and willingly adapted and changed their military in order to succeed. this spirit of militaristic pragmatism extended to their society as most romans thought that if you weren't the strongest, you would get eaten, and from a pragmatic point of view this is obviously not what you want to happen.
the romans fought as warrior levies when facing other latin tribes (because it worked), and then switched to phalanx style when fighting etruscans and greek colonies (because warrior levies lose outright against organized phalanx), and finally the maniple system when facing the samnites (because it worked in environments where the phalanx did not).
when marius re-organized the army, he did so because the republic had conquered an area so large that having only citizens of rome being levied as soldiers became inefficient and restricted expansion and effective military control of conquered territories. Also, having soldiers pay for their own equipment meant a majority of your army is going to be skirmishers, and also if you lose an army you effectively lose that type of soldier until the next generation of men in that social class grew up to soldiering age. so by having the state provide for their soldiers, and also allowing non-citizens to be part of the army, you had far greater option of potential soldiers, and thus an increase in the effective amount of armies the nation could field at any one given time. a regular pay also encouraged soldiers to return after their tours, and many legions began to fill up with veterans who knew what they were doing.

>Would changing their environment terribly alter them?

Yes.

>would changing a culture's environment alter them?

Depends really senpai. The anglo countries have similar cultures.

For now. With each passing decade they are developing a new culture.

>Japanesse warrior in a high volcanic area

I dont get it. did the sams live near volcanoes.

I mean, technically I think

No japan just has tectonic issues dont it?
idea
>jungle knights

The answer is yes, just look at how much the cultures of the world have changed in response to changes in economic circumstances. Compare the cultures of each nation 200 years ago to the cultures of today. Most of those people did not move, and have been living in the same place as their ancestors always have. Yet a change in the relative price of capital goods, both social and material, have overwhelmingly altered their ways of life.

America and Britain's culture are, past language, only superficially similar. Americans tend to be far more direct and far more enterprising, and far more set on personal liberty among other things while the British for example are extremely classist. It's the difference between "Obama ain't gun take mah gunz" and "get a life, bin that knife'. Or the fact that US presidents from wealthy families with Ivy League educations try to pass themselves off as average Joes while British law is decided on by literal nobility.

>I heard that before the fall they were close to an industrial revolution. Is that true?

In short? No, that's retarded. Rome's death spiral started in the late republic, and no steps were ever taken to end it. The Empire literally needed to expand through conquest because if it didn't it would eat itself alive economically, and when it reached peak, the chance to reform any of the multiple failing systems were ignored and it essentially was doomed when it was at it's height of power.

>Pompey lost the civil war

This user gives a good and quick summary of why rome's military changed the way it did before the imperial era: Roman might also relied on the capacity to field and raise new troops when ever they were need. Most of subjugated italy didn't pay taxes but were instead obligated to provide troops for the armies. This, in combination with the roman incapability to accept defeat, meant that they could exhaust their enemies by throwing army after army at them whenever strategy and tactics didn't win the battles. This is how the romans defeated the invasion of Pyrrhus of Epirus and it's also how they managed to survive the second punic war even though Hannibal slaughtered three consular armies. Any other power in the Mediterranean (with the possible exception of Carthage) would probably have sued for peace after the first of them was lost and definitely after the second.

You uhhh realize the Vikings didn't have a lot of Iron to work with. There's a reason a lot of the finds is bog iron.

The Republic was essentially doomed at the Marian reforms. While it made them more powerful militarily, nobody considered that it further encouraged the death of the Farmers, and ended the loyalty of soldiers to the republic instead directing it towards the generals that gave their soldiers the most loot.

Pompey would have done the same as Sulla, declaring himself Dictator until he decided to abdicate, but someone else would have come and decided to rule forever. The real tragedy is that Brutus died, because he may have been able to change the course of Rome.

In addition to adapting tactics, they wholesale stole weapon designs from anyone who had good ideas.
-The chainmail armor here is a standard Celtic design.
-The helmet is adapted off of a Gaulish design.
-The sword is Iberian.
-The shield is also modified off an Iberian design.
-Only the pilum is actually a Roman invention.

They did it later too. The Eastern Roman Empire started using cataphracts, mounted archers, scale armor, and foot archers with composite bows. Interestingly, their primary enemies the Sasanids started using more armored infantry to match them. There was a certain time where Roman armies had the exact same troop types and similar strategies to their enemies because both empires were smart and would copy each other any chance they got.

OP just look at it from a gameplay standpoint. You can break everyone up into generic regional ethnicities.

The Northern people, when put in northern environments, turn into Vikings.
When you put them in woods, they turn into Russians.
When you put them into less shitty woods, they turn into Jutes and Danes
When you put them in desert, they die.

