Your brilliant victory!

[hellheaven1987]

Ok guys, after told about worst defeat, kets talk about your brilliant victory! While I had four brilliant victory, all of them happened when I was besiege. First one was during my Scipii campaign. I was besieged by Egyptian and the most army I have is town watch! The Egytian used a lot of desert axe man, heavy and light chariot, cavalary and one general! I t showed that I didn't even have a chance to win! But fortunately I had wall! The Egytian attacked me when they only had one ram! So they could just ran around the wall before they broke part of my wall. The AI showed their stupid during the siege. They kept walking around the wall and let the arrow killed them before they could enter, and their general got kill by the arrow too! :laughing: But in the end they still broke the wall... but there were only two unites came in! Didn't know what the hell they were thinking... so I just simply defeated the two units with my all town watch and watched the rest of enemy left (yes, they left because they didn't rout.) the battlefield. My second victory was happened during my Greece campaign. Again the Egyptian came and attacked me... because I only got Greek cavalary and some Hoptiler, so I broke the siege. Same thing, I waited until the wall help me killed most enemy and then charge! The Egyptian routed again... My third experience was during my Germany campaign and I was besieged by Scythia. I only had two generals and the total number of soldiers was not more than 31! The enemy got one axe man, two archer band and one general. My original plan was wait until the axe man came into the gate then I charge from their side... but ****, the AI let the general came in first! So I had no choice but charge all my men into the general. After a hard fight finally the enemy general got killed, but his troop started surround my soldiers... then I couldn't remember anything just know I kept charge to the enemy. The ending was quite sad as one of my general died... but the enemy paid their price! And my last one was during my Carthage campaign. Same tactic, I simply didn't go out and let the wall killed 80% of enemy, then the enemy routed. But they left their general behind (such a group of bastard, left the commander and ran!) so I just killed him, without any casualty.

[Slimshoom]

i once fought of 800 germans with 200 romans, they had all spear warbands, and i had a couple of hastati, barbarian mercenaries and archers (normal unit size). Anyhow, i started with full unit size with my hastati, all ended the battle with under 20 men. It was amazing.

[Decimus Equitius]

I had a pretty good victory in my latest campaign a couple of days ago...

My Legion consisted of 2500 Brutii post marius troops On my way to Larissa I saw that Macedon had three armies waiting to attack Thermon and also try to take back Athens from me. The first armie had 1250 men and a ballista, the second had 2100 men and the third had 180 men and 120 cavalry. So there was a total of 3600 men; I was feeling wiley so I decided to attack them. When you are that outnumbered you don't have to worry about atttacking them. So I waited on the hill for the first army of 1250 to come up the hill. I told my legionaires and skirmishers and archers to fire at will and they broke before contact. While this was happening the Army of horses came around my flank and hit my archers. I told them to stand and fight and shoot arrows at the horses while my spearmen ran to cover them. The third army had their troops up the hill before the largest army so I seperated my first line to meet their third army while my second line went to meet the second army. My second and third line broke after ten minutes of hard fighting and I thought all was lost. But my first line broke their third army. And they were safe.

At this time I remembered about the ballista killing my troops so I ran my first line down the hill to kill them. This was moments before the largest army could reach me, so they had to chase me down the hill with their phalanx on . My first line still had around 400 Legionaires in 5 units so we waited for the second army to come down the hill; reaching my line one unit at a time so I just flanked them on all sides while my 150 remaining archers pelted them from the back. I broke the rest of the army one unit at a time.

So I won the battle killing 3100 and losing 1800 wich is pretty good for an open field battle for me.

[MasterAdnin]

In SPQR, I usually always rout armies, and kill faction leaders, so I have a lot of them.

Adnan

[shadowarmy75]

Once, while besieged by Egypt, I just stacked my mercenary hoplites and legions to block the gate, put calvalry at the edges to charge into the sides, and won a heroic victory with only 10 losses. This is mainly because of the stupid AI tactic of charging all his troops into the gate just because it was opened by a spy.

