Another superb Broken Crescent battle

[Ramses II CP]

Yes, yet another thread to pimp this excellent mod, because I just had another superb battle in BC that I had to write something about. I started a Kingdom of Jerusalem campaign. I was merrily conquering my way along, having already taken all of the Ayyubid's provinces down to Gaza and I faced a decision about how to proceed. I could either take Saladin's semi-uber stack head on or I could lay siege to Bilbeis, the castle south of where he was sitting at the mouth of the Nile. It was late last night and part of my army wouldn't make it to Saladin, but all of it could get to the siege, plus I could lay siege from standing on a bridge. No contest, I took the lazy way out.

So, load today, finish up my turn, and Saladin descends on me. Not on the same side of the river as the castle (Which now has a half stack garrison due to that script) because that would be stupid, the same kind of mistake that the vanilla AI always makes. No, he goes the long way around, east, through the desert, and attacks me from behind.

That makes the battle a little harder. The garrison will be attacking from behind me, so I pull all of my 'militia of the Kingdom' spearmen back to face them, along with King Baldwin's bodyguard and my remaining Templars, a company of ~40. At the bridge I've got mostly fresh trained spearmen, a company of swordsmen, Italian mercs, my uber starting crossbowmen and archers (2 companies of each) and one company of uber Knights of Jerusalem to back up the spears. No problem, right? I should be able to hold Saladin back while I finish off this joker to my rear, then descend on the bridgehead with the hand of God bodyguard charge to knock things out.

I also have Prince Guy as reinforcements, and he'll enter the battle from behind Saladin, but since I'm fielding a full stack I'd have to let the AI control him. Nah, stuff that, he can wait. I don't need him anyway... right?

The battle starts. I set up the customary formation at the bridge. My militia shape up to confront the general coming from behind. I clear away their cavalry with my own, heavier cavalry, taking few losses but wasting time while my spearmen have to hold. But what's this? The AI general hasn't been passively waiting back there, he sent some of his marines down to attack the rear of my men at the bridge. I cut them off with the Templars. The men at the bridge are getting hammered because the AI is holding back it's horse archers and letting off a fair volume of fire. I send in the swordsmen and Knights, because once they're in the melee they won't be targetted as heavily.

Back with Baldwin I can't get the AI's men to rout. I'm not sure if the garrison script gave them veterans, or if it's just because they've got twice as many men in the melee as me, but despite Baldwin cutting a path through their rear and charging them repeatedly they won't break. The Templars are busy heading off repeated attempts to attack the rear of my men at the bridge. Finally a company of Jund spearmen catches the Templars while they're entagled with some marines, and Templars start to fall like flies. Three of them escape, and I'm forced to withdraw them.

At the bridge things are starting to look rough. My 4 front line spearmen companies are at 1/3rd strength or less, and the second line is weakening as well. The ranged men can no longer fire as the enemy has committed his whole force to melee, so I send them in as reinforcements. Unfortunately the enemy general from my rear has not only noticed the absence of the Templars, he's taking full advantage of it. He pulls out of the conflict with my militia and with his two remaining guardsmen he leads an attack against the left rear of my bridge capping army.

This is starting to look bad. Prince Guy is the first reinforcement, and I order him to charge down to the bridge and hit the Saracens in the rear. Meanwhile Baldwin is finally getting the AI reinforcements to rout (Now that their general has departed) but the attack on the rear of the bridge cap has caused the left center flank, where there were no remaining reinforcements, to rout. The enemy widens the gap and takes control of the center of the field. They've crossed the bridge against me. Impressive. All of my spearmen except a few of the Knights of Jerusalem are dead or fleeing.

I order the militia down into the main engagement, but they're exhausted (All of my men are) so it's slow going. Baldwin's remaining guardsmen charge down and catch the reinforcement general, killing him. Prince Guy arrives to their rear and charges across the bridge into it. Now is the moment, surely this army will break!

