Your best/worst "WTF!?" Moments of Stainless Steel

[valky]

Worst:Get eliminated when trying to keep the royal line pure because of a devastating shot from my OWN trebuchet.

As long as it is no animal you were throwing - mangonels are far far far (!!) worse; had a sure victory in one battle, but the disable fire and clicking like stupid on that 'STOP FIRING BUTTON' didn't work as intended, cause my men were crowded around the last fierce attackers and a tiny & lovely barrel found its way amidst my men

[though I do replay/reload such battles..and that's to your comment @ "Hoplite of Ilis" , cause in the response I got, I could as well have used the sure-win cheat instead of replaying the battle. And that pissed me off, given my drunken state I was in ^^]

[przemo-dodo]

Basically, my whole HRE campaign is big wtf (positive) for me. At the beginning, I’ve sent two armies on crusade to Gaza. CS took gaza, when I was near Constantinople, so I decided to take few Balkan rebels settlement. At the begin, it was castle near Durazzo, and some Greek city, and I ended taking whole Greece, Constantinople. Some turns later, I made another crusade on Gaza, taking the city, and waiting what will happen. New crusade was launched on Jerusalem, and thank to my French ally, I took it either. Now I have Balkans, Jerusalem and Gaza, a lot Polish city’s and Genoese, I have biggest army, and still good economy.
BUT my most heroic victory was against Genoese army, on a bridge between Milan and Genoa. My faction leader had about 1800 troops, against 3200 enemy soldiers. I had two units of catapult and merc ribault. I had lost 20 (!!!) soldiers, when enemy had lost almost everybody. My ribault had killed about 1100 soldiers, catapults about 600 and the rest was killed by crossbowmen’s. It was massacre!

[przemo-dodo]

Basically, my whole HRE campaign is big wtf (positive) for me. At the beginning, I’ve sent two armies on crusade to Gaza. CS took gaza, when I was near Constantinople, so I decided to take few Balkan rebels settlement. At the begin, it was castle near Durazzo, and some Greek city, and I ended taking whole Greece, Constantinople. Some turns later, I made another crusade on Gaza, taking the city, and waiting what will happen. New crusade was launched on Jerusalem, and thank to my French ally, I took it either. Now I have Balkans, Jerusalem and Gaza, a lot Polish city’s and Genoese, I have biggest army, and still good economy.
BUT my most heroic victory was against Genoese army, on a bridge between Milan and Genoa. My faction leader had about 1800 troops, against 3200 enemy soldiers. I had two units of catapult and merc ribault. I had lost 20 (!!!) soldiers, when enemy had lost almost everybody. My ribault had killed about 1100 soldiers, catapults about 600 and the rest was killed by crossbowmen’s. It was massacre!

[Vangar]

I was, once again, betrayed by a general. But this time I reloaded and experimented a bit: I gave the general in question (4 loyalty) the privy seal and a title, boosting him to 6 loyalty. The next round, however, without any explanation he decreased to 4 loyalty again and betrayed me while doing the exact same thing I did beforehand.

So my WTF in this situation: Is it "hardcoded" which general will betray you? After my experiments, I think there is nothing you can do except never use any character below 5 loyalty, ever. Just kill them off XD

[Big Brown Bear]

So my WTF in this situation: Is it "hardcoded" which general will betray you? After my experiments, I think there is nothing you can do except never use any character below 5 loyalty, ever. Just kill them off XD

In my current campaign, every single one of my generals except my faction heir is 5 loyalty or below
I am not looking foward to this.
I recently had to kill of a 0 loyalty general (by running him into an enemy spearwall, of course) just to make sure he didn't stab me in the back in a few turns.

[Vangar]

I can't promise that this will happen, but it looks grim from my point of view. A settlement or army in a fort has never betrayed me, though. You just have to make sure to never send a large army with a low loyalty general anywhere. What's shocking to me is that it seems like you cannot do anything about those traitors. Even with titles and traits which boost loyalty, those just vanished the next turn <.<

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

I can't promise that this will happen, but it looks grim from my point of view. A settlement or army in a fort has never betrayed me, though. You just have to make sure to never send a large army with a low loyalty general anywhere. What's shocking to me is that it seems like you cannot do anything about those traitors. Even with titles and traits which boost loyalty, those just vanished the next turn <.<

Disable BGR...