The Desert people, when put in the desert, form nomadic warrior tribes.
When put in the north, they turn into moors
When put in the far south, they turn into regular warrior tribes.

Simplistic? Yes, and probably racist. But it's just to get you thinking about how historically people have changed when they move.

>While it made them more powerful militarily, nobody considered that it further encouraged the death of the Farmers
How did the Marian reforms end the farmers? While it changed the model on how armies functioned, it didn't significantly change the fact that people were getting conscripted, right? And didn't Caesar's land reforms ensure that veterans would get their own estates, actually saving small farmers from the dominance of patricians and their slaves?

>The real tragedy is that Brutus died, because he may have been able to change the course of Rome.
Please elaborate.

The most famous mountain in Japan is an active volcano, you twits.

By video game logic when you put Northern people in the desert they turn into traders or marginalized minorities, just like anyone else who gets displaced into a completely different environment

>change the fact that people were getting conscripted, right?

It did. Prior to the Marian reforms the four ranks of the Roman army, (the velites, the hastati, the principes, and the triarii) were drawn from different economic ranks. The Velites were poor. The Hastati were formed from the sons of small farms, or what we would now call the "lower-middle class", while the principes were drawn from the better off farmers and trained professionals (Engineer's sons and the such), the triarii were drawn from the wealthy. Farmers with large amounts of land, wealthy merchants, well off senators, ect. The Marian reforms ended that, and provided a soldier's gear for them in return for serving for a period of however many years. This encouraged recruitment from the the Capite censi, who were literally the lowest class in Rome as it provided them an opportunity to have a better life, and discouraged recruitment from any of the other social classes, as they actually stood to loose. Meaning an army was made up of the mostly poor looking for betterment, an a small minority of people who were very patriotic from the other classes.

Casear's land reforms were good actually, but Caesar was always going to die and his reforms did little when the Latifundia were allowed to survive. There were too many Republicans and angry senators left after the civil war for him to have lived. It's irrelevant to question what could have happened on that front because his death was inevitable.

>please elaborate
Brutus was the student of Caesar, but also Cicero. He was Caesar but with a Republican heart, I believe that he would have continued Caesar's reforms, while also preserving the republic. This is however, a personal belief, and character judgement of a man who died two thousand years before I was born, so you are free to reject it.

>video game logic
>Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be set in Elsweyr and will include a caravan of shifty, thieving Nords

Considering vikings raided because their shitty northern climate wasn't the best for agriculture I'd say yes, a tropical island would make them a lot less hostile

>Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be set in Elsweyr and will include a caravan of shifty, thieving Nords

Actual Nord raiders? Sign my pale bubblebutt up.

>Cicero
Probably the most underrated of all Romans. In a time as corrupt as his, he managed to remain a man of principles. 10/10, would vote for him twice.

Are those slavs?

>Would changing their environment terribly alter them?
Mortal Kombat did it just fine and everyone seemed more or less okay with it.

Island cultures are usually pretty violent, its a result of limited space and quick/easy access to nearby territories.

You may be referring to the Steam Engine prototype that was in the Library of Alexandria before the Christians sacked it.

In short no, they had the plans but not the resorces or technology to back it up. Much the same as Leonardo da Vinci and a lot of his plans for helicopters and what not, he was well ahead of his peers but society as a whole lacked the means to make his dreams a reality.

Actually Nords will stay the same but will switch to leather armor instead of heavy plate.

Terrible shame that really. and the burning of the library is one of histories greatest crime.

I don't fucking know.

>Christians
Muslims sacked the library
"If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them."

And before the Muslims did it the Christians did it first because the library housed pagans. I don't blame the Christians for doing it though, I blame the fart knocker who spurred them on and turned what would have been a skirmish into a full-blown Turf War

firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2010/06/the-perniciously-persistent-myths-of-hypatia-and-the-great-library

Gauls.

>Gauls
To think the French could've ended up as uncivilized, irrelevant, unwashed, backwards, starving, pathetic and servile as the Irish if it wasn't for Gallic girls getting ROME'D by Caesar's veterans.

And look at Italy now

>Surpassed the UK's economy in the 90s
>Joins the Eurozone
>Now a fucking laughingstock
Trust the Allemani, get served like pastrami

The Library at Alexandria burned every time that misbegotten city changed hands, and any time the gangs of the hippodrome got rowdy before that.

Arson happens in a sack, you can't really stop it.

The only group that burned the library as a matter of anti intellectual policy would be the Rashidun Caliphate.

Contemporary sources detailing the "Christian" burning of the Library at Alexandria only mention the destruction of the idols and sacred relics of the pagan temple portion of the Library conquest, and unlike the accounts of the library losing 40,000 volumes when Ceasar's naval auxiliaries accidentally torched it, there is no mention of books being lost at all.