No, actually, in fact, Sultan Saladin notices that King Baldwin is in the fight and leads his men over to attack Baldwin. My King's guards are exhausted and severely depleted. I am forced to retreat back to the advancing militia, leaving the remainder of my men at the bridge to the tender mercies of Saladin. Saladin pursues, with all of his heavy cavalry in support of him. They charge and break one of the militia companies, but the others catch them and King Baldwin turns back to fight. I haven't had time to keep Prince Guy charging, and so when a scroll floats down I already know what it says. Prince Guy is dead. The attack on Saladin's rear has failed. Some mounted sergeants from Guy's army come in as my spearmen flee or are annihilated, and they charge against Saladin's rear as well.

The militia are taking heavy losses, but they're evening up the battle between Baldwin and Saladin. It's still going to be close, but I've trapped all of his remaining heavy cavalry and I'm slowly cutting it down. Now he'll die, and his army will break. Surely...

Ahh, but no, Saladin's last five guardsmen cut a path for him out of the militia. Baldwin has no guards left. I have virtually no men left fighting at the front except the reinforcements from Prince Guy's leaderless army, 3 partial companies of Mounted Sergeants and some Turkopoles. 1 Knight of Jerusalem still carries on the struggle right in the center of three hundred assorted Saracen infantry, with a few scattered dismounted Turkopoles around him. All of the veteran Levantine crossbowmen are dead. All of my men are exhausted.

Still, the militia and Baldwin chase Saladin directly into a melee with all that infantry. Saladin's guards are cut down one by one, mostly by Baldwin himself, until finally it's down to about a hundred militia of the Kingdom spearmen and Baldwin against two hundred Saracen infantry, Ghazis and other axemen, and Saladin himself. I think to myself... have I adopted any heirs? If Baldwin dies, is my campaign over? Am I moments away from losing my first Total War campaign ever?!

...and I haven't taken a single screenshot! It didn't occur to me that the fight would be any good.

No sooner thought than done:



Baldwin fights his way to Saladin's side, which fortunately is deep in the midst of the exhausted militia of the Kingdom. The Mounted sergeants have finally, at high cost, cleared away most of Saladin's horse archers and are just starting to pile into the rear of Saladin's infantry, which is all that keeps them from carving through Baldwin's militia. Baldwin is attacking Saladin, but Saladin is swinging his blade like a madman, and with every swing a militia soldier dies. It's like watching a switchblade take on a lawnmower.

In the end, however, Saladin falls. The auto-camera shot is awful, I can't even tell if Baldwin killed him or a spearmen. It's not quite the end I was hoping for, but it'll do.

Victory. The Saracens rout, with a little encouragement.



This screenshot doesn't nearly do it justice, as about 300 of Baldwin's men 'heal' after the battle, 300 of Guy's reinforcements were still waiting to come onto the field and very, very few of the enemy had routed before Saladin died. I was actually outnumbered at the bridgehead when Saladin died, and it took a couple of charges to finish breaking the enemy.

Anyway, I've taken the liberty of uploading the save to The Org's filespace because I had so much fun with it. If anyone wants to give it a shot you can find it here:

http://www.totalwar.org/patrons/pbm/...nvsSaladin.zip

Feel free to show me up as much as you like; I can immediately think of several places where I made lazy mistakes before I started to take the battle seriously.

Enjoy!

[Galain_Ironhide]

Awesome Battle!

I have noticed the same thing with my own GC about what you mentioned how the enemy just doesnt rout. Their morale ratings must be through the roof compared to vanilla.

I've downloaded the battle and will give it a shot tonight after work, I'll see how I get on.

[phonicsmonkey]

what a great battle

you've inspired me to go back to my own BC SP campaign, which I haven't touched since we started the hotseat...

[Askthepizzaguy]

The Pizzaguy remembers well his fight against Armenia:

In single player mode, My vast, vast, vast all-cavalry armies of the Rum Turks had smashed all of Rome by turn 8 and laid seige to their capital.
(difficulty: VH/VH version: BC 1.5)

In a few short turns their stack was depleted enough to take it from them. Then I marched into little armenia and laid seige to their capital. This would be over quickly, methinks... On the AI's turn, the computer spawned a massive stack inside their capital, which was a full castle, and a huge stack in the mountains. My plan was to take all of Armenia in one fell swoop, and so therefore what I did was use every one of my stacks and lay seige. Well... the Armenian king sallied.

