No.. it can't be.

This is the perfect example of a siege gone wrong. So I'm playing as Baktria and right now I am in India. I was sieging the town for a few years building siege towers, ladders and a sap point. They had one general whom I had failed to assassinate a few turns before. They had a few units of pikes, missile calvary, regular calvary, a lot of archers and two units of Indian elephants. Exactly 1658 soldiers. Long story short I lost both my leader, my heir along with some 2830 men and got a crushing defeat. That entire army consisted of units I have had since the start of the game with some silver and bronze cheverons thrown in there. Also some great leadership. I have no pics because my print screen button is being stupid. Took me twenty years to assemble that army in a blink of an eye it was gone. I won't be reloading because I have decided to play a no reloads campaign.

In history, that would be the point where a nation goes into decline and never recovers, lol.

Good job not reloading.

Lol..... just re-load you'r autosave.

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They had a few units of pikes, missile calvary, regular calvary, a lot of archers and two units of Indian elephants.

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Yeah, especially this part. I know *exactly* what you mean.

I'm just curius, what was the composition of your 2830-men army? I guess you didn't have enough Thureophoroi or peltasts (to win the wall battle) and archers/slingers to kill the elephants from the safety of the walls.

Should have starved them out.

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Originally Posted by Timoleon

I'm just curius, what was the composition of your 2830-men army? I guess you didn't have enough Thureophoroi or peltasts (to win the wall battle) and archers/slingers to kill the elephants from the safety of the walls.

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Reconsider that statement when looking at the actual army composition of those Indos valley cities.... By the time those cities have sorted their recruitment out, then those armies are worthy of a human player. Actually it is one of the few areas where the slave AI does recruit some pretty nasty armies, armies I could've thought of myself for a highly effective campaign army.

Actually I had 2 units of Persian archers and 2 units of a new kind I decider to try out. I had 4 units of skirmishers. 4 phalanx, some light infantry the rest cav. The thing is is that they had so many archers and slingers that a good 70% of the front wall had some kind of ranged unit on it. Example I had a unit of skirmishers with ladders. By the time I finally reached the walls I had 64 men left out of a unit of about 210 it was. I did manage to get one unit of phalanx on the walls only to be promptly swarmed and destroyed. Honestly most of my men did not even make it through the gates. One phalanx did, it went through the hole in the wall made by the sap point, only to be charged by a unit of elephants while forming up. On a good note I did manage to kill the general.

Ah, the Indian longbowmen! Those guys sure are scary to fight against. And they were holding the walls? Then you should have forgotten about trying an assault; even if your units could have survived the rain of arrows, they'd been butchered in melee by the nasty armor-piercing machete swords :skull:

They are perhaps the best unit (cost vs performance) in EB for defending a stone-walled city :sweatdrop:

ouch... I'm glad my campaign is in europe so I don't have t6o fight those Indian Longbowmen... but .saying that it also meams I can't recruit them.

you should have learned from Alexander the great's India troubles:clown:

yeah, India is a nasty place to go to war to.

Shitsucks.

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Originally Posted by Leviathan DarklyCute

Shitsucks.

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Well said, Leviathan. I think you just discovered my new all time favorite word.
Either way, back on topic for me. That shit does suck.

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Originally Posted by Terraforce

Actually I had 2 units of Persian archers and 2 units of a new kind I decider to try out. I had 4 units of skirmishers. 4 phalanx, some light infantry the rest cav. The thing is is that they had so many archers and slingers that a good 70% of the front wall had some kind of ranged unit on it. Example I had a unit of skirmishers with ladders. By the time I finally reached the walls I had 64 men left out of a unit of about 210 it was. I did manage to get one unit of phalanx on the walls only to be promptly swarmed and destroyed. Honestly most of my men did not even make it through the gates. One phalanx did, it went through the hole in the wall made by the sap point, only to be charged by a unit of elephants while forming up. On a good note I did manage to kill the general.

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You should never engage in combat on a wall. You will always be at a disadvantage there. Especially if it is phalanx you are using on a wall. Phalanx's main purpose is to engage the enemy with its pikes, keeping the enemy a sufficient distance away with the long sarissas, not to battle in tight spaces with shortswords.

You should attack a walled town with couple of groups of your units attacking the town at different sides but at the same time. Have three diversionary groups and one main one. The diversionary groups could be as little and weak as a unit of levy spearmen or skirmishers, just as long as it draws the AI units to away. Try to get the main force to climb an unguarded section of the wall with ladders, capture a gateway, and let the other main units swiftly rush in and take their positions. After this you should have no trouble with the AI. You can also put some missiles on the walls, for extra effect. Archers and especially slingers are real killers when they're shooting from the walls.

