Your Closest Victory

[Rodrico Stak]

What is the story of your closest victory?

Mine is from the Crusades campaign in Kingdoms (they don't have to be from Kingdoms though, thats why I posted here) as Egypt, and on the 3rd turn I called a Jihad on Jerusalem. When the Jihading Turkish army arrived (several turns after my Jihad army under a general - not a family member, and my 2 non-jihad captain commanded armies sieged Jerusalem), they were attacked by 2 full KoJ stacks, and my general was called in as reinforcements. The battle odds were 1:1. The Turks routed the first army quickly, with only help from my 6 units of Mamluke Archers (a horse archer unit), which eliminated 2 units of Knights Templar, and killed the Captain in one of those units. The rest of my army marched off to engage the KoJ reinforcement army, which included both the Constable of Jerusalem and Templar Grandmaster units (both are highly powerful and unique units of Knights). Their knights (half their army were some sort of Mounted Templar Knights, the rest were Templar Sergeants) charged my dismounted Ghulams and my 1 unit of spearmen, and insta-routed almost my entire infantry in that army (about half the army was infantry). However, they lost many knights to my cavalry, which reacted quickly. Unfortunately, my General was then killed in the fight, and all of my units routed except the 6 units of Mamluke Archers and 1 of my 2 units of Desert Cavalry, and the entire Turkish army routed as well. Around half of the enemy army, at that point, had been killed, and only the Templar Sergeants, Templar Crossbowmen, 4 men of the General's Bodyguard including the General, and the 2 elite Knight units (the Constable and Grandmaster) remained. With their remaining ammunition, my Mamluke Archers killed all but 7 soldiers of each of the elite knight units, and then charged and eliminated them. They then charged the General's bodyguard, and killed the General, and followed up by charging the crossbowmen and killing them too, while the Desert Cavalry dealt with some archers on the other side of the map. Finally, all that was left were the Templar Sergeants, who had not lost any men yet, having only pursued routers, not fought. The 17 remaining desert cavalry flanked and charged an isolated Templar Sergeant unit and routed it instantly. The Mamlukes (now the 6 units only had enough men to make roughly 2 full strength units) charged and routed the other 4 units, one by one, achieving an "average victory".

In the end, the 2 KoJ armies had killed around 1000 Turks and Egyptians. I lost about 700 men of my roughly 900 starting force, and the Turks lost half their army (which also began at roughly 900 men). Both the KoJ armies were utterly destroyed, however, as the KoJ could not afford the 5000 florin ransom (because Saladin had been busy taking poorly defended cities ).

That is the story of my closest victory, so now I'd like to hear yours.

[Ataegina]

my closest victory was in ireland,playing as england,i've besiege cork but i've ended besieged by 3 irish armies....

i was sorrounded on battlefield and very outnumbered, i've only win because i've manage my cavalry to hided in forest and hold until the irish army reach my army and attack on their back.....

2 generals down and irish prince captured

[alvinthegreat]

Closest victory was playing as France (Stainless Steel 5.1, vh/vh). I was attacking Milan with 2 stacks filled w/my best generals (like 6-8 stars) and the best units I had (lancers, gendarms, scot guards, dismounted nobles ect). Milan had 3 full stacks of quality milita troops and some castle units with 2 experienced generals and the faction leader leading them. So i marched my troops outside genoa, then the milanese marched 2 of their stacks near milan (the other one was the garrison). So i attacked, but my reinforcements were delayed...so i was like "****". So i started the battle near a bunch of forests, so i hid my crossbowmen and some of my cavalry there. The 3 stacks just rushed at my force, and my forest units managed to flank some of them. So i had to use my lancers and my general to play hit and run while shifting my infantry units around...
After about 20 minutes of this, my reinforcements finally came and I finished the battle

[mikeb32123]

I once successfully defended a settlement with nothing but my general left. All his bodyguards were dead from the battle, as was every other troop I had, except my general. I don't remember all the details, but that guy was a beast.

[boerekovic]

Two units Janissary HI, two units Spahi HA,two units Janissary archers.
Against One and a Half Stack of the Egyptians.
in the end, i had about 100 Men left. (One unit is was as big as that before.)

[Sacc]

Ceased a city with 1 generals bodyguard, a handful of spear militia and a couple longbowmen left.

[Pontifex Maximus]

Narrowly beaten by the French when playing as milan. my militia fought well but routed leaving my most disciplined (dismounted somethings) units left to be slowly overwhelmed by the enemy. i got crushed but caused many casualties.

[Blastpower1]

I was in florence as the english, when the scicilians, started seiging it. The scilians had sieged it once before, and i defeated them, but my heavy infantry units had taken heavy losses, so i sent my knights to nearby castles to be retrained. Florence was left temporarely weakened, so the scillians had attacked again, i could only fight bback with militia, and some archers , and a general. I was out numbered 3-2, but i won. I had lost my general, all my infantry units, and had about 20 archers left.

[LittleBoy]

I once defended Cagliari (converted to a large town) as Milan - I had a spear militia unit with 63 guys left before the battle. The enemy charged with a ram and some ladders. My towers destroyed the ram, so they only could charge with their ladders. Their heavy and light infantry took heavy casualties, so did the archers, which after wasting all of their arrows tried to fight me down in melee. The only unit, which didn't rout, was the generals bodyguard. With 63 men defending a large town, I crippled and routed 8-9 units... 17 of my men were left after the battle.

[Cataclysm]

Kingdoms Crusades playing as Byzantium. The Principality of Antioch attacked a lightly defended settlement with a huge army. I sacrificed my best cavalry to destroy their arty and prepared to fight to the death. The siege towers closed in but were set on fire by my ballista tower. I was thrilled, but still had to deal with the ladder. The ladder went up and I prepared for the worst. Thats when the ladder bug happened. All 1,000 of the computer's foot soldiers tried to climb the ladder at once and got stuck in a giant mob at the bottom of the ladder. I sent in my Greek Firethrowers and targeted the guys nearest the ladder from behind and let loose. 60 men inflicted over 900 casualties. It was great. I wish I had the screenshot but I can't find it.