Your best victory so far?

Here's mine. Hero of Nicaea wins a "Heroic" victory (no surprise there then) against mainly hastati and velites with a couple of triarii and principes....mainly thanks to my cheesy hoplite and archer tactics which have won me many a victory. Most of my battles go like Agincourt, except instead of sticky mud you have the ineptitude of the AI enemies....

As you can see my own archers killed more of my men than the enemy did!

How about you guys? Peasants don't count.

http://members.iomartdsl.com/~s.mcculloch/v1.jpg

Well, that depends on how you define best. My best in terms of casualties was about 2200 kills and ~85 losses while defending against a two-stack sally. My best in terms of personal satisfaction was a desperate defense of a reinforcement stack being sent to aid my faction leader's army. I had about 8 full legionary cohorts and a 2 star general and was attacked unexpectedly by two large stacks. I ended up defeating them both, but with only about 70 survivors of the entire battle, including the 2 left in my general's unit. Fortuntately, I had a fabulous 'heal' afterwards and got back about 300 men. It's nerve wracking when all your remaining units working together are outnumbered by a single enemy cohort. The battle finally ended with my five puny units chasing archers across the field until they routed.

One of my great famous battles were the best one. The AI hade assembled a massive gaul army steaming for my Capital i couldn't raise any good troops and the only thing i had was TW in arretium. But i had bundle of Family Member close by. So what happened was that i rode in with 7 members of family and crushed the oppnonents and killed something in like with 900 people. It was like a famous last stand.

My best in terms of sheer relief and satisfaction at the end was one against an immense egyptian stack that assaulted my city, where a thousand of my Eastern Infantry (surprise) got mangled on the walls and mowed down by chariots....and at the end their 8 star general and hundreds of their men faced my general and a small unit of archers that had routed back to the square....

anyway the AI charged the general into my square on his chariot and I charged him with my archers and routed him, then I chased him with my general and killed him! Ha ha ha! I won with 50 left from 1000 or so. So close and such a dramatic battle

The best battles are always the ones where you're so outnumbered and outclassed that you don't stand much chance at all-but then you fight anyway, and give it your all. It can really have an epic last stand feel to it-and it's good fun even when you lose.

Those kinds of battles-while not occuring often-have always been the pinnicle of my enjoyment in TW games.

No picture, but here goes. Hard/Hard

I had faction leader Flavius Julius (5* w/another general, 1 velite, 1 archer, 5 hastati, 1 town guard total 730+) taking on the first Gaul city. The Main Gaul army (Faction heir 4* w/950+ troops gen, barb cav, swordsmen, velites) is comes from the West, the city sallies from the east (@700 troops barb cav, swordsmen, naked fans, velites). They have me nice and surrounded so I set up horse on my far right, and as close to their line as possible infantry front, missiles rear. I go walk my infantry toward their general and when they move into pila range I charge my horses and crush the main armies flank and their center is breaks under missile fire from all units. My velites and archers (in the rear) and small general turn and start shooting their reinforcements, while I charge everyone else through their generals unit. They break and run.

I lose 64 men, (8 missile troops, 15 general cav troops, the rest infantry) they lose 1200+ and Patavium.
It is good to be surrounded and outnumbered 2:1 by the enemy.
mfhberg

aye i've had some great kill ratio battles 1000 : 50 odd or even more with the parthians (gotta love those HA's :) but i'd have to agree with a few o' the posters above and say the battles i didn't expect to really be fighting tend to be the best. Like when i'm moving troops around maybe to reinforce my main army and an enemy general intercepts them, instead of odds and positioning and unit setup to my liking it's all down to luck. Evens the odds for the ai general a bit and my defeats tend to come from these sorts of battles. I also don't mind the odd against the odds seige. his 800 strong roman army vs your 160 militia hoplites. You know you'll lose but it'll be fun seeing how many you can take with you. ~:cheers:

No-one can beat infinite ratios... I once had a 320-0 kill ratio, but I suspect that others have even done better. I already described my battle in another thread (which is about RTW best moment, and this battle was ~;))

