Bridge Massacres

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Just for fun, I made a Custom Battle: a whole army of Britons against my lonely Pharao's Guards, plus 4 Pharao's Bowmen and an Egyptian Chariot General (to both scare and shoot at my enemies). Fine, I choose Nile Bridge, then what follows is a true massacre. The AI simply throws all he has, including chariots, against me causing a true chaos on the bridge, with my spearmen standing firmly on the other side. In the end even the spearmen did not need to fight much, and more of them died due to friendly fire than due to the enemy attack, sadly. The first enemy lines faced them, routed and collided with the enemies crossing the bridge. The enemy chariots made even more mess when crossing, while my bowmen were shooting devastating rows against them.

In the end, the rout was so massive that most of the enemy units on the rear didn't even fight before routing. There was such a massive number of enemies running, looking just like a whole army of cowards . Very funny! The final death count was more than 3200 Britons killed for only 5 Egyptians dead.

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I would be glad to hear if any other forumites here have a good bridge massacre tale to tell. And screenshots would be welcome, too!

[PhalanxPhlattener]

bridge battles are always fun to watch, but when ever i zoom in on the battle on the bridge it gets real laggy.

[Gleemonex]

I love defending in bridge battles =) Here's the formation I use:

.............ENEMY

................\ /
................||
................|| <-- bridge
................||
................||
................/ \

....Inf.

....Inf....Inf....Inf.............Cav

....AA....AA....AA.....General

...............Arty

This does 3 things:

1) It gets the Archers on the left flank so they can fire into the enemy's weak side

2) It puts the onagers right in the middle, so that they can cut a swath straight down the bridge. Accuracy optional.

3) It leaves a gap on the right for cavalry to charge any units that pose a threat to the infantry line.

-Glee

[Aristarchus]

It gets the Archers on the left flank so they can fire into the enemy's weak side

Does this really work that the archers are more effective on the left, so they attack the weapon side rather than the shield side of the enemies?

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Once I was assaulted by the Gallic king on a bridge near Numantia. Without a phalanx, needless to say a better strategy was needed, and I found it with "fire at will" and killing the foolish gallic king who was among the first enemies to cross it. After that the wave of pila made the Gauls run like sissies and were an easy prey for my cavalry.

A heroic victory and a surprise even for me, as I expected more blood and a tough enemy to face.

[Gleemonex]

I seldom change my bridge defense, even without phalanges. In that case, I'll often put a line of skirmishers behind the infantry line, with archers behind them.

-Glee

[Cybugger]

I didn't take any picts, but i'll explain as best as i can. I was playing as the Britons on Dathmod v.8. I had started my invasion of Germania. I seperated my full stack, all the infantry and archers in one stack to capture cities, and my general, 4 chariots, and 2 squads of Barbarian cavalry mercenaries. The 2nd squad ended it's turn on a bridge. I got attacked by a force of 1700 Germans. I placed 2 squads of light chariots on each side , so as to fire into the bridge. The enemy sent in his infantry first, and then his cavalry. His cavalry pushed a vast amount of his men over the bridge, and my chariots mopped up the rest. Then, very proud of the heroic victory i had just accomplished, i was attacked by a 2nd stack of 1900 germans, on the same bridge. Wash and repeat, and another heroic victory.

[Towelie]

uh.. it was long time ago, i played Brutii, and battle occured somewhere in Egypt.

Anyway, i had half stack army with merc elephant unit in it placed on brigde near Alexandria and Egyptian full stack attacked me. So battle had started, Egyprians (mixed army, bunch of infantry, some cavalry and chariots) made a line and started running on my side of the bridge. So i waited them to come to the half of the bridge and then ordered elephants not to attack, just to run on Egyptian side Slaughter!!! In about 30 seconds river was full of bodies So at some point elephants started running amok, but since by then they came to egiptian side of the bridge and egyptians was everywhere, they made total mess Then i ordered my urban cohorts to fire at will, it was damn fun As i said, it was long time ago, but think at the end of the battle that elephnts have killed about 1000 man, but all died

[LeonidasOfSparta]

I was playing as germans in Vanilla. I had many spear warbands and some other units including general. I was attacked by Selucid army( in asia minor)from two sides. On one there was bridge on other nothing.They cam and I had to deploy. I deployed two of my spears on bridge and other on other side while putting archers in the middle and cav on the flank. They attacked from both sides. Battle was raging and I was concentrated on non-bridge side. After some time I looked to bridge. There was something to see! Tons of Selucides lying dead not even came to my second phalanx when they started to rout. Fools! They didn't run in the side where they come from, they were running into my phalanxes! Soon they all lied dead along with their friends on other side. Nice, isn't it?

LeonidasOfSparta

[Towelie]

German spear warband are great! With only 2 units of them you can defend village, just make sure they are depoyed between 2 buildings, so that enemie cant flank them, and turn phalanx on..

[LeonidasOfSparta]

Yeah thats what I do.

Leonidas

[][Xyphos][ - Lee]

when on multyplayer and you see your going into a bridge battle, you know that the player that has hosted is the greek citys and has spartans and cretans lol pointless, unless they are on moon river map, were theres a secret route through the river.

[guyyug]

when on multyplayer and you see your going into a bridge battle, you know that the player that has hosted is the greek citys and has spartans and cretans lol pointless, unless they are on moon river map, were theres a secret route through the river.

Yeh i find that, though i have beaten greeks in those battles as macadon though, a well placed onagar shot helps.

Once I was fighting a 2v2 bridge battle and i got massacred and had 2 companions left by the end of it, that is the most men ive ever lost in a bridge fight. Everyone else was killed

[][Xyphos][ - Lee]

Yeah most people do the no art rule which is really anoying because you really dont have a chance with out artillery, i guess you could really stock up on archers though.

[Octavium]

Secret Path? I'm intrigued.

[][Xyphos][ - Lee]

Yeah lol on the moon river map look at the river, there is a faint path going through the river, its a good place for you to sneek some units of cav and ambush them from behind (this will only really work with noobs tho lol), you can even see the secret path on the map in the bottom left corner lol, give it a try

[Towelie]

hihi, just slaughtered trakians on that bridge east of vicus macromani (sp.)
Actually, only berserkers did
1 pick says more than 1000 words, they killed about 950 soldiers each (almost 2k total), and lost 2. Only bad thing is that they didnt catched 'em on the middle of the bridge, so there was more boddies on my side of the bridge than in water Still, there are loads of bodies floating

[][Xyphos][ - Lee]

Lol nice pic i would love to see what a unit of beserkers would do to a packed bridge, lol would be quality.

[Towelie]

But too bad i dont have that pick what elephants did on bridge Full stack of Egyptians gone to hell in just one minute, full river, full!

[LeonidasOfSparta]

lol I'll try that with elephants!Never had them in bridge battle.

Leonidas