The EB book of comedy battlefield errors

Ok,

So we get lots of 'check out my fantabulous empire' and my 'uberlicous kill ratio'. So, how about the worst battlefield mistakes you've made in EB? Those moments when you were embarrassed to be called a human player because some half-brained AI just kicked your arse for no good reason?

A couple of mine from my current roman campaign..

Agains the Aedui - in the forests of Gaul - FM with legion against half-decent Gaullish army with berserkers. My usual hammer and anvil tactics eventually rout his line infantry, although only after taking heavy losses and really tiring out my troops. So I content myself chasing his skirmishers around with my cavalry, whilst my remaining line troops march across to his FM, standing in some trees. By the time my now tired and depleted cavalry have finished with the skirmishers (they're not so easy to kill after all), my poor line troops discover the Gaullish FM has three fresh infantry units hiding with him in the forest....

Also against the Aedui - I attack two raiding parties. They start off split with a small hill in between them. Instead of picking off one group with my superior numbers before the other can react, I decide to leg it to the hill to get the height advantage. Both Aedui groups then attack me simultaneously. My line infantry, in poor order, get massacred from both sides, my FM runs away in ignomany...

Which units do you mean by berserkers? The naked fanatics?

Nice ones there Kyodai, not as failed as mine I think, though :D
Swebian failures:

1st-In a battle vs Baltic rebels, I got AIish.Charged his line with my low-quality infantry and waited hoping they would eventually rout.Then suddenly all my line suddenly routed xD, tactics are a must

2nd-Against the Romans near Arpi, I screwed up a battle that was going totally in my favor by sending my 40 manned bodyguard against 70 singvlares hoping they would win.When I realized my FM was getting his ass kicked about 500 meters away from the battlefield, it was too late to fall back, my FM died 15 seconds later. I was like ''****!Why am I so dumb!?''

My worst was when my Roman Empire was expanding into Gaul

I had a tough battle at a bridge (can't remember where) and my Legionarys broke them and they started a mass rout. As they're whole army was routing i sent my 7 star with excellant traits general over to help persue them. He missed the bridge and drowned.


Not really my fault but I thought it belonged in this thread

ouch that hurts :(

The biggest debacle I can remember ( i think there were two crushing defeats at the hands of an outnumbered AI but i can't remember them ^^) was with bactria, the assault of Takshila, or to be precise the sally. You know that was on my old PC, and well It always took the ole chap some time to load so I often went to the kitchen to grab some grub while the game loaded. Unfortunately for my rather levy heavy army I forgot that hostile sallies don't give you a deployment phase and I had actually made myself a sandwhich to fight the "upcomeing" battle well nourished...(unlike my troops who were a bit peckish by now). The battle had already begun and while I put down my meal I watched a bunch of guild warriors already chewing on my archers X(, all Elephants beeing "on field" and most of their melee units IN my lines. Totally Panicked I gave my Phalangites(who were still holding the Siege towers tight X/ ) abstruse orders. With a great amount of Luck I actually managed to run in my BG after the only fleeing Rebel unit(a particulary stupid unit of indian spearmen who had charged into my only deployed phalanx X) ) into the City, capture the town square and Win the battle with the loss of 80% of my army(and maybe 30% enemy casualties). That did take care of my finances tho.

As macedonia, my siege of the last Getai bastion: their capital. The fullstack garrison and another stack met my "royal army" several miles away from the city. I gathered y phalanxes around a giant boulder(noobish, i know, but it was in a forest, and i was scared). I routed a lot of enemy units, then broke the ring and chased the routing enemies down with about half my infantry. that's when the other half of their army appeared out of the forest. it was a massacre. There were no survivors.

