I'm reposting this thread because the last thread got bogged down in politics by one user that doesn't need to be named. The original purpose of the thread was to give advice on how to show wars either in the campaign or in the history of the setting.
http://www.feartheboot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=12608
Go here to read the original thread.

I would like to talk about something that is part of historical warfare. Nomads vs. farmers. To classify, the farmers are any civilization that has settlements and cities. They get their food from farming the land. Nomads are usually cultures that ride horseback along the steppes and are usually make use of the composite bow to shoot from horseback. Examples of Nomads are the Huns and the Mongols.

Nomadic societies were the bane and fear of advanced civilizations. They were THE barbarians that both the Chinese and the Western Europeans had to deal with. Nomadic armies are very dangerous to a civilized army because of three reasons:
1. Mobility: cavalry were the tanks of the ancient and medieval world. They were faster than any human (obviously), they can trample you and the rider has height advantage. Just imagine you are a foot soldier with a spear and shield, with the guy next to you pissing himself in fear, arrows coming from all directions and 500 two ton animals galloping toward you. Good Luck.
2. Culture: now this is just me speculating and making inferences but I believe that these nomad were not all warlike but the ones who were were very warlike. Nomadic society seemed to much more tight nit than civilized society. I'm not saying that all nomadic societies were these mindless killing machines like Uruk'ai but they seemed much more loyal than some levy spear men.
3. Number of Professional Warriors: like I said in point one, horses were the tanks of the pre-modern world. But if you are a peasant in Medieval Europe you could barely have enough money to own a riding horse let alone a warhorse! The average Medieval European army contains a few hundred maybe a thousand knights. These knights are professional soldiers who are loyal to their commander and die to the last man if they have to. Every knight has a warhorse and is on the high end of the social spectrum. Below them are the peasant infantry men and a they represent everyone else. Usually they are straight off the farm.
Now the nomadic army is made up entirely of horsemen. Because everyone needs a horse to get around. And in nomadic armies every single able bodied male is fighting whereas civilized armies are only a fraction of that.

Nomads usually invade civilized lands because they want the luxuries of the advanced societies. In advanced societies you can mine the gems melt them down and then give it to a craftsmen to design beautiful jewelry. You can only do that in a city not the Eurasian steppe.

Though the one advantage that civilized armies have over nomadic societies are fortifications. I don't care how many horses you have Atilla horses can't defeat city walls. And nomadic societies either don't have the no how to build siege equipment or they don't want to carry them around.

Now my advice to GMs is to look at your map and find the places of plains and put some nomadic societies in their. And if you are drawing up a map remember to put some steppes near your advanced civs and make sure to put them in the east so that you can have characters dramatically exclaim "The Hoards of the East", or "Fight, Men of the West!"

Also in George R. R. Martin's book "A Game of Thrones" the Dothraki are great examples of what I'm talking about. Basically just go read the book anyway because it's amazing.

there are a few problems with your 1-3 points (mainly in the number and types of civilized soldiers) but I read this just as I'm heading to bed, I'll post some supported examples tomorrow.

Otherwise a very good example/point of including different culture types in a whole world setting.

While it's true that nomads don't have much by way of siege equipment, that doesn't mean they can't mount a siege. Usually, only the central city can be fortified--the farmlands and the mines are well outside the walls. So the riders could often charge in, slaughtering the serfs and peasants, and stealing crops and some mining goods. Then you make camp outside of bow range, but keeping the city surrounded. (Obviously, this usually requires Mongol-size hordes.) Then you wait for the folks inside to start starving, whereupon you let them send out an emissary to negotiate terms of surrender. These often feature additional plunder, probably include women, and almost certainly include a certain amount of bootlicking as well.

That's very true. Often times the civilized governments will just pay off the barbarians with huge amounts of tribute. But if the city is well defended with walls and is coastal then it could outlast a long siege since they can get supplies from the ports.

Nomads are usually very hardy people, relative to the more civilized folk, and they are known for their aggression. Freemage was largely right about sieges, but their lack of siege equipment means that they have to try to wait their enemies out. Keep in mind that a sieging army is typically in worse shape than the besieged army, as they must be larger in number and will have supply problems. A nomadic army will have these in spades, since they generally lack solid logistics. They'll have a boost of supplies after their initial raiding, but to keep supplied, they have to send patrols further and further out.

Also, a besieged army only needs to wait for a relief army, and usually a civilized army will be bigger than a nomadic army, as civilization can support more people. This situation can be especially hard on the nomadic army, because their primary strength in ancient and medieval warfare is their mobility. So long as they are besieging a fortress, they forfeit that ability, at least on the strategic scale.

In history, nomadic armies have done a great deal of damage to civilizations, but civilization endures. The Romans faced various Celtic people who could be considered semi-nomadic, as well as the Huns, the Vandals, the Samartians, and the Goths. The Turks were a nomadic people before they settled in Anatolia. The Chinese and the Europeans had a very hard time with the Mongols, and the Timurids were devastating nomadic hordes, too. Ultimately, though, remember that civilization won out, as there are no nomadic hordes that threaten civilization today.

Well except for the Canadians...the Great Northern Hoards

two ton horses??
UM... i'm not positive.. but i think a Clydesdale weights in at about 1800lb MAX. two tons is a small elephant!


They also tend to be more dynamic and honorable since they have yet to be corrupted as much by material goods. its hard to get too greedy when you have to carry everything you own on your back.. or your horse. Not ALWAYS true, but it defiantly seems to be a factor in most instances in history.

And its also a factor that nomads do not see land ownership the same way that more sedentary societies do. to many of them walls are an affront to the Gods... because the land belongs to no one... They belong to it.
So that might be traced as a source of some of the resentment.

Can't really agree here, Gengahs Khan got pretty damn good at it, and if nomads can't do sieges, then why were they such a threat?

Great point about the lines, and ill agree the books are good im just starting the series. but i saw the HBO version and loved it.

A lot of what we really know about the nomadic cultures is all from the point of view of their enemies since they didn't tend to be big on keeping records... but archeologists and anthropologists are finding more and more evidence that they were in many ways more... honest and honorable than the city dwellers. some might almost say more advanced... if you define advanced as direct, honest, and open as opposed to the duplicitous, treacherous, and political city folk

Oh my god a barbarian tribe of elephant nomads!!

That is scary--and awesome.

Been done, I think his name was Hannibal!

(not quite a barbarian, but close)

no I mean hundreds no thousands of elephants

it would be totally impractical because they would strip the land of anything edible and starve but ...

totally off topic elephants are my favorite animal.