Your most crushing defeat...

In my very rare occasions to play RTW due to a huge amount of work I was playing the MAC's. Thanks to the incredible Light Lancers, one of the best units in RTW and many mercs I managed to conquer Greece, Asia Minor, South Italy and Sicily very fast. I suffered yet only one defeat, and this in the sea, playing VH/VH ~:cool:


My great successes enraged first the Thracians and after I crushed them, the Scythians. No problem I thought, having with Alexander a good general (six stars and many good traits) and a full stack composed of 4 LL and various mercs (Hoplites, Thracians, Heavy Peletasts), with two Bastarnae and Crethiaaan Archers. All in all over 1000 men.

Seeing the Scyhtian capital (Scythian camp) poorly guarded I siege it. Next turn a small relief force attacks me. :duel:

The two Scythians HA came from the south while the besieged army with a good deal of Barbarian Cav and Scythian NobleArchers with little infantry support came marching from the north. All in all 400 enemys with a poor general.

It was a winter landscape in the Steppe with little trees on my left and right, where I prepared to deal with them, thinking it best to keep my army tight, placing the Hoplites in front of the main army, flanked by the Thracians and supported by the Bastarnae and the Peletasts. The Cretians were in the center, as my General was, the LL were in the Rear

After ten minutes of intenisve gameplay I saw my army utterly crushed and cut down to the last man. Seeing that my so good Archers were unable to keep this HA at pay I decided to unleash my four LL which never let me down before to defeat the HA quickly. Two of them chased on HA. In the mean time the enemy started to encircle me slowly, while my archers tried to shoot as many as they could down. I kept my army tight, waiting for the return of my LL after their victory. But no, all four were cut down to 8-15 men each fleeing hastly from the battlefield. ~:eek:

Now with no cav. I waited. Soon the whole Scythian left attacked my right flank, starting a chain rout. I hastly ordered the General and the Bastarnea there, and exactly while I issued that orders my left flank was ridden down by their other wing, closly followed by the center. In 10 seconds my whole army was on the run, with anyone surving it's faith. Only some of the LL could report of the Deseaster...

Cheers
OA

Oooh....that's bad. My worst defeat was a few days ago. I was playing as brutii and had been in charge of salona for nearly all the game, when the thesalonians attacked without warning. My entire 1000 man garrison was annhialated. They invaded italy 5 turns later, and made my campaign crash into the ground....

I suffer defeats from time to time but they're generally close. I can remember of only one ashaming defeat.

I was playing as the Julii waring against the Gauls (how original ~D ), trying to win a settlement from them (in Spain). I was in a rush-rush period, winning 2 regions a turn, thus I couldn't replenish my troops all the time. I recruited 4 mercenary warband groups, setting my stack number to a grand total of 800 men (4 hastati's, some archers, only one cavalry unit alone with my general...).
The Gauls had 7 barbarian cavalry units a few archers and 4 warband units.
I put my mercenaries on the flanks to keep a strong core in the center.
The battle took place in a plain, summer.

I stayed on the defensive. In a blink of an eye, they launched a full cavalry charge, straight in the center (in my hastatis), 3 of my hastati units broke at once. I tried to flank their cavalry with my mercenaries but their infantry struck them down (some even routed at the sight of the enemy...). In less than a minute it was a massive rout and my general fled.
Henceforth I don't use warband units ~D

I just remembered an even worse defeat that i suffered today: I had captured a settlement off dacia, but three turns later they attacked and laid siege to it. I though it wouldn't be too hard, because there armies are very similar to gauls armies (and i've defeated gaul...hehe). When i started the battle, too my shock and horror, half of their army was made up of chosen archer warbands. I couldn't even get my army outside without them being shot to bits. Eventually my entire army was killed, and i only managed to kill 200 of their 600 men. My army was made up of 1000 men....how embarrassing...

Darnit! I haven't had any embarrassing defeats yet. I have only lost 2 battles and both times I was quite outnumbered and without a general and ended up almost winning but for my units tending to rout. I would certainly like to lose some but in general my victories are with kill ratios of at least 10:1.

I need a better AI to face, or I need to quit abusing archers and horse archers so much. :charge:

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ended up almost winning but for my units tending to rout.

