Confessions...

**VikingOfSixth** · March 11, 2012, 01:19 PM

Spending enough time on the forums would have you believe that the enemy AI are entirely incapable of ever achieving a victory and that heroic victories are guaranteed for human players. Surely I am not the only one who has suffered a defeat in the campaign? So come on now share your shameful confessions of defeat rather than your numerous glorious victories.

In one of my Scipii campaigns (VH/VH) I decided to camp Sicily until the marian reforms in order to allow the AI time enough to develop armies and an empire worth conquering. By mid-game Britannia and and Spain had formed a powerful alliance and had checked Roman expansion in Europe just west of the Alps. At this time I had been focusing on expanding my empire in Sparta, Athens, Byzantium, and Rhodes. Seeing the opportunity to seize Spain (after all they and Britannia were nothing but barbarian rabble) I sent one stack of units to their coastline. To my surprise I was quickly met by barbarians forces that outnumbered me 2-1 and sent me back to Sicily with a shameful defeat. I tried again a second time and found myself routed again because of superior numbers and a mass of enemy heavy cavalry and chariots that broke my line. On my third try I had sent one of my more experienced legions which managed to slaughter the Spanish along the coastline but I was forced to retreat because of overwhelming stacks headed my way. At this time my capital had been moved to Byzantium and the Spanish campaign had to be abandoned for my wars in Asia.

**Punic Hoplite** · March 11, 2012, 02:37 PM

The first campaign I played in RTR 1.6, was as the Seleucids. I gathered an army of pikemen, elephants and cavalry and decided to conquer the Levant, though this is many turns from the start of the campaign fyi. So my army marched on the Levant, defeated many armies, took cities, waited for reinforcements to replenish my casualties, and resumed.

Then I went up against two Egyptian (Ptolmies) armies, in which the hill was mine, and the bottom of said hill, theirs. I managed to defeat the first army before the two joined up, but I somehow didn't see the large cavalry force that was moving on my flank. I decided to move my elephants (closest cavalry in the area) and my general to counter this move while my other cavalry was chasing the routing army, and my infantry were reforming. Then my hasty covering force counter-charged their cavalry, in the ensuing melee, my general (10 stars) died. This caused the rest of my army, who was by now engaging the other Egyptian army, to lose heart, and the center fled. Also at this time, my elephants went amuk, killing many enemy as well as some friends as I had sent some reinforcements to the cavalry battle. Now, with my flank exposed, the center gone, I knew I couldn't win and withdrew whatever cavalry I had left, as my army was crushed from all sides.

I basically had to abandon my recent gains in order to regroup from the defeat. I wouldn't try another Egyptian Expedition until after I had conquered Asia Minor and Armenia.

**The Spanish Inquisition** · March 12, 2012, 03:25 PM

I was Numidia and was marching a full stack to take Carthage (quite early in the campaign), I met a full Carthaginian stack on the way and was winning until a dying elephant fell on my General/Faction leader, causing my entire army to rout and be wiped out. Their stack then went on to take my lightly defended capital. It took me ages to recover from that.

**Runite** · March 12, 2012, 04:27 PM

I do add_population "City Name" 10000.

Yeah, causes some

of revolts, I pretty much wiped out SPQR with that.

**Chris Death** · March 15, 2012, 05:28 PM

Originally Posted by Runite

I do add_population "City Name" 10000.

Yeah, causes some

of revolts, I pretty much wiped out SPQR with that.

Did you ever check a settlements population increase after adding you 10000?

You might find out that 5000 (or maybe i'm wrong and it's even only 4000) is the
maximum each time you enter that command.

~S~ CD

**LD1977** · March 12, 2012, 08:09 PM

My personal best was when I was Scipii and nailed Carthage as usual, then took a well balanced army into Numidian territory. They were led by Quintus Scipii.

