The Romans and Persians collapsed eventually The Ottomans weren't very powerful at that time (If I remember correctly...then again, I suck at history) The Mongols just kinda dissolved and the parts of the different Mongol groups dissolved into their own areas

Persia ruled over Egypt and Rome at one point so I'm going with Persia.

The Galactic Empire. Duhhh...

Ohhh that is a tough one...I'm thinking Ottoman

Genghis Khan gonna f[b][/b]uck em all

[b] [/b]

Depends which era of Persia we are talking about. The force that flopped in Greece would have lost heavily to the Romans. However, when the Roman Empire reached its zenith, its no coincidence its Eastward push came to a halt at the border of the Persian power at the time - the Parthians. At that point, the two were equals, which is why they spent so much time eyeballing each other until their powers waned and the Arabs exploded out of the desert and pwnt them both. In fact I'm rather surprised to see that the Arab Empire/Caliphate isnt in this poll, seeing as they essentially captured all of the Persian Empire and most of the Romans too.

Very big into roman history and I'd say them. Someone else has already given a great explanation on why too, their military was very professional, very disciplined and they were more organized than their opponents. To take the romans and Persians: the Persians easily outnumber the Romans but they lacked training and good equipment. 30,000 romans could definitely put up a good fight vs 100,000 Persians just by their tactics, discipline and superior weaponry. One of my favorite things on roman discipline is a legion was punished by getting beat to death if they fled a fight. 1 out of every ten men were picked to be beaten and the other 9 were given sticks to do so. This instilled fear of disobeying your officers in battle to where the romans feared their own more than the enemy. Another favorite thing was the legions themselves. You had the defensive testudo formation that made them a moving shield, imagine being on the opposing side and seeing hundreds of arrows not even denying the roman advancement because of the formation. This is what many warring factions lacked and why the romans prevailed just about every time. Furthermore the romans were setup in tiers (princapiis, triarii, auxiliary, etc etc and I'm probably spelling them wrong but each tier had their own classification) where the youngest and most inexperienced fought first, as they tired, they fell back as the next tier took their spot and they'd be fresh and more experienced as the cycle progressed, it would just be a repeating process until you cycled back through. Most of the great generals also kept a reserve unit for emergencies. They'd also have the better equipment as the longer you served and the more money you earned, the better armor you could afford. I think it would've been awesome just to see what could've been had Rome not fallen. Romes issue was being so big that eventually their military just couldn't keep up fighting on so many borders as more factions started warring vs them, you could add bad leadership from corrupt senate to just bad emperors, romes treasury slowly depleting (which was a big issue as the military relied on money), etc etc. A lot of modern day things are influenced by what the romans did in their time.

The mongals would obviously loose they are so spread out and that makes solders short for battles.

If you put them all on equal technological footing.....the Romans would win. If not...the Ottomans. The Romans essentially dominated the known world in some form or another for over a thousand years. People think of the Roman Empire falling in 476 AD, but that was only the collapse of the [i]western [/i] Empire. The EASTERN Roman (Byzantine) Empire carried on for another thousand years, until it finally weakened to the point where the Ottomans were finally able to conquer it. The Romans dominated the world for that long because they were the worlds first PROFESSIONAL army. All the elements that we think off when we look at a modern military force were there in the Roman military. Training. Drilling and "war gaming" as organized units. Formal Discipline. Organized command-and-control. Combat engineering. Weapons R&D. (The [i]gladius[/i] was the---IIRC---the worlds first steel sword that was produced in large quantity, and its size and shape was ideally suited for Roman military tactics.) This professionalization of military service and war-making, allowed them to subdue their rivals, and to conquer "barbarian" forces that were much larger in size.....but where not organized enough to leverage their superior numbers. The Persian Empire dominated through sheer size. They were just able to put enough men on the battlefield that they overwhelmed their opponents. (The Greeks fended off the Persians twice...but got rolled by the Romans. The flexibility of legionary formations and tactics actually turning the Phalanx into a liability rather than an advantage). The Mongols relied on speed and terror tactics. Since they all fought from horseback, and and against other loosely organized forces, they were able to overwhelm their opposition. Plus the absolute brutality of their tactics (Genghis Khan was almost certainly a psychopath) also tended to suppress opposition. Not until the Ottomans did the Romans really face an opponent that was truly their equal.

This is hardly a hypothetical, the Mongols stomped everyone. They ended the Islamic Golden Age. The rivers ran red with blood, then black with ink. The filled in the thousand year old canals of Mesopotamia, leaving the land arid after the ruler of the Muslim world refused to surrender. In a fight, they could not be stopped. In terms of lasting stable government, the Romans may have better organization. But in terms of military might, strategy, tactics and ferocity the Mongols are unmatched.

Anyone who doesn’t vote for the Mongols is [i]wrong[/i]