Most ridiculously outnumbered battle you've won?

[Zopharr]

So obviously there's many times when a small band of good troops can beat a much larger number... if you've ever played as Lithuania on the Teutonic Order campaign and won, then certainly you've won your fair share of 150 v 1000+'s.

I'm sure there's some awesome screenshots out there of that moment when you just jumped out of your chair and said "HOLY MOTHER OF HERESY, I WON!!!"

... so share them!



While this is a terrible way to start the thread, this is where the idea came from:

Brand new Khwarezmian VH/VH campaign... just took one of the first rebel bases, and had 6 troops left over from one of those elite Khwarezmian Noblemen that I recruited on the very first turn. I was going to disband it because with 6 troops its practically useless.... or so I thought.

Decided to instead just send it on a suicide mission kill a troop or two of the nearby rebel army consisting of entirely spearmen. Apparently, the 6 cavalry were named Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee, Steven Seagal, Brock Lesnar, Anderson Silva, and Jet Li.




I was SO CLOSE to pulling it off! Down to the last 20 units of the final group, and the lone remaining soldier (the captain, of course) had just polished off 30 men by himself through charging and retreating over and over again... but alas, he finally became exhausted, and right as the wavering enemy was about to rout, he was struck down. If it wasn't on very hard, I definitely would've had it =)

[Paragon]

This is what happens when your enemies are peasants.

I guess the hardest I can imagine is winning outnumbered 4 or 5 to one though.

[Zopharr]

Well yeah, it was like... the 5th turn of the game. I just thought it was funny cause the game gave me a 1:40 ratio of power, and I came within an inch of winning... and it wasn't with a general.

I'd say legitimately I've gotten a few 1:10's but never thought to take a screenshot, and they generally were small battles. On the vanilla TO campaign I won a 1:27 or something ratio with Lithuania of 120 troops vs over 1000, but it was mainly because I charged out of the castle with a dievas guard and directly into the general's unit from the side, killing him while they all marched in their weird straight line. Then the oil routed every unit one at a time cause i shoved all my units into the doorway on guard mode lol

SS makes that type of thing impossible though (esp. on VH), so I was wondering how crazy people got =P

[Zanze]

Won a 400 vs 4000 as Aragon before. Spain betrayed me with a sneak attack on Valencia. I had 2 Javelinmen, 2 Alforrats, and a single unit of spear militia. I said screw the walls and held the town center and put my alforrats in some random spot in town so they wouldn't get targetted. (Was being attacked from both gates so I couldn't send them outside to harass even if I wanted to)

In the end, both armies arrived at the town square about the same time and ignored my cav. They crashed into spearman and javelins began throwing down at them from the slight hills around the flags. Alforrats came in and rotated charges into their backlines(which were made of xbows and javmen and not spearmen thank god). My javmen ran out of ammo, so I ordered the one more to the side to T-bone the enemy as they fought the last 10-20 spearmen and the other group to reinfoce the spearmen. The side-charge killed one of the captains and the front half broke and began to run. Another alforrat charge hit the back and 90% of the other stack broke to run except the one unit of armored troops they had. Some light swordsman or something, but they broke too with another charge.

A single archer made it out of the castle due to cavalry having a hard time deciding who gets to kill it. He later died in the field. =D


Also, I've pulled King vs Rebel Garrison a few times. Too cheap so I stopped. Is funny tho =D

[Duck of Death]

Dont have a screenshot, but I recall sending an old King by himself out to face a half stack of rebels. My plan was to take out as many of them as possible before he got swarmed and died.

It was about 1000 enemies (couple archers, couple horse, and the rest spearmen) against my 40 Kings guard.

About midway through I realized half the rebels were dead and I still had 20 horse left. So I just keopt charging, retreating, outmaneuvering them to hit them from the side, and finally won the battle with 2 horses left.

PLUS my King died near the end.... so I got the heroic victory plus accomplished my original goal

[Zopharr]

Yeah, using the king against the rebels is just plain mean, it's like watching a super hero go rogue lol

Whenever I see rebel armies in the field, I always go after them with less than what they have, just because I like aiming for heroic victories (for the generals they usually produce). It's funny how a 2000 v 3000 battle can be over in 5 minutes but itll take me 30 minutes to kill 4 spearmen units because I insist on trying to win it with one horse archer =P

[Zopharr]

But 400 vs 4000 is pretty fricken sick. When I did the Lith campaign on VH, I took almost every unit out of every town the first turn and rushed them to the capital, and just left like 2-4 crap units in each to collect money while i waited for the TO to take them... turns out by being cheap as hell (and the fact that with such small garrisons they werent sending their whole force against them), the lith units are RIDICULOUSLY good at just guarding the door while it pours oil. Good ol' frighten enemies perk


I never would've tried defending the center heh, only advantage I can see that it gives is 0 chance of routing, but against 4000 you'd think it wouldnt matter

[Karthago]

Well, it was stupid (or I had an insanely pro moment, that has never happened again), but so hilarious and I thought it was over before it even began. It was with vanilla Medieval 2, so I don't know if it counts. But I think it is worth sharing. When this happened, I was just on normal difficulty...since that is how I usually start out in games. Not like difficulty matters in battles, the AI doesn't change as far as I'm aware. This was a while back.

1000 enemies (yes 1000), mostly melee...against my one unit of cavalry. I think it only had 50 men in it and it was a general unit. However, I DID have a couple units of archers and a spearman unit. They did take out some enemies. But they died really quick. So all I was left was my one unit of cavalry and still a little over 1000 enemy troops.

