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Be honest, and write here about the most humiliating defeat you have ever suffered in RTW.
Whith 820 men, mostly peasant levies, comandad by a simple captain, i have lost against the 82 elite men of a 9 star enemy general.
In that moment, i thought of quiting to play RTW....:embarassed:
speak to yourself i got 900 libyan but got beaten by 1000 grand spqr army! 2 times!
I lost a general to a unit of peasants ones...
As Scipii, I had a good army of Legionary Cohorts, Urban Cohorts, Roman Cavalry, and Archers in Antioch. It was almost a full stack, and because of whatever temple was in there, I was able to get "gold" armor for all.
The reasons that I had such a fine army inside the city, was that it was being attacked almost every turn, and the combination I had in there worked very well to destroy any army (even a full stack) foolish enough to attack the walls alone.
I'd also not yet learned to move the army out, and fill it with peasants, and rebuild buildings of my own type, (Roman in this case.)
The place revolted, and I found myself standing on the bridge to the North of the City.
There was already one full stack Egyptian Army coming at me from North of the River. Then I was on the bridge, with another full stack Egyptian Army coming out of the city. This included Pharaoh's Guards, Pharaoh's Archers, Desert Axemen, and all sorts of cavalry and chariots, all with gold armor of course.
Both Egyptian Armies arrived on the battlefield at the very beginning, and both hit me simultaneously from both sides of the bridge.
I got my hiney kicked.
I pulled up the saved game and tried again.
I tried 4 more times and got my butt kicked every time!
Then, just for the hallubit, I tried again, but this time, I let the AI do it.
Normally, the AI loses battles I could easily have won.
In this case though, the AI won it for me with very few casualties.
I sent some units to Tarsus to retrain, and laid siege with the remainder, as well as some units from Tarsus, and took it back.
But, it was humiliating to lose that fine Army 5 times to the Egyptians, and have the AI effortlessly win it.
Strength and Honor
Celt Centurion
Whilst not technically a defeat, last night whilst playing as the Julii (on E/E I might add as I am still getting the hang of the game) I seiged a Briton town and was attacked by a full stack Briton Army I did not see coming.
That would not be a problem as I had nigh on a full stack to compensate.
What the battle lines were drawn I noticed that there was only one unit of Chariots in the city(or town really) so I sent one ram to bash the gate in whist leaving the rest of the army to wait for the Briton Onslaught (it did not initially come) so with the gate down I sent three full units of Hastati and two full units of Velities to "take out" the charoits in the town centre and force the big Briton army to attack me in my favorable position. (five units v one easy meat right - especially as I have read not to attack charoits with horses).
Needless to say I have fought the gauls a few times but not the Britons and there grrrr chariots.
They went straight through my infantry and destroyed my velites before I was forced to send two units of barbarian cav to save the day. When they arrived and killed the "general" - oh sorry the KING!!! I was not happy with routing hasati and Velities everywhere. With the town square taken I just ran the clock down as I was rather bitter and twisted.
The funny thing is (and those not from the UK or Australia, New Zealand or South Africa might not get it but..) being a Kiwi whenever we play England at Rugby they sing "swing low sweet chariot".
I now really really really hate chariots.
(note to the moderators - that was really hard not to swear :laugh4: )
City defense. Stone walls. I had placed my men in good spots to break up the enemy's siege engines (they had slightly more men than me, quality was about even). Bad thing is, the enemy sneaks a ram around to a side gate. By the time I realized and sent archers to try to set it on fire, they were already busting down the gate.
Just my luck it's a huge city, and so I desperately had to pray that my men finished off the other troops on the walls quickly, and then that they would get back to the center square in time.
The three minutes ended with about five units thisclose to the center square. I couldn't believe it. I quit in disgust and didn't play for the rest of the day.
I once lost a unit of slightly upgraded peasants to some light cavalry. I cried myself to sleep that night.
I had 4 units of town watch, and 2 generals, and I was taking on some lame rebel spearmen a long with a squad of slingers in Iberia. They were on the side of the mountain, but I like "screw it, i outnumber them like 5-1" so I just charged everyone up.
No one came back alive, except the two generals. I don't think I killed any of the rebels either.
As a Scipii, I lost a full stack -- not very experienced but made up of a goodly mix of Hastati/Princs/Archers two Generals and 3-4 cav units.
