Outwitted by the cunning Scots!

There were my armies: Over 10,000 Saxons on the borders of the last Scottish lands - one in modern day Scotland, the other in Ireland. Huscarles, Horsemen, Nobles and many ranks of Fyrdmen spears waiting to shed blood on my order. The Scots - a bunch of highland hill hugging softies with large swords, gripped with fear as they awaited the coming of the armies that would end their days.

The Battle in Ireland was won with just 11 casualties. Our men had a good laugh about the ease of their victory, although a few Scottish men manning the now mostly pointless catapults retreated to their keep, where only starvation waited for them. At least they wouldnt die cold though - the catapults make for good firewood I've heard.

But in the last remaining Scottish stronghold, deep in the heart of the hostile highlands, my army was defeated by the haggis eaters! Although not by conventional means.

No, my army defeated the bulk of the Scots who had their king well protected at the top of a very steep hill with a thick blanket covering of trees adding to his advantage. The Scots had split their force in two at the deployment stage, which was unusual, and also sacrificed many lone units to prevent my army reaching the crest of the hill to defeat their king. With reinforcements then arriving from behind my army, the result of these actions by the Scots was my army was very tired before even marching up the King's hill. Princes charged down the hill to further challenge my Saxons, but all perished, but not before exhausting my cavalry and Huscarles. I'd already pulled in fresh cavalry earlier, but these were now tiring too, and the steep incline of the dreaded hill wasn't helping either. When I did move my force up the steep hill to challenge the King, his height advantage and freshness caused my Saxons to suffer many casualties, but eventually he was unseated from his horse and beheaded. He had dined on his last haggis earlier that day.

Victory was then a case of mopping up the final Scottish resistance which consisted of peasants and clansmen and a few nobles who were arriving from the other side of the battlefield fresh. After a few minor clashes, the Scots retreated or died fighting, typically with their backs to my cavalry. However, as victory looked all but imminent, the Scots resorted to a new and cowardly tactic that would defeat my otherwise invincible Saxon army: they hid on the very edge of the map, behind a steep mountain and out of reach from my army by all means. The final clansmen refused to enter the battlefield enough to be challenged, and just marched on the spot shouting something incomprehensible for twenty minutes as my army stood by and watched in horror as the sands of time defeated them.

Talk about annoying. I'd done everything to wipe them out, but they refused to fight. Fortunately I didn't lose my army and they weren't captured, but that's a bit below the belt. Afterwards my best general became a crippled alcoholic to rub it in further! Anyone else experienced this, where reinforcements become stuck and therefore make victory impossible? It took the shine out of my campaign against the Scots. I'll finish the last few of them off though - no mercy shall be spared. And those Picts will suffer too.

Actually the Viking Campaign has been poor. It's the first campaign I managed to gain control and power properly, but I was largely unchallenged. The Vikings never attacked anyone, thus spending the entire campaign crippled with unrecoverable debt (being the focus of the expansion, CA should have done more to prevent this happening), and none of the other factions even bothered with boats so my sea-trade and coastal provences were unchallenged throughout.

So the reinforcements were stuck behind an impassable cliff/mountain? If not then you probably should have moved your troops away from the edge of the map so the scots could march onto the battlefield.

I think the programmers should have made: A region around the edges, which causes your army to lose moral as they believe you are retreating (but not flee if not attacked); objectives which defenders must hold, such as a border fort, oasis or a large valley pass.

I moved my men away from the edges, but it made no difference. One unit of clansmen were stuck for a while, but not quite as near the edge. Also stuck were 3 horsemen trying to flee. I moved my men away and they suddenly started moving. However, the final Scots refused to move no matter what I tried, thus I lost the battle.

Here's a screenshot of it.

http://disko.co.uk/images/misc/mtwscots.jpg

Quote:

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Actually the Viking Campaign has been poor. It's the first campaign I managed to gain control and power properly, but I was largely unchallenged. The Vikings never attacked anyone, thus spending the entire campaign crippled with unrecoverable debt (being the focus of the expansion, CA should have done more to prevent this happening), and none of the other factions even bothered with boats so my sea-trade and coastal provences were unchallenged throughout.

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These can all be easily fixed with some minor tweaking in the game files.

I've had some pretty tough games with VI expansion.

