Meroe

Hello everybody.
Earlier today I was playing my AS campaign and experienced one of the most disastrous battles I have even had in all my time playing total war. I sent my full stack army that has spent the last 20 year conquering rebels and the Ptolemys to go and take Meroe. Ive got a 9 star, impressedbycats, faction heir general leading this army of largely silver chevron or triple bronze experience and armour upgraded guys. I assumed that the garrison of freed slaves, Nubian spearmen, saba levys and Arabian skirmishers would be easy especially since I had sieged the town for a good 5 turns even if they did have a few chevrons, some elephants and a 10 star general.

Frankly I got owned…. 2 of six siege towers got burnt down along with my ram. When I finally got on the walls my kickass native phalanxes got owned by skirmishers. In one instance 45 Ethiopian swords men killed 110 native phalanx guys at the cost of 20 of their own guys even though my guys had upgrades and far more exp. This happened everywhere on the walls but after loosing about 55% of my men I captured the walls. Also strangely after battling for 20 minutes all the Ai’s units were still fresh. Then the elephants came to say hello…. Two full units of native phalanxes wiped out very quickly one elephant dead. My Jewish spearmen’s javelins seemed to do nothing and in total with all their javelins thrown killed 2 or maybe 3 elephants. Eventually the elephants were surrounded by the remnants of my army and killed but not before they some how killed my triple gold general.

At the end I got a close victory lost nearly 80% of my best army. This battle seemed seriously weird my elite units got owned the enemies were just ridiculous. Not even fighting the crazy stacks in Europe compared to this. Could I have made some sort of mistake? Could it be some sort of weird bug?

And now I have finished this long and probably boring post which has unfortunaly turned into rant… has something similar happened to anyone else?

1) Don't use your phalanxes to storm walls. Their defence skill is way too low for that, which means they will get owned by pretty much any band of Ethiopian/Kurdish/Germanic hillbillies.

2) Always bring along some real skirmishers. The best ones for you as AS are the regular Peltastai, who, incidentally, are also good at storming walls - at least way better than phalangites. They are the best elephant killers. One unit of them can annihilate an elephant unit without breaking sweat, but you should bring two for every elephant unit just to be on the safe side. They have more javelins than Jewish Spearmen, and better range. Te latter you can use to shield the Peltastai against unwanted enemy contact, e.g. cavalry.
The Thracian version is even nastier, but more expensive and difficult to retrain (due to them being mercs).

I may be wrong about this, but I think most non-skirmishers do NOT get the anti-elephant bonus to their javelins. Which means you're lucky you brought OP phalanxes along, or the elephants could have really squashed you... as for the walls, Ethiopian swordsmen are a quality offensive unit, of course you got stuffed. Also, Nubian spearmen are heavily weighted towards offense at the expense of a crappy defense, and they're dense, both of which are great for defending walls.

As for getting tired... check out the Saba unit roster sometime. It's hard to find a unit that doesn't have "very good stamina" - its one of their best features. Don't send horses against elephants unless the elephants are near breaking or dead. Elephants step on horses, they're even more effective against them than against infantry (this is how your general died).

Basically, the REALLY wacky thing is, perhaps somewhat randomly, the AI managed to defend correctly. It didn't suicide its general, had units on the walls, didn't get owned by interior towers, etc. etc.

If I ever make mistakes in battles, it is siege battles where the AI has enough units to actually garrison a town. I remember fighting a Ptolie army with my AS army that had conquered all of the Levant and down the Nile with, were all silver and bronze chevroned, had Syrian archers, a unit of Peltastai Makedonikai, several Pezhaetaroi, and some Ioudaoi, Machimoi, Theurophoroi and Thorakitai. I sieged one of the southern Nile towns from the Ptolies, it was only a large town with wooden walls but unfortunately he posted his phalanxes up front so my archers were nearly worthless. I knocked four holes in the wall including the gate and rushed into the gate and the one immediately to the right with my spearmen. He countered by hitting them with masses of Pantodapoi who I thought would get slaughtered but held their ground surprisingly well, probably based on their numbers. He then flanked with a Machimoi phalanx while raining javilins down with Akontistai. My men went from Eager to Wavering in a heartbeat and I was forced to send in reserve Thorakitai through the gate to support and my Peltastai Maks through the hole to the left to flank. The PM's were especially useful but he countered with Galatian Heavys which stopped the wholesale slaughter of his Pantas. I wanted to flank the Machimoi Phalangites to my right which were butchering me but he had another posted in the other hole in the wall even further to the right. I sent in a native phalanx which decided to switch to axes and were promptly cut down but finally a unit of lowly, inexperienced Machimoi which I had recruited as filler swarmed around the phalangites and slaughtered them to a man. These then swung around and flanked the enemy phalanx which had now pushed to the gate and killed them off. Now I just had to fight through a swarm of Panta, Akontistai and the remnants of the Galatians. Finally I did with 4 PM's left, and a handful of Thorakitai and Machimoi. When I got to the town sqaure to confront his general and two more Machimoi Phalangites, I had next to no infantry left and had to use my Syrian archers and cavalry to finish off the battle. I lost over 2/3 of my army to a weakened garrison consisting mostly of Pantadapoi, Machimoi Phalangitai and Akontistai. It was embarrassing and ensured the survival of the Ptolies for about another 40 years.

did the walls are large one, not just mere stone walls? (the large stone walls are quite murderous)

Yhea I do see how I made some pretty foolish errors worsened by the fact that the AI actualy played very cleverly. But im well aquainted with very good stamina and it doesnt allow a unit to fight on walls for 25 miniutes and stay fresh....
Anyway thanks for your replys.