[Harakan]

so i played with the sicilians and as most of the time i had a shared border with the fatimids. I thought since they are not only at war with the turks and almost every catholic faction (except me), but also with the khwarezmians, they will be kept busy. But then i got the message, that the Khwarezmians were eliminated and though tehy were pretty huge and had lots of provinces, they were gone and only rebel provinces left, map looked like this:


and one can see they were actually powerful before being beaten:



which of course turned into them conquering all those povinces and being a real pain in the ass now:

[ash874]

it was in one of the earlier ss versions
i sent my king alone and he was attacked by a big army
(i play small unit sizes so the king had about 15 guards with him)
i would usually just suicide charge in this circumstance but it was the king so i decided to try and fight as best i can
ended up killing the whole army (dont remember how big but it was several hundred)
it was epic and suddenly in that same AI turn i was attacked again by a second army
at this point i had like 5 guards in my unit and i still won
then a third attacked!
i felt like... "should have just suicided him on the first and not bothered with all this"
but seeing that i spent like 45 minutes already on the first two battles (i hate micromanaging battles) i decided to give one last push (and i truly didnt enjoy any of it cause i really hate micro)
ended up killing about 1500 soldiers in total with the king
which i guess is epic

[Landtuber]

I came back to MW2 SS after a solid 1.5 year hiatus for other games.

Started a game as the Byzantine's on VH/VH to get back into the swing of things (but not with Byg's). I was attempting to play a defensive game for a change, so I focused only on raising my core cities, not taking enemy ones except the closest defensive positions, and raise my chivalry by always releasing prisoners. I've since determined that being an all-out war mass expansion is way easier, but I digress.....

I sent two solid armies of professional level solider on a raid up to Venice, and captured it. My second army I used to block the bridge to Venice as I knew the HRE would likely go ape-******* on me once I landed even though we weren't at war. So I had 3/4 stack on the bridge of excellently armored and experienced spearmen/archers/cavalry all ready to go. HRE moves in 3 full stacks and attacks me, mostly militia, some swordsman and 7-8 mailed knights. I thought "Okay, no problem, I can hold this off."

Battle loads, I look at the mini-map and.... BAM (WTF moment #1 approaching)

Two of the reinforcing armies appear BEHIND ME. What the frack is the point of taking a bridge as a defensive point if reinforcing armies can magically appear behind me? I almost rage quit, but I thought I'd play it out and see what happened. After a frantic battle of attempting to hold the bridge while fending off two other armies I manage to pull out a heroic victory and wipe the floor with the HRE at a loss of only about 1/2 of my troops. I was ecstatic!!! (WTF moment #2 approaching)

HRE turn moves on, England takes over, a princess moves over and STEALS MY GAD DOMN GENERAL!!!!!! The 6 command, +5 morale to all troops and +5 chivalry guy that just saved the day. Apparently while his bodyguard was running around slaying the HRE he was off in a copse of tree's somewhere getting seduced by an English princess.

Sigh...

I'm not even at war with England so going to kill him will drag their allies into the war... ARGH

I feel like the best way to fix this situation is to switch my strategy and just start exterminating my way across the entire Italian penisula. Burn it all, wipe out all the armies and go back home. If the game had an option for salting the earth I would do it. BEWARE ENGLAND, you will get yours!!!!! *end rant*

[Duck of Death]

Dude, everyone knows those English Princesses are the... umm... hottest chicks in the world?
No wonder your General bailed

[Vangar]

Landtuber, this is one of the most epic WTFs ever perceived by man Love is always stronger than hate and war :hippy:

The closest thing I can come up with is that a full crusading army of mine deserted :p CRUSADERS! Just going "Well, **** that ****, we're going home!"

[tudor93]

Dude, everyone knows those English Princesses are the... umm... hottest chicks in the world?
No wonder your General bailed

Nah, English chicks are the ugliest, with few exceptions.

[Landtuber]

Nah, English chicks are the ugliest, with few exceptions.

My theory is that the princess was actually a man in disguise and my general finally found someone who could accept him for who he was and not try to burn him at the stake.

[valky]

so i played with the sicilians and as most of the time i had a shared border with the fatimids. I thought since they are not only at war with the turks and almost every catholic faction (except me), but also with the khwarezmians, they will be kept busy. But then i got the message, that the Khwarezmians were eliminated and though tehy were pretty huge and had lots of provinces, they were gone and only rebel provinces left, map looked like this:

It might be just me, but after several experiments, even just enabling/disabling the BGR option prevent that. IMO it is not possible anymore to just assassinate the family tree over several turns. There seems to be a script-snippet leftover that does prevent that. (I hope you are playing without BGR, else my theory is a massive fail! )
In one of my first SS 6.4 games, exactly the same happened while playing England and being at war with France. He had like 7 provinces, was at war with what t.F. I know of and I conquered Paris and then *booom* everything went rebel. BGR seems to spawn at least 1 family member in the next turn (in some really weird locations sometimes) or just attaches family members amongst some armies outta nowhere. So if you don't finish off every single leader/heir/fam.member in 1 turn...they just won't go rebel (*yeah*)

As mentioned, I have a damn big imagination

[it was even more obvious in my failed Teutonic campaign...the AI just boldy spawned family members and factions leader right out of a settlement I was besieging. Or in another 'experiment' after I surely got one faction with only 1 god-damn province left, down to only the FL...next turn went BAM, and 4 family member & Heir magically appeared outta nowhere. After 20~ turns, you can't say they did it like space-*****ing rabbits with lotso hormones involved, so the 1 year old child suddenly went *poof* and became a 16 year old family member]

I like the princess-theory though

[Viperidae]

Probably when I was besieged by a full stack with ~3 mounted sergeants, 2 mailed knights, HRE:s faction leader (5 command/2 chiv or so), about 5 units of crossbowmen and the rest of the stack consisting of various low-tier infantry (macemen, merc spearmen, militia, spearmen, light men-at-arms).

