The turn or turns.

[Cincinnatus]

Just when I thought my Roman empire was invincible, and that I would never lose another battle, and everything was under control, The Triballi attacked.

I had liberated them a few turns earlier. On the very next turn, they attacked and conquered one of one province allies. I let them get away with it. Then the last turn, they attacked another one of my allies, who called for my aid. I declared war on the Triballi, and decided to end them. I marched an elite Marian legion, with level three armor and swords, silver chevrons, and great auxilia, And an excellent leader,into their capital province, thinking it would be easy.

I was surprised to see they had two full armies when i clicked to attack, and a huge garrison. Worse, they had a lot of those naked fanatic spearmen, some very formidable Agrianian Assault Infantry, various quality hoplites and peltasts, and some awesome cavalry. I decided to lay siege instead of attack, knowing they would attack me on the following turn. But I was confident I could set up on a hill, since the terrain was very hilly, forcing them to attack in the front. Invariably, they would expose their flanks, and my reserves would become the hammer of the hammer and anvil, and hit them in the flanks, which would collapse them. I ended turn, thus beginning the turn of turns.

Well, after a long, close battle, they defeated my legion, destroying over half of it, though they lost more men than I. The flanking was stopped by their reserves, their cavalry and fanatics inflicted heavy losses, my leader ran out of things to call, and less then half my army survived to retreat. Then both of the enemy armies pursued my remnants and attacked them again. My exhausted, depleted troops were easily destroyed to the last man, and my great leader perished. Then, in the same turn, Both enemy armies attacked my city of Pella, a colonia level city defended only by its garrison, which had a couple extra early hastati due to military buildings.

The attack took place in a rainstorm. One army attacked one gate, with ladders, and the other army attacked the opposite gate. It looked like I would have to beat these units who had just destroyed one of my best Marian legions with early Hastati, Rorariie, levies with javelins, and vulgus. Things looked hopeless. Most of my troops were opposing the ladder assault and I raced the rest of my force to try to reach the other gate before they could burn their way in.

When I saw the smoke, I thought I was too late.The barbs would swarm in, and slaughter my garrison. I raced toward the gate anyway, determined to give them a fight.

Meanwhile the ladder assault was in full force, with naked spearmen swarming up the ladders. I got a little hope when I saw how small these units were, because they had suffered heavy losses in destroying my legion. The full strength Hastati and Rorarii defeated then on the ramparts. However, the whole force was in front of that gate, and burning it, while a second wave of troops swarmed up the ladders. Somehow I moved a Hastati unit to block the gates, and it opened the burning gate and marched out to attack. It was immediately surrounded by enraged barbarians, but formed a hollow square. It held that square for a long time, while the arrow towers continued to pelt that mass of barbs with arrows. They died in place, but the enemy had suffered horrible losses. The gate closed, and stopped burning. Maybe the rain put the fire out, or getting a unit on the other side of the gate did it, or it was a bug, but it was very dramatic.

On the second gate, the fire also went out. The barbs milled around the gate, getting shot down like idiots by the arrow towers. My troops blocked the still closed gate, and fleet units climbed the walls to add their javelins to the arrows.

Next, my intrepid defenders defeated the second wave of ladder attackers, who fled down the ladders after they were defeated. Both gates had stopped burning, and it looked like all I had to do was wait for a victory. Then the barbs started throwing torches at the second gate, and it began to burn again. Since the early Hastati had held the first square in front of the other gate so long, I decided to have my last early Hastati unit form a hollow square directly in front of the second gate. Sure enough, the second gate burned down, and the barbs charged with cavalry and infantry, and were held by the square. I got some other units into the fray where a few enemy soldiers got by the square, and the battle continued as the clock ticked down, and the arrow towers continued to steadily kill the enemy. Finally, both enemy armies broke, and fled, and I had won.

The first enemy army was wiped out,except for the leader. The second army had lost half its units, and most of them had suffered significant losses. I had gone from disaster to victory against the same enemy in three battles, in one turn.

Did I say I love this Mod!

[rjacko10]

A very interesting turn!

That's what happens if you liberate! You don't get these problems if you conquer :oP

I hope they sort out the siege AI, it sounds like your garrison should no have been able to hold off such an attack.

[Phil2]

Liberate is a very usefull and interesting feature in my opinion. The best and faster way to get a good alliance!
I always use it to securize an area i couldn't control.
But i guess it can be sometime dangerous, as the OP post...
In my first ongoing Roman campaign, i even liberate Rhetes + Helvetes to protect me from very hostiles Sueves i couldn't manage cause was on war with Carthage.
It worked very well, but they both made a confederation (still my allies) and soon got an huge empire in the north! They now have a powerful army and i know some day i'll have to fight them!
In my Arverni campaign, i liberate again Helvetes to help me VS Massalia...all went well, but again they confederate with Nori this time, and are expending north-east...faster than me.
All my liberated friends never broke alliance so far (very hard difficulty)

[Butan]

Wow man, frantic and interesting story!

I'm jealous of your turn of events, your AI is modded or what?

[Cincinnatus]

Buton, it was a lot of fun. Just plain DEI, no modifications.

[Marcus Marcellus]

I actually find it usefull to have the liberated allies.

For instance, right now im in grand scale war in greece and Macedonia. Macedonia declared war on me and while i was marchin to crush Pella,all the while my ally Ardei had them occupied in the north, Sparta attacked my sole legion and my only town Appollonia. So now iv'e decided to liberate Epirus in Larissa and Athens in Athen.

Now to clearify, my legion lost only 300 men, whilst destroying the Spartan army wich had round 3200 men to start with but left with 800.(N/N is my difficulty btw)

I did this same thing in Africa when i fought the Lybians(Carthage seems to get annihilated often..)