[Zuwxiv]

(Very hard campaign, hard battle difficulty)
Bridge battle between Julii and Gauls. I had about 4 units of hastati, one unit of mercs (I forget the name, they look like triarii... Samites?), 2 velites, and a general. The Gauls had a full stack of swordsmen, warbands, a couple generals, all melee. A couple of my units had maybe one increase on their weapons or armor, or maybe one chevron.... Most of the units were completely green. Gauls had all between 2 sliver and 2 gold chevrons.

I'll admit I replayed it several times. My first strategy was to set up a box formation at the end of the bridge, trapping the units. But I was outmanned and outfought. They would take heavy losses, considering the weakness of my army, and I would rout or destroy some of their units. But their experience kept them from insta-routing; in the end, my advantage of having the box would kill the first couple enemy units, but they would just meat-grind their way through my men. Once one of my units routed, they all started to rout; the result was in an about 600-2300ish battle, I would lose around 400 and kill around 300-500; nowhere near enough to win.

Second strategy: Form a long line a pilum's throw from the brige. Velites sat on the sides of the bridge, throwing javelins until the enemy came too close, then retreating behind my men. I would let several units cross the bridge, then rush and flank them. Once they started routing, I would retreat and set up the line again. The AI started charging my line; I had to stand.

x = enemy
o = me

.................Meatgrinder...
.................Waiting troops..
.................Army, army..
General.......Army, army..
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...........(General)oooooooooooo..............
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Just a huge collumn of enemies across the river. It was a long, hard battle, I had to carfully judge which units to send in, exactly when. Then, later on, I had to stand my ground against their charges, considering that they are constantly being reinforced through all this by a large number of highly superior troops. I don't know exactly how I pulled it off, but finally, after mauling through half of their soldiers, they started to rout. My general chased them across the bridge, amazing sight. They were routing, but a couple of their units were coming across the bridge (reinforcements had been waiting all this time, just to show how many men they had). They got bogged down in the mass of men, and couldn't move fast enough... My general hit them, and all hell broke lose. I think my general got around a thousand kills, with 40 men. He just plowed through all of them, it was insane. Once they killed A couple hundred in a matter of seconds, all the remaining enemy units routed. Huge victory, but that was my only standing army at the time, and most of it was completely destroyed.

[shadowarmy75]

A similar thing happened with me being the Brutii fighting three Greek half stacks. I came out with some silver troops.

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

i am playing as Spain for about 70 years now... (in game lol) and almost every battle i play with romans (and i win it) it becomes historical battle. they have such better forces i really have to do my best to defeat them... Spain worrior s are not even close to be as good as romans... i usuali rely on my strategy and on AI to make some crusial mistakes to lose his general, to let me get him from behind with cavalry, to break on eside and then help another ... but you see.. Julii is doomt lol... (cos of me) but bruttii has the biggest army, Scipii has most lands (they both have about the same population and money). what concerns me now is that Brutii hs collect anout 11 or 12 full stock armies in south Itally... they have gone to North now... against me i am afraid... ohhh, by the way i have Spain, France, Germany and part of the Itally. my spies say that army on the way and i dont really have anything to stop them... i already have about 20 historical battles on the map and soon we will see howmany more will it bee in the next few years. =)) welll.... anyway my lands are many ... both Scipii and Bruttii are way more powerfull for me to stop them easily... i also have almost 0 money (3000di each turn) and i dont really see the future... i will try to hold position and at the same time try to attack rome or one importat city so that army or at least part of the army will have to bo back to help or something...
wish me good luck, cos having fun is not a problem when having 50000 roman armies on the way to crush your kingdom =)) luckily for me i send spis in every dirrection of the world so i see most of roman movements toward me and i have fey turns for preparations. =)

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

ohh.. and i play on WH/WH ... RTW can be preety chalanging when playing a faction with nos so good army and bad economy.

