Stupid things you've done in XGM

**Locky** · October 16, 2006, 06:53 PM

Well, once i lost Sparta to brigands, because i left a general and a unit of peltasts to defend it, whilst i lay siege to Corinth. Obviously they did a half arse job of defending it, and the brigands inherrited my capitial...well at least for one turn, before the Spartan royal guard reclaimed it. Yeah, i never build walls around Sparta, ever.

Also, i once lost Kelomhes of Sparta because i charged him and his body guard into the rear of a enemy phalanx, lol, damn that is annoying, espically when he has maxium rank command. But his heir has max attributes, and is only 54, he'll live to take Pella.

I've got more tales of human error, just cant remember.

Post your bizzare stories here, whether they be good or bad. :tooth:

**Maraxus** · October 16, 2006, 07:28 PM

Once I was playing Greece and the Plague started in Macedon, I thought it would be a good idea to use spies to spread the plague to all my enemies, thus insuring an easy campaign. Things got a little out of hand and I ended up spreading the plague to all of Greece and Asia Minor, including about half of my family members and 3 quarters of my provinces. It took me about 20 turns to eradicate it. On the bright side Im really good at avoiding the plauge now.

**DimeBagHo** · October 17, 2006, 12:07 AM

A couple of times I've lost great generals by charging them through my own phalanx. Those pikes are dangerous.

My most recent catastrophic defeat occured when I was playing the Seleucids and decided to invade Thrace from across the Hellespont. I figured there was no need to keep my fleet on the shore because it should be an easy win. Ha! The Thracians attacked with an army of experienced phalangites backed up by all maner of falx wielding savages. My own phalanx, fighting up a slight incline, got chewed to pieces by theirs, and my non-phalanx infantry got hacked to pieces. Finally when my army routed they were wiped out to a man because there was nowhere to retreat to.

**Locky** · October 17, 2006, 03:29 AM

Originally Posted by DimeBagHo

A couple of times I've lost great generals by charging them through my own phalanx. Those pikes are dangerous.

My most recent catastophic defeat occured when I was playing the Seleucids and decided to invade Thrace from across the Hellespont. I figured there was no need to keep my fleet on the shore because it should be an easy win. Ha! The Thracians attacked with an army of experienced phalangites backed up by all maner of falx wielding savages. My own phalanx, fighting up a slight incline, got chewed to pieces by theirs, and my non-phalanx infantry got hacked to pieces. Finally when my army routed they were wiped out to a man because there was nowhere to retreat to.

Yeah, i've stopped charging Generals through my own phalanxes for that very reason, but sometimes when you hold the enemy phalanx in place with one of yours, and use the General to charge them in the rear...well your own pikes can kill him. Yeah, i tend not to build much cavalry and rely on my general, so he gets experiance, besides his body guard unit has two hit points.

I've lsot armies because they had no where to run, oh well.

**Zarax** · October 17, 2006, 04:21 AM

General bodyguards are only 1 hitpoint now, just with two extra points of armour...

**Hippias** · October 17, 2006, 06:19 AM

Confused by Darth formations I tried a complex re-deployment of my Armenian battle line when facing a similar sized Seleucid army. They stood there across the valley looking at me until I had managed to get in the worst possible position - every unit flank on to them - some even facing the wrong way. They then charged - elephants and all. I panicked, tried to drag my formations back to facing the enemy......and my mouse got stuck on a bit of gunk on the mouse pad.

Worst ever defeat

**Locky** · October 20, 2006, 04:50 AM

Originally Posted by Hippias

Confused by Darth formations I tried a complex re-deployment of my Armenian battle line when facing a similar sized Seleucid army. They stood there across the valley looking at me until I had managed to get in the worst possible position - every unit flank on to them - some even facing the wrong way. They then charged - elephants and all. I panicked, tried to drag my formations back to facing the enemy......and my mouse got stuck on a bit of gunk on the mouse pad.