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Grrr....that really annoys me when that happens. I was playing as carthage, and trying to defend caralis, and i had almost won, there was only one enemy unit left when suddenly....my entire army ran away!!! So i jumped out of my chair, jumped up and down and shouted at my monitor, and then kicked the computer. My army had about 400 men, left and the enemy only had 80, so i had a good reason for being annoyed. :furious3:

(Not really 1 battle but a series of mistakes on a campaign)


I have suffered my share of defets and follies but one in particular has baffeled me to this day... I was Carthage, the dominating faction in the Mediteranien and had just compleatly whiped the Scipii familly to death. But this wasn't good enuff for me and so I set my sites for the now Julii controlled Spain. My army in Corduba was 4,000 strong and required 3 generals and 3 little pieces on the SP game board to control, It was made up of my greatest cavelry and infantry, Spanish mercenaries, and a unstopable force of elephants. The first fight was done just out side of my province in Spain and my 4,000 man army was up against about 700 Julii infantry (mostly Princepaies) and about 200 javalin solders. The battle goes smothly until they atempt to flank me with a grope of Early Ligionary Cohorts, now I send in my general thinking "Heay theese loosers are just stupid swordsmen and not varry good ones at that." and so my general charges along with my Ally's (remeber i need 3 ARMIES to move this huge mob) when suddenly I hear, "ALLYS GENERAL HAS FALLEN!" now I'm thinking this has to be a mistake, theese stupid swordsmen cant beat MY Carthaginian Cavelry when "YOUR GENERAL HAS FALLEN!" WTF!?!?!?!?!?! And can you gess what my dumb as turd troops did? If you guessed route you win. All of about 3,600 Carthage troops routed. and only about 52 Romans were left.

Ok so now my faction leader and best general are dead, and my only general in Spain has only 2 stars. Well I can eather wait for another general to comefrom Carthage or move on and hope the lack of good generals wouldn't effect my charge into Spain. Well being as cautious as I was I waited for 2 replacement generals to come and lead my 2 leaderless armies into battle. Well this in turn gives the Romans time to re-enfource their armies in Spain and so instead of fighting the expected 3,000 Roman armies. I fought about 7,000 Roman Ligionaries with about 4,500 men (I also re-enfourced). Well as luck would have it the Romans had neglect any to bring any good generals and the cloweds seemed to part and show the sun once more. That is untill I acculy fought them. Well Finaly I cornered the Roman General near the city of Osca and fought his 3,700 Roman Ligionary troops with my 4,500 Carthage troops. THe battle whet perfictly eccept for the fact ALL of my elephants were forced into a panik by this generals luck. The Roman had about 5 groped of pigs and well you can guess the rest. Well Panicked elephants are not always a bad thing if they go panik somewhere ells (preferibly in the ither guys ranks) but as luck would have the beast did there wonderfull dance of death IN MY RANKS and I was forced to kill THEM ALL. SO good bye my beautiful 100 elephant army :embarassed: . Well after that I decided to hang up the coat and fall back to my nearest city (most of Spain was mine anny how). Well I am begining to think the worst is over when low and behole geuss who comes kncking at my door. The Roman laied siege to my city for a huge amount of time untill I decided he was just going to sit there and let my men starve so I decided to break the siege my self. And after that little disaster (if you havnt geussed yet I lost) I decided "No more trying to take lands from the Romans anny more."


thak was my worst defet ever.

I was playing as the greeks and seiging a barbarian (gallic?) settlement.
I charged in with an almost full army stack of armoured hopelites. i break through the gate, but then the gallic cavalry charge (3 general's cavalry). I think, no problem, i have spearmen. My entire army is pushed out of the town and routs. WTF!

Talking about the carthage thing, i'm sort of stuck in a giant on-going war between me and the scipii. I have the settlement that carthage always has at the beginning of the game, and the scipii just keep sending massive armies to attack me. It's utter mayhem.

sorry to double post, but i forgot to tell you that it is an on-going war over who controls sicily.

My word of advice. Let them take it. Then they will most likely not renforce it giveing you time to land an army there. Also land on Italy it self. The ROmans never expect that.

My biggest defeat and most memorable was when an unprepared Seleucid general and a small army and some local Numidian mercs were attacked from out of nowhere by a full stack of Scipii soldiers, and some more units from the nearby Garrison I had planned to assault.