12 Mac Lancers charged frontally in a broad line and crushed the entire force, then mowed down the routers as 1 Scip unit after another briefly regained discipline just long enough to keep the slaughter going.
Another time, I had a full stack of Brutes attacking a smaller force of Greek phalangites in the Peleponese. While winning solidly, I ran out of time. My troops and general evaporated leaving nothing and delaying the attack of Greece for a decade.
I've had really bad luck with forest battles, to the point that I avoid them whenever. I've been Roman forces slaughtered by Germans with inferior numbers in the woods. I just can't keep track of what's going on and inevitably get destroyed before I can react (I don't use the Pause button).:oops:
Several months ago (so I don't remember all the details), I was attacking a settlement with (I believe) just over a 1000 hastati and nothing else on huge unit size settings (I very rarely attack with armies without a general, or with just one unit type, but I was trying to be clever attempting a minor blitz campaign).
I got through the gate no problem and defeated a few enemy units, with not much left standing between me and the town square and most of my army intact. I remember at least one more obstacle though. A (huge unit-sized) group of elephants (I believe they were archer mercs, but I honestly can't remember for sure) wandering about on the, now, not-so-large-looking town square.
I marched my 1000 or so hastati towards the town center getting them into position, all the while thinking to myself "We'll I have nearly 1000 crack troops with projectiles, I should be able to win this.", when suddenly the buggers charge at me right into the middle of a formation-less mesh of hastati.
I made three mistakes that day.
One was to go into battle without a general.
The second was to automatically assume a group of wild hell beasts would let me line up my army without moving.
The last mistake was to commit the rest of my hastati to melee attack the tanks instead of falling back and spear 'em to death at the expense of a few hundred romans.
Instead I watch one unit of elephants break nearly 1000 hastati relatively quickly. I don't know the death-toll but i'm fairly sure it was at least 50%, and the other 50% disappeared off of the face of Europe, probably retiring after witnessing that horrifying massacre.
I also retired that day, at least from that campaign. It really did ruined my plans and I felt like hiding in a corner and crying myself to sleep rather than continue.
I now never use unbalanced and/or leaderless armies unless I have to, and whenever I see greyskins I make sure I can take them down before I attempt to take them on.
Also, in the early versions of RTW, I had a few bad experiences with large chariot armies. But not so much in the later patches.
Defending Carthage with a Roman 9* general - admittedly, fending off about 7 sieges in a row had reduced my forces somewhat - but the 400 or so left were all rather high valour, more than capable of fending off a stack of Carthaginians/Numidians. Numidians assault, as I'm preparing my battle lines - placing units etc. I press 'enter' by mistake. Assault begins with none of my men on the walls, in completely indefensible positions. Still, I kill half their army, but lose the city nonetheless.
I had two bannerfulls of troops such as liblan spearman, poeni infantry, iberian infantry, long shields, round shields, and a few elephants, as well as 3 family members. I went up against half a bannerfull of triarii, principles, and 4 0r 5 family members. I could do nothing but weep, as the enemy infantry :knight: decimated mine:knight:, and their generals routed my elephants:fainting: and then the worst of all...my stampeding elephants charged into my infanry, getting killed by the enemy infantry and falling on top of my men. 2 of my generals were slaughtered by theirs. but my other general, Theagus the Conquerer, killed 3 of theier generals, but I deemed
the battle to risky, and withdrew him from the battle with his remaining 7 bodygaurd. (unit scale is on huge) He and about 200 of the infantry and cavaly that routed made it safely back to Capua. So much for an easy conquest of rome.
I was carthage and my enemy was the senate.
