The Ultimate Battle Turning Unit

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Originally Posted by Ibrahim

I just saw the replay-the scene reminded me of this demotivational poster for some reason:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

http://i10.tinypic.com/6euqhjs.jpg

citing fair use

the idea is similar: a surreal disaster as it is being made:clown:

so what happened after the recording halted? did you recoup your fortunes, or did you lose for good?

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It didn't have a capacity to get THAT bad I guess... Not sure how that bodyguard survived, elephants and 400+ light horse though.

I won and we had a rematch as Carthage vs Saba I think. That giant pile of light hoplites routed everything. I have that one lying around as well but honestly it wasn't much of a fight unless you want to see Campanians and Elephants killg everyone. If you really want to see a cool fight, the Getai vs Rome replay I have or the seige of the hanging gardens was fun.

Actually probably the best fight I've had was a Baktria vs Epeiros where 120 bodyguard cats and 200 Iranians tried to gloriously charge and defeat 300 horses + elephants... :laugh4:

http://www.mediafire.com/?2yhmmh2yyj4

Also, for proof that cavalry isn't always the decisive arm of the battle:

http://www.mediafire.com/?hzdmqz1j4yt

PS. Hey Gabeed, if you're around, I wouldn't mind playing a game every so often. You always do the craziest things!

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

Depending on the case its beating a rock with a 50% bigger rock.

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i recomend you read the Tao te Ching and Art of war if you havent already. Thats not to be patronising by the way. There is always a way to win the AI with whatever you've got. Against human opponents online it may be that you need powerful units.

Take hannibal at Canne, he didnt have any battle winning troops: he had a few pikemen, a lot of spanish medium troops and cavalry better than his opponent. He won the battle by his use of tactics over his adversary. Another general would have used the army another way and would have surley lost the battle. The romans had that 50% bigger rock and still lost.

I forget what game theory strategy class it is but its what happens in a symmetrical game where one player adopts a strategy that can only be countered by the use of the same strategy so far as resources can support it.

For Example: Plant eating dinosaurs got bigger during the Late-Jurassic/Cretateous so nothing could eat them but predators got larger so they could eat them. However, after a certain point those large dinosaurs couldn't catch the smaller dinosaurs. So yeah, big rock beats big rock but not small rock because it gets stuck in a crack.

I'm not advocating the use of escalation as a solution for everything. But sometimes, you have to play that game until you find out how to negate it. That's why only idiots engage modern western style armies in set piece battles anymore. Since the use of a big rock against small rock doesn't do much to the small rock but instead does damage around small rock because its inefficient. Sure you could flatten on side of the big rock to smash everything but it still smashes everything and is inefficient.

The best use of your resources is to always use jsut enough for what you want, not more, not less. That's why the Romans got pwned so badly at Carnae because they risked everything(very low risk mind you) and lost everything.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

If you really want to see a cool fight, the Getai vs Rome replay I have

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Could you, please? :beam:

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Originally Posted by Nachtmeister

:laugh4: ~:mecry: :smash:
14000lbs of pure AWESOME!!
I nearly fell off my chair laughing after looking at that pic - the sharp comment amplified the effect.
Honors and a balloon are due for the best wit I've ever seen on an internet forum. -:balloon2:
Congratulations - and keep them coming!

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thanks!:bow:

one of the few times that wit has been captured on the internet (In RL I have a reputation as a smartass and cynic)

well, I'm going to see the other fights Antisocialmunky posted, and let you all know what I think.

but the fact that you (antisocial) won vs. saba with their elephants does demonstrate that you can win with minimal quality units (I assume that your 2-3 body guards and crapload of archers did the job, no?). I recommend in future cases when ou know a faction can get a hold of elephants to have a unit of nimble AP weapon wielding skirmishers to tag your cavalry*(peltastai thorakitai or other). hopefully you can avoid having another "AW F*CK moment" in the future.:clown:

*Empreror Burakuku ought to know how effective that was-It was against cavalry not elephantry though. He barely won the battle..

@FrontLine:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=d...4e75f6e8ebb871

If its the wrong one, just pm me or something. Imperial Roman Cavalry is surprisingly good unlike their Legionaires...

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

Depending on the case its beating a rock with a 50% bigger rock.

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I cite this from antisocialmunky to reply to Maion. (and to interrupt an interesting debate to speak of something else, but there was an explicit question to do so)

Maion, I'm sorry if my previous post was unclear and frustrated you, i wanted to say is that i feel the levies to be my best choice to win battles, in a decisive way.
Yes, i played a bit of this game, i'm a long standing lurker. My biggest limit is that I only have single player experience.

What i implied in my previous post is that i feel that "mass levies" (or just cost effective relatively basic units) are the best battle winner i found in my campaigns, with the scope of winning battles.
I feel that i have the best hope to win if i field large armies, occupying a lot of room and being in the conditions to have a simpler way around the enemy while i give him an added "passive" resistance to his movement with the sheer lenght of my lines.

Sure, when i try to outmatch a spartan general (or even some cartaginean spears sometimes) with two or three units of hoplitai haploi i get some frustrating result.
Or when i see the charge of a ton (no, various hundreds of tons) of cataphracts i shake in fear but.... I feel that having three units of basic phalanx stops them better than having a single outnumbered cataphract unit.

So, i feel that the mass are my winning choice. Gaining, to me, more mass routes than anything, because they surround the heavy cavalry more often than the heavy cavalry can get a clear charge, in plain, without a forest in the middle, against their unguarded rear while they are busy doing something else.

To Nachtmeister: to field elites in the campaign game, you have to build buildings for them. So the levies get there first, to me. To the casualty problem: fighting when you outnumber the enemy helps limiting casualties, and using big units (with sarissas, better) helps absorbing casualties. And being at that, 360 levies, in campaign terms, do absorb 50 casualties better than 50 cataphracts.

:clown: Ok, that last was pretestuos.
Have a nice game tomorrow!

Well, I've seen both battles between ASM and Gabeed; I have to put it to Gabeed, he knows exactly how to pull Defeat from the jaws of victory-especially when he has destroyed far more enemy soldiers than ASM could. I'm seriously impressed with him...

He is definitely one of my favorite opponents because barring experimentation, its always close when we play.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

He is definitely one of my favorite opponents because barring experimentation, its always close when we play.

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:laugh4:

you missed the sarcasm, but yeah he was close...

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Originally Posted by Ibrahim

he knows exactly how to pull Defeat from the jaws of victory

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:charge: :charge: > > > :duel:

Actually, I like to engage and then run around behind 'em with skirmishers. :sneaky:

Javelin-in-the-back causes WAY more casualties, plus its fun to watch! :evilgrin:

If you wait a little while for both units to be tired out from fighting, skirmishers from behind can rout 'em almost instantly! Uv korse I'm only playin' med. difficulty... :rolleyes: If I want more of a battlefield challenge I up the campaign level so the AI makes bigger armies, instead of tiny armies of invincible levy psychopaths. :surrender:

P.S. I am rapidly becoming addicted to smilies. :help: :dizzy2: :help: :inquisitive: :help:

I use dacian falxes whenever they are available. i love putting them in my spartan/athenian armies. they make excellent kill squads.

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Originally Posted by Celtic_Punk

I use dacian falxes whenever they are available. i love putting them in my spartan/athenian armies. they make excellent kill squads.

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Es la verdad.