I only had 3 Silver Pikemen units, possibly another phalanx pikemen unit, 2-3 Numidian Skirmishers, 1 Numidian Skirmisher Cavalry, 2 Onagers, 1 Greek Cavalry and 1 General and that was probably it.

My foes were a 19 unit Scipii army consisting of a few Hastasti, Cavalry Auxilia, Roman Archers, and at least 10-12 Velites. To the rear as reinforcements were Hastati and more velites. Fortunately only 1 of these could enter the battle at the time.

To make my situation worse, the large enemy army started on a hill-top, the kind of defensive position I needed.

Previously, I'd led similar armies but with a few extra cavalry & pikemen against the Scipii and and won easily. Now I was going to get slaughtered.

The Romans had their numerous Velites advance and pepper my Pikemen with javelins. My own Skirmishers were too few to stop them. My onagers were unable to stop their skirmishers as the Velites stand too spaced out to hit enough. I was forced to advance to try and catch a few of their Velites out before they could retreat. But as I advanced, I got closer and closer to the Romans on the hill. I should have retreated, but I thought I might be able to win it still.

I tried to pin some of the velites in with my Greek cavalry and General, but failed spectacularly. The sheer number of velites meant the horsemen were felled by the dozen as the javelins rained in from all directions.

And if my Pikemen weren't thinned out too much already by the enemy, my own onager killed over 20 in a poorly aimed incendiary shot. I ended up advancing nearer to the enemy on the hillside, desparately trying to pick off some units, knowing that my phalanx men could easily beat anything in a straight 1-1 fight - if they got the chance.

Ended up getting slaughtered on the hillside. I threw everything I had at the enemy, but it wasn't enough. Somehow I managed to kill the reinforcements coming from behind with the men on the onagers and a few numidian cavalry, but my skirmishers and pikemen couldn't resist the sheer number of javelins being thrown at them, nor the swords of the Romans.

At the end of the battle, the only units that survived were the 2 Onagers. 4 had died in melee, but they were otherwise unharmed. And even though their onagers were left on the battlefield, they still had them. I think at the end of the battle, I had around 200-300 kills, but lost probably towards 800.


If ever I see an army of nearly all skirmishers again, I shall rightly fear them. Literally hundreds of javelins being thrown at once is a terrifying sight to an army relying on Pikemen.

I got my revenge though. War Elephants and Cataphracts arrived a few turns later and I regularly get heroic victories against the foolish Romans.

I was playing as the Brutii (H/H) and I was laying seige on the Egyptian city of Antioch with two armies of 700 men. One army was situated on the northern end and one on the southern side. My southern army got sandwiched between two 2000 PEASANTS armies. The whole two armies were made of peasant units. Even with my good quality army of 700 men, my southern army was eliminated to the last man...

lost a heir and a small army to a few infantry units + 3 elephant troops (not units, troops) while beseiging carthage

or

Lost a general (6*) and 14 men when Appolonia was attacked by a massive greek army.
If I can quote from We were soldiers
"I consider losing 10,000 draftees a bad week. I consider losing a colonel (in this case a kick ass general) a massacre"
-Capo

Well, I can offer a tale of unmatched stupidity. Not from the AI, but from me.
I am playing cathago on vh/vh. I managed to hold on corduba for a long time, with my general there resisting so many attempts to bribe him, that he has now all anti-bribe traits (now he costs +1000%).
Anyway, corduba was my beachhead in spain, I held it for a long long time against the odds. Well, I had stabilised Sicily and am starting to conquer spain, or so I thought. The spains had no great armys nerby, so I send my general on a ride to build a tower. As a result, corduba revolts. With corduba goes a large part of my ecnomy, and I could not build anything for the next couple of turns.
Stupid mistake #1.
Ok, so my general bought a couple of mercs, joins the expelled garrison and laid siege. I didnt dare to assault, because I lacked strong infantery to take the walls ( I build stonewalls for beter defense, you know...)
After 6 turns of starving economy, the rebells sally. They get completely annihilated outside the city. Theit only unit left was a heavy cav in the center. I could have just let the timer run down, an would have had the city the next turn, with no losses.
But no, I was impatient and wanted to be heroic.
Stupid, silly mistake #2
So I pursued the fleeing units into city, enjoing the burning oil. Ok, I capture the gates and charge my genral at the last enemys (I outnumber them now anyways, so what?)
Well, half of my generals unit gets stuck somewhere in he streets, and now all of a sudden it`s me who is outnumbered. Guess whch part of the unit my general is in? I was frozen with horror when heard that my ultra-loyal general has fallen in a allready won battle.
I was so pissed, blaming the poor pathfinding for this tragic loss and decided to load the autosave. I quit the battle, and loaded.
Stupid, sillly mistake #3.
Autosave saves at the beginning and at the end of your turn. The rebells sallied - that means, immidiately after I lost, it saved. So, I loaded the very current situation. So I didn`t even get the city, which would have been mine very easily even after my genreal died.
All in all, I lost the city for a completly unnecessary move, lost a good general with an even more unnecessary move, and managed to lose a completly won battle because I quit it.
Boy was I pissed.
Losing 3 major battles in a row vs the numidians in africa didn`t help my mood either. Come on, they have only two provinces left. Why can`t they just lay down and die?