I had one general with 1 command/1 chiv, 2 units of slav levies, 2 units of levy archers and 2 units of magyar cavalry. I thought the settlement lost, but I wanted to at least use my magyars to take care of his cavalr and general. This was accomplished without any problem, and I realized I could win this as they had no cavalry and were demoralized. I used my magyars to lure away maybe 5 units, my levy archers to lure away a few more, and then use the classical engage with infantry and charge with cavalry to rout his entire army. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have been surprised I won (horse archers are ridiculously overpowered early game, when infantry has low armour and noone has access to high-range archers), but how easy it was. I dare say my K/D ratio is somewhere around 25:1 for this campaign thanks to endless roman stacks of militia that doesn't stand a chance against HA:s. Only units that are capable of dealing some damage are bodyguards (usually have to throw some croats at them) and acritae.

[poisoned goat]

It might be just me, but after several experiments, even just enabling/disabling the BGR option prevent that. IMO it is not possible anymore to just assassinate the family tree over several turns. There seems to be a script-snippet leftover that does prevent that. (I hope you are playing without BGR, else my theory is a massive fail! )
In one of my first SS 6.4 games, exactly the same happened while playing England and being at war with France. He had like 7 provinces, was at war with what t.F. I know of and I conquered Paris and then *booom* everything went rebel. BGR seems to spawn at least 1 family member in the next turn (in some really weird locations sometimes) or just attaches family members amongst some armies outta nowhere. So if you don't finish off every single leader/heir/fam.member in 1 turn...they just won't go rebel (*yeah*)

As mentioned, I have a damn big imagination

[it was even more obvious in my failed Teutonic campaign...the AI just boldy spawned family members and factions leader right out of a settlement I was besieging. Or in another 'experiment' after I surely got one faction with only 1 god-damn province left, down to only the FL...next turn went BAM, and 4 family member & Heir magically appeared outta nowhere. After 20~ turns, you can't say they did it like space-*****ing rabbits with lotso hormones involved, so the 1 year old child suddenly went *poof* and became a 16 year old family member]

I like the princess-theory though

It happens quite frequently in my campaigns. I believe factions suddenly disappear when their entire family tree gets wiped out. Generals that aren't family members (recruited from fortresses/citadels) aren't counted. You can probably test this on your own faction by wiping out all but 1 family member. You should have a faction leader but no faction heirs even though there's other generals available.

[Basileus of Byzantium]

My WTF moment is whenever I have a general surrounded by hundreds of men and he just pushes his way out despite being attacked by all sides, really irks me when I'm trying to kill a king

[Vangar]

@ Basileus: This happens on a regular basis especially when fighting against the Byzantines with their immortal bodyguard XD

[Byg]

It might be just me, but after several experiments, even just enabling/disabling the BGR option prevent that. IMO it is not possible anymore to just assassinate the family tree over several turns. There seems to be a script-snippet leftover that does prevent that. (I hope you are playing without BGR, else my theory is a massive fail! )
In one of my first SS 6.4 games, exactly the same happened while playing England and being at war with France. He had like 7 provinces, was at war with what t.F. I know of and I conquered Paris and then *booom* everything went rebel. BGR seems to spawn at least 1 family member in the next turn (in some really weird locations sometimes) or just attaches family members amongst some armies outta nowhere. So if you don't finish off every single leader/heir/fam.member in 1 turn...they just won't go rebel (*yeah*)

As mentioned, I have a damn big imagination

[it was even more obvious in my failed Teutonic campaign...the AI just boldy spawned family members and factions leader right out of a settlement I was besieging. Or in another 'experiment' after I surely got one faction with only 1 god-damn province left, down to only the FL...next turn went BAM, and 4 family member & Heir magically appeared outta nowhere. After 20~ turns, you can't say they did it like space-*****ing rabbits with lotso hormones involved, so the 1 year old child suddenly went *poof* and became a 16 year old family member]

I like the princess-theory though

The general spawn script is part of standard stainless steel, so it is present in all mods as well. It is designed to prevent what you are talking about, so things would be worse without it.

When families are about to die out it spawns some more generals. I'm not sure, but maybe the faction has to then adopt them. If it does not do this in time, before all members are dead, the faction dies. That's a guess.

They have to set to spawn somewhere in advance i assume, hence the odd locations they sometimes appear at.