What dumb things have you done?

[Despot of the English]

Last night I was attacking an Egyptian army with my glorious Hospitallers. I took with me 3 serpentine cannon and one demi-culverin along with 200 Knights Hospitaller, hundreds of Order foot troops and foot knights - I outnumbered the Egyptian sultan by a lot put it that way and I only have several years left before the game ends so I thought what the ####

I started to pound the Egyptian positions with my cannon but only several enemy died so I ordered my 200 Hospitallers to charge at the Egyptian army (of which there were only 100, mostly consisting of Gulam bodyguards, some Saharan cavalry and camels - formidable stuff.)

My knights made short work of the enemy and killed the sultan. I held back my knights from chasing the routers but saw one camel rider fleeing towards my army where my 4 cannon were all lined up nicely. Naturally I just could not resist to fire all guns blazing at this one camel.

That was my last and fatal mistake.

Unfortunately one cannon ball struck a unit of Hospitallers and killed my General http://212.238.194.39/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif It was so stupid I had to laugh. But only a few years left so who cares? http://212.238.194.39/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Papewaio]

ROFL... Trying sewing that back own oh order of Hospitals http://212.238.194.39/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

[Despot of the English]

I was playing a GA campaign and the Pope won I finished 4th.

[rasoforos]

I think the most dumb thing all of us made the first time we played a TW engine game was NOT to relise that archers/crossbowmen/arbalesters can inflict friendly fire....

Oh i ll hide my Arbalesters just behind my swords and they ll be nice and safe....

uh oh

[Ironside]

I found religous buildings unneccisary in my second campaign. What my population converts anyway.

After one horrifying loss, when my superior army routed after a light skirmish I started to suspect something. It was with a 0- star general, I suspect that in v 1.0 you got a big morale bost from the generals if they were higher stars. That would explain why I didn't discover that problem earlier.

Using crusades (that failed) to weaken the enemy wasn't a good idea either (my king got zero influence, how, when, why? = Medieval Civil War).

Failing to understand the art of breeding was another, my kings in the first campaigns was about as good as the comps.

On the battlefield I had the experience from Shogun so there I only made minor mistakes.

[Ludens]

Expecting 6 units of peasants (1200 men) to stop 5 units of Ghulam bodyguards (100 men). The peasants didn't kill one Almohad but I lost more than 200 men and had to randsom another 300 back.


I blame it on my Shogun past.

[Axeknight]

All my experience with Jihads had been playing an Almohad campaign.

Oh no... Egyptian Jihad. I'm so scared. Please, don't kill me with your ballista units What will my teched up knights do to face your peasants?

Two turns and five thousand Egyptians later, I had more respect for Jihads.

The dumbest thing ive done was to take rome and the papal states from the pope and only garrison them with minimal armies of peasants and urban militia, taking my higher tech units to fight the byz. A few years later pope returns with over 800 soldiers to match my total of under 200 lo tech units, lost both states and then had to recall men to fend him off. Thus leading to an invasion from the byz, i lost most of my provinces http://212.238.194.39/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif If only i had garrisonned with more men.

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (TCon88 @ July 31 2004,16:55)]If only i had garrisonned with more men.
If you had garrisoned with more men the Pope would have re-appeared with yet greater armies. Along the same lines: the size of the Golden Horde is dependend on the number of troops in Khazar and the other provinces where it appears. You can't keep the pope down. Lock him in Rome or Naples or Sicily and leave him there as a pet.

so basically i shouldnt have attacked him? ah ok, ill remember that next time

[Marquis of Roland]

Quote[/b] (Ludens @ July 31 2004,10:26)]Expecting 6 units of peasants (1200 men) to stop 5 units of Ghulam bodyguards (100 men). The peasants didn't kill one Almohad but I lost more than 200 men and had to randsom another 300 back.
Ludens, you ransomed back peasants???

[Marquis of Roland]

Dumbest thing I ever did was click on the wrong ship to attack. At war with Germans (I was spain btw), accidentally clicked on byz fleet instead. The byz in turn destroyed my minimal trade fleet (one ship per sea zone), which in turn bankrupted me, just when the germans go on major counteroffensive. For the rest of the game no one allied with me and I was at war with most of the world. With no trade income, germans and eggy slowly but surely pushed me back almost into spain proper. Took me another fifty years to set things straight.

And btw, for some reason those germans are hella hard to kill....

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (TCon88 @ July 31 2004,18:50)]so basically i shouldnt have attacked him? ah ok, ill remember that next time
It is possible to kill the pope and escape his wrath when he reappears. This you can do by pulling out of Rome in or before the turn his armies appear. But on general terms: yes, it is better to leave him alone.


Quote[/b] (Marquis of Roland @ July 31 2004,18:58)]Ludens, you ransomed back peasants???
I understand that if you do not ransom back your troops, your generals will suffer a loyalty penalty (I have never tested it, though). And because of my low influence king I couldn't afford that.

[Accounting Troll]

Bit of a hobsons choice there, in my experience the men who get ransomed back suffer a loyalty penalty.

