HEROIC VICTORY!!!....but defeat??

[Neroic]

My forces defending my foothold in spain against a much larger army.

768 Romans squared of against a massive army of 2800 Iberians.
I had the advantage of wooden walls.

The battle commences, against all odds time after time I manage to repell waves of enemy soldiers.
One after the other the enemy routed, my armies morale got higher and higher of seeing the enemy routing and due to my great Generals encouragements.

It was a pretty sight seeing the enemy flee the battlefield, it was a very hard and long battle but it paid of in the end.

So I thought....the battletime was almost over and there was only 1 enemy platoon left in the town square.
I massed my remaining forces to eliminate the last platoon, then the time was over.

Expecting to see a heroic victory or at least a draw, I had killed 2600 of them and they killed only 300 of mine.
I had more forces left on the battlefield and they where inside the town.

But wft, I got a message stating close defeat!!!!
My remaining army lost including the great General who pulled this feat.

Man, I really hate this game now!

Hope they make this better in Medievel 2, because this is just beyond stupid.

[Silver Guard]

Take off the time limit on battles on the menu when you start a campain, the time limit is unrealistic and results in cheating (runnign round the battlefield when you're loosing) or unrealistic defeats such as this one

[Agrippina]

Until an enemy gets stuck in an unreachable location then youll wish you had a time limit

[Hannibal Barca]

Until an enemy gets stuck in an unreachable location then youll wish you had a time limit

Yes I had that after my greatest victory, I had defended my city against all the odds and I thought everyone had routed. It turned out there was, apparently, an enemy unit where the sky meets the top of teh hills in the background!!!!!

But I have also felt the other side of this. Just yesterday I was playing BI. I Had sieged a city and was winning nicely. It took a while as I was killing loads from a distance with catapults. When I moved in I made slow progress. I was fighting fellow romans. They would rarely rout (It was on VH) and their best units took a long time to take down. By the time I made it to the square everyone was exhausted and they had two fresh commitenses. I surrounded them and the 3 minute countdown appeared! I had to kill two units for my heroic victory or lose. In the end one unit had 11 men and the other 7! This meant I got a close defeat because of 18 men that would have required just ONE more minute. I had killed 1600 romans, they had killed 300 of mine

[Last Roman]

Take off the time limit on battles on the menu when you start a campain, the time limit is unrealistic and results in cheating (runnign round the battlefield when you're loosing) or unrealistic defeats such as this one

well if he was defending, then the time limit didn't have anything to do with it.

[molonthegreat]

yeah i had a simmilar one they had 20 left and i 30 and i lost the battle

[Korinthos Hoplites]

I also hope they fix these campaign-deciding bugs in MTW2, it's really annoying to lose entire campaigns because of this....

[Aether]

So you hate the game cause you had a setback from it? I know it is anoying and frustrating but it is still a great game.

[Neroic]

I agree its a great game, I have played all the total war games but this never happened to me.

Didnt know that holding the square would bring victory, well that wont happen to me agian!!!

Tonight I'm gonna take my revenge, the Iberian peninsula is gonna be clenzed of Iberians!

We will see who laughs last!!

[tomdidiot]

I've encountered one of those once. I was defending a city with stone walls, had around 700 men, and killed around 2,300 men from a Seleucid Army of 2,600.

I got a Close Defeat.

CA should really add a" Phyrric Victory" Victory message, or a "Heroic Defeat message.

[Carach]

I've encountered one of those once. I was defending a city with stone walls, had around 700 men, and killed around 2,300 men from a Seleucid Army of 2,600.

I got a Close Defeat.

CA should really add a" Phyrric Victory" Victory message, or a "Heroic Defeat message.

but if they (the enemy) are all routing, it should be heroic victory.. ?

[Brusilov]

but if they (the enemy) are all routing, it should be heroic victory.. ?

You will probably find that once a broken unit reaches the town square it rallies. I've had seiges where as the attackers I've held the town square only for returning units to appear near the square and then the square belongs to them. Frustrating, especially when the game time limit is about to expire.

There will always be situations when you would either like to have the 'no time limit' or to have the 'time limit'.

