Xen said:
Rome- the basics of everyhtign th emongols did not only had thier basis in antiquity, but were generally better executed in antiquity as well- the mongols had nothing the Romans hadnt seen tactically before, and had nothign surprising in terms of troops- they were huns on steriords- and even the late empire, fighting with a minorty of troops that bareally would have qualified as auxilla in the 3rd century, let alone as real troops in the 1st or 2nd centuries, a, dfightin gwith barbarian "allies" who didnt want to be thier, many of which wanted to join attailla outright was still able to secure for themselves an essential victory. (some will aergue it was a draw- but that isnt the case- the Roman coalition got all objectives it needed to meet in the battlefeild done- unfortunatelly, it cost Rome the last of its true Roman -and thus loyal- troops)
if th emongols went agiast a late 4th, or a 5th century army,t hen they woudl win- agiasnt a 3rd, 2nd, or 1st century army, Rome woudl mop the floor with mongol heads.
The Mongols were nothing like the Huns. While they used the same basic unit of soldiery for their forces (light cavalry), they differed in tactics, organization, morale, and quality. Ghengis Khan was surrounded by steppe tribes like the Huns before he became a leader. The Mongols stood out by developing the tactics and organization that made them stand out from the others and brought them to victory. That's why the Mongols were able to campaign thousands of miles, while the Hun armies were in fact a loose confederation of Eastern European peoples led by Atilla's forces at their core.
To say every one of their tactics was known in antiquity is completely arrogant and ignorant of Mongol history. The armies of the Khans fought against all the biggest empires of the era, and won against all of them. They fought against other steppe cavalry, against the vast armies of China, against the Kwazarim Empire, against Russian boyars, Arabic and Persian armies, the Ottoman Empire, and German, Polish, and Hungarian Knights and won against all of them. That's a far greater variety of enemies encounted than Rome ever fought, and the Mongols campaigned through deserts, steppes, forests, and mountains, and sieged countless fortresses and cities throughout China, Central Asia, Persia, the Middle East, Russia, and eastern Europe. They invaded successfully invaded Russia mid-winter, a feat never replicated before or since, they circled entire mountain ranges in strategic-level flanking maneuevers, they coordinated armies hundreds of miles apart, they invaded (and defeated) Poland merely to secure a flank for the Hungarian invasion, they forged through mountains like the Carpathians, and the entire Caspian sea was circled and the lands along it conquered on a mere scouting expedition.
A Roman army would be mincemeat for the warriors that defeated the Manchus, the Chinese, the Koreans, the Burmese, the Afghanis, the Indians, the Tartars, the Khitans, the Kwarazim Turkomans, the Bulgars, the Cumans, the Russians, the Ottoman Turks, the Persians, the Arabs, the German Teutonic Knights, the Hungarians, and the Polish. The Romans at the time, the Byzantine Empire were scared spitless by the Mongols.