Well, in my current (and first) campaign as the Brutii, I expanded into the Balkans and Greece, knocked out the Macedonians and took all but Sparta. Eventually, i was forced to declare war on the greeks again, and so i decided to sort out Greece for good and get Sparta. They had more than a full stack consisting of armoured hoplites and 3 odd spartan hoplites. First i attacked with my pre-marian III Legion, laid seige - they sortied - and wiped the floor with my army (ok, my roman general (governor of Athens, not the brightest card in my family pack) was a bit gung-ho and tried to take the walls - his men generally got wiped out on the battlements or around the gate.

Ok, so wasting the III Legion gets my faction leader's attention, so he sends in the newly formed, and fully up to date post-Marian IV legion. They march into Spartan lands, but get attacked before they lay siege. What can i say? The troops were green and even with full legionary cohorts supported by auxillia and cavalry, the solid block of armoured phalanxes steamrollered over them. End of Legio IV.

Right, things are serious, so faction leader sends over spare Legion II - pre marian, but led by one of my more promising young grandsons - This time, the Spartans decide to meet them in the field again - only this time the Spartan commander makes the mistake of allowing my Velites to break up his formation, and with hoplite units chasing my velites around the hill, the rest of my units surround and take out his other units piecemeal.

So - i have Sparta - but it cost 2 legions to get it! (sheeshhh.....)

I have in fact no defeats at all in my campaing......makes me wonder what I'm doing right, after reading this I went to check before replying and that's when I found out that I'm 75-0.

I'm freaked out. Wait that shows that the AI really sucks

Worst defeat ever occurred last night. I was the Greeks, and had fairly pummeled the Romans into oblivion, with but two cities to go. I was besieging their capital with a few family members and a rather large force of maxed out spartan hoplites, ballistae, and cavalry.... oh yeah, there was also this single horse unit, who just happened to have returned from scouting.

Unfortunately, when moving the horse unit back "into the army", it turned out that he came up about a quarter inch shy of reaching them (didn't pay attention enough I guess, otherwise I would have realized it).

Well, out come the Roman legions on the next turn, and I'm excited as heck to see that I'll get to fight them outside the walls... only thing is, there's just that lone unit of horsemen, and I'm told reinforcements will be slow in arriving. ~:eek:

I tried dancing around for a little bit, only to get caught by several Roman Cavalry units - the battle lasted about twenty seconds and my horse were dead, as a result of which the entirety of thousands upon thousands were also dead, along with the family members... and they never even had the opportunity to fight!

It was almost like something out of Monty Python...

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Originally Posted by Mikeus Caesar

I just remembered an even worse defeat that i suffered today: I had captured a settlement off dacia, but three turns later they attacked and laid siege to it. I though it wouldn't be too hard, because there armies are very similar to gauls armies (and i've defeated gaul...hehe). When i started the battle, too my shock and horror, half of their army was made up of chosen archer warbands. I couldn't even get my army outside without them being shot to bits. Eventually my entire army was killed, and i only managed to kill 200 of their 600 men. My army was made up of 1000 men....how embarrassing...

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Hey man the exact same thing happened to me!

It was that settlement to the north of Italy through the alps. I was garrisoning it with some auxilia, town watch a five star general some equites and hastati. They attacked with what seemed like a smaller army of about 400 so I sallied out............they turned out to be chosen archers, chosen swordsmen and falxmen. .....