[Shadows]

I remember my greatest victory ever. I was playing as the Scipii and attacking Egpyt's lands. I had massive force, 8 units of equites, my general with 72? men, 3 units of archers and 8 early legionary cohorts. The Egyptians attacked me with two full stcks, chariots, cavalry, arches, phalanxes, and more infantry. Thinking I was doomed to lose I set my troops up into a massive wedge shaped force, infantry on point with archers in the middle and cavalry flankig the enemy's line. By some grace of the Gods the enmys other stack was delayed, and that delay let me have time to deal with the first army. Taking heavy casualties becsue of the egyptian chariots I slowly defeated them, one unite at a time untill the were gone, dirven off the field of battle. Thinking I had won, I relaxed and looked away, BAM, suddenly the other army arrived and fillde my screen with gold colored Egyptians. I had driven the first army into a valley like region and my force was now in the middle, on the lowest ground around. The Egyptian army was swarming over the ridgeline and heading staright for me in a single line. I thgought again that it was over. So I order a cavalry charge into the middle of the line, hoping to kill their general befor e I lost. well the flanks of their army rolled in, trapping my cavalry, but allowing my infantry to stirke at the rear of the flanking Egyptians. Chaos insued and half yunits routed off the field. Others were eliminated, but in the end I killed the enemy general and drove the Egyptians off the field. A Heroic victory, but slightly pyhirric as the next turn another stack attacked me and ended my army.

[General4Hire]

what difficulties are you playing on guys? lol...nobody ever mentions this and it's extremely relevant...

p.s. I want to also add that it sounds like the OP (original poster, thread starter...etc) is playing on a 1.2 vanilla version. Just sounds that way by the way he describes the horrid ai, the quick routing, the fact that he can beat desert axeman with town watch, and the fact that the enemy actually send their general into a seiged wall first.

just mentioning this in case maybe he is...and is just unaware of the new patches? Just trying to be semi helpful heh...

and oh...i do see the mention of difficulty in one of the posts up top..but still, in almost all of the threads on here nobody mentions it...back in the day that was the first thing people stated so that it would give people a kind of "mental starting point" when following the story of what happened.

I do want to add also (after reading even more of the thread heh) that some of you playing on very hard sound like you have absolutely amazing campaigns as well as battles. Whoever mentioned being spain and basically being at war with ALL of the Roman Empire, that's awesome. Good luck on that campaign.

[Shadows]

@ General4Hire- in this thread the difficulty isn't of much importantance, just hearing about the great battle stories is what its about. Sometimes difficulties don't always make the battle harder or easier.Besides, with all the mods changing unit stats and such, you can play on VH/VH with a mod that actually makes it easier than a vanilla VH/VH battle. The battle I described here was on M/M but the fact that I defeat two armies was the brilliant part .You can fight on any difficulty and have serious problems with a battle. In this particular battle, I happened to get very lucky and thats what made it brillant. IT wasn't made any more or less brillant because I had a certain difficulty setting.

[General4Hire]

@ General4Hire- in this thread the difficulty isn't of much importantance, just hearing about the great battle stories is what its about. Sometimes difficulties don't always make the battle harder or easier.Besides, with all the mods changing unit stats and such, you can play on VH/VH with a mod that actually makes it easier than a vanilla VH/VH battle. The battle I described here was on M/M but the fact that I defeat two armies was the brilliant part .You can fight on any difficulty and have serious problems with a battle. In this particular battle, I happened to get very lucky and thats what made it brillant. IT wasn't made any more or less brillant because I had a certain difficulty setting.

hey I know what you mean man, and you bring up excellent points about the mods effecting difficulty so someone just saying "h/h" is a large umbrella...however, again, it's not about being "more brilliant" and I didn't say that. By telling us what mod you're using and what difficulties, we can associate more accurately with your tales of heroism. It just paints a clearer picture...

apologies if the impression was that I was stating pretty much "don't count unless it's on hard/vh" ..not at all.

[Scarecrow]

If u look for the thred called great campanies u can post ur stories and read others.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Well I had a funny custom battle as Pontus most of my army was of Eastern Infantry with and my allies had some german axemen, night raiders and women. Not a full stack of germans but I defeated a force of over 12 legionary cohorts + 1 Praetorian Cohort, Legionary Cavalry and Archers. I was defending a town, and most of my armies routed straight away creating chaos and confusion in my rear but the romans got tired and reduced their efectiveness. After fighting with the germans there were only the praetorian cohort and some legionary cohorts, so I attacked and they fled in panic from my Eastern Infantry.

