The Longest Battle I've ever fought

[Revenant69]

Hello everyone,
Somehow I feel compelled to tell you about this battle that took me a day and a half to complete. I dont know if anyone else made the stand in Khazar the year the Horde appears, but thats what i did. I dont like autoresolving battles so i had to fight it out http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

I was playing Byzantines v1.1 on Hard (or Expert - cant remember which). The year was 1230 and i had about 11 stacks of troops diligently sitting and waiting for the Horde's arrival. Half of them were mercenaries (i had more than enough money to pay for them) and the other half were elite Byzantine troops (VG, Swiss Halberdiers etc).

Just to give you an idea of the scale of this Battle:
Massive armies meet in Khazar (http://www.geocities.com/xrevenant69x/mtw/hordearrives.jpg)

Over 23000 troops on the field of battle. Absolutely massive engagement. Needless to say i reserved the weekend just to fight this ONE battle. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
And it took all weekend to fight it thats for sure.
Long time limit (http://www.geocities.com/xrevenant69x/mtw/500_minutes.jpg)

Well i knew my only choice was to deploy in the forest and so i did. I prepared for this long and nasty battle with training/hiring alot of anti cavalry troops. Thank god i had Switzerland and its Swiss Halberdiers. You can see my defensive setup here:
Defensive setup (http://www.geocities.com/xrevenant69x/mtw/defensivesetup.jpg)

The first Mongol wave had alot of heavy cavalry (7 units) and alot of foot archers. The Mongol heavies came barrelling at my arbalesters and got pinned on swiss spears instead and then promtply chewed upon by Varangian Guards. It was really hard to restrain VG's and SH's from chasing after the Mongols into the open. And the Mongols knew it and used it well. With the first wave repulsed (their Khan fled) things were looking good as my troops sustained light casualties.

4 hours later the Horde was still coming. Most of my low quality mercenaries were decimated by the Mongol heavies and fled. Varangian Guards were reaching critical troop levels (15 out of 60) and had to be pulled out. Things were becoming really frustrating - I didnt get the reinforcements that i needed and Mongols kept on coming. There were times that i had to sit and wait for the ENTIRE wave of Mongol Horse archers to exhaust their ammo as i had no ranged units at that time.

I began to detest the sight of Mongol reinforcements on the horizon cursing and spitting when i saw more Mongol Horse archers becuase i couldnt deal with them. Finally i got fed up (and it was 3 am) paused the game and went to bed.

The next day, i felt pretty confident that the battle wouldnt last long since i paused at about half way mark and I was sure that i destroyed about 80% of Mongol army. Unfortunately it wasnt so. The waves kept coming, mostly MHA's and their light cavalry. MHA's were really frustrating since i couldnt catch them (had no cavalry) so i had to sit there and fire at them and wait till they ran out of their ammo or routed for being shot to pieces.

About two hours later something strange happened. I saw the wave appear on the horizon. But.....it didnt move... AT ALL. It was really perplexing. I didnt want to move away from the safety of the forest but i just wanted this darn battle to be over http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif SO i fast forwarded. Amazingly, Mongols just sat there (it may have been their last wave) and refused to advance knowing full well the outcome of their engagement.

The carnage was on a horrifying scale. The entire clearing in front of the forest was littered with corpses.
Carnage (http://www.geocities.com/xrevenant69x/mtw/10000_dead.jpg)

It was impossible to tell where was a live mongol and where was a dead one.
Frankly i was just glad that this monumental battle was over.
The ammount of dead Mongols surprised me becuase i thought that i killed more of them. Regardless, over 10000 man perished that day.

Casualties (http://www.geocities.com/xrevenant69x/mtw/casualtyreport.jpg)

There was one unfortunate twist of fate. I neglected the fact that Mongols also appeared in Volga-Bulgaria. So the remaining Mongols that were captured got ransomed back to Volga-Bulgaria. And so my attempt to eliminate their threat once and for all had failed. They paid a nice ransom though http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Hefty Ransom (http://www.geocities.com/xrevenant69x/mtw/khansransom.jpg)

Next time i probably will not fight them in Khazar as it would be another battle of titanic proportions. I could have won with fewer troops but i wanted to have the extra insurance http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Anyway, that was my longest battle. Please let me know what you think about it.

Comments and criticism are welcome.

[invalidopcode]

I have likewise had long battles against the Horde, the most recent was my defense of a single bridge. The battle lasted hours upon hours and still they kept coming. My troops were so tired that they eventually ran away. Of course, since they were so tired they did not get far before the less Golden Horde troops chased them down.

The thing was, I managed to kill all the heavy cavalry and lo and behold, even though I lost the battle, the Golden Horde lost all of it's leaders/heirs so it became a rebel faction...

[Gregoshi]

Wow Revenant, that sounds like one hum-dinger of a battle. Regarding the end of the battle and the GH not moving, I had a similiar experience. In one of my battles, the French (AI) had beaten my initial army and as my reinforcement came on, the French just sat there. I even tried to goad them by attacking with a unit. They'd fight back but once I started to move away, the AI would not pursue. Since the French were the attackers, they eventually lost a battle they should have won.

Anyway, back on topic, I had my very first Golden Horde battle the other day. Only about 13,000 GH to my 4500 and it "only" lasted about 3.5 hours. What stunned me was the time. I'd heard others talk about 4-6 hour battles and had figured they played with the timer off. I figured my timed battle would be a typical 15-20 minute one. Wrong. I learned that in these huge battles the clock slows down I had fought for maybe 30 minutes and was amazed to see the clock had only advanced to the "one o'clock" position After 3.5 hours, the timer still had about another quarter to advance. The battle duration included several times when I put the game on max speed to advance reinforcement waves more quickly.