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Originally Posted by Chris1959

Should have starved them out.

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Baktria does not have the luxury of time man. You gotta be fast or youll be swept out.

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I guess you didn't have enough Thureophoroi or peltasts (to win the wall battle) and archers/slingers to kill the elephants from the safety of the walls.

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

Reconsider that statement when looking at the actual army composition of those Indos valley cities.... By the time those cities have sorted their recruitment out, then those armies are worthy of a human player. Actually it is one of the few areas where the slave AI does recruit some pretty nasty armies, armies I could've thought of myself for a highly effective campaign army.

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This was the way I conquered these cities in my Baktrian campaign a couple a weeks before.
I used 2 units of thureophoroi and 2 units of peltasts to storm simultaneously the wall from different directions and killed the Indian longbowmen, having about 30-50% casualties. When the job was done, I sent on the walls 2 units of eastern slingers and 2 units of persian archers targeting the elephants. Slingshots and flaming arrows killed some of the elephants and made the rest mad, so they started moving around killing their own men. After the elephants where gone, I sent 2-3 phalanxes and my general to kill the rest (mainly Indian spearmen). I have to mention that I play without the battle time limit.
It was a great siege battle, I really enjoyed it.

When it comes to the city with the stone walls i just starve them out, fighting on walls is bad enough without those machete weilding devils around.
My glorious indo-hellenic army (4 indo-hellenic hoplitai, 2 indo-hellenic agema, 2 indo-hellenic peltasts, 4 indian longbows, 2 sereni) got really badly chewed up invading one of the other towns but that was due to me forgetting about the beefed up elephant stats.
"Ho there Demetrios! do not fret over those elephantoi one volley of our mighty javelins should send them to hades....err maybe two" (stamp.stamp.stamp.)

All I know is thank you for alliances. Right now everyone is a war with arche seleukeia. We are all allied against them, Pontos, Ptolemaioi, Hayasdan, Pahlava, and Saka which makes for some good allied battles. Pahlava has been deflecting most of the stack that come my way.

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Originally Posted by Terraforce

All I know is thank you for alliances. Right now everyone is a war with arche seleukeia. We are all allied against them, Pontos, Ptolemaioi, Hayasdan, Pahlava, and Saka which makes for some good allied battles. Pahlava has been deflecting most of the stack that come my way.

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Hmmm. It's interesting that your allies are actually attacking your common enemy. That usually doesn't happen. But as soon as Parthia and the AS sign a ceasefire, crush the nomadic bastards.

It would depend greatly on the difficulty. On Very Hard and Hard that would be a difficult battle, although on Medium it should have been reasonably winnable. Indian longbows and elephants are especially dangerous, particularly defending walls. I would have starved them out.

lol again, Baktria does not have the luxury of time, (at least in my experience, the Saka rauka were constantly on my spine and Pahlava were after my throat, and the AS were at my belly) You gotta move quick or you wont have enough funding to secure more land, letalone defend.

Haha, i have taken the city. I decided to take a risk and leave just 3 Hellenic Medium phalanxes and 1 persian archer and a general in Baktra, just enough to cover all the entrances into the square. I then sent a stack of whatever I could muster including my new fraction leader who happened to be the son and brother of my old fraction leader and heir. I got to the city only to find two units of archers, I attacked the city and the walls were still not repaired so I kinda just walked in and killed everybody. On another note Baktra was sieged 4 turns when I left by a full stack of AS units I let them build there equipment and they attacked me 3192 against my 637 I sealed of any entrances to the square and all of them came right down one street where they could not diverge anywhere because it was one single street so I rushed one of my phalanx around and crushed them between two units. Not one escaped. I gained a heroic victory.:laugh4:

I actually love it that I cannot always just use my super composed army and take one city after the other, but instead get a really badass challenge now and then (e.g. as I reported once here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=106850 )
I always play with no-reloads, because playing on H/M against dumbass AI you always are superior as human, no matter what faction. Getting kicked badly sometimes causes the real thrill and gives some touch of realism to the game.

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Originally Posted by Celtic_Punk

Baktria does not have the luxury of time man. You gotta be fast or youll be swept out.

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I tend to disagree, in the very beginning yes. If you're quick enough though you can sweep to the west and take a few AS settlements and with luck Pahlava and Saka won't attack you. Then you have all the time in the world to starve them, considering it is only 8 seasons (maybe 6, I don't remember).

Basically, I think that it is possible. In my current Baktria campaign I did that exact thing I describe about 20 years in; starved, essentially the same army, into sallying and defeated them because their numbers were very dwindled.