Muslims reintroduced Greek works to the West

It's probably unfair to lay Rome's demise at the feet of the Marian reforms. Other ancient empires had professional soldiery of course, but not to such a widespread and standardised level. The common denominator, the lowest rungs of society and the stock-standard soldier in your army, being turned into a well-equipped professional with the motivation (moving up the social strata) to overcome the stock-standard troops of other contemporary is a powerful factor. It's not the key to every Roman victory of course, but it is why they won so much and so frequently.

Without the Marian reforms Rome would have still have been recognised as a mighty civilisation, and the dominant power in the Mediterranean, not the truly impressive landmark that we know it for today. It would not have been THE Empire that everyone thinks of when the word is mentioned.

I think you're closer to the mark with the Latifunda, leave muh Marian alone.

Oh yes, I'm certain the Christian mob was a great deal more rational and controlled in their rampage than every other book-burning rabble.

It is unfortunately all tied together. I don't think the Marian reforms are responsible for for the death of Rome, but that the fact that they were made -without- dealing with the social changes of the era was disastrous. Marius, despite all my misgivings towards him personally, was a genius who saw the merits of a new type of army before anyone else in the world. Those reforms are legendary, and he should be remembered as one of the greatest military minds that ever lived.

As far as I am concerned, Marius is the father of the modern military.

Not him, but the answer to that is pretty complicated.

Early Christians hated the Pagan pantheon, as they had suffered unjustly under it's followers. They also put value in the teachings of Pagan philosophers, namely Plato. When the Christian mobs came to power, what they destroyed was largely symbolic rather than literary. Shrines and symbols to the gods that had once oppressed them over knowledge they themselves valued. But the works dedicated to the pagan gods were destroyed. The idea that the early Christians destroyed non-religious knowledge instead of preserving it is a modern, enlightenment phenomenon.

I just want to say that your comment chain was a delightful read.

The mobs were mostly not burning books, they were mostly burning structures, to cover the fact that they had looted them. The Roman troops under Caesar wouldn't burn the temples dedicated to Vesta, Jupiter, and Mithras, most of them worshipped at least one of these gods on a regular basis, and they all feared the ire of these dieties, so the art museum was targeted. On the other hand, a bunch of Christfags mad about heathen idolatry will smash the temple complex, desecrate the mysteries and melt them down for their precious metals content.

I'm really glad actually. Roman history is a passion for me, a pretty strong passion too. I would have made it my profession if not for a calling otherwise.

Rome was a fascinating nation. She was alien enough that every moment captures your attention, but familiar enough that you can feel a kinship and personal connection with the people involved.

Middle East is dry. There is a huge difference between dry heat and humid heat.

I just read Rubicon by Tom Holland and it's one of the best history books I've ever read. Any recommendations for more in this vein?

POINT BEING the Romans had the plans for a steam engine but not the means to use it to any major capacity. It doesn't matter who destroyed it. Fuck sake, point the blame at any one group and suddenly the thread goes apeshit.

Which comes back to geography, because many of America's peculiarities come from the fact that there is a metric fuckton of land per capita, especially pre baby boom. Which feeds some of our best impulses, and a lot of our worst

Yeah, that was my point. Also the fact that America's frontier got pretty dangerous so you needed a gun or you were fucked. No idea where Britain's radical anti-knife culture comes from, as there's no equivalent in the rest of Europe.

>the triarii were drawn from the wealthy. Farmers with large amounts of land, wealthy merchants, well off senators, ect.
Didn't the senators and their sons, along with the equites serve in the cavalry? The triarii was composed of older non-nobles who could afford the required gear as far as I know, but I might be mistaken.

Them be celts, boii.

>boii

They didn't pursue the technology because it didn't mean piddly shit with a slave economy. They were cheaper. Economics, yo.

No, you're right. I was pretty tired when I wrote that.

Depends on what you call culture.

Let's be honest here, all settled empires did this or at least tried to. Some were more succesful than others at it for different reasons but that's what they all strived for. Even plenty of unsettled empires with high difficulties to raise a non-traditional army tried to innovate by using settled subjects for combined arms.

The moors were mostly locals converted to islam with a superficial arabic painting cover. Only the elites and the warriors were arabs, and not even all (or most) of them.

What you guys call "tropical island paradise" isn't really such a paradise. While it's true that some of them are pretty bountiful the ressources can't provide for too much people. Island vikings would still be raiding or, possibly, outright expanding.

IIRC some rl island people who raided as a vocation actually used kidnapped people for food. That seems like it could be turned into an interesting fantasy culture.