[Korinthos Hoplites]

It's strange.... how can any army capture a city just by capturing the square?
Imagine: I've got 10.000 men on the walls and then a sneaky guy enters the city and goes to the sqare, he remains there for three minutes and he wins! He enters a blood-thirsty spree and kills 10.000 in one blow! End of battle.

Very interesting huh?

[thoscme]

you got a point there ch!
i hate the "hold the plaza for three minutes and win the battle"
i've played RTW for as long as i can remember (well, since it came out ) and the only time you have a chance of this heroic victory thing is when playing as romans or greek cities (they're armoured ones are damned tough in vanilla, crushes everything exept post marius and sacred band ). but, have to admit, have won some sieges doing that..
i'm not proud of it

[Severous]

Hi

The objective in city assaults is capture, or holding, the plaza. Sure it matters in the campaign how many casualties occur but pitched city battle is won or lost by control of the plaza.

I play with the battle timer on.

I like the pressure it puts on me as attacker to go on the offensive.

As the defender I think its entirely reasonable that my cavalry defenders can avoid plodding enemy infantry for the whole battle...running the timer down. The enemy have failed to defeat my cavalry. OK so I didnt defeat their infantry but I did enough to prove they didnt control that area.

[Gaius Baltar]

Well, if an enemy unit was in your town square, then thats how they won.

[Neroic]

that ridicilous, if the battle would have lasted a minute later I would have slaugtered them
so if the enemy has the square and I have everything else they win, doenst make sence to me

[Flemish Celt]

Had this problem recently too.

I reached the city square with only one full enemy unit to get rid of. 3 units of my armoured phalanxen surrounded it and attacked it. At that time there wasn't much time left. The last enemy fell like maybe one second after the timer was over... What happened? I lost the battle...

It was a heavy contestated battle and I was happy to get on top of it and eventually because of this lost it...

Next turn the walls were repaired and I had to start all over again, ok the resistance was almost nothing but still, it was a turn too many...

[Severous]

Neroic and Flemish Celt...that pressure as the timer runs down is exactly why I like it. You cant sit back and shower the enemy with missiles...or rest and regain breath. You have to watch the timer and if necessary push on taking extra losses in order to achieve victory in the generous amount of time given.

[Flemish Celt]

Neroic and Flemish Celt...that pressure as the timer runs down is exactly why I like it. You cant sit back and shower the enemy with missiles...or rest and regain breath. You have to watch the timer and if necessary push on taking extra losses in order to achieve victory in the generous amount of time given.

I agree, I've been playing this game over and over again since it came out and always with the battle timer on, it certainly gives an extra edge to the experience of tight contestated battles. But in this case it was my greek army attacking Rome, a full stack greek army (not taking onagers with me, just to have those extra ground troops). The problem is that with a greek army you can't use siege towers effectively against a well evolved roman army such as the Senate's at that time in my game. My phalanxes were getting butchered, the minute they came out of the towers. I split up my army in 2 forces, 2 near a city gate. I managed to get the gates open, but with them sealing of the gate with troops and fighting under the gateways (the burning oil **** spilling over my men) I do had to clear as soon as possible. Seeing as a had to get on the walls as soon as possible to save the rest of my men coming via the siege towers, sand was racing through the timer... So by the time I had secured both gateways and I could let my men regroup inside the city (occasionally fending off individual attacks of Roman units) I had my men running towards the city plaza. Seeing as they were already tired of fighting, I had to be carefull they would be dead exhausted when they arrived, also having to deal with cavalry attacks on the way up towards the plaza it was not the easiest way to get there.
When you finally get there and see that only the one full roman unit, and a few runaways stands between you and a tough victory and eventually lose it by a mere 2 or 3 seconds, it ain't all that pleasant. A victory was certain at that point, maybe they should insert a ratio into the game, if for every defender there are 5 attackers on the plaza you should get control of it. Off course calculating as there are many different types of units.
I took Rome the next turn, in my back I had my reserves, also transporting onagers, so the siege was a lot easier, but still it was a turn too many and a defeat I should not have to suffer seeing as I was master of the city and plaza but only because one crazy jackass roman decided he wanted to wait 3 seconds too long to meet Hades .

Still, it's a kick ass game, and still enjoying it!