Interesting Battle Results
As I mentioned in another post, I had to re-start my campaign after somehow losing my saved game....however, this game has proved to be very interesting. I brought my southern legion north to help with the war with Gaul in Northern italy. However, the AI decided to be VERY agressive, and marched Lugotorix and a full Gallic army to Arminum. Luckily, Quintus Julius arrived just in time with the southern legion to attack him and hopefully drive him off. Here's the stats at the start of the battle.
I decided not to have the AI control the reinforcements from Arminum, because it almost always does stupid thigs. I have lost several generals controlled by the AI that simply charge the enemy line way before I am even close enough to support the attack. And even if they are hopelessly outnumbered.
The battle started off good. The Gauls first sent their skirmishers ahead, which I easily drove off with my cavalry. The Gauls then sent forward two seperate minor attacks with no support against my front line, which I easily turned away and inflicted heavy losses. I was trying to very cautious and methodical in the battle - learning patience is one thing I have had to learn in SPQR during battles. I figured to take my time am see what the AI had in mind. At this point, I thought I had the battle in the bag, so to speak.
The Gauls finally made a real attack on my line, holding a good portion of its troops in reserve, which I easily defeated. The picture below is just after turning away the third attack. I was in the middle of re-forming my battle line, right after the last attack. I had been fighting the battle for about 20 minutes at this point. My general, Quintus, had led his entire cavlary to turn aside an attempt by the Gallic cav to outflank my left.
As my line re-formed, the Gauls advanced with everything, even their reserves. Even with the losses I inflicted, it was still about even in numbers on the field. The entire body of Gallic infantry hit my center, while Lugotorix led his cavalry (he had over twice the number in cav than I did, so even after the first cav battle, we were about even too). The battle went on for about five minutes, with no clear outcome. My battle line was stretched pretty thin, and I had to commit both my principes and triarii to bolster the center to prevent a breakthrough.
Just as Quintus and his cavalry routed two of the four gallic cav units...he was killed....
To my horror, several units along the battleline began to rout. I basically thought that the battle was over, and that a full-scale rout would strike. To add injury to insult, several gallic swordsmen units broke from the battleline, to strike my remaining cavalry still fighting with the gallic cav and Lugotorix's own bodyguard. I knew that if my cav were defeated, there was nothing I could do to stop them from flanking my line and the full rout would hit. Quintus' bodyguard unit (minus him of course) had retreated from the cav fight..it had 5 men left. Not knowing what else to do, I pulled my triarii from the battleline and, with the general's former bodyguards in support, sent them into the surrounded Roman cav on the flank....
AND SUCCESS! They hit the gallic infantry in the rear, driving them off, and the bodyguards themselves somehow managed to make their way through the mass melee and personally killed Lugotorix himself - I had not targeted Lugotorix with the Bodygaurds, but somehow they fought thier way through the mass melee to where he was in the thick of it. Naturally, this routed the entire Gallic army, giving me a victory from what I thought was a terrible defeat.
To my surprise at the end of the battle, that lone captain of the former general's bodyguards was promoted to general!
Cornelius is not the greatest general, but after the battle, I gave him command of Quintus' legion, in which he had serving quite admirably in Northern Italy against the Gauls. He has fought and defeated two gallic armies and in 227 BC, he even seiged and captured the gallic city of Pavatium! I don't have an current pics of his stats right now, but I'll upload them later today.
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Originally Posted by lt1956