My worst siege 'victory' had to be as KH against the Aedui at Massilia. My army of a few slingers, a lot of peltasts, and some (mostly levy) hoplites charged right in when I discovered my spy had opened the gates (I'd been hoping I could get the town to revolt). The enemy only had three levy spearmen and his heir, but one levy spearmen stayed in the town center, one got involved in time to prevent me taking the gate towers, and the heir himself just destroyed my troops. They ran into the oil, engaged, got pushed back into the oil... rise, repeat.

I lost 12 or so units and spent the next 10 years besieged or hiring mercenaries to try and defend the place and losing them to rioters. Massive drain on my economy and totally stalled all my offensive campaigns.

On walls all units lose stamina much slower. Especially the defending ones. I suppose it has something to do with the low amount of soldiers actually fighting. The unit seems to have one pool of stamina for all soldier and as long as only a little amount of them are fighting or moving they lose low to no stamina maybe even recover.

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Originally Posted by Sonic

did the walls are large one, not just mere stone walls? (the large stone walls are quite murderous)

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I disagree, at Large stone walls the besieger gets machinegun towers. This actually gives a smart besieger the advantage. I find stone walls therefore the best defense, those towers are near harmless.

~Fluvius

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Originally Posted by Fluvius Camillus

I disagree, at Large stone walls the besieger gets machinegun towers. This actually gives a smart besieger the advantage. I find stone walls therefore the best defense, those towers are near harmless.

~Fluvius

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what if he roleplay never to turn on those machinegun in siege tower (which is unrealistic anyway)
unless edited from vanila values, the large wall tower one fires AP ballista regularly

How is it unrealistic? The real things had ballista batteries and archer firing positions all over.

There's a reason why large cities were generally not stormed. The attackers would normally get slaughtered. Walls were a major deal. In fact, wooden walls are probably way too weak in RTW.

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Originally Posted by MisterFred

There's a reason why large cities were generally not stormed. The attackers would normally get slaughtered. Walls were a major deal. In fact, wooden walls are probably way too weak in RTW.

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Not way too weak, as wooden wall are still... wood... but it is true that stones wall are underpowered, on a historical point of view... as the big majority of city capture was threw starvation, as very few empire had the financial and military means to storm a large stone wall... Of corse, for the sake of playing, CA had to make the walls pregnable, as otherwise, the game would have meen named : Total Siege

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Originally Posted by Duguntz

Not way too weak, as wooden wall are still... wood... but it is true that stones wall are underpowered, on a historical point of view... as the big majority of city capture was threw starvation, as very few empire had the financial and military means to storm a large stone wall... Of corse, for the sake of playing, CA had to make the walls pregnable, as otherwise, the game would have meen named : Total Siege

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you should try to play M2TW without any cannons, and told me the result of the sieges

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Originally Posted by Cute Wolf

you should try to play M2TW without any cannons, and told me the result of the sieges

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TATW (a major M2TW mod) has hilariously powerful ballistae and catapults though. I've torched whole towns after breaching the walls. Especially fun if you're playing Elves, for maximum historical inaccuracy.

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Originally Posted by athanaric

TATW (a major M2TW mod) has hilariously powerful ballistae and catapults though. I've torched whole towns after breaching the walls. Especially fun if you're playing Elves, for maximum historical inaccuracy.

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hey, that was middle earth, when you could got ogres rampaging your line..... http://www.kaskus.us/images/smilies/ngakak.gif
should we got some Ogres, Ents, and that massive lil annoying orcs in EB? :clown:

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Originally Posted by Cute Wolf

hey, that was middle earth, when you could got ogres rampaging your line..... http://www.kaskus.us/images/smilies/ngakak.gif
should we got some Ogres, Ents, and that massive lil annoying orcs in EB? :clown:

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Those are trolls though, not ogres. Ogre is the French root of the word Orc. And I hate those film uruks. They are twice as big as they are supposed to be.
Some Ents would be nice, maybe for the Getai - to make them even more OP.

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Originally Posted by athanaric

Those are trolls though, not ogres. Ogre is the French root of the word Orc. And I hate those film uruks. They are twice as big as they are supposed to be.
Some Ents would be nice, maybe for the Getai - to make them even more OP.

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OOps.... I just realize that I watch shrek 3 and forgot about real middle earth...
and change roman legionaries to those orcs will be better...

Ok, ok, back to the topic, what did large stone wall towers supposed to do? shooting ballistas or just arrows, or better, shot nothing?