Do you consider repeated charges to be an exploit?

[Nad]

So in my Pontos game I've caused a bit of a stir on the OTF2 forums by the way I won a siege defence.

The situation in a nutshell was as follows: we were besieged by the Seleucids and when it came to the battle, their allies the Ptolemaioi(!), also had a stack next to our city. So we had a very difficult siege defence from both sides of the city. And our few infantry units got absolutely trounced on the walls and at the gate, leaving just our 2 generals against massive numbers of opponents.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Our generals retreated to the plaza and we resorted to charging individual AI units from two flanks. Repeatedly. We kept running around, trying to isolate individual units, and then charging them until they broke. Here's an example.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And we did this over and over again, until, by some miracle, we actually defeated all the AI infantry units .

Now I was pretty pleased at such a miraculous victory from the jaws of defeat but a lot of people have decried it, saying it was an exploitation of AI units running around in the plaza. And that I should have accepted the loss of the city instead of resorting to this kind of tactic.

So what's your view on this? Is it ok to isolate and charge individual units in this way, or is it an exploit that should not be used?

[Grimmy]

Nope. Not an exploit.

You fought to the bitter end, like a warrior should, and against all odds, defeated a giahugic enemy army.

Songs should be sung...

[Petite Wolf]

I don't think it's an exploit at all. This is the kind of battle that I love having in Total War games. Huge odds against me, almost no chance to win, yet still somehow pulling a victory out. And if not that then fighting to the bitter end and doing as much damage as possible. That battle would give SO much AAR material. Not just the battle but possible events after, like some kind of celebration honouring the heroes of whichever city that was.

[Nad]

Yeah, that was exactly how I felt! Of course I expected to lose, my intent was to take as many of the enemy units with me as possible. And to kill the Seleucid general, which we did very quickly .

I am writing all this in an AAR, and I wrote a very long description of that battle and took silly numbers of screenshots. I haven't played past it yet, and you're right - a celebration honouring those heroes is definitely in order! The link to the AAR is as I posted in the empires thread: http://www.otf2.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=14973 . You have to register to view the forums and the pages might take a couple of minutes to load up because of the crazy numbers of pictures (sorry :p).

[Petite Wolf]

It actually reminds me of a battle a ways back with the Koinon Hellenon. I was holding Sardis with a tiny force against a full Seleucid stack and somehow managed to win. In fact, I think I posted some screenshots in the screenshot thread of it.

Yep! I did! Right here!

It isn't as awesome a defense as yours, but it was cool nonetheless.

[Nad]

Wow, that was a good defence. The carnage and the number of bodies! You had some pretty good troops though, never give up hope when you have distinguished and heavy hoplites

[Frtigern]

Your generals get tired too, so you lose the kind of advantage they would get if they were fresh. It looks like you lost nearly every bodyguard. Its surprising one of your generals didn't die. You have to remember that the Pontic Heavy Cavalry were the knights of their day. Noble kinsmen and picked retainers of landed wealth who had the money and time to train and equip themselves in such a fashion. It's like if the rich today paid for their own main battle tanks and trained for war in them every day. They have a vested interest in winning a battle because defeat would mean the end of their comfortable existence at the top of the social ladder. Men of influence and power. Their death could mean the end of their city or country. So their motivation above your typical conscripted foot soldier.

[Nad]

Indeed, the bodyguards took a pounding. These were the battle stats.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Between them the bodyguards lost 45 men and killed 620, which is a kill ratio of 13.7. You can tell from the amount of experience they gained that the kills were all "real", since routers don't give that kind of experience. And yeah, they were exhausted for the entire battle on the plaza . Poor horses...

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

It is an impressive victory - no question about that.

But yes, I'd say it was an exploit. The AI is too dumb to keep its units in close formation, and you picked them off one by one. Against a human opponent, even a complete novice to R:TW, that never would have worked - you might have got the first one or two units that way, but then the opponent would have learned from his mistake.

Also, such close, precise coordination between two groups of cavalry is quite unlikely IRL - they didn't have radio communications in ancient times after all, and there's only so much you can do with flag-wagging and horn-blowing.

Finally, in my EB games, once my cavalry are exhausted, I either halt them to rest if they are in the clear, or leave them to fight it out if they are bogged down in melee. 'Exhausted' means, in my personal house rules, too exhausted to attack or pursue, but not too exhausted to retreat and withdraw from the battlefield, or stand in place and fight to the death.

[Bladvak]

Repeated charges is not an exploit even with dumb AI moves, imho.

If you want to know an exploit, read this:

Seleukids vs Baktria, relatively early on (40 turns maybe?)

Baktria attacked my eastern provinces out of nowhere. However, Baktria was still occupied with Saka up north, so I decided to lay siege to its capital. I had about 4-5 units and I built ladders. The garrison was better than my army, so they sallied. However, the cunning general that I am, decided that this is a battle that must be won by every means necessary. So I baited the garrison with 2 units, sent 2 infantry units with ladders to climb the walls from either side of the gates. The enemy sallied in full force, my units down kept them busy enough for the other units to reach and climb the wall and then conquer the gateway.

Once my army was in control of the gateway, the enemy garrison tried to get back into the city. I never knew that units running can be so much fun! The garrison was running outside the walls, whereas my units were running on the walls, conquering towers and gateways with only seconds to spare. Once I conquered all the 4 gateways and the enemy did not have an easy way to get back inside, I won by time.

Exploit? Yes. Repeated charges? Not an exploit.