I met a Numidian army which was packed full with their skirmisher troops, attacked them and then got brutally owned by the more mobile force with peppered my slow troops with thousands of javelins. Quintus and a handful of his bodyguards were pretty much the only survivors of the shameful debacle. Then I gave him an army filled with Equites and the mobile force went back after several years of preparation and returned the favor

**Bonez** · March 12, 2012, 09:10 PM

Nice LD, currently I have no confessions as I have never lost a battle that wasn't lost before I started...

**ccgr1121** · March 13, 2012, 01:02 PM

Originally Posted by bonez899

Nice LD, currently I have no confessions as I have never lost a battle that wasn't lost before I started...

That's what I thought, until I fried my 10*-at-everything 25 year old faction leader from a catapult

**Centurion.** · March 15, 2012, 08:20 AM

I was playing R:TW historically so did not go north of the Rhine with Rome on XGM, anyway on this one occasion I sent a Legion north of the Rhine to sack a city for some extra cash but on the way my Legion was ambushed by quite a large Germania stack and were routed.

Quite an embarrassing defeat for the Empire

**Bonez** · March 15, 2012, 08:48 AM

Originally Posted by Centurion.

I was playing R:TW historically so did not go north of the Rhine with Rome on XGM, anyway on this one occasion I sent a Legion north of the Rhine to sack a city for some extra cash but on the way my Legion was ambushed by quite a large Germania stack and were routed.

Quite an embarrassing defeat for the Empire

Isn't that rather close to what actually happened historically with Varus and the legions he lost?

**Centurion.** · March 15, 2012, 08:54 AM

Originally Posted by bonez899

Isn't that rather close to what actually happened historically with Varus and the legions he lost?

Now you mention it yes, I did not make the connection at first.

**Bonez** · March 15, 2012, 10:59 AM

Now just pretend the general was named Varus and wake up a night moaning, Varus, give me back my legions!

**Centurion.** · March 15, 2012, 12:54 PM

Originally Posted by bonez899

Now just pretend the general was named Varus and wake up a night moaning, Varus, give me back my legions!

While (as legend goes) repeatedly banging my head against a wall

**Primo** · March 15, 2012, 01:21 PM

Originally Posted by Centurion.

While (as legend goes) repeatedly banging my head against a wall

Varus woke up and banged your head against a wall?

**Centurion.** · March 15, 2012, 01:27 PM

Originally Posted by Nightmare Moon

Varus woke up and banged your head against a wall?

No, Augustus

**Primo** · March 15, 2012, 01:43 PM

Originally Posted by Centurion.

No, Augustus

Augustus banged your head against a wall?

Doesn´t make much more sense.

**Willowran** · March 15, 2012, 12:48 PM

I lose sometimes. Let me think... my most embarassing:

Defensive seige. I was macedon, against the green romans. Stone walls. I had 6 or so units of pikes, they had a vomit of legionarres and cavalry. that's ok, right? i mean, pikes in a defensive seige--what could be easier? They had spies in my settlement, my gates were open, so i stuck my pikes right at the main gate. As expected, the bruttii flood into my sharp pointy things after abandonning their seige equipment. Yay. easy victory, right?

Nope. Well, as it happens, one ladder-bearing unit did NOT abandon their ladders. "The enemies are at your walls with their seige ladders, repel them blahblahblah". click to send pikes to where the legionarres on my wall would climb out... but i had accidently clicked on a unit of pikes currently holding off the bruttii vomit. they lift their pikes...

disaster. my second line was poorly made (i didn't think i needed it). Routed in an instant. Clear defeat.

Another loss. I was carthage, assaulting scipii with 6 or so units of carthaginian spearmen (spear, not pike). the enemy had a single general. their gates were breached easily(their bugger was chillin in the center of the town). I start walking down the main street, taking my time and all that... then he decides to charge. all of my units are clumped together in a single narrow street. He hits...after a moment of fighting my entire army routes. Crushing defeat.

A third loss: Julii vs parthia. i had 15 units cataphracts and camel cataphracts, 5 units HA. the enemy had one full army mixed infantry. i hide all of my cataphracts in a single strand of trees, and run around sillily with my HA, luring the enemy forwards...past my horse...then i vomited steel into the back of my red-clad foes. Then i wheeled around with a godlike cavalry army and ran for the enemy general, and the three measly units thinking to guard it.

