How the fuck did people identify who is friend or foe in civil

>>2968357
This is yet another reason why strict formations were so damn important.

Wherre they are running from
In small units which is how fighting occurs you recognize your lads and strangers and who leads you etc

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>>2968357
Usually, its pretty easy to tell rebels since they fly the symbol of whatever they are fighting for: ideology, religious belief, a dynastic claim, or some shit.
Rebel groups tend to establish IFF very quickly in order not to accidentally their own guys in battles.

For example: this is why almost every uprising in Chinese history is known as *insert color of headgear* rebellion. The Way of Peace famously had Yellow Turbans, The Anti-Yuan and the Taiping wore red.

Feudalshits have it easy since they just sport the colors, sigils, or arms of their lords or some shit.

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>How the fuck did people identify who is friend or foe in civil wars?

I've wondered the same but even about wars between different factions. Like, how did franks recognize each other when fighting other germanic tribes? what about the italians, swiss, germans and french during the italian wars? what about Assyrians vs Babylonians or other semitic rivals?. Its hard for me to imagine that it was just "attack the guys over there ezpz", specially when openings in lines ocurred or when cavalry charged or battles in the evening/night.

>>2968398
Taiping also cut off those gay ass Queues and grew their hair out. Their enemies called the "long hairs" and when imperials took back Taiping cities, there'd be a huge rush to shave their heads and braid their hair back into queues to avoid execution. Usually didn't work anyway.

>>2968357
In the case of the Romans? Someone above mentioned the fact that they were in formations, so the easiest indicator is your enemies are the guys pushing back against you. Different legions also likely had different designs on their shields, different standards, maybe different coloured plumes etc.

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>>2968398
>Taiping wang

>>2968357
Roman legions had their own distinct standards, and most painted their shields with a legion/cohort specific emblem. As for other peoples/times, most factions would wear some kind of distinctive marking, from shit as simple as pieces of colored cloth tied to their arms to patches/uniforms of their faction.

Apart from making it hard to distinguish enemies the bigger problem would be identifying allies.