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My best moment so far was the Battle for Corinth at the start of my Greek campaign. (hard/hard)
I had 1 unit of Rhodian Slingers, 2 of Creeeesshhian Archers, 2 mercernary hoplites, about 5 hoplites, 2 peltasts and 4 militia Cavalry I think (could have been greek cavalry).
The bad thing was that the enemy (Macedonians) had 5 units of Light Lancers, and the general as cavalry. They had the same number of hoplites and 1 unit of archers, no peltasts.
I needed to kill that opponent cavalry, so I devised several small plans. I put my archers in front.. and when the lancers were close, moved them behind my hoplites. That unit of lancers was killed half and then fled. Next 2 enemy lancers moved past one of my flanks (the right actually), trying to turn into the back of my hoplites and peltasts that were there. I had anticipated this and wuickly wheeled my slingers around. The peltasts were send in melee to hold the lancers there. One unit of Creshian archers also launched a few volleys there. Those 2 lancer groups were routing too (although my peltasts fled too). About now the main body of the hoplites reached eachother and it was an aggrevating attrition fight, as both sides were almost equal (don't know if they had any upgrades, I had weapons bronze only). Their general and last lancer group each tried to flank a side.. unfortunately, with the peltast gone, the cavalry ran straight through to my slingers. I send in my general and hoped it worked. It did, I killed the enemy general and that group was routing. Unfortunately, from the other side, the lancers had run straight past all the exposed backs of my hoplites, right into my general. My general unit was almost wiped out by that first clash, and my general fell. I deperately send in one of my remaining militia cavalry as a shock and that broke them. When I looked around, most of the earlier routed lancers were fighting my cavalry and kept hit-and running and then routing again, only to come back again.
I figured the only way to end this was to win the hoplites war (which was still going strong). So I sent some cavalry in their back and they routed. Only to have my cavalry be hit by the once again rallied lancers. Lucky for me, they crashed through my cavalry, into my hoplites, and that was the end of those last lancers.
The Macedonians fled the field.

Tally;
800 of my 1100 men killed
1100 of their 1400 men died.

The remaining enemy army was more then happy to return to the fields after a little nudge by my diplomat. And Corinth was mine.
This was a battle in which tactics played a large role, instead of the normal: I have better/more troops and I just win.

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My favourite battle so far was a siege assault - a recently conquered Spanish city (Cordoba?) had a gladiator rebellion and kicked out my 500 strong army before I'd had a chance to retrain them from the initial seige. Without thinking, the next turn I assaulted the city again - not noticing the bulk of the rebels (7 units of gladiators and several assorted light inf) were actually outside the city. So I'm busy rumbling my seige tower towards the city, when his reinforcements appear on the other side of the city - it turned into a race - I took the gate in front of me, and my got my troops in suffering major casualties doing so. The AI realised it couldn't get my troops from that direction anymore as I had control of the gate, and so went for the other gate - I had to rush my one unit of beleaguered hastati round the walls as fast as possible, capturing the towers so they peppered his gladiators as they rushed for the far gate - I got to the gatehouse literally seconds before the first of his units got there - it was awesome! By this time, what was left of my army had made it to the town center, and after a brief struggle, the last 100 or so men of my force held it for the countdown. Ended up with a close victory, most of the casualties were from the archer towers - that's definitely worth an epic poem or several. I just loved the fact that the outcome of this battle came down to whether my unit could survive the constant attrition of tower fire, hold itself together and be fast enough to get round the castle walls in time - if the AI reinforcements had made it in, they'd have made mincemeat of my troops - you've just got to love this game!

I even tried explaining all this to my wife, but she wasn't as impressed as I'd hoped (what was I thinking?). I can't imagine why...

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Originally Posted by troymclure

aye i've had some great kill ratio battles 1000 : 50 odd or even more with the parthians (gotta love those HA's :) but i'd have to agree with a few o' the posters above and say the battles i didn't expect to really be fighting tend to be the best.

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Attacked a Selucid army of 1,770 with 475 Parthians, mainly HA. Killed 1,172 including a family member and lost 1, not including regained prisoners.

Well, in my Roman campaign I got alot of Heroic victories(two in the one turn with the same army fighting the Egyptians once), but few battles were really that close. So my favorite battle has to have been in my Briton campaign. The battle was 4300 Gauls(600 of them reinforcements) versus my 2800 Britons. My army setup was 1 General, 4 Light Chariots, 4 Head Hurlers, 6 Swordsmen, 3 Warband, and 4 Woad Warriors. Or it might have been no Warbands and 7 Woad Warriors, can't really remember now. This was still fairly early in my Briton campaign so I was working out their tactics still.

