Antimatter
07-06-2004, 20:17
So I'm playing on normal as the Turks. I immediately started a war with the Egyptians and finished them early. Soon after I took the Almohads and continued through all of Spain including Aragon. Just as I was taking Aragon the Byzantines attacked me in Antioch. I ended up outnumbered about 1900 to 1700, so I did a quicksave and tried the auto resolve (I really just wanted to fight Aragon). I lost the province and a lot of men, and worse yet my prince with 0 loyalty decided to start a civil war that hurt very badly since I was protecting my Spanish border from the French and British, and now I was dealing with the Byzantines. I decided I could do better, so I loaded the quicksave and started the battle.
Now, unlike most of the battles I've fought, it turned out that the Byzantines not only outnumbered me, they also outclassed me by a lot. I only had two units of Saracen Infantry and two units of regular spearmen to hold a line with. So I took a couple of units of tucoman horse archers and started to harrass them. I managed to draw off their general with his Kataphraktoi and ran him all over the map. For some reason, the only other unit they sent were their Varangian guards. I figure, no problem, but those guards managed to kill alsmot a whole unit of Saracen Infantry, a unit of Ghazi Infantry, and half a unit of Armenian Heavy Calvary, not to mention routing one of my spearmen. The next set of infantry coming were some Byzantine Infantry. I figured a couple units of Armenian heavies would take them out, but I was wrong again. They slaughtered one of those units and took out half the other before I ran some more infantry out to get them. So now I'm down many units without much to show for it. They finally sent most of their army at me and routed most of my troops. So I changed my reinforcement point a little and clicked as many reinforcements as I could. Turned out those were mostly cavalry, which is all that saved me. I manged to rally some of my spearmen and used those to pin a couple units while I slammed all of my cavalry into the back of their army. Although there were many routers and many casualties, I managed just enough damage to rout them. I lined back up with my 6 or so units of cavalry that were left and a unit of spearmen that had come as reinforcements, and waited for the reinforcements that I expected them to send, but they never came. They just ran off the field without a the enemy is fleeing the field message and never came back. I ended up suffering more casualties then they did, but I followed the defense with a counter attack using some troops from Rum and took both Trebizond and Lesser Armenia, and now I've got them on the run.
Sorry for writing all that, but I had to tell somebody :)
Now, unlike most of the battles I've fought, it turned out that the Byzantines not only outnumbered me, they also outclassed me by a lot. I only had two units of Saracen Infantry and two units of regular spearmen to hold a line with. So I took a couple of units of tucoman horse archers and started to harrass them. I managed to draw off their general with his Kataphraktoi and ran him all over the map. For some reason, the only other unit they sent were their Varangian guards. I figure, no problem, but those guards managed to kill alsmot a whole unit of Saracen Infantry, a unit of Ghazi Infantry, and half a unit of Armenian Heavy Calvary, not to mention routing one of my spearmen. The next set of infantry coming were some Byzantine Infantry. I figured a couple units of Armenian heavies would take them out, but I was wrong again. They slaughtered one of those units and took out half the other before I ran some more infantry out to get them. So now I'm down many units without much to show for it. They finally sent most of their army at me and routed most of my troops. So I changed my reinforcement point a little and clicked as many reinforcements as I could. Turned out those were mostly cavalry, which is all that saved me. I manged to rally some of my spearmen and used those to pin a couple units while I slammed all of my cavalry into the back of their army. Although there were many routers and many casualties, I managed just enough damage to rout them. I lined back up with my 6 or so units of cavalry that were left and a unit of spearmen that had come as reinforcements, and waited for the reinforcements that I expected them to send, but they never came. They just ran off the field without a the enemy is fleeing the field message and never came back. I ended up suffering more casualties then they did, but I followed the defense with a counter attack using some troops from Rum and took both Trebizond and Lesser Armenia, and now I've got them on the run.
Sorry for writing all that, but I had to tell somebody :)