Battle of Four Armies

[Gilrandir]

Of course, it is not the classical Battle of Five Armies described in The Hobbit, but it was my first participation in such one. This is how it happened.

This was in my VI Welsh expert campaign. It started well - I took out Mercians in the first 5-10 years of the game. The crucial thing was to capture Mierce - the only province where Mercians could produce the terrible huscarles. That done I had still to finish Mercians off - they had quite sizable (for the beginning of the game) fyrdmen armies. When I could pay attention elsewhere I saw that Saxons were training huscarles just fine. Seeing that I paid attention to consolidating my kingdom and preparing troops for the storm to come. Northumbrians in the north also had some huscarles and they attacked me. My armies however were better and my generals had more stars, so I captured two of their southermost provinces to shorten the border. Then the storm came - Saxons were upon me.

I couldn't go on the offensive since there was no province I could attack from wihtout leaving it open to a counter attack. The largest garrison they had was in Lindissi - 4 stacks under a seven star huscarle general. Besides their all other provinces along the border never had less than two stacks. I could only defend darting my only seven star general from an emergency to an emergency.

Hoewever, there were two things that eventually turned to the Saxons' undoing.
First of all, their armies, though large in number, were very unbalanced. Usually they had 2-3 units of huscarles, 2-3 armored spearmen, 3-4 fyrdmen, a couple of horsemen - and the rest were peasants. Seeing this I fought even if I knew I would lose. I was bent on slaughtering the most valuable troops which usually came first. No prisoners taken. Sometimes I lost, other times won, but the former was mainly through the second and sometimes the third wave of reinforcements when my army was reduced to minority.

The second unpleasant news for Saxons was their heir situation. In 10 years they had 3 kings (2 died heirless) and it didn't do any good to the loyalty of the generals.

So after some years of such campigning their armies were more thinly stretched along the border and not so terrible. Finally Saxons embarked on a wild goose chase northward deep into the mountains of Wales - they besieged my strongholds in Guent and Pouis. I attacked Lindissi (now depleted of huscarles) and relieved the sieges in Wales one by one - and Saxons broke into the civil war. Then I captured East Seaxe - and it was the end of Saxons - now I could move from province to province. Saxons tried to counterattack, but their king was killed and that spelled the end of them.

While I was busy down south I could pay only a cursory attention to the events in the north. I saw that I had been saved from the Northumbrian invasion by a fierce total war that broke out a couple years after Saxons attacked me. Northumbrians were busy figthing Scots and later the Irish joined the picnic fighting against both. Picts couldn't participate since they were constantly harrassed by Viking raids. Later Vikings started to capture provinces and hold them, not just their usual rob-and-run tactics.

When I finally could put in my spoke, the Irish had emerged victorious capturing all Scottish provinces. Northumbrians were no more and the Scots were confined to Beornice only.

Now we are getting closer to the event advertised by the thread title. Evidently the half full Scottish stack was not enough to keep the province loyal so they had a rebellion - one of the rebel stacks was rebels per se, and two more - the resurrected Northumbrians. Seeing this I might have waited until those three have slaughter each other - but I couldn't miss such an opportunity. So I moved my two stacks in.

To tell the truth, what followed didn't live up to my expectations. I had imagined a general melee where everyone would fight everyone in all directions. But my adversories just withdrew to a hight in different parts of the map - and waited indefinitely. So I had to deal with them piecemeal. A great dissappointment, but it was worth trying. Who of MTW fans would have lost such a chance?

And I have a question: when I started the campaign I erroneously set my unit size on medium. Later I saw my mistake and changed it to large, but I still had all units I trained in medium size. Does it mean that one can't change the settings during the game? I also switched off the clock - and it worked. Not so with the unit size, though.

[Yesugey]

Of course, it is not the classical Battle of Five Armies described in The Hobbit, but it was my first participation in such one. This is how it happened.

This was in my VI Welsh expert campaign. It started well - I took out Mercians in the first 5-10 years of the game. The crucial thing was to capture Mierce - the only province where Mercians could produce the terrible huscarles. That done I had still to finish Mercians off - they had quite sizable (for the beginning of the game) fyrdmen armies. When I could pay attention elsewhere I saw that Saxons were training huscarles just fine. Seeing that I paid attention to consolidating my kingdom and preparing troops for the storm to come. Northumbrians in the north also had some huscarles and they attacked me. My armies however were better and my generals had more stars, so I captured two of their southermost provinces to shorten the border. Then the storm came - Saxons were upon me.