Oops. Hidden units. Didn't see them until too late. Ever try commanding a lot of cavalry to do something at the same time? half of my horse obeyed when i withdrew, the other half didn't. spread thin against a pile of legionarres, they were routed. i tried to make up for it with the other half, but they were all demoralised. my general tripped over his horse the first time he hit an enemy line. The rest of my cavalry didn't last long after that.

**Feather** · March 16, 2012, 05:05 AM

Originally Posted by Willowran

Another loss. I was carthage, assaulting scipii with 6 or so units of carthaginian spearmen (spear, not pike). the enemy had a single general. their gates were breached easily(their bugger was chillin in the center of the town). I start walking down the main street, taking my time and all that... then he decides to charge. all of my units are clumped together in a single narrow street. He hits...after a moment of fighting my entire army routes. Crushing defeat.

Something very similar happened to me. Only my failure was more within the epic scale.

I was playing the typical Julii campaign on H/H and had just finished suppressing the Gauls, Britons and Germans on the western end of the map when I decided to rush east to keep the Brutii from spreading towards the north.

The Brutii hadn't left much to conquer to the east though. The only cities left were those bordering with the Danube river and were currently held by Thrace. So I built up a quick force just large enough as to go through the lands without encountering too many setbacks and sent them over.
My army was composed of my faction heir, 4 units of equites, 8 units of Hastati and 3 units of Mercenary Warbands I'd picked up while on the move.

As I advanced I felt a huge relief when I learned that Byzalora was currently being defended by only 3 Thracian generals. I sent my army forth to siege the city, and as luck would have it, my spy had managed to open the gates. Nothing could stop me at that point.

Once in the siege I marched my units inside the gates and left my faction heir standing right outside of them. And it was right at that moment, that I felt like having a sandwich. So I did the STUPIDEST thing imaginable:
Confident in my large numerical advantage I sent everyone charging in towards the generals at the town center (All but my own general though. I didn't want him to die), while I left to go downstairs to make myself a sandwich.

When I returned and saw the results I was horrified. I had suffered a crushing defeat at the hand of only 3 Thracian generals. My losses went up over the 2,3k men with only a microscopical amount of survivors.
And as if that weren't terrible enough, I had somehow managed to lose my faction heir.

The outcome had left me so very traumatized that I Alt+F4'd the game, just to return a few minutes later and completely erase my entire campaign.

**Varus12** · March 18, 2012, 07:25 PM

I am trying to get world dormination on VH/VH with Julii. I cannot seem to get rid of the rebels. Once I put down the rebellions in spain, the whole Middle East starts revolting. Worst of all those revolts are either full stacks with Yutsebs elephants, mercenary elephants, chariots and gold/gold 9 xp(!!!!) generals, or its the bloody gladiator uprising with invincible gold/gold 9 xp(!!!!) gladiators and surprisingly tough peasants.
I am playing with rules: 1 gen max 4 cav(per army) and no cohorts

Seriously I have lost more units and full stacks against rebels than all the other factions combined.

**TankFodder** · March 19, 2012, 11:06 PM

Well, first off, I've never actually beaten a RTW campaign....
I blame it on my first experience. A coupla years ago, I bought RTW for cheap and installed it. I started a Julii M/M campaign, and went to work. I've always been a huge turtler by nature, so by turn 40 or so I still hadn't gone past the Alps. Suddenly, 4 full Macedonian armies come streaking over and attack, siege, and take Patavium. Patavium was my only huge city:it started the marian reforms, and had an urban barracks and armoury ready to go, and several urbans in the production lane. Do to fighting with gaul, it was also one of my most lightly defended cities. I looked over at greece, and saw, that the greeks were exterminated, and main greece was being completely conquered - by macedon. Brutii had been kicked out and macedon's hordes were coming over the alps into italy. unfortunately, I was in the way, so they gutted my fledgling nation like a fish. I've played multiplayer ever since.