I did well in the initial melee(facing mainly Warbands/Skirmisher Warbands with the core of his army 1 Chosen Swordsmen and a few Swordsmen units. However the numbers start to turn the tide and they overrun both my flanks so my line soon collapses. The battle turns into pure chaos with units routing/rallying and lots of different pockets of fighting. Through it all I manage to pin down the enemy general and kill him. Sadly, it appeared to all be for nothing my few troops left were getting surrounded and killed or routing. However, I still had my skirmishers left and I started putting them to good use.

Long story short, through LOTS of skirmishing and brushing enemy flanks with my fear-inducing Chariots I manage to kill(with archer fire) and rout whats left of his army and the 600 reinforcements. This is because the Gauls brought no archers or cavalry beyond their general to the battlefield, otherwise I would have been dead meat. Two of my four Chariot units still got decimated though by brushing units, Briton Chariots really go down easy.

In the end the battle results were:
Me: 3636 Killed, 1581 remaining.
Him: 2218 Killed, 448 remaining.

I had like two or three retinue members that helped recover casualties so I managed to salvage alot of them and was able to take the city(Condate Rendonum) after a couple turns. It may not have been a heroic victory, but the battle was close and epic in its scale. The intial warcry from all the troops was great to watch. So thats my favorite thus far, its fun playing barb factions as your enemies can actually match your troops/field better ones, unlike the Romans where your Legions roll over everything.

My greatest battle was probably one of my first major battles. I was the Scipii, and because the game was so new, I took the Senate's word as law, and did everything they told me to do. What this got me was an empire of colonies. A few territories in Africa, Sicily, and a few in Greece. I had lots of enemies, and in Greek Isle, Greece and Macedon were whittling my troops away. Reinforcements were 4-5 turns away, and then I had the battle that would make or break me in Greece.

I had about 700 men, which consisted primarily of Hestati, and one unit of Equites. This army had no general, just a lowly captain. However, that captain would turn the tide of the battle. The attackers, GSC, had about 900-1000 men, with 200ish reinforcements. I don't remember how many stars their general had, but it was enough to give their infantry the edge over mine.

The battle was a real meatgrinder. All of my Hestati units were under the impression that 'defeat was a distinct possiblitity.' I had to do something. I ran my Equites unit to the rear of their line, dodging what little cavalry they had, and charged thier right wing from the rear. I repeated and they broke. Wasting no time, I repeated on down the line until their main force broke. Thier main force by this time outnumbered me even more, so I gambled. I had what was left of my tired, half strength Hestati chase them off the field. I needed to get them out of there before the reinforcements got to my troops. The gamble worked and I regrouped my exhausted, shattered forces.

Then I saw them. Between the two units of hoplites was a unit dressed in red. I thought the battle would be over. I put one unit each on the hoplites and quickly surrounded the Spartans with what little I had left. The Spartans finally broke after taking many of my men down with them and nearly annihilated the unit in front of them. Thankfully, when they broke, the other hoplites did too. My 15 Equites chased them off the field. I had about 200 units left in that army, but Greece suffered a terrible loss as well. Thankfully, I won the race to rebuild armies, and my following victories had a much lower casualty rate.

Greatest battle ever was when I was sieging a Gaul city. They had 3000+ troops to my 1500. This was early on in the campaign so all I had was Hastai, my general units (3), the archer I got in the beginning, and two units of wardogs.

I arranged my troops on the south and east walls of the city. The east wall held my main force of 2 of my generals, several Hastai, my archer, and 1 war dog. The south had two units of hastai, a war dog, and one general. I my set battering rams on the walls, and with my archers on the east driving away cavalry and troops that tried to form up to defend. The south wasn't so lucky so when the walls gave way there were 3 warbands and swordsmen. First thing I did was rush the dogs into the openings. The war dogs tore the Gaul units to pieces. I marched my Hastai in after that.

The fight was getting pretty intense on the east side. I was pushing the Gaul forces away from the wall but that left my flanks exposed. Their king (did I mention they had a few general units too?) charged into my dogs and hastai and started tearing through my army. Fourtantly I had made 2 holes in the east wall and sent one of my general units through that hole to charge into the rear of the king. The king met his maker with a spear in his back. With their king dead the forces of the east wall broke and ran for the center. I brought in all my troops that were stilll stationed outside the east wall.