My town watch were shot to pieces and routed trying to get out of the gate.

My auxilia were destoyed by one unit of falxmen.

My equites and general went hard around the flank and into the archers.....i think they only killed one or two before routing.

The hastati did ok throwing their javelins......then got swamped by the chosen people

In the end I had about 20 men left skulking behind the wooden stockade with almost all the dacians standing around outside.

They wouldnt have done it If id had wardogs!

Lismore

I had one:

I was sieging the Greek town Thermon. The time limit was 20 minutes and I managed to kill all of the hoplites, Creshan archers and their general. So it all came down to the last 2 hoplite units in the town square. Still 10 minutes left, good.

So I had some left-over small archer units, and moved them up to shoot. With some jav. cav. contribution I further thinned down the Greek hoplite numbers 1/3, and the 3-minute timer started to blink.

Great, time for the total infantry charge. Desert infantry & skirmishers & mercenary hoplite surrounded the town center and began the massacre, but those Greek hoplite suddenly refused to go down - they formed a semi-sphere of spear, so my infantry couldn't touch them! All right, so I charged with jav. cav. in their back, forcing them to lift their spear a bit... Then they formed a perfect sphere of spears! The time goes to 30 seconds, 10 seconds, and there was 10 hoplites, 5 hoplites, 4, 3...

I wiped them out about the timer expires, and the game says I lost the battle. Lesson learned: charge early if it's hoplite guarding the town center.

Worst defeat for me, recently, was last night with my mighty Eggy's getting attacked by a force of seleucids just south of Antioch. I had a 0* general (his first battle was going to be siege Antioch) he had:

8 Pikemen
4 Archers
4 Nile Cavalry
2 Axemen.
Geberal

I had, what I thought, a good, balanced army and a decent starting position on a low hill. I set my phalanxes up in a tight formation with archers behind them and two units of cavalry on each flank. The horrid Seleucids brought

5 spears
8 cavalry
2 archers
2 elephants
general (4*)

I thought that I had the battle won, the cavalry came charging right into the center of my line, led by a very depressed general, and my line initially held. The infantry and archers finally made it within range of my lines and their archers began firing away and their infantry engages the center of my line. I send my horsies around the outside and hit the flanks of infantry and their archers and they broke and ran. I sent my cavalry and my general after the routers without looking at the rest of their troops. The elephants hit my line from the left side and my line started to route and run. I managed to rally them but every time the elephants got anywhere close to my lines they would take off running. GRRRRRRRRRR. Finally, my general got caught by their cavalry and died. Once that happened, there was no salvaging my army and they fled like little girls. I was way to overconfident going into the battle and neglected their elephants and it cost me an entire army (NO ONE ESCAPED) and really set me back in my war with Seleucia. The next turn, the Parthians, Numidians and Greeks all attacked me. Apparently they smelled weakness. Now I have a four front war and have NO INCOME at all. I may have to give up some of my newly acquired territories to hold on to my core.

I had just picked up triremes so I had 9 biremes, 3 triremes, most with +1 weapon vs 3 carthaginian boats.

Crushing defeat (Darn Carth Admirals). During AI movement phase most of the remainder of my fleet was sunk by a massive spanish fleet.

mfberg

These are very sad things....my most humiliating defeat was a huge post marius army in the town above lovosice. They got attacked by a half stack german army, and were completely wiped out....

Attacked Corinth with my best 8 star general with lots of 'I'm a future faction leader' traits and a hardened Seculid army of Silver Shield Pike Men, war elephants etc to take the city.. defended by the Brutii, equal numbers at 1400.
I had 53 survivors left, and no general :embarassed:

I got smashed just this morning and lost my Julii faction leader to a full stack plus Spanish Army on VH/VH. My army:

5 Hastati
5 Barbarian Mercenaries
4 Equites
1 Archer
1 Balearic Slinger
+ my General

Attacking Spanish had around 1/2 infantry & fanatics, about 1/2 cavalry. No problem except I got hit from behind while besieging the bulk of the Spanish army in a town. I positioned my men on good defensive ground facing where the two armies should have come in based on their facing and the facing of my army on the campaign map. I hit start battle and saw that the main Spanish army was within charging distance of my units' rear with about 12 infantry units and half a dozen round shield and long-shield cavalry. Lost about 2/3 of my army to that.