Worst ever defeat

Ah well, the Ai is a little unpredictable at times. If not stupid, sometimes it can be creative and do bizzare things. :tooth:

**Kara Kolyo** · October 20, 2006, 05:37 AM

I've done some pretty stupid things in my XGM campaigns like sending very prommising generals on long walks through unknown terrain and hitting right in large rebel armies. last night i started a new campaign with Gaul and when 600 romans besieged Patavium i send a general with 4 warbands and 2 horsemen to relieve the city. ofcource i cheked that the general inside the city be under my control, but once again it was under AI control with his 3 warbands. at the start of the battle i said short funeral prayer for the reinforsing general. the funny thing is that the principes ofcource routed my warbands, but that general for some reason didn't charge right at the triarii and actually gained victory. last 5 minutes i was just an observer... and the poor guy didn't get any traits for his achievment, instead the coward who ran away got promoted, go figure.
Edit: and the stupidest thing AI did to me was when attacking Corinth with GCS at the end in the town sqare remained only the macedon heir. i send a unit of militia phalangites through one ofe the streets and the spartan guard and my general through the other street. so when the phalanx was just before the square i told them to stop and stay on defencive. moments later the macedon general charged and in the same time the back rows turn left and faced one building in perfect order. the front half decided that pike vs horse is bad sportsmanship and started fighting with swords. untill my gen arrived half of the 120 men phalanx was dead the others were near routing....

**Ceki** · October 20, 2006, 08:01 AM

Once in earlier version of XGM (when fatigue was off) I layed siedge of Sparta. I had full army of hestati, pricipes, triari, equites and general. They had general, armoured hoplites cretan archers and spartan royal guard. Well, taking the walls was easy but, in one major street i run to spartan royal guard... Man...they anihilated my all army. After the battle they end up like level 8... The defeat was catrastrophic...
Also once I send my general on selucid chariots that runed amok... Needless to say, my 8 star general died

.
Once I was suprised how AI played well... I was invading Germania, and they set up the trap with berserkers and axmen... I was like wow... Nice... Aniways, the battle was lol, crushing defeat... But, I was glad to see that AI has it's own moments.

**perun** · November 03, 2006, 01:29 AM

I had a very annoying experience when storming independent Greek Halicarnassus with my Greek army. The enemy had some low quality troops and my spies succeeded in opening the gates for me. As there was only a single unit of thureophorei guarding it on the other side, with a unit of mercenary hoplites and archers on the wall I decided to charge my whole army through the gates so as to minimise the losses from archer and tower fire.
So there they went - 2 units of thorakitai in front to sponge in the arrows, hypaspists on their heels - ready to roll over the enemy guarding the gates and the rest of my force behind. But as soon as they crossed the gates everything got entangled. The arrow-sponging thorakitai got in the way so my heavier troops could not massacre the enemy the way I wanted - the enemy thureophoroi resisted a lot longer then expected - my heavy infantry being shot in the back from the gates all the time. None of my units would enter the towers (got too entangled I think) so the enemy archers got to fire all their arrows before I could lay my hands on them. On top of it the enemy general charged in and caused heavy losses. My own general lost all of his bodyguards to tower fire, I believe it was - not sure about that as I lost him from my sight for a moment.
I did win the battle, but in the process I lost 400 crack soldiers killing about the same number of untrained, low quality enemy troops. Had to let the boys sack the city after that - regardless of it being a Greek one...
Last time something like this happened to me I had to withdraw after winning a fight at the gates as I didn't have enough soldiers to take the city square. So I suppose I made progress here

**Arkayne** · November 07, 2006, 06:31 PM

In one game as the Parthians, I created a special strike army entirely of horse archers (6 units strong) to harass and eliminate low unit enemy stacks and to support my main armies. I was so successful taking out stacks of levy phalanxes and spearmen that I earned several chevrons with these units. As I pressed on toward Antioch in a final push to eliminate the Seleucids there who had regained the city from the GCS, I encountered a 5 unit stack but did not send my spies against it. To my great dismay, it was a stack of 2 phalanxes and 3 scythed chariots. My archers barely touched the chariots, and as I turned my attention to the phalanxes (which were easy prey), I lost 2 of my horse archer units because the chariots cornered them on them on the map and they could not maintain skirmish distance. After the the phalanxes were destroyed, I tried to enact revenge on those chariots but my archers ran out of ammunition. Sadly, I had no movement points left and could not retreat. I watched in horror as my elite horse archers were totally decimated by the chariots in their futile attempts to charge their flanks and rear.