Share your tough campaign battles

[Severous]

Hi

Do you all know that when the pre-battle odds come up that you can save your campaign? Just press escape and you can save the campaign. Its useful for those late night sessions when the AI seems to decide to throw stack after stack at you. Its also useful for those battles that promise to be interesting or tough.

Why not share your difficult or important battles ? Can we play your save game/battle?

UPLOAD YOUR SAVE HERE: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...?do=add&cat=12
Then post a link here in this thread. Let us try your battle!

Heres my starter. Its from RTW V1.5 Macedon. No mods required.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1514
The Armenians sally. The AI fancies its chances. For good reason. Can you beat them?

[Garnier]

I don't have a savegame (and it was SPQR 6.2 anyway) but I had one really hard battle, where a weakened legion (about 2000 out of the normal 3000) had to fend off two stacks (9000 men total) of Iberian rebels. This was SPQR, where such huge battles are very common.

I won the battle, but only by a hair.

I formed a defensive circle (not recommended in SPQR!) and waited. The spanish closed in on all sides, completely surrounding me. I had my 300 javelinmen all throw at this one spot for a while, and then I pushed some legionaries into the hole that opened. Then my 150 cavalry rushed out the hole, and started charging repeatedly against the rear of the scutarii and bull warriors. It was an awful battle, I ended up routing them, but I lost over 3/4 of my men. Needless to say, my general became some kind of expert defender.

[Subrosa Florens]

I just tried the first of those battles. Whew. I was thrashed most ungloriously. Those Eastern Armored Generals were what did it.

Edited To Add Pictures:

I started by moving up my archers so I could fire over the front wall, while I ran my slingers up to left, where they could fire on the unshielded sides of the Armenians when they sallied. Sally they did, and my archers and slingers simply slaughtered them. They never reached my pikes.


However, the Armenian cavalry all came out a side gate, starting with the horse archers. I actually dealt with them rather easily. Here you can see the Scythians have routed already, and the Parthians are about to.


Then the slower Armored Generals came up. I tried luring the first into my pikes.


However, he saw them and instead veered off to go after a unit of archers off to one side. I tried to intercept him with a unit of pikes out of phalanx formation, but they could not catch up, so I broke off the pursuit while he chased the archers off the map.


Now I moved my pikes off to the flank where the other Armored Generals were coming. A few moments later the next two (or was it three?) of them came up. I actually got my pikes at them head on.


It did little good. The generals went through my phalanx like a hot knife through butter. Even charging my own general into their rear had no effect. In moments all my pikemen were fleeing, and so was my general.


The Armenian Generals chased after my pikemen, leaving my General time to rally. By now I was down to just a few archers, half out of ammo. I tried a desperate gambit. I charged the open gate, hoping I could get inside and lock the Armored Generals out.


I got in, but it still did not work. There were still just too many Armenian infantrymen inside. Eventually the Generals came back, and they smote my ruin upon the main street. Here you can see my General receive an experience upgrade. The bodyguard unit has lost so many men that the average experience of those remaining is high enough to crest to the next level. I have seen this often in enemy Generals right before I killed them. Now it was my turn.


In the end, it was a Crushing Defeat.


In retrospect, I think that perhaps I was not aggressive enough. Maybe if I had pushed my pikemen forward at the very beginning and tried to take the gate I would have been able to get inside the city. Then I would be able to fight the Armored Generals in the streets. That would mean trying to force my way through the gate against a gaggle of Armenian infantrymen however. I think it would be very hard to do just because of their sheer numbers, at least fast enough to get my entire force inside before the Armenian Generals turned up. Even then however, they are so heavily armored that they can crush my phalanx from the front, so it probably would not help.

[Severous]

Hello Subrosa Florens.

Nice set of pictures and write up. I didnt expect my save would get such a treatment. Thank you.

My tactics were a bit different. Put my pikes up close to the gate and poked the Armenians as they came outside. My archers were closer so they could shoot into the town. Kill total was about the same however.

As for the generals. I lured one for a while and shot him up quite good. Had him down to less than 10 men but by then the big King unit charged into phalanx and archers and it wasnt long before my men started routing.

Our general has a -4 to morale. Not much help.

Has anyone else got a good battle saved we could try?

[Subrosa Florens]

Hello Subrosa Florens.

Nice set of pictures and write up. I didnt expect my save would get such a treatment. Thank you.