I was playing the Carthaginaians and had recently taken Carthago-Nova. The peasants revolted and shooed my army away. They had a bunch of peasants in their army, witha few spainish scuutarii, most with gold chevrons and stars. I counted them littele, they were peasants right? My army consited of 2 generals, about 10 of the sacred band infantry, a few peltasts, and a couple of sacred band cavalry. I auto-resolved andd lost everybody...so of course i swore and beat on the desk...but I later calmed down and reloaded the campign. I fought the battle myself this time and was doing fine, inside the city, few casualties, and routing peasants everywhere. I made it to the city center, but with nobody running, my troops were drastically reduced to less then half of my original number. The enemy had a fraction of their original units to. I summoned up my remaining troops qand surged the city square. Mistake. My infantry was dwn in a minute, followed by my auxilaries, which included my general. But I remember that I had left some infantry by the gate and rushed them over before my generals died. They at least were able to kill the remaining enemy. Phyrric victory. However, the troop numbers in the settlement were so low, the peasants revolted again and landed themselves the same breakneck troops. :fainting:
When I was playing the Brutii, thgings were going well. I had conquerd most of greece and was about to move on the macedonians. This was in the early days before i knew not to charge pikes. I brought my army, A bunch of hastati, some dogs, archers and a general, against theirs of pikes and compainons. Disaster. I caharged their pikees with my infantry and was losing men left and right. By the time my infanrty worked past the pikes, their cavalry:charge: surged upon my infantry and took them out. I thhen tried my luck withe the dogs, but ther cav had moved behing their infantry and my dogs were slaughtered by them. My Archers were slowly running out of ammo, when thier cav bum-rushed my general. Instant painfull death. My archers were soon assaulted and quikly defeated. I lost my best general that day and I swore revenge upon the macedonians. I never truly defaeted them untill after the marian reforms and I got urban-cohorts.
What units did these elite men happen to be? In all truth you should have lost that battle anyways. Peasant levies against anyone isnt a very good combination, especially a 9 star general, even out numbered 10:1, i would have expected to loose.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rex_Pelasgorum
Well there is a pretty simple explaination for this, Germans are amazing the forest. They are very good against romans if used correctly. They get a pretty big combat bonus in woods, also did you enemy happen to have berzerkers, those usually scare the crap out of most units. Even if they didnt have berzerkers, they probalby had some kinds of axemen, which are very good agianst roman armour.Quote:
Originally Posted by gardibolt
Thats why it's always fun invading germany... :yes:
They were the units composing the Eastern Generals Squad...Quote:
What units did these elite men happen to be?
And some armenian heavy cataphtracts....
I ran into some super-peasant rebels near Siwa last night. I've come to regard chariots as ideal anti-rebel units, so I sent my new one down to take these guys out. Charge, disengage, charge, disengage, repeat, rest, repeat, repeat - and despite being Shaken or Wavering the whole time, the peasants never break and eventually cause my chariots to lose control. Adding insult to injury, I sent in the Levy Spearmen unit from the Siwa garrison to mop up the remaining 78 peasants (of 120 originally). Somehow those peasants were able to mostly ignore the spears and walk right up to the phalanx's front row, and they inflicted near 1:1 casualties before finally breaking at 1/6 of their original strength. I was quite concerned that these peasants might have managed to rout a full strength pike phalanx in a frontal attack (and they would have, if the chariots hadn't chewed them up in the first battle)! If only I could buy peasants that good! :beam:
Well there is your explaination. I would take cataphracts and a general outnumbered 10 to 1 any day over peasant levies. Heck I would take them outnumbered 20:1 Like the quote from one of the loading screens, "valour is superior to numbers". That is a very good general rule of thumb.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rex_Pelasgorum
My battle wasnt humiliating but it was still a loss. I defended a town with about 4 units against a whole stack of guals, I was the Romans in the RTR. It wasnt very pretty but I killed a crap load of them nasty barbarians!:furious3:
my battle wasnt a loss, but it was still humiliating. i, carthage, attacked syracuse, under the dominion of the house of scipii. i had 8 iberians, a merc pelt, 2 towers, elies, 2 small shields, and 2 generals. i thought it would be a cake walk. practically all of my iberians(save 20 or so out of the 640 of them) were killed by 3 hastati, 1 archer guy, and velite. i thought it was over for good then. i had captured the gate, which saved me the battle. i sent an elie into the town watch and hastati watching the gate, followed by the rest of the cav. we destroyed them all. then they went on thier merry way to the town square. when alas, a poor unit of equites tried to kill us. we destroyed them. once we made it to the square, i discovered it was gaurded by 2 full unit equites and a 40 or 50 man general unit. i had 2 (about half men) small shields, 2 diminished generals, and 11 elies. i figured it all or nothing. i sent my elies head long into them, followed by my cavalry(my very small infantry force now mopping up what remained of the enemy infantry.) we turned out the victors in the square, which in a sense made us the victors of the battle.
although we destroyed their stronghold on sicily, we do not have very many troops now, and i am not sure how much longer we will survive.
Mine was last night.
I was playing a short campain as the Arverni Gauls using the Europa Barbarorum 0.74 beta mod with the Resources Patch. After some dozen or so mooves, of what I must say was a brilliant strategy and clinically efficient tactical command on my part, I found myself about to siege the last Adui stronghold, end the Gallic Civil War and expand to hit Rome before she has expanded her territory or got a single large mobile army.