With reference to the Pope; when he respawns, he doesn't have the income to pay all his feudal foot knights so in time he will attack you if you don't have a large army camped on his border. And if he attacks you, you get excommunicated if you try to defend your provinces or launch a counter-attack.

My biggest mistake was to overextend myself by attacking too many rivals at once.

[Ironside]

Quote[/b] ]With reference to the Pope; when he respawns, he doesn't have the income to pay all his feudal foot knights so in time he will attack you if you don't have a large army camped on his border.

He will attack you even with inferior number, the comp seems to do this to wither down the enemy and to start gaining cash. I've seen the Danes do this on rebels in Norway, several times.

And that reemerging pope can actually get a quite large empire.


Quote[/b] ]And if he attacks you, you get excommunicated if you try to defend your provinces or launch a counter-attack.


You only get excommed if you relief a sieged castle in defensive situations. But counter-attacks will always get you excommed.

I don't play much Medieval, but in Shogun, the dumbest thing I can recall doing was Autocalculating a Bridge battle with my Diamyo on it, at the very end of the game, and losing most of my army and my diamyo to the last rebel province, and watching about 30-40 provinces rebel immediately afterwards.

Thank God for quicksave:laugh:

[Dimeola]

MP 3v.3.....me left side...facing Mongols. I thought i`d be smart and got extra Xbow....advanced to a wooded hill and set out to repel the heathen with my xbow then charge with knights. I died rather poorly....
Dimeolas

[RollingWave]

Never kill the pope until ur almost finsiehd with everyone else. (with a army anyway... killing him with a assain is a good idea if u can manage :P)

my biggest mistake was blowing apart my army (and his) with naptha throwers.....

For the campagn view... my biggest mistake was to sent my heir to the throne to conquer ireland and was stuck there when my sultan died... gg empire in 2 turns as civil war and a just bout everyone reemerged XD

[cutepuppy]

dumbest thing I have done?

1) buying MTW almost 2 years ago, i have no life anymore since then
2) (happened frequently) selecting all units of a certain type in battle and press the rout button instead of group. Very nice when you face the mongols and al your pavise arbalesters flee.

[Tomassi_Rossino]

Made the Danes a florishing nation by uniting Denmark with Sweden with Norway - making a Scandinavian kingdom. I had a trade route stretching from Sweden to Morocco and Southern Spain. Raking in over 2,000 Fl. in profits I decided to take some British land. Not wanting to declare war on my allies England I took Scotland. I sailed out with my king and all his sons because I was so convinced I would beat the 200 Highland Clansmen there were with my 300 or so Vikings. During the battle I pressed F1 to reveal the stats and I realised the Vikings were not so far off from Peasantry! They were about to face tribal warriors - up a hill! Needless to say I lost - my king dead, all cavalry leaders dead so I had no heirs - and I lost a kingdom to a non-professional army of undisciplined clansmen! ~:mecry:

[Despot of the English]

That's unlucky! Couldn't you have reloaded?

[Tomassi_Rossino]

Well there were AutoSaves but even if I had loaded them, the Scandinavian kingdoms I used to have were falling. Hemmed in by Almohads and Germans who had settled into their rivalry and Almohads wanting to take Denmark as well since I sunk their ships. If the king had lived and conquered Scotland there would be no army in Denmark leaving it open to the application of invasion from the superior forces.

[TCon88]

Well the pope re-emerged so i abandoned the province and am in the process of putting relatively strong armies on the borders to try and deter him from attacking, i also offered a ceasefire. Hope this works.

[Tozama]

dumbest thing I have done?

2) (happened frequently) selecting all units of a certain type in battle and press the rout button instead of group.

If I had a florin for everytime I've done that one I'd never need trade routes ever. ~:dizzy:

[HicRic]

If I had a florin for everytime I've done that one I'd never need trade routes ever. ~:dizzy:

I've never made that mistake. ~;) Why? Because I press 'G' on the keyboard and never ever click on the icon at the top. That way there's no chance of routing. (Unless you miss pressing 'G' and somehow press alt-O. ~:p )

[jimmyM]

i managed to rout the best units in my battle line as the enemy approached by mistaking the "rout" button for the "group" one ... leaving the brave,brave (but unfortunately doomed) suicide legion of light infantry :tomato:


thereby using this moment of absolute stupidity to introduce meself humbly to the forum...

[Procrustes]

Well, there've been quite a few.

-I bankrupted myself building ports and ships as the Danes, never realizing that I also had to start building trading posts. (Sure felt foolish there.)

-I found out the hard way that moral is really important when my overwhelming numbers of UM, spearmen and archers ran like little girls during a simple castle assault.

-Another time I built and hired a bunch of catapults to use in a castle assault and then set them up too close to the arrow towers - they barely got a shot off before all the crew were dead.

-Again as the Danes I got it in my head that I wanted just one little provence from the French. Sure, they are the biggest power - but they are busy with the Spanish, English, Germans and Hungarians.... A couple of turns later there were no English, Spanish, or Germans - and each subsequent turn they would invade another one of my provences. Took about twenty years of desperate defensive warfare before I ended up bankrupt and with the same handful of terratories that I started with.