Meanwhile the warbands holding the south wall broke and became even easier fodder for my dogs and Hastai. There was a full strength unit of Druids stationed behind the warbands that had not engaged in battle. After the warbands routed it attacked my weary troops with full force. I charged in the general that was at that wall and cut apart the druids. Now with their all remaining forces stationed in the town square I completely surrounded the Gauls.

Then I closed in.

It was really a sight. The Gauls, battered and exhausted, fighting for their lives against my hastai, dogs, and generals. It end up with the Gauls fighting to the last man, shoulder to shoulder, against my relentless onslaught. The last one fell and victory was proclaimed.

I slaughtered their entire army. Not a single man was left alive. 3000+ dead at my feet with 200 of my own casualties. I finished with a complete scaking of the city. :evil:

I really wish there was a "sow the earth with salt" option: complete eradication of a city.

About a dozen units of Gauls (peasants, warband and naked fanatics) attacked my general and two units of Hastati. I set the Hastati to fire at will and sat on a small hill. The gauls came, a few pila softened them up a bit, and as soon as they made contact my general flew around the flank and started charging them from behind. Started on their left flank and charged them again and again until their line gradually rolled back. Also I killed their captain. There were so many of them that I decided it would be bad news to try to chase them down right away, and sure enough they started to regroup. I repeated the process and my general got killed, but the tide had turned so much by that time that my Hastati were able to rout the few remaining Gauls. Heroic victory!

My favorite battle was as Egypt. I had fought a long and bloody war against the Selucids and had finally gotten a peace treaty eith them after taking Damascus, Antioch and Tarsus. I turn my armies south to push the Numidians off of my borders, they kept sending little raiding parties into Memphis just annoying the heck out of me. By the time my two armies get all of the way down there, the Selucids attack AGAIN in Tarsus. I know that it is going to take three or four turns to get my main armies back to the north (along with the 7* and 5* commanders) so I gather what men I can spare in my Northern territories without facing a rebellion. I have a general, two chariots, 2 nile spears and 4 archers. I hired a couple of mercenary spears and started to move towards my besieged city. I get there and attack a full stack Selucid army. The battle starts and I run a basic MTW defense of putting my archers in front of the spears and the chariots on the flanks and begin to march towards them. They decide that they are tired of waiting and just charge right at my guys. My archers get off a couple of volleys and then break and run right as the enemy infantry ploughs into them. I charge the chariots into their flank and a couple of enemy units broke, I think that this will be easy now. My general falls before I could disengage him to charge again. When that happens, my army folds and runs. I lost almost everyone I had but it gave me enough time to get my two main armies back to the north. Once they got there, I went hunting and crushed every Selucid army I could find.

It was a great battle, even though I lost. It helped slow down what would have certainly been a huge blow had I lost a couple of the northern cities.

A battle against the barbariarns in thick thick forest. I *had* to keep my camera down at the troop level or I couldn't see anything.

Anyway what with the barbarians ability to hide in trees and all, and me being outnumbered, it was the bloodiest and tensest fight I've had so far :)

At the end, I had one unit of 4 hastati left (out of 82) that was still there in the line of battle and hadn't routed.

And I watched a unit of chosen swordsmen cut my equites to ribbons when their flank charge stalled.

The other unit of equites charged his archers and ran smack into this hidden spear warband.

Not a good day for the equites :)

Anyway that was by far the most bloody battle I've had. Usually it's like, 1500 dead enemy, 200 dead me or some such silly nonsense.

Last night I invaded Italy and a full stack Princeps/Hastati Scipii army attacked me. I had some Armoured Hoplites, Hoplites, Militia Cav, Archers, Peltasts, Greek Cav - a pretty well rounded army. I arranged my Hoplites 4 Deep with half behind the front ranks to fill any gaps or take any flankers out. The militia cav were sent ahead to break up their left flank and draw them across my army. The peltasts did this but a little too effectively - they almost made the enemy flank my army before I quickly made them run back across my lines to draw them back to my center. THeir entire mass of troops eventually found their ends on my phalanx tips and beneath the hooves of my cavalry. In all it was a very desicive victory - 1300+ of them dead out of 1400+. I lost 300 or so. Sweeeet.