Thinking "How good am I!", the siege is quickly over with a minimum of causualties for the troops and I go back out to the stategy map and basking in my own glory hit end turn.
"You have been Defeated" - Selukia wins.
:embarassed: :embarassed: :embarassed:
Talk about instant kharma.
I have a disturbing tendency to lose my custom battles in BI when I play with barbarian factions. No fancy opponents, usually made up much the same as my own army, but for one reason or another they tend to beat me constantly. Must be me underestimating the weak morale in BI :oops:
As the Eastern Empire in BI, Jeuruselum with it's epic walls rebelled against me. I didn't have any 'real' military units just peasents and the spear guys (the ones that aren't as disciplined as legionaries but are better then town guard) ment to keep the peace in the outlying provinces so I recruited some mercernaries, as in a unit of camel riders and two ballista and attacked at least 4 times with my "army" each time getting my guys get shaken by the barrage of arrows by the time they get to the breach and fight the enemy that they run away. I finally managed to build up a real army and massacred the place.
Though I'm sure whatever heretical sect that took the place is claiming "divine intervention"
I don't know if this is the most humiliating defeat I've ever suffered, but it's certainly the most recent - I just fought it.
***
Here's the sitrep:
I'm doing a VH/VH Brutii campaign, version 1.0 (because my game has started refusing to patch :shame: ). It's a short campaign, intended essentially as a time-waster until M2TW comes out, and since Brutii was the only Roman I hadn't done, I figured I'd try it out.
It's 240 BC. I blitzed Carthage (on a whim, mostly, but also to stem the growth of the Scipii), so I own: Tarentum, Croton, Lilybaeum, Carthage, Thapsus, Palma, Thermon, Appolonia, and Segestica.
Wait, you say. You only have three Peloponnesian cities?
Yeah...
I'm embarassed to say that I've been able to make virtually no headway whatsoever against Macedon, and have been on the defensive for years. Macedon and I traded Thermon back and forth several times before I managed to establish a foothold, but assault after assault has left my garrison absolutely devastated, and I lack an easy way to get much more to there. Appolonia saw less fighting until recently, when I repulsed another Macedonian siege - though, again, at massive cost.
Now, I'm not too pleased with myself here. I decide I'm going to end this, once and for all. I prepared 3 full stacks - one from the Carthaginian campaign, one from Italy, and one from bribing the Julii (hey, if it works) - and a half-stack of ships and began my war against Macedon.
Phase 1 was to crush the Macedonian navy. In this, I mostly succeeded; they still have one huge stack hanging around Sicily but (knock on wood :smash: ) I've been able to avoid that.
Phase 2 was landing my Carthaginian stack near Thermon to force back the Macedonians. It was an unmitigated disaster; I crushed all Macedonians before me but they sent so many that eventually I had to pull what remained of my army into the walls of Thermon - where they were promptly besieged, threw back the assault, besieged again...
Phase 3 involved sending my main Italian stack to the heart of Macedon while the third stack moved up north, as, because of my failure to stop the Macedonians faster, they have expanded almost as far as Germania :no:
With that in mind, I led my main Italian army straight to Thessalonica and besieged it, hoping to draw out the garrison and the Macedonian army nearby...
***
THE BATTLE OF THESSALONICA, 240 BC
I had an ace up my sleeve.
Or so I thought.
After many a multiplayer battle (back when my game would :furious3: patch), I had developed the use of the Roman quincunx formation with various troop sets. It wasn't foolproof, of course, but I learned how to make it quite devastating against all manner of enemies - particularly phalanx armies.
I had 2,836 troops, deployed like so:
H_H_H_H_H_H
_P_P_P_P_P_
____AAA____
_____H_____
_____G_____
I also had two units of Equites, one on either side of my formation.
The main Macedonian army consisted of some 2,565 troops - mostly Phalanx Pikemen, with, IIRC, 4 units of Light Lancers, two on their left flank, one on the right flank, and one as the general unit. The other Macedonian army of 441 consisted of a general and some cavalry, but he didn't really come into the fight.
The Macedonians were deployed in a typical formation - infantry line with cavalry on either side. They began to advance.