I was playing as the Greeks. Macedon is all but eliminated, save for Bylazora and a stack of about 300 in Western Asia Minor. I send my army from Pergamum out to meet them, easily twice their size. My cav. auxilia routed all their cav. before I even engaged them. I came up with a wide line, attempting to protect all my peltasts, ended up having my entire army butchered and routed by 6 levy pikement and 1 phalanx pike men.

i've had many defeats. almost all of them at sea. but my most crushing defeat, well not really a defeat but a draw, which eventually led to a defeat, was a blowout.
it was in segesta and my carthaginian garrison force was under seige by a thracian army. segesta on my part was a current prize from an on-going campaign against the brutii. by the way, the entire italian peninsula, except rome is already under carthaginian rule and the brutii are living off scraps from the thracians in the greek peninsula.
i decided to sally and lift the seige before more damage is done. when the battle lines were drawn the thracian force consisted of 4 falxmen units and 3 phalanx units at full strength. the 2 phalanxes at the center, the general/ captain acted as reserve in center and the 2 falxmen at each flank. on the other end, i had 1 iberian infantry, 1 merc peltast (understrength by a quarter), 1 merc hoplite, 2 libyan infantry, 3 long shield cavalry and 1 round shield cavalry.
the war drums started its cadence of death on first light. i started to release my cavalry from the left gate without any response from thracian force to adjust their battle lines, until my entire cavalry was already outside. then the thracians began to move forward. they stood near the walls and gate where they are easy picking for the towers. i bid my time until i thought that the towers had done enough damage and marched my cavalry forward. my move did not elicit any response from the thracians. oh this is getting tire some, well the meat of the battle is: i've routed the entire left flank and center left with my cavalry attacking from the rear along with the iberian infantry attacking from front. this leaves me with 2 libyan spearmen and hoplite merc dealing with 1 phalanx and two falxmen units. by the time the routing of the left flank began, my merc hoplite was already flagging from the falxmen's rush but stood still. with the left flank gone, i immediately committed my 3 cavalry units to deal with the right flank. i did not dare attack the general and engage their fresh sarrissas with my cavalry. so i moved about my 3 cavalry units, 2 of which by now are halved in strength, trying to out manuever the general's phalanx. after outmanuevering the general i immediately rushed my entire cavalry against the rear of the thracians' right flank which had successfully routed the merc hoplites. the initial impact of the cavalry rush, well so many stories have been told about cavalry rushes, routed the falxmen and right center phalanx immediately. i let my cavalry rout the thracian stragglers for a while and allow my slightly scathed 2 libyan spearmen deal with the tharcian general. i said to my self at that moment, "i've kicked the thracians butt big time," and i'm gonna kick their arses after attacking me unprovoked. so thus my spearmen began their march against the lone phalanx in the middle of the field. so also goes to the remainder of my iberian infantry to attack the flank and a cavalry unit that had just finished routing the left flank to attack the rear. the shields and spears clashed, but the outcome was very very different from what i expected. the spearmen immediately suffered heavy losses. but not to worry the iberian infantry will soon catch up, along with the cavalry deal with these pretenders the way it should be. the iberian infantry were sent back to iberia and the cavalry were barbecued. by now the spearmen were flagging. immediately my general and the 2 remaining cavalry, one is heavily understrength, were rushed to the scene. at initial impact i thought the enemy was destroyed, but woe is me when it began to expand and stared to slaughter my cavalry and spearmen at the same time. so the general retreated, then skewered, then the spearmen retreated and nobody dared approach the thracian general. so ends the bloody business of the day.

right!, just had my arse well & truly booted tonight.
was playing as juili, year 174bc & just had the marius reforms,
ive conquered gaul,spain britain & most of north africa so thought id spread my empire to the middle east & took the rebel city of tarsus well they rebeled as expected & in goes the pontus guys some spearguys,peltasts,missile cav, no problem i thought, man was i wrong seven units routed, bye bye, cheerio, gone! one dead general & get this , a battle hardened well trained unit of 160 triarii routed to a group of pontus peasants WTF!!! what are these guys made of! im outa there quick like, gona kick me some germanian butt instead ~:eek: