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Well, seeing as most of the time when you're defending in a bridge battle you can smash the attacker to a bloody pulp, I was wondering if any of you recalls any interesting bridge battles that you lost while defending. If so, why did you lose ? (i.e., were you overwhelmed, did you get killed by heavy missile/arty fire, did the AI use the other (if any) bridge and fell on your back, etc).
Blodrast
I lost one once, defending Kiev as the Byzantines against the Russians. No magic to it. It was about 1250, I was light on missile troops, most of my infantry were Byz Inf and if they were upgraded it wasn't by much, and I was down about four stars on the general. (I had more or less burgled Kiev from the Russians the turn before because I noticed it was lightly garrisoned, so I hadn't really planned to be fighting the battle).
They didn't do anything clever, just showed up with a load of mega valor Boyars and eventually chewed through all the Byz Inf I had blocking the bridge. Taking archer fire that I couldn't reply to didn't help. Nor did sending some katapractoi round via the other bridge to attacjk the Russians in the rear, but mistiming the attack because they are so **** slow.
Where I went wrong was putting one unit right across the bridge as a plug. That gave me a series of one to one fights between low valour infantry that aren't that good against cavalry, and some jedi cavalry. Dumb. How I won a similar battle a few turns later was leaving the bridge unblocked but forming three units in a square around the exit from the bridge. That has two advantages, first, that any units that come accross get attacked on three sides, (low morale units were coming across the bridge and just routing as soon as they got into the box, without even fighting), and also it means more of your infantry is that bit further out of arrow shot.
The jedi boyars were still tough but that time I got them.
Only once I lost a bridge battle:
Against the HRE defending Poland with the Danes.The army I had was 2 UM (garrison), and a ransomed army of some 400 soldiers with all the units at about 20% of their manpower, none of them were missiles (for some reason all the missile units were ransomed to another province). And then the HRE reappears with mostly RK army with some CMAAs and lots of arbs.
Long story short, I made a heroic last stand and retreated only about 4 men, lost about 470 and killed some 300.
There was no chance I could win anyway...
Third wawe of the Mongol horde in Kiev as the Russians, I couldn't simply replace my losses from the earlier battles (together around 800) and when he attacked my 700 men with 3000 I fought until my arbs and crossbows ran out of ammo, then I retreated. 600 kills to 270 losses.
His achers really decimated mine, around 80% of my casualities in those 3 battles was due to enemy arrow fire. Those mongol cav got slaughtered by my ranged troops and the remains met halbs and armoured spears.
I've actually lost a battle against the GH in Kiev when they managed to charge MHC across right at the moment when just about all my pavs arbs where out of ammo and halfway across the map withdrawing.
my halbs were also decimated form earlier waves and at 2 energy bars.
they timed their charge with mongol warriors focus firing on my halbs so my plug routed and a unit of MHC got across before I resumed the plug and that replacement halb got overrun in the rear with my general not enough to stop the MHC.
lost the bridge and lost that battle.
such horrible timing, GAH
I've lost several bridge battles, mainly though strategic incompetence (not enough troops / no decent general).
There was only one time it mattered. This was in STW, I was playing the Hojo and defending Musashi against the combined might of the Takeda and the Imagawa.
I had two units of archers (one of which was general), a unit of yari samurai (pike men) and a unit of yari ashigary (peasants with pikes).
Archers withered down my yari samurai as the enemy charged of the bridge. My troops put up a good fight, but the constant streams of arrows and enemies took its toll: my men began to waver. I had decided to keep the ashigaru back since I didn't reckon them to be able to stop the first wave. Now my samurai were wavering I thought that the support of other troops, any troops, would encourage them to fight on, so I plunged my ashigaru in. I thought wrong. The samurai routed and of course the peasants lost the will to fight when seeing that. I knew the battle was lost and withdrew my archers in good order.
End result: lost most of my spear troops, but none of my archers. Inflicted 1.5 or 2 times my casualties on the enemy. I faced a though fight next turn to liberate the province and rescue my heir, but I managed it.