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ALEXANDER THE GREAT'S PLANNING & STRATEGY

For my vision of a global empire to become reality, I would have to defeat my nemesis, the Persian ruler Darius III Codomannus.

Darius sat atop the preeminent empire of his day: it overshadowed numerous civilizations and cultures for over two centuries, going back to Cyrus’ reign. But Darius was no Cyrus.

I knew this, he knew this, the Greek and Persian people knew this.

So for this reason, many questioned why I spent so much time on Tyre. Before Tyre, I had already began to rout Darius’ forces. By spending seven months on Tyre, I effectively let Darius build up another army.

To me, securing Tyre was indispensable. I needed to secure the ports, this was key in the long term. Without it we would have run out of supplies, making the advance a moot point.

Darius was twice my age. He was more than capable. He was experienced and wise but was nowhere near as energetic and quick as I was.

But he was poor at delegating. I was not only prodigious in planning, but also flexible enough to counter his moves in upcoming battles. The key, as I saw it, was not in actual numbers but in the planning of warfare, something that relied on solid intelligence reports.

The team that joined me to Persia included fighters as well as architects, geographers, botanists, astronomers, mathematicians and zoologists. To me, it was clear that if fought properly, this war could substantially enrich my empire back home and weaken Persia for good, even ending its empire.

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