I couldn't go on the offensive since there was no province I could attack from wihtout leaving it open to a counter attack. The largest garrison they had was in Lindissi - 4 stacks under a seven star huscarle general. Besides their all other provinces along the border never had less than two stacks. I could only defend darting my only seven star general from an emergency to an emergency.

Hoewever, there were two things that eventually turned to the Saxons' undoing.
First of all, their armies, though large in number, were very unbalanced. Usually they had 2-3 units of huscarles, 2-3 armored spearmen, 3-4 fyrdmen, a couple of horsemen - and the rest were peasants. Seeing this I fought even if I knew I would lose. I was bent on slaughtering the most valuable troops which usually came first. No prisoners taken. Sometimes I lost, other times won, but the former was mainly through the second and sometimes the third wave of reinforcements when my army was reduced to minority.

The second unpleasant news for Saxons was their heir situation. In 10 years they had 3 kings (2 died heirless) and it didn't do any good to the loyalty of the generals.

So after some years of such campigning their armies were more thinly stretched along the border and not so terrible. Finally Saxons embarked on a wild goose chase northward deep into the mountains of Wales - they besieged my strongholds in Guent and Pouis. I attacked Lindissi (now depleted of huscarles) and relieved the sieges in Wales one by one - and Saxons broke into the civil war. Then I captured East Seaxe - and it was the end of Saxons - now I could move from province to province. Saxons tried to counterattack, but their king was killed and that spelled the end of them.

While I was busy down south I could pay only a cursory attention to the events in the north. I saw that I had been saved from the Northumbrian invasion by a fierce total war that broke out a couple years after Saxons attacked me. Northumbrians were busy figthing Scots and later the Irish joined the picnic fighting against both. Picts couldn't participate since they were constantly harrassed by Viking raids. Later Vikings started to capture provinces and hold them, not just their usual rob-and-run tactics.

When I finally could put in my spoke, the Irish had emerged victorious capturing all Scottish provinces. Northumbrians were no more and the Scots were confined to Beornice only.

Now we are getting closer to the event advertised by the thread title. Evidently the half full Scottish stack was not enough to keep the province loyal so they had a rebellion - one of the rebel stacks was rebels per se, and two more - the resurrected Northumbrians. Seeing this I might have waited until those three have slaughter each other - but I couldn't miss such an opportunity. So I moved my two stacks in.

To tell the truth, what followed didn't live up to my expectations. I had imagined a general melee where everyone would fight everyone in all directions. But my adversories just withdrew to a hight in different parts of the map - and waited indefinitely. So I had to deal with them piecemeal. A great dissappointment, but it was worth trying. Who of MTW fans would have lost such a chance?

And I have a question: when I started the campaign I erroneously set my unit size on medium. Later I saw my mistake and changed it to large, but I still had all units I trained in medium size. Does it mean that one can't change the settings during the game? I also switched off the clock - and it worked. Not so with the unit size, though.

Hey mate, nice story. MTW-VI is one of the best map to feel the blunder. There is no chokepoint you can hold while advancing to the center of the map, You should always watch your back and accept the fact that you will lose few provinces. But hitting the production castles of the enemies first is the best way to deal with it. And you are right, enemy likes to produce peasants, and once you kill the core soldiers the others are just helps you reach your prisoner record of life.

To answer your question: Changing unit scale doesnt affect your savegames. If you started with medium, it will always be medium.

And as your main question: I had large battles several times. These are rare, but especially in Shogun TW these type of blunder happens on 1580. You catched that reanimation of Northumbrians nicely, I only get it by attacking a castle in other TW games.

[LordK9]

Never had an actual four but did have my stack, an allied stack, an enemy stack, and a rebel stack in a battle. In mine, the rebels attacked my enemy were basically beaten, then withdrew to a corner and waited. My ally went barreling ahead with a small, weak force and got wasted but the enemy force was now quite weakened and broke quickly once I arrived in good order. It's been too long to remember which kingdoms were involved or even if it were VI or regular MTW though.

[Stazi]

The biggest battle I've ever had in MTW was battle of five armies - Poland (me), Hungary and Byzantium against HRE and Italy in Hungary/Austria region (I don't remember exactly). I decided to let them fight without my direct help. Despite this my side won, province has been liberated and returned to my ally and former owner, the Hungarians. Surely, not the most exciting battle but still a very rare gem.