Civ 2 Solves History
Ever played Civ2? It's possibly the best game ever made, or at a minimum is right up there in the top 5, with intelligent and balanced legends such as Starcraft.
Turns out that something like Civ 2 (mixed with Peter Jackson's battle simulations from Lord of The Rings), is being used to solve historical questions.
In history, we know about a lot of battles through second-hand or simply inaccurate or incomplete accounts. This is not really surprising. If you asked a soldier from Vietnam what happened there, you would not expect to get a top-down view of the war from start to finish. And you would not necessarily expect their troop and strength estimates to be accurate.
So we have lots of historical battles where "100,000" faced "60,000" - but much like political supporters estimating numbers at a rally, these numbers might be a little off. Or a lot off.
Basically the simulation creates armies of different sizes and marches them across the terrain between A (where they left from) and B, where the battle happened. This tells us how the army likely got where it was going (something we often don't know), and whether the route could have supported an army of that rough size - an army runs on its stomach, and for better or worse, Caesar did not have K-rations...
mmm... tasty...
Once the army arrives, it can also simulate the battle itself (with the numbers given) and try and figure out what might have happened.
The reason it can do all this (especially the marching part - which relies less on tactics) is that while individuals are unique and difficult to model, big groups are damn predictable and operate in basically the same way that ants or birds would. So really - modeling ants fighting each other is basically the same as humans fighting each other.
Sometimes setting up camp is the last thing a Byzantine soldier ever does.
Turns out that something like Civ 2 (mixed with Peter Jackson's battle simulations from Lord of The Rings), is being used to solve historical questions.
In history, we know about a lot of battles through second-hand or simply inaccurate or incomplete accounts. This is not really surprising. If you asked a soldier from Vietnam what happened there, you would not expect to get a top-down view of the war from start to finish. And you would not necessarily expect their troop and strength estimates to be accurate.
So we have lots of historical battles where "100,000" faced "60,000" - but much like political supporters estimating numbers at a rally, these numbers might be a little off. Or a lot off.
Basically the simulation creates armies of different sizes and marches them across the terrain between A (where they left from) and B, where the battle happened. This tells us how the army likely got where it was going (something we often don't know), and whether the route could have supported an army of that rough size - an army runs on its stomach, and for better or worse, Caesar did not have K-rations...
mmm... tasty...
Once the army arrives, it can also simulate the battle itself (with the numbers given) and try and figure out what might have happened.
The reason it can do all this (especially the marching part - which relies less on tactics) is that while individuals are unique and difficult to model, big groups are damn predictable and operate in basically the same way that ants or birds would. So really - modeling ants fighting each other is basically the same as humans fighting each other.
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