Bottom line is that I've got to take into account the time factor with these large GH battles - which means I've got to start playing earlier in the evening until I can eliminate the GH.

[|OCS|Virus]

I dont usualy take khazar before they attack, I have once but I had a healthy mix of cav, archers, and infintry. all different sorts of things, those battles are always epic, but 11 full units is impresive, I can never support more than four on that place. They are usualy my elite, right out of castle so they have all those good upgrades as opposed to the horde which doesnt usualy have many upgrades {if any} that would suck to not have any cavulry to chase those horse archers, but still very impressive how you took them.

[RZST]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif , now that is a bloody field http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif. i wonder how it must have felt being one of the defenders http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Mount Suribachi]

wow, that is amazing I think you've just set a world record for ransom received too.

I have never seen carnage on such a scale http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[Dîn-Heru]

DAMN http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif That was amazing

[BDC]

Wow that huge red cross Wow http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

*Dammit I really wanted to see them too*

[Oaty]

I've noticed it had said that if you retreat to the castle it will not fall without a direct assault. What did you mod and whatever posessed you to install that mod

[Monk]

Quote[/b] (BDC @ Aug. 31 2003,12:43)]Wow that huge red cross Wow http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

*Dammit I really wanted to see them too*
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

same here, all i see is a big old red X http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[The_Emperor]

Wow Revenant69.

Looks like you have topped my Kiev Victory... Nice job

If it were me defending I would have waited for the timer to expire, I doubt I'd have the patience to sit tall weekend on one battle

Your images are broken links by the way.

[Revenant69]

Quote[/b] ]Your images are broken links by the way

Well thats weird, they show up fine on my buddy's computers. I posted them off of geocities website. Could that be the problem? and if it scan someone tell me how to correct it?

Thanks.

PS
Quote[/b] ]I've noticed it had said that if you retreat to the castle it will not fall without a direct assault. What did you mod and whatever posessed you to install that mod


i didnt mod my game Oaty i did have a castle there, and i guees most of my army would have retreated to the neighbouring province. Still kinda weird.

[|OCS|Virus]

they dont show up on mine either, to bad I realy wanna see em'.

[Mount Suribachi]

What I did was right click on the red X, choose properties, then copy the URL and paste it into the address bar & press enter. Voila I get the piccie. Then click back and as if by magic that screenie then makes its way into the thread. A bit of pain, but trust me, it *is* worth it. Those scenes of carnage are truly spectacular.

[The_Emperor]

Yep I see them now, Thanks Mount http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

Such large scale battles against the Golden Horde really do rock... and its a great way to whittle down their vast forces and wipe them off the map within a few years.

Of course victory would be impossible without those forests

[Revenant69]

Thanks Mount Suribachi that tip does work, however apparently i have already exceeded my data transfer limit which is an absolute BS because i just made that geocities account like 2 days ago and these files arent huge (my limit is 3 Gb/month).


Quote[/b] ]Of course victory would be impossible without those forests

Yeah god bless those forests http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif They are really handy. Without them my army would resemble one large pincushion.

[Monk]

Quote[/b] (Mount Suribachi @ Aug. 31 2003,16:38)]What I did was right click on the red X, choose properties, then copy the URL and paste it into the address bar & press enter. Voila I get the piccie. Then click back and as if by magic that screenie then makes its way into the thread. A bit of pain, but trust me, it *is* worth it. Those scenes of carnage are truly spectacular.
it tells me the site is down, i guess i'll have to wait. Which wont be easy

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[hoom]

I prefer to let them spread out a bit & then take them out in a series of substantially smaller (yet still huge) engagements.

One of the provinces there abouts lets you defend a river when they attack (if you are letting them spread out) & that lets you mince lots of mongols.
Hmm, I think that might have been Khazar too, I think I got it when it rebelled against the Horde who had moved on to the neighbouring provinces but then came back after I took it.

I had one battle where I defeated ~15000 Horde with only about 50 kills.

I set up very carefully in the trees & planned to stay there since I had only one stack (on max unit size so about 1800 men).

The Horde probed around not finding a flank to attack, did one or two little dummy attacks attempting to lure me out of the forrest (here it lost the ~50 to about 2 of mine).
Having failed to even get one of my units to move, the Horde just turned around & retreated http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

That I consider to be my best defeat of the Horde.

[Shaitan]

Quote[/b] (Revenant69 @ Aug. 31 2003,05:28)]There was one unfortunate twist of fate. I neglected the fact that Mongols also appeared in Volga-Bulgaria. So the remaining Mongols that were captured got ransomed back to Volga-Bulgaria. And so my attempt to eliminate their threat once and for all had failed. They paid a nice ransom though http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
Thats why I kill the captured soldiers, especially this huge number of prisoners gives the nice butcher virtue http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Si GeeNa]

I was playing as the Almohads once and launched 11 Jihads at one time against the Horde for the loss of Egypt. Needless to say, it was a bit of an overkill...

No actually...

The Horde mobilised their entire military force to meet me at battle. It was roughly 15-18,000 per side ( Huge-sized military units, 200 spearmen). Took 3 hours++ to complete. But it wasnt much of a battle... more like an attrition warfare.

I got into a comfortable defensive position on top of a large ridgelike feature and just sat tight. I got bored when nothing new happened after awhile. They just kept coming to burst upon my lines. I had some handgunners to support my arbalests and spearmen by the flanks.

To cut a long story short, they din try anything new, just the same ol' charge down the centre. Eventually, i Ctrl + T to the end. And it still took 3++ hours.

The losses on both sides were quite substantial, they did crack my lines at times but the reinforcements always sufficiently turned the tide.

Oh well, WWI battles fought in Medieval era...