I've had units get stuck, too - always on a map with steep hills. If you have any missiles left sometimes you can just kill them. Other times you might be able to get them to flee in a different direction and unstick if you move a unit back and forth behind them. Sometimes you are just screwed, though.

I've never had this but I have had my own withdrawing units get stuck in edge of battlefield limbo which is pretty annoying if you are gagging for reinforcements.

I think the Viking campaign is great. Its true the fury of the Northmen sometimes err, completely fails to appear (maybe they are invading Russia in that game) but in a way that uncertainty keeps things fun. And the factions are interestingly different.

Also i prefer the smaller map and shorter game, or, rather, i prefer to have the choice.

I have also had units get stuck and even had one battle that would never end even though there were no enemy on the battlefield and I had to quit and take a defeat to finish the battle.

The Vikings are a tough issue. Make them too strong and they are no fun to play as, make them too weak and they are no fun to play against. There is a mod out to help them out some, look in the engineers guild for it. It's called 'Beefy Vikings'.

Also, the Saxons are the 2nd strongest faction and offer little challenge. Try the Welsh or Scots!

It was one of my first campaigns I started before I knew what I was doing, and I recently went back to it just to finish a full campaign (I usually get bored and start another campaign after a few decades). I picked the Saxons for the very reason they were a strong faction.

Although my first campaign with VI was the Vikings themselves. What a disaster. Everytime I raided and pulled out of the region, a full scale rebellion would ensue and give my victim a massive free army. And then I didn't realise how trade worked, and plundered the most profitable coastal trading provences leading me to a state of emergency where I didn't have enough money coming in, and the neighbouring factions all had massive armies I'd gifted to them in my earlier raids. I was defending my Scottish lands up against horrible odds.

I haven't got much time for MTW as I'm currently wasting my time modding RTW instead, so I probably won't start another campaign for a while, although I keep getting tempted to spend more time with MTW. It's superior to RTW for sure. I'll just complete the Saxon campaign for now though, even if the computer tries to cheat against me again!

Arrrg I hate the bit around the edge of the map that you cant fight people in, whenever my enemies are routing the cavalry catches up with them *just* as they are getting to the safe zone, meaning they only lose 2 or 3 guys as compared to 40. So frustrating.

After over 2 years of playing this game I'd never experienced this until last night. Here's my sob story:

The situation:
Me: the Irish - 700+ men, mostly kerns & gallowglasses, led by a 3-star prince.
My allies: the Welsh - 500+ men; archers, Celtic Warriors & armoured spearmen, led by their 5 or 6 star king.

Our enemies: the Vikings - 400+ men, typical Viking mix, a few thralls, some Carls, led by several small huscarl units.

Everybody's enemy: the Rebels - 1000+ men, peasants and spearmen, led by a 0-star nobody.


The province:
Defed. After taking all of Ireland, I wanted to pick a fight with the Vikings who were wrecking the Welsh lands, so I sent my army across the Irish Sea when I saw that Defed, after falling to a Viking army, was rebelling. I hoped the Welsh would counterattack, and they did.

I was all set to record this epic battle, Expert difficulty by the way, which we won handily, first by concentrating on the Vikings and using combined archer/kern bombardment and CW/Gallowglass charges to deal with their armored units. Once they routed I knew the battle was won and we turned our attention to the rebels, sitting on a wooded slope. Again, we won easily, but time went by and the battle didn't end. I increased the game speed 100% and zoomed around the map, trying to find some hidden rebels somewhere, but I suspected what happened: they were stuck off one edge of the map.

Funny thing, my allies the Welsh were firing at SOMEthing off the edge of the map for awhile, then got inexplicably freaked out and routed off the field -- no enemy in sight!

The only clue I actually had was when I brought the mini battle map back up and moused over some white dots at the edge. Sure enough, a fresh unit of peasants.

Eventually I had to accept the inevitable and escape out of the battle. Against all laws of reason, my allies and I lost what should have been a great battle AND, as the final slap in the face, I had to ransom back my entire army from the rebels! :furious3:

Now I can't get back there to teach the bastards a lesson because the Vikings are blockading my fleets.....

I've never been one to farm rebellions, but that's exactly what I'm going to do when I get Defed back later. Execute every single one of those *$(%^^(@#%ers.

Is there anything else I could have done in that situation?

CountMRVHS