It is sometimes mentioned that different styles are favored by differing cultures. This is often exagerrated into sterotypes: the Russian hordes, Perfidious Albion(or "jolly tars": take your pick), German Blitzkrieg running rings around people like a magnified version of cheap Karate movies, "Tons and tons of TNT" Americans, etc. However these style differences do exist though not to the degree imagined in legend.
What sort of things make these differences?
Some of these include:
The Prize: what is normally fought over? Usually power of course, but what symbolizes power? On the ocean it's trade. Amid settled folk it's territory. Among nomads it's lifestock. And on and on.
Political environment: who rules what
Cultural-ideological environment: what do people believe about war? Also what is the everyday lifestyle? City folk make good sailors and enginners; nomads make good cavalry(again a generalization).
Technological environment: what weapons,etc, does the warrior have available.
Economic environment: what is the primary means of aquiring scarse resources. This tells when a given culture is likly to fight and how it is likly to do so.
Example: nomads regularly swept down upon the settled folk to raid and loot; they did this because they were good cavalry. The settled folk hid in their towers and rode out the storm, than came out to replant their plundered crops. When the shoe was on the other foot settled folk would slowly advance building series of fortifications to consolidate themselves. The nomads would sweep behind harrying their communications. |