Skirmishing between cavalry began on my right flank. I was stunned to see my Equites beat off one of the units of Light Lancers, and I moved up a Hastati cohort to reinforce them - but, alas, the next Light Lancer unit smashed my Equites, who scattered. My Hastati easily pummeled the Lancers but by that time the main engagement had begun.
Things began to go my way at first. The pike line became disjointed as it moved on my first line, and I began moving the second-line Principes through the gaps, who would then swing around and hit the Phalanx Pikemen in the rear.
This worked on my left flank well, and the pikemen began to crumble. My right flank also was doing their job, but they were harassed by the return of the Lancers.
Unfortunately, though, my center was not so lucky. The AI fought better than most people online against the formation - rather than concentrating on the first line, they moved through the gaps and also attacked my Principes, which stopped them from performing their flanking jobs. The line began to buckle.
Now, this sort of thing had happened to me before, but the nature of the battle generally led one or both of the enemy flanks to be turned, allowing me to then wipe out the center. Hoping that my center would hold, I sent up my reserve Hastati unit as reinforcements and then swung my left-flank Equites around and charged them into the engaged Phalangites, which would then allow me to concentrate on the center.
Alas, the line did not hold, and my center shattered. I'd finally turned the left flank, but by this time it was too late. My right soon collapsed as well as the pikemen moved to envelop the envelopers.
Knowing the battle was lost, I called a withdrawal with my remaining forces. Only a few managed an orderly retreat, though - most of the rest simply routed, and many were cut down by the enemy pursuit, which now included the Lancers of the other Macedonian army.
https://img168.imageshack.us/img168/...smashedki9.jpg
It was absolutely devastating, and I was absolutely devastated.
My army was in tatters, with my disgraced general just barely escaping with his own life. My grand scheme of sticking a knife through their heart ended instead with the blood of over 2,200 scattered over the outskirts of Thessalonica.
All is not lost; Placus Crassus will likely be able to reunite with the third, final stack of my scheme, which has abandoned its northern march and cautiously begun moving towards Bylazora. I can recruit new armies, which will soon include Triarii from, ironically, Carthage.
All is not lost, but the bones of the fallen will litter the Thessalonican plain for years to come...
Average Defeat when I had the advantage and was defending a bridge.
About to drown is my commander..he is running down the bank into the river.
It was a huge Thracian King unit that did the damage. Nothing I had could stand against him....well not the way I played it they couldnt.
https://img475.imageshack.us/img475/...m514gn8.th.jpg
I remember one now.
First one was when I first encountered Britons in the game – Yes, those darn chariots!!
I had a decent army and it was about even on numbers but I lacked missiles and basically if the chariots weren’t slowly taking my men apart with their arrows they were isolating and destroying Cohorts!
I stupidly fought to the bitter end and lost TWO high ranking Generals. Not to mention a near full stack army – utterly destroyed, run to the hills and never coming back.
I always took enough archers after that AND made a point of withdrawing when things looked too bad.
Oh….and the times when, tired and late at night I accidentally click “Auto-Resolve” and suddenly find I’ve lost not just the battle but a full stack army!
....I did remember more, but someone just asked me a question about somethign else and they're gone :wall:
Me : Carthage. Four Iberian Infantry units, four Round Shield Cavalry units, and a General Bodyguards unit.
Enemy: Greeks. A General Bodyguards unit.
Campaign Difficulty: VH/VH
Place: Sicily
Actions: At the start of the battle, he just charged at my units one by one and decimated them. Though, I replayed the battle seriously (Without underestimating it), and I won with one of my units routing.. Simply, I put one unit of Iberian Infantry on loose formation as a buffer to my other infantry, to receive the charge. And when it did, I charged with everything.
Seriously, Carthage campaign is the most enjoyable in RTW.
Theres me, holding the Iberian Peninsula (as Iberia) thinking i should take another island/easy to defend place. So i build up a 14 unit army of highest tech infantry (6 units) highest cav (4 units) General and 3 ranged... land in Britan, moving to take a small town, when bam! 2 Full stacks ambush me. Was snowy woods...i have high tech units though, and after playing the Historical Battle with Julius and facing the two pronged ambush..i figure, why not? i form up a line like this:
----------------
- - -
-
First row is infantry, then ranged and then general
Cav was on wings (not too far away)
The two 20 unit armies (i hate the low upkeep) charge head on into my line, all warbands...and decimate my uber 1337 units....ouch.. they (mine) had armour 2 wepon 2 exp all at least 3...my army run with 130 guys left