That is kind of you to say. I had a good teacher.

Truth to be told however, I took those pics hoping to document my triumphant victory against all odds. Oh well, some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you...

That was a tough fight. I do not know that it can be won with those troops. If I had three Armored Hoplites instead of those pikemen I think I could do it. Or another cavalry unit or two.

[Subrosa Florens]

Ok, I finally tried the second battle of the two in the save. Yow. That was painful.

I started out advancing slowly toward the Thracians with my main force, and took my one reinforcing pike unit out of phalanx and had them run to try to link up before the enemy got to me. Well, my main force simply routed on contact with the Thracians, even the Bastarnae. On the good side most of their army chased them across the map.

That left my pikes against one unit of Thracians pikes, whom I defeated in a head-to-head pike duel. Then I went out of phalanx and rushed the archers. Once in melee they melted away pretty quickly.

But now the rest of the Thracian pikes were on their way back from chasing my routers. I stopped mopping up the archers to form up and face the pikes. I had just engaged them when the archers reformed and started raining fire arrows directly into my rear. As you can guess I did not last long after that. My pikes routed. Game over.

[Internazionale]

Hello Subrosa Florens.

Nice set of pictures and write up. I didnt expect my save would get such a treatment. Thank you.

My tactics were a bit different. Put my pikes up close to the gate and poked the Armenians as they came outside. My archers were closer so they could shoot into the town. Kill total was about the same however.

As for the generals. I lured one for a while and shot him up quite good. Had him down to less than 10 men but by then the big King unit charged into phalanx and archers and it wasnt long before my men started routing.

Our general has a -4 to morale. Not much help.

Has anyone else got a good battle saved we could try?

Seems tough when you are outnumbered, have few elites and a general with a minus in morale... Seems impossible to me. Never send a general to battle if he has bad traits. If he has normal traits don't just send him in there to fight to the last man when that is useless. Make tactical withdrawals, you don't have to fight to the last man every time like the Spartans did.

I would instead have been without that general actually since he has crap traits.

[morteduzionism]

Sorry no saves. No pics.

Rome(@1300) vs. Illyria(@1700): Rome defending

My army
I use Quintus' Legion arrangement.

I had replaced my two units of Italic Hoplites(80/unit) with Illyrian Spearmen mercs(120/unit) to protect my skirmishers on the flanks

Setting/Field
There was thick forest north, @150-200m's, of my armies position. Inbetween the army and the forest were numerous large rocks creating a natural obstacle for any attacking enemies. West and East of the army were more outcrops of rocks and stones. However, there was a clear path between the eastern and northern rocks. These rocks created a natural perimeter and I deployed my legion in the flat/clear area behind the rocks.

Enemy
An army mainly comprised of spearmen, warbands and a general.


Battle
They attacked, and for the first time EVER, and my first line held. It looked so sweeeeeet! My Principe were all standing behind the first line waiting to relieve a "winded" comrade. It was as if it was scripted. It looked so neat(not the usual clusterf***s my battles devolve into) and I was able to calmly asses where something was needed and what my next order should be.

Things Fall Apart.

Eventually I was able to single out the general, with my general/tribune, and engage and killed him. The army starts to rout. Remember the rocks? Both armies essentially got stuck in the rocks and the battle turned into a...stinky mess.

I eventually won only after traveling all over the map killing individual soldiers stuck running into rocks.
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In another battle(Gaul) the enemy tried to run away as soon as I clicked "start battle"...well I wasn't having none of that.

I gave chase, with the entire army, skirmishers out in front and actually caught up with 1 or 2 of their units(they got stuck on rocks). I attacked. Their whole army came back onto the screen in complete disarray, I suppose to rescue their friends, but my army(grouped and in formation) was marching up at the same time...I pulled my Velites/Skirmishers back and sent my infantry in for some sword work...

It was a slaughter.

[Severous]

Hader..I find the opposite.

Sally battles are easier than waiting for the assault.

If you had that battle as a save Id like to give it a go...indeed if anyone has a big bad siege going on and you dont think its possible to sally against it why not put the save up and let us try it.

[LeonidasOfSparta]

Where to upload it, Severous?
I ussualy upload somewhere and wait 2-4 days, if you know better way please tell.

Leonidas

[Hader]

Hader..I find the opposite.

Sally battles are easier than waiting for the assault.

