Best. Biggest. Battle. Ever. Period. (11000 vs. 4000) *screens inside*

[Barbarian-Bob]

I think this is the biggest and best battle I have ever had in TW, I'm sorry, but I just HAD to put this up it was so awesome lol.

I'm holding the bridge east of Memphis, and I've done so for quite a while, and the AI's full stacks are hanging around but never attack. Anyway, all of a sudden 3 (!) full stacks attack my bridge, one of them with a few elephants.

Their forces:
Loads and loads of pharaoh units, a few axemen and elephants, totaling to more than 11000 soldiers put together. I play with unlimited men on the battlefield so that the AI can have more men, but not me, so all 11000 came at me at the same time.

My forces:
Kick-ass general Marcus Carausius, 1 unit of 66 praetorians, 4 sword auxilia, 6 archer auxilia, 5 onagers (gotta love those babies in bridge battles), 3 scorpions
+
a full stack of pre-marian legionaires and numidian ones (most of them never entered battle, and I never used those that did, or this battle wouldn't be anything special)
Adding up to about 4000

11000 vs. 4000 hmm.... :hmmm:

Result? Well, see for yourselves:







Anyway, I won't bore you with the details, though I can if someone specifically asks for it. Suffice to say that a few elephants didn't like the smell of burned Egyptian flesh



A few more screenshots to prove it. Lol thank god i remembered to turn off anti-aliasing:


Here the ai is just really dumb for some reason. He lets me throw pilums at him.





I wouldn't want to be at the bottom there





The tattered remains of the Epgyptian army fleeing the battlefield


Marcus inspecting the carnage


Egypt-side of bridge



Anyway, this isn't a "oh, look at me i'm so good"-post, and I'm sorry if someone perceived it that way, but I just couldn't resist. I suppose we can think of it as some sort of tribute to LT for his excellent modding!

Anyone else had these kinds of battles?

[Servius Aquilius]

That is epic!! I haven't had such a large battle before. Even with SPQR installed, I think the most I ever had was like 8500 or so. And thats playing the Romans against the Gauls who field full stacks like they're nothing.

[CrazedClown]

WOW. I fear for your computers will to live.

[Sétanta]

My god. I need to get back to playing RTW again just for this

[Eric]

Sweet Mary Mother of God! I wish I had a computer that could have battles like that. Either you had outrageous lag, or your comp is a beast.

[Barbarian-Bob]

Sorry to disappoint you, but I only have a mid range comp amd64 3500+, geforce7800gs that sort of thing.

And yes, it lagged like hell in the beginning. Actually, I crashed when I first tried to start the battle with normal settings, so I set everything to low except resolution. Then it still lagged, but it would at least play, and it got better as more men got killed. In the end, it was pretty normal performance actually, mind you, I had set everything to low. :original:

[Caius Britannicus]

Lots of men but it was a bridge battle. With the amount of men you had (4000+) and 6 units of archers its not surprising you won even when out numbered almost 3 to 1. But on a side note what was the lag like. Bridge battles are always laggy with even a few people. With 15,000 it was of been a slide show.

[Barbarian-Bob]

Lots of men but it was a bridge battle. With the amount of men you had (4000+) and 6 units of archers its not surprising you won even when out numbered almost 3 to 1. But on a side note what was the lag like. Bridge battles are always laggy with even a few people. With 15,000 it was of been a slide show.

That would have been true had I been fighting barbarians. Like I said, he had almost only pharaoh units, and they can't be touched in a million years by arrows, so most of my archer auxilias were useless in the battle. The siege engines did definately most of the killing. On a sidenote, the sword auxilia only have high kills because of routing units. See the screenie.

I do agree though. Bridge battles are too easy, that's why we have house rules, eh?
But with the loads and loads of Egyptians coming my way, I really needed to set up on a bridge, so...

[Caius Britannicus]

That would have been true had I been fighting barbarians. Like I said, he had almost only pharaoh units, and they can't be touched in a million years by arrows, so most of my archer auxilias were useless in the battle. The siege engines did definately most of the killing. On a sidenote, the sword auxilia only have high kills because of routing units. See the screenie.

I do agree though. Bridge battles are too easy, that's why we have house rules, eh?
But with the loads and loads of Egyptians coming my way, I really needed to set up on a bridge, so...

Indeed with 11,000 men coming at you there was little chance you could have won on an open field, the AI is bad but with a 3 to 1 advantage it can win pretty much everytime. Though you would probably have made him pay for his attack.

[mitrandil20]

go here please....
http://freeforumzone.leonardo.it/vie...42923&idd=6679

23000 deads....it's in italian but you have only to see pics...

[Barbarian-Bob]

go here please....
http://freeforumzone.leonardo.it/vie...42923&idd=6679

23000 deads....it's in italian but you have only to see pics...

Meh, that's custom battle. They don't count lol.