My favorite battle was a town defence.

Everything went wrong. The cav I placed at the side gate to flank ended up trying to get to their position through the main gate; scorpion got jammed in the middle of everyone...how many friendlies it killed I wouldn't want to guess; General died killing the enemy general.

All said and done; no named officers left alive on either side; 500 of 800 dead on my side 1202 of 1300+ dead on their side.

Maybe not my best, but my favorite ~:)

My best battle was against the Julii using Carthage. I was defending a town with like 1000 men against 6000 Roman soldiers.

I won in the end, killed 5000 and lost 200. Sacred Band are just cool when defending streets.

my best fight (vh/h) Quintus Julius with 3x 80 townwatch 4x 80 Hastati
vs
1980 gauls.....

place of fight: east of the massila mountan path

I won with few troops left, 2 Tws were wiped out completly and i only won by killing the enemy general with mine.
Quintus got Roman Hero trait after that battle, the only one time i ever got that. Btw his cavalary had 7 ppl left at the end and was surrounded by 4 infantry and warlords unit. Then the impossible happend and the enemy general died and I pulled mine out of the thick of things through enemy units wich made them rout all at once and i won!

edit : typos

Me (Parthia)
1423 men 1373 kills 1421 men remaining
Enemy (Brutii)
1587 men 0 kills 214 men remaining

I was defending. The Brutii army was mainly Velites/Hastati/Priceps/Triarii. They even did the proper Roman formation. My army had 4 high valor horse archers, 1 high valor Persian cavalry, 1 almost depleted Bedouin warrior, 4 Cretan archers, 2 Rhodian slingers, my high valor general and assorted infantry and 1 Arab cavalry I didn't need.

I put all my infantry and Arab Cavalry at the back of the map. I put all my missile cavalry up front to skirmish. I put my general slightly to the back of all the horse archers. I just started shooting missiles into the Roman formation, moving my cavalry out of range of the velites. The Brutii eventually had some Triarii chase a few of my horse archers and my depleted Bedouin warriors so they were occupied. After they got into range of my infantry, the archers and slingers started firing. They almost managed to melee my troops but they started routing some small distance before they reached them.

I have had numerous victorious fights against the gauls as the romans where i line my men up in 2 or more lines, switch to fire at will and the enemy never get close.

My most satisfying was a defence of a city where i failed to notice the walls were already breached, the enemy walked in and i had to retreat to the town square. As the enemy attacked, i charged in with 5 units of peasents, with archers pelting and general on sides - the enemy routed. (that was in the civil war)

my favourite was a city assault. i was defending as the seleucids against pontus, with 2 units of militia hoplites, a unit of peasants, and my general. they had a unit of skirmishers, a unit of hill men, and about 4 units of eastern infantrymen. I thought I was a goner but decided I would take as many of them with me as I could, so I arranged one phalanx right in front of the gate with the other behind it, and sent my peasants off to one side to draw fire from the skirmishers. the baddies finally managed to break through my gate and charged right into my wall of spears, about ten of them dying instantly. it turned into a real meat grinder here- they had way more troops than me, but I had control of the choke point with the best chokepoint troops there are. however they finally broke through the middle of my first phalanx and charged to my second, again slaughtering themselves on the spears. the first unit was now cut in two, so I took them off phalanx and set them to work cutting up the enemy with their swords, while my peasants charged in from one side and my general from another. somewhere along the line my general got the idea to attack the skirmishers who were sitting outside the battle, and ran THROUGH the entire enemy army, ending up with only seven men. I seriously considered making abreak for it wiht my general so I could withdraw him and fight another day, but then I saw that the hillmen had broken and the other units of the enemy were wavering. taking this as a sign, I charged my general back into the fray, right into the rear of the enemy. the entire army broke, and stuck between my hoplites and general, were cut down to nothing- the skirmishers tried to make a getaway but my general and his 6 men caught them and cut them down to size as well. in the end I had lost 160 men, while he had lost an entire army of over 500. my general unit alone killed 200 men (and most of those 200 were divided between 7 men)

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Originally Posted by sapi

I have had numerous victorious fights against the gauls as the romans where i line my men up in 2 or more lines, switch to fire at will and the enemy never get close.