So. I repeatedly charged at them and pulled back. I did this repeatedly, over and over and over.

around 30 cavalry left...and the enemy defeated. It was a heroic victory. The enemy archers were the only ones who killed any of my cavalry...but I routed all of them rather quick. And the enemy melee units didn't do anything against my charge and pull back technique. I should also add, the enemy still had a lot left...but all of them routed, lol.

[RollingWave]

Mine was beating a Crusade against Vilinus where my 1 full stack defending the city faced off against *9* full stacks at the same time, including 3 kings and the pope! .

Of coruse, the Stake at teh gate of doom did it's magic, and all the nobles of Europe stupidly impaled themself on the stake

I won losing about half my numbers, the enemy stacks were almost all completely destroyed. most of the casualty must have came at the stake and gate oil though (followed by towers)

[fumle]

Mine was as the mongols, even though i know cav-armies against AI is like auto-win-mode it was still a bit suprising to kill 10.000 men and lose 400 in a open battle, when the enemy was consisting of alot elite-units.

/Fumle

[Zopharr]

I like how every one of your cav has 2-3 gold stripes lol

"I went into the battle a rookie... and I emerged a GOD AMONG MEN!!!


... with PTSD"

[Jaymax]

I like how every one of your cav has 2-3 gold stripes lol

"I went into the battle a rookie... and I emerged a GOD AMONG MEN!!!


... with PTSD"

I laughed at that more than I should have.

[Paragon]

I like how every one of your cav has 2-3 gold stripes lol

"I went into the battle a rookie... and I emerged a GOD AMONG MEN!!!


... with PTSD"

hahahaha +rep

[TheRomanRuler]

Enemy had 5 stack against mine 15 or 16 units.
Open field. I remember putting all my heavy inf (or spearmen, cant remember) at front, medium cav, archers, militia to cover backs and flanking units. So bit like phalanx tactic from RTW. I tough i would gonna lose battle, so i just made some random formation, and it worked! All clory to my heavy inf, who hold the ground. I think i was playing as France(?)

[Logios]

So obviously there's many times when a small band of good troops can beat a much larger number... if you've ever played as Lithuania on the Teutonic Order campaign and won, then certainly you've won your fair share of 150 v 1000+'s.

I mostly play Lithuania, but it is against Novgorod I have the most HV. They have a habit of spamming huge armies of Novgorodian juniors that can be charged and routed unit after unit by the royal bodyguards.
"The enemies are utterly vanquished!"

[Zopharr]

Lithuania is definitely my favorite faction to play just because of their ridiculous potential with the right combination of units. Novgorod and Kiev loooove to just spam junior militias by the billions when things start going sour, which are just plan fodder for a few lith cavalry. The jav throwers and the frighten infantry cav can make short work of 10x their numbers, and those lith missle cav just beg for heroic victories against almost any rebel army

[Mr.Lannister]

Mine was 9 vs 185 (I was england, my enemy Norway)

Well, i had a good commander, but he was getting old and i decided that he deserves a heroic death, i sent him into the enemy territory and found a small army, i attacked them, expecting to lose, but still made effort to win, i avoided their spearmen making my way to kill their commander, then my men received fire from their norse archers, and so they were my greatest danger, i charged at them, retreated, charge, untill they died

After that i killed the commander and charged at the spearmen, after that the enemy routed, only 3 of those 9 survived, my general was one of those that managed to survive.

[Vespasian92]

From vanilla I think, but w/e.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Ichon]

For me the greatest victories by low numbers killing high numbers have always happened with those old generals sent to a glorious death... and occasionally when HA sent to reinforce an army is ambushed but more funny is when sometimes the old generals just don't die even when fighting over a 1,000.

Personally the victories I value more but definitely don't look as good are when manage to kill several armies full of elite units with just an average single army. Often its a Close Victory or sometimes HV but since those battles are not guaranteed wins nor won by repeated cavalry charges it feels more of an accomplishment.

The 2 most difficult battles where I felt sure to lose were 1st with a very damaged army not quite in range for reinforcements to arrive attacked by 2 Sicilian armies with 16 heavy cavalry between them and only 2 in my army. Forests, ambush, luck, and yes- repeated charges at the end with the 6 surviving cavalrymen won that battle with only 18 survivors. 2nd was as Portugal attempting to go on Crusade- hit twice in 1 turn by pirates forced my fleet when it was almost arrived at Egypt way down the coast- decided to try to march from Libya through Egypt instead... after 2-3 battles on the way by land finally get to the Crusade target and my ally HRE is laying siege when 5 stacks of enemy attack, ended up capturing the city when the garrison sallied and with desperate odds vs my depleted army and heroic resistance by HRE the battle was won with about a dozen HRE left alive, my general by himself, and some archers. It was a late campaign so this Crusade occurred in late 1300s when Egypt is starting to get better roster so it wasn't the same as an early era Crusade battle, I really wasn't sure if it would be possible to win even 3 minutes before the end of the battle.

[Judeman266]

Like Ichon, said I usually send my old kings and fm/generals to face a glorious death. Once I had 5 old generals that I wanted gone and there was a Moorish invasion coming into Iberia. This was in late campaign, around 1370s when the Moors start to get their best troops too. I sped them south and they took out 3 stacks before I turned back with my prince who became king. I managed to kill the old king and generals, destroy a few stacks, and get my king some battle experience.