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

hehe... here is an interesting storry for you guys.
it wasnt my victory at all on the battlefeald, but considering that vinning is not everything i have won the war but not the battle.
i play VH/VH
i was playing as Spain and was in war with all factions i knew. it was year 190 BC or something like that. romans have already have that military reform and had much better army then i had. so i wanted to attack julii with my 2 full stock armies on his capital city. NP. i had my 2 best armies rdy in about 3 years and have attack julii capital.
he had a full stock army in it also... lol. but before siges were there for less then 1 turn SPQR came there to help Julii with another 1 full stock army lololol... i think romans had there 4 or maybe 5 family members. and Julii had a king and 1 more family member in his capital. (6 or 7 roman generals in that battle). then SPQR attacked one of my 2 armies and i fight that battle. we both have support of the other full stuck army. so---> 4 full stock armies on 1 battle, 3 my generals vs 7 roman generals and a much better roman army against my Spin (poooor armys lol).
Spqr was in the middle of that map and my army soon sourounded him and kill 3 or 4 his generals (i know this cos only 1 survived that battle in his army) i won with no problem but then Julii came to help him and crush my second army and my army ... i was amazed how easy was for the Julii to make my units (most of them vere silver or gold) run with his (mostly silver or bronze) preatorian units and legionars. i lost battle but 2 my generals lived on ... wile romans have lost most of them and lost a huge army that they never could recrute before i could. then in the next 2 turns i had 1 full stock army and attack his capital and no romans were there to help him =) i got it the nest turn and killed about 34000 population lol...
now ... i know it was my victory on that battlefeald, but what my point is i won the war and i consider this defeat only a start of roman failour. what i mean is = i have broken roman forces althou i lost battle and made a lot of damage to their army. that was the biggest battle against AI i have ever had and though i lost i was still the victor in the end. =)

[Slug For A Butt]

Shadows, I think you have a point. difficulty isn't what it's about. It's about winning when you think all is lost irrespective of difficulty level. It's about a split second decision that proves your judgement correct. It's about winning a game of chess on the field with half your pawns missing. Mind you, I think hellheaven1987 has the wrong idea about a brilliant victory.

I had wall! The Egytian attacked me when they only had one ram! So they could just ran around the wall before they broke part of my wall. The AI showed their stupid during the siege. They kept walking around the wall and let the arrow killed them before they could enter, and their general got kill by the arrow too! But in the end they still broke the wall... but there were only two unites came in! Didn't know what the hell they were thinking... so I just simply defeated the two units with my all town watch and watched the rest of enemy left

Doesn't sound too brilliant to me, he just let the walls kill them. Same with his second example. No tactics, just let the walls kill the AI. Yawn! What brilliant Generals decisions did he make? None.
Got to say, the third doesn't sound too impressive either. Maybe if it was in the context of a full stack battle. But not in the context of a skirmish, which it obviously was. General unit should beat 1 axe and 2 archers, so that just leaves your other General to tie the enemy general up until you have finished the infantry.


I've got to say, there are more inspiring stories here thean the Thread originators.

[hellheaven1987]

Well, I just got a brilliant victory last Friday. I used four generals, which not more than 80 men, to fight 10 units of British force. The enemy force got chosen swordman 2 units, head hurlers 3 units, archer chariot 1 unit, one general and rest were warbands. Fortunately for me was there were just two warbands infront of me at first. Others were just reinforce. All of them were full strength. I had fought for 20 minutes for the battle. At first, I finished the two warbands before reinforce arrived, then I charge all my generals to enemy's general, which killed him after 5 seconds. Then I order all my generals went back of the enemy force then charge. I won the battle after a hard fight and one of my general badyguard got one gold bar from nothing! Unfortunately one of my general died (the one got gold bar...) and most of my cavalary were died (every generals only got not more than 5 men left, one unit even just left one man.).