My most satisfying was a defence of a city where i failed to notice the walls were already breached, the enemy walked in and i had to retreat to the town square. As the enemy attacked, i charged in with 5 units of peasents, with archers pelting and general on sides - the enemy routed. (that was in the civil war)

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I usually reload the battle and set my guys up properly when that happens. I mean in real life if you were the general and there was a huge hole in your walls you'd think someone would tell you! Probably the only situation apart from suicide generals in which I reload

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Originally Posted by HicRic

The best battles are always the ones where you're so outnumbered and outclassed that you don't stand much chance at all-but then you fight anyway, and give it your all. It can really have an epic last stand feel to it-and it's good fun even when you lose.

Those kinds of battles-while not occuring often-have always been the pinnicle of my enjoyment in TW games.

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HicRic you're right. Happened to me the other day, when my allies the Britons backstabbed me, attacked 2 of my cities and besieged them. One attacking army was led by their bloody king himself, something like a monstrous 9 stars commander. He led a full stack army, in my city (wooden walls) was just a half, I was outnumbered 2:1. Well, I couldn't provide any help, so I went for an heroic and suicidal sally, hoping to take to the manes as many barbarians I could. My army - 3 Cav, 2 archers, 1 Wardog, 3 Hastati, 3 Velites and one lousy Town Watch. And of course, a Captain to lead this motley crew. His: lots of light infantry, headhurlers and chariots.

I faked an attack with my TW, made the Britons get close, then peppered them with arrows. They didn't seem to care. Attacked finally with everything I had, except the cav, which I sent out on another exit. A great melee followed at my gate, with red Julii banners hopelessly flickering a la route engulfed in a sea of pale blue barbarians (they seemed to enjoy taunting a lot and, I tell you, man, they seemed sooo happy to kill scores of Romans...). Archers, dogs and velites where chopped in instants. When everything seemed lost, with only 2 dozens of Hastati still fighting, my cav made the desperate charge from the back, killing the enemy 9 star general and generating complete panic among the britons. :charge: They run like hell ("run for your lifes..."), just to be slaughtered. All of them.

My garrison was basically destroyed after this and few lived to tell about that (truly, I thought) heroic battle, but their army disappeared.

Well, if the AI was just a little brighter and tried to counterattack my cav before the charge...

Possibly my favorite, I assaulted a Scythian town with a force of about equal size, 1200-1300 on each side. It was a mix of infanty, archers, an onager, two family members, & a pack of wardogs. The family member who wasn't a general wasn't really much; I brought him along thinking I'd leave him in the city as governor. The Scythians had several units of horse archers & as well as some warbands & archers. As soon as my onager had the wall down, I started feeding units in to avoid being slaughtered by arrows beginning with the wardogs so as to avoid losing men who would be more costly to replace. There was a lot of street fighting, but the entire thing was very chaotic, finally ending with the last Scythian unit dying to a man in the town square.

The unit-by-unit breakdown stunned me by saying that the unit of the non-general family member had killed 247. Then I noticed one unit had killed even more: the wardogs claimed 347.

My best victory is when i was playing as the Julii.

I had about 200-300 hastati and about 40-50 equites. The Brits had a full strength army roughly about 1400 men. When the battle map came up i thought oh my god. They were everywhere.

I decided to just attack and try and take out as many as possible before my army was routed or destroyed. Thankfully i managed to take out the brits general (who was the faction leader)and after a while they started to rout. I thought how the hell did i just beat them, it wasn't until the campaign map came up and i got a message saying the brits had been wiped out (didn't know he was the last of his family before the battle). My captain got a quick adoption for a job very well done.

Playing hard/hard as Seleucids. Sieged a Egyptian city. The garrison had 2000 men and I had 1000. They were slaughtered. 0 survived and I lost 90 men.

Me: Romans 230 kills, 0 remaining. Them: Gauls 600+ kills, 41 remaining.

Fun last stand. The only real units I had were an early legionary cohort and a half dead unit of roman cav. The rest of the 500 or so were vanilla peasents. The gauls had a warband, chosen swordsmen and a forester warband.

I manage to kill both the warband and the chosen swordsmen, and was within an ace of routing the forester warband, when my general had to go and die :( My army (or what was left of it) routed and I lost, but it was still fun.