I have one question that I haven't put much thought into,

>>3251660
Sailing deep waters wasn't possible back then. Ancient people's lacked the technology to go more than a mile or two from the coast.

>>3252742
Holy shit, someone post that old screencap.

>>3252764
It dissapoints me greatly that nobody in the OG thread brought up the fact that the guy probably got his ideas about deep sea travel from the civilization games

Because he didn't need to. He did however dispatch a naval expedition that sailed from Indus to Persian Gulf.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nearchus

>>3251660
Sorry, anon, but it would literally take DECADES for Alexander to sail across the Mediterranean.

>>3252742
>laughingphoenicians.jpg

File: achaemenid_empire_map.gif (18KB, 600x346px) Image search: [Google]

18KB, 600x346px

>>3251660
While the reasoning >>3252742 uses is nonsensical, the ultimate point has a little validity. 4th century B.C. ships rarely went that far from the shore. The main issue had more to do with the ability to store and keep fresh supplies, especially fresh water, which is hard to find on the ocean. Fleets would often have to stop and resupply frequently, sometimes as often as every few days, depending on how much in the way of men and other supply consumers they were carrying.

Now take a look at the Achmaenid empire. Because it never controlled the Arabian peninsula, you effectively have 3 separate naval "zones". The Eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Persian and Inus Gulfs, as well as the coast between them. Getting ships from one to the other would be nearly impossible, so you effectively had 3 separate fleets.

Furthermore, Alexander swept through the Achmaenids extremely quickly, and at the start of the campaign, only had naval forces in the Mediterranean, and not too many of those. If he wanted to use ships to supply or transport his campaigns, they'd need to be either stolen from the Persians, or built on site. (For instance, the naval expedition this anon refers to >>3252778
was conducted with ships built after the battle of Hydapses.) And ships in the ancient world were crew-intensive and thusly expensive, especially for Alexander who was generally short on manpower.

He never really had the time or consolidation to build up a huge fleet, and even if he did, he would likely have run into similar problems that the Achmaenids did, without control of the inohspitable Arabian peninsula, unifying his fleets in the seas adjunct to the Indian Ocean would be damn hard, and it would be completely impossible to unify them with the Mediterreanean fleets in any case. If you wanted to go the routes he did, you're pretty much stuck walking.