If you had that battle as a save Id like to give it a go...indeed if anyone has a big bad siege going on and you dont think its possible to sally against it why not put the save up and let us try it.

Yes, I usually find a way to break a siege and it includes sallying. However, with this situation, I had a rather poor garrison of troops and my army (my main army) was engaged in a fight with another Macedonian stack. I was of course hoping I could win the battle between the two large armies then march to this city and help, but that wasnt the case. With my hoplites, the best I could do was defend the breaches in phalanx mode. Outside the gates, their pikemen would cut me to pieces...

[Subrosa Florens]

Here is a battle I was faced with yesterday playing the Sarmatians in Barbarian Invasion 1.6. One portion of my horde was sent off to the plains to wipe out a Sassanid settlement there, and is now trying to rejoin the rest of the horde in Anatolia. However, an Eastern Roman Empire army has moved to intercept them.



As you can see by the pic, there are heavy odds against you. The Sarmatians have half a dozen horse archers and 3 infanty units, all depleted, plus an almost non-existent camel unit with only 4 members left.

Arrayed against them is a tough ERE army, filled with heavy infantry, a unit of foot archers, a veteranii equite, and a general.

You can download the save game here:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1558

[Severous]

Thanks SubRosa...being able to play anothers tough battle rather than just hearing about it was what I had hoped this thread would be about.

I managed to defeat the ERE in your battle.

Here a horse archer in melee mode finishes off the routing ERE General


It would not have been possible without the woods where my infantry could hide.

[Subrosa Florens]

I am glad I could finally upload something people could play. Lately I have been playing only mods. This is my first time back to the vanilla game in a while.

I did this battle twice, and lost each time. They both started well enough, with my infantry hiding in the woods, and my horse archers slowly wearing the ERE down. But both times little mistakes or miscues would happen because I could pay attention to everything going on, like I would have to take a unit out of skirmish mode in order to make it go where I wanted it to, then I would forget to put it back in skirmish mode later and it would just stand there while being mobbed by infantry. With horse archers little things like that become fatal quickly.

On the other hand, at least after I lost they retreated the way I wanted them to go, west, and so I was able to link them up with the rest of my forces in Asia Minor.

[Severous]

You have one for us LeonidasOfSparta? A Greek one by any chance?

In the first post of this thread there is a link to this forums excellent uploading/hosting facility. Give that a go. Its superb and allows pictures and comments to be added. Seen nothing like it. If I could give rep to the forum I would give it for that.

[Parky]

Ive got a Tough situation in my Pontus Campaign.
Not alot of Tough Battles as such, More like too many Battles. IT annoyed me too much. I dont think i really have a chance of bringing it back lol.
Unless the Roman Civil War Starts. But even then. Waiting for that could be a while.
Download here >> http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1560

[Subrosa Florens]

I took a look at it. I do not see what the trouble is. You have a really nice conquest of the eastern half of the map, you have more money than you can ever spend, and plenty of good troops.

Get your armies out of your interiour and up to the front lines where they can earn their keep. Just leave some light cavalry behind to put down rebels. Start churning out full stacks of cappadocians and chariots. Hire all the mercenary horse archers you can find. Get your generals up into the action, or at least spread them around one per city. I saw one of your cities in the Levant had half a dozen generals all sitting in it. A settlement only receives the bonuses for one general, so the rest are doing nothing being there.

You have a lot of cities under siege, but it should be no trouble to sally and break the sieges. You have cavalry and chariots, that is all you need for that kind of fight. Do not try to engage them head on, rather trick them into pursuing you close the walls where your towers can shoot them, and make them follow you around the city, preferably clockwise so your towers can shoot them from their unshielded side. Wear them down, tire them out, then destroy them one at a time.

[Parky]

Thanks. The Main reason i stopped that campaign for a while was that i was getting bored of 5 battles a turn kinda thing.

[_TubbZ_]

Wow i tried your first macedon battle and i killed a lot of cheap rubbish that Armenia had but when 1 eastern general went and routed a pike with a good thick formation i knew it was over. But i dealt with the HA and most of his infantry and missiles too. As mentioned above -4 morale ain't good when i find that macedon has no courage once the general routs Oh well hard battle.

I also tried the other battle but didn't really pay much attention. If i was to try it again i would get my Infantry into some trees to take advantage of their bonus.

In both battles they would be much easier if you had a few units of cavalry in them...