Just Kidding. That's a pretty huge battle there, it's pretty damn fun when you can push the envelope alittle! :original:

[Siddyus]

lol, I have a mid-range computer but ive never tried that ever for I fear my computer might burst into flames while I am fighting such a colossal battle! Great pics BTW.

[Hadrian]

Thats a cool battle and well posted, B-B! Love the pics with the post....
House rules or not, sometimes you have to hold the bridges! I've killed 113,000+ Gauls holding the bridges in northern Italy and if I didn't, I'd have been overrun long ago! What, 12 to 16,000 Gauls every 2 turns or so....no way I stop 'em unless I'm on the bridges....

I'm playing on H/H, what difficulty are you playing on B-B? Also, what turn are you in?

[lt1956]

Thats the key Campaign on Hard and VH will produce massive attacks from the AI, I actually prefer medium most of the time, but Hard is ok once in a while. I never play anything but medium on unit difficulty since I balanced it for medium.

For those not keeping up, Caius has a neat new mod called The Crusades, its a really winner when its out based off the kingdom of heaven movie. looking forward to that mod Caius. ;-)

Lt

[Altimis]

Wow, heroic victory! great bloodbath [look like u kill them one-sided :lol]

question please, about hardware.

U ever try to play "5 player"? I doubt, it will more"laggy"? I don't know where my point..."too much trooper?" or "too much CPU player?" >< arghh...who ever play "5 player?" someone please tell me.

[Barbarian-Bob]

First, thanks for positive comments. I know it's just a game, but I actually felt really proud lol.

I'm playing m/m, and my version is 6.0. I don't know if that makes it any easier or harder, it's just that I didn't want to start a whole new campaign for 6.1, as I've gotten so far. :original:

It's 179bc and I own everything from the Iberian peninsula and Britannia in the west, to tylis, the city north of byzantium in the east, from Norway in the north, to Egypt in the south. My borders mostly follow rivers, but I plan on pushing into Asia-minor soon, and I'm not really looking forward to it because of horse-archers (god, they're so annoying!) This battle was mostly a result of me just hanging in until I'm strong enough to push further into Sinai, Jerusalem etc.
Also, I have 2 million denarii. Yeah, yeah, I must've blitzed, but the progress felt natural at the time. Anyway, it was fun, and that's the most important thing, eh?

@ Altimis
I would imagine that the cpu would struggle more with more men than with more players, though it is a good question. I honestly don't know, so don't take my word for it.


PS: If you look at the top pic, the one where I'm throwing pilums at the enemy... WHY is it that the AI shuts down on this map? I didn't notice it much in this battle, but when a single army is attacking, they often just sit there, and this only happens on THIS bridge with Egypt and it's really annoying. It seems like the Ai just puts them into guard formation and shuts down.

One could argue that it is smart by the comp, that he forces ME to attack, but if I had a time limit, he would lose every time, and in addition, it's pretty unfair that a computer just sits there, when computers obviously don't get tired, lose patience and attack anyway. I mean, you might as well ATTACK the bridge when he does that, because you lose the whole advantage of defending.

So any solution to this?

[The Black Reaper]

i should try to turn all of the graphics down so i can try to do a 24000 battle on my pc....

[Holger Danske]

I had a battle in MTW.. Byzantines vs Golden Horde... they stormed me with a 40.000 men army... 40.000!!!!!! And I only had one single full army (5000)with a couple of Varangians. Most awesome battle ever!! I positioned the army at a far corner and waited for the enemy to aproach me, then popped them full of bolts from my elite crossbowmen. They took alot of casualties and then routed.. So I charged forward in hope of routing the entire army.. But they kept coming and coming (just like they did irl) after 1hour of brutal fighting I only had my general, a full unite of varangians, ands some light support units.. Fought to the last man inside a forest with Mongol heavy cavalry coming in at me from every angle.. Man I hope the varangians in MIITW will be as awesome!... Seriously I have never seen one unit fight with such brutality... Spartans go home!!

Yes I lost the battle, but I took some 10-15k mongols with me.. after that they had taken all of my steppe settlements, they turned on the turks and nearly killed them, before they where decimated by 2-3 elite armies I had raized to counter their invasion..

Most awesome campaign ever...

[lt1956]

The AI for the Battlemap and the Campaign map are different. So the campaign AI may attack you, but IF you outnumber or equal in strength they Battlefield AI may just WAIT for you to come to them. Really its actually Smart because you will take more casualties attacking them. lol Also on Bridge Battles if the AI has Archers sometimes they will not Cross untill you kill THEIR archers. But overall its smarter AI to me, even if its a bug, because who would just KEEP crossing a bridge getting slaughtered, a human player would stop that BS fast. lol

Also Playing 6.0 on Medium is Harder than in 6.1 so you are really playing H/M for 6.1

Lt

[Arcarius]

not suprising you won, its a bridge battle.