Well, in my current Carthaginian campaing, a smallish (halfstack?) roman army advanced near the city of Rhegium. My main army was at Tarentum, but Rhegium had a nice garrison force consisting of Liby-Phoenician and Libyan spearmen(the early ones), some other random units, and a governor, so I decided to attack that army with he garrison force. The odds said 5:4 for my advatance, and I had grown overconfident, having won all previous battles against them, so when the battle was in foresty terrain, I just marched my army at their position, which may have been on an unsteep hill(I couldn't find the proper term). I directly attacked them with my Liby-Phoenicians, and most of my Libyans and at least and unit ot caetratii encircled them, leaving only a small gap in their rear for my general to charge-and-repeat from. Their general, if i recall correctly, got into pitched infantry battle and routed.

But despite all this, they did not break, and eventually my right(if i recall correctly) flank collapsed and an unit of Principes and Triarii began to chase them. My left flank and centre held on however, and eventually drove rest of the Romans into a rout. Meanwhile, I got some of the routers to return and attack the unit of Principes chasing them. The unit of Triarii turned back and collided with my main line. I somehow did not manage to flank them properly or anything, but my units were still winning by their sheer numbers.

Well, that's when I made a critical mistake. I had previously ordered my general(with only 12 bodyguards left) to chase down a routing unit of Pedites Extraordinarii to prevent them from re-entering the battle. However, I neglected to support them with any infantry, and the Extraordinarii, with like 49 men left, turned back and fought my General. I had become too embroidered with the other battles to watch my General, and too late I noticed that he only had 4 men left. Well, I tried to retreat him back and send my few reserves there, but he was surrounded and his unit routed and started a fight to death before he could get out, and they were massacred.

:wall:

Well, my troops didn't insta-rout, but my reserves couldn't outmatch the Extraordinarii, and my main force couldn't beat the Triarii quickly enough, so eventually my reserves collapsed and then my main line. Fortunately, the former routing units had managed to beat the Principes, and I at least once managed to form a new line from them and my main line units that had stopped from routing, but they routed on touch with the Romans.

So, I lost the battle, and due to healing casualties, they had about half of the army left after the battle, and their General too!

In my Carthaginian campaign I had conquered Italy and reduced the Romans to few settlements north of the Alps (as much as EB tries to be accurate the AI doesn't always go along with it) and decided to put an end to them with an army of Italians (Bruttians, Campanians and Samnites) led by an FM. Decided the best way to do it was pick a pitched battle on a mountain top, let the Romans tire themselves out running up to me and then charge down after them. Problem was I picked the wrong side of the mountain to climb, instead of finding myself on a nice plateau near the summit I found myself facing sheer cliff edge... So much for my Italians.

I sent three full stacks of half levy's to attack Ebronubrum (sp?), the Boii settlement, and their roving general. I auto resolved the battle... lost 2 and 1/2 of the full stacks. Comedy error #1, don't auto-resolve!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stratigos vasilios

I sent three full stacks of half levy's to attack Ebronubrum (sp?), the Boii settlement, and their roving general. I auto resolved the battle... lost 2 and 1/2 of the full stacks. Comedy error #1, don't auto-resolve!

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What did the Boii have? Half levies?

Can't remember exactly, I think it was a mix of all types of troops. Their entire army was double silver chevrons though, didn't end well for me I'm afraid.

not sure if it´s mistakes but i normally loose quite a few family members while they´re extremly young

probably as something to do with the fact that they tend to lead the charges :\ lead by example cowards are all of those who live past 35 \o

Closest thing I have to comedy is a Seleucid levy phalanx thinking it can block a town street from a Parthian force. Everything was going fine, enemy skirmishers defeated, enemy spearmen defeated - then the Parthian general showed up with his heavily armoured bodyguards, who somehow fight their way past the massed Seleucid pikes and slaughter the phalangtites.

Bloody cataphracts.....never expected them to slaughter even a levy phalanx from the front....

herm titus they´re called catatanks for a reason

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SneakyNinja

I had a tough battle at a bridge (can't remember where) and my Legionarys broke them and they started a mass rout. As they're whole army was routing i sent my 7 star with excellant traits general over to help persue them. He missed the bridge and drowned.

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Hilarious! :laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Paltmull

Hilarious! :laugh4:

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It took me quite a while to see the funny side

Marched into Hayasdan with my bactrian "northern expedition force" consisting of archers, eastern axemen and some mercenary georgian swordsmen. I was hoping for a quick campaign, to take their capital Armavir in a swift and bold move while their armies are out fighting the sarmations for the supremacy of the steppes. However, I did not bring any spearmen and any heavy cavalry so two units of noble cataphracts and a family member and three units of eastern skirmishers routed my army and nearly killed my leader, a nephew of the king. I'm currently in Phrasspa, regrouping and recruiting a new force, this time with spearmen and heavy cavalry.

:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
Love this threat.


One big fail that happened to me was in my last Pontic campain where I had a very old general that fought something like 90% of my major battles until then agaisnt both ptolies and seleukids and that was comanding one of my two main armies by himself... By that time I had control of all asia minor and coastal syria and he was pushing my way into Egipt. So I thought that it would be better to give him a trustable second in comand, just in case something would happen to him (treachrous greeks) and sent a young, promissing general to give him a hand....

First battle and the young general get himself killed somehow against some low tier infantry... -_-' while the old one keep pawning the Ptolies as he allways did.
Until he died from old age many years later but not until all of northern Egipt was consulidated under Pontic rule.. :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4: Ah, the good old tough fox he was.... RIP

sneakyninja wins so far, although doesn't strictly count as human fail.

His story rings of William rufus getting shot in the head on a hunting trip, or the Holy Roman Emperor falling of his horse and drowning. Of such things is history made!

my most embarrassing moment was playing as Rome: I had a general who was leading a column of legionaries (polybian) against the Gauls in northern Italy, when a breech was assaulted by him and a unit of Principes. ahead was a unit of Gaesatae.

after a few minutes of fighting, the Gaesatae were annihilated, but my general was dead

no, he was not killed by the Gaesatae. he and half the staff were killed by the Javelins coming from the Pincipes, and aimed at the Gaesatae. problem was, the two units were so close, that hits were unavoidable. :wall:

moral: friendly fire is easily possible. that, and Fragging need not be confined to the age of Gunpowder (wierd factoid: first modern style fragging occured in 1704, battle of Blenheim, when an unpopular officer in the future 15th regiment (british) took a headshot from one of his "loyal" soldiers :smartass:)

No pictures of people deploying siege in a clearing in the woods?

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

No pictures of people deploying siege in a clearing in the woods?

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'fraid not :sad:

Waste all My cavalry in archers and forget I had a right flank :D and this is MP

I had an epic fail once with Hayasdan, trying to take the town to the north, Mtskheta it's called. I sieged the town, waiting for the garrison to sally.....but then they didn't sally properly! Only one unit of Georgian swordsmen came out (although some of their men were running round in circles in the town square for some reason! The rest of the buggers just stood inside the wall! I had to try and break in the front door, since I hadn't built any rams (not expecting to need them.) And getting in that front gate was darn near impossible, the starting Hay army has some really crap spearmen who couldn't fight their way into a brothel, let alone an enemy town. They were getting themselves butchered by the Georgians, and in a towering rage I sent my faction leader in - who did quite well, until he got himself killed by the enemy general! My remaining spearmen then became a bunch of wimps and started legging it, I tried to use my other young FM to cut the cowardly swine down, I was so angry I wanted to kill my own routers, but the game doesn't let you attack your own troops, a severe oversight IMO!

never been there but been angry enough particulary with phallanxs when i loose batles because the dumb asses can´t get their crap together and block a street after 5 minutes trying to deploy :\

anyway in such situations i expect you to have done it in the 1st turn so no biggie just restart but remember to cool off go out with friends for some beers or else you might get a tad nervous when trying to avoid your previous mistakes and your fear will make you phail again ... creating a hay playing phobia

This isn't exactly battlefield related but I found this to be pretty amusing. :D

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Sometimes I think my game is installed incorrectly because of strange name occurrence like this one. Haha.

I knew it he was dull/uncharismatic/languorous! XD
I got a CIC too once and one with Kaeso :P