Good! I thought to myself. I've never lost a sally battle that I came prepared to fight. I won't have to waste valuable lives taking the walls, nor will I have to wait turn after turn for the forces to deplete on their own. Finally, some action! But wait... Armenia's stack contains AI SPAWN. In other words, gold chevron, ultimate Armenian troops. My stack is commanded by my Third Rank army (Sultan is First Rank, Heir is Second Rank) which had just destroyed Rome's gold and silver heavy infantry and cavalry, and I didn't stop to retrain my units on my way into Armenia. Thus, my forces were numerous, but the actual units were still disorganized and depleted. This was NOT my all-cavalry First Rank commanded by the Sultan, nor the all-infantry Second Rank commanded by my Heir. This was a hodgepodge of mercenaries, depleted novice infantry, and other assorted rabble. Oops!

Oh well, on to the battle. My strategy is what it always is: Pin the enemy at their own gates and triple flank massacre them. But guess what happens? This particular battle is a castle with unusual terrain. There is a hill leading up to the gates. The gates open and the entire enemy army pours out. Hmm... this could get nasty. No matter, I have the superior cavalry here. I will just flank, surround and pound, and slay the enemy general. Well, the enemy general is the Armenian gold chevron King, who charges directly into my main line. His general's bodyguard are three times more numerous and three times more experienced than mine, and advantage roughly of 9:1. My other cavalry is horse archers, who get owned in melee. Nevertheless, I'm feeling my oats and I attack. Surrounded those buggers nice and good and charged. Nothing happened except a couple infantry fell... and then my cavalry started to fall. Hmmm then I remembered their King has like 5 chivalry and is in the middle of the melee.

I am starting to realize something has gone terribly wrong. I don't have the force necessary to pound them to death, or the morale advantage to make them rout. I have to kill every single last one of them, and I can't do it in toe-to-toe melee. So I pull back all my cavalry, and the Armenian King charges them, and takes out half of my general's bodyguard as he is running away.
Undaunted by these minor, ever so minor setbacks, I surround the bastard with my melee infantry and spearmen, and completely pound him with my cavalry. Meanwhile, my other melee infantry is getting eaten alive by the Armenian heavy knights, spears, Caucasian axemen, and other such lovely hordes of death. I am losing 2:1 in troop count now. The enemy king's veteran bodyguard unleashes a massacre, even when entirely surrounded. He wades, indestructible, through a sea of spearpoints, all of which are attempting to slay him personally. The blows glance off. I forgot, he put on his Enchanted Healing Mythril Armour with +9 stamina this morning. Mortal blows no longer affect him. However, his blows are mortal to my poor spearmen. It is at this point that the mighty Askthepizzaguy realizes that things are starting to look somewhat... iffy.

Fine, I suppose to myself, I will ignore the idiot king who refuses to die. Let's rout his men! I am still superior, if outnumbered, because I am the cavalry and they are the pathetic infantry. So my general and my remaining cavalry take turns plowing into their sea of infantry from all directions, arrows glancing off of their armour as they throw themselves into endless spearpoints and bloodied axes. They refuse to rout, so I go after the archers next. Good! Finally some of them are starting to give. I make 90% of their archers rout, and begin plowing back into their axemen. My spearmen are still slowly picking off the Armenian king, with heavy losses. More troops rout... on both sides... for now, the tide of battle is against us by a factor of 5:1, according to the indicator bar. Our losses are now at 70 percent, and theirs are at a mere 40. And they outnumbered us to begin with, being mostly infantry.

Suddenly I am aware that my heart is pounding and I am fighting for my life. The enemy infantry are all around me, I cannot turn and do another formed charge. My light cavalry have been routed long ago... I didn't notice, as they had already been depleted by about 90 percent before they finally grew some sense and routed. So it was my lone general, severely depleted, and some few remaining and wavering spearmen trying to slay the King and failing miserably. His forces finally down below 50%, and much of his army routed or dead, his remaining troops still had happy grins of death, and "victory is almost a certainty, only a fool could lose this battle" tattooed all across their foreheads. My infantry routed, broken, battered, bloodied, and 95% of them were dead.

I had lost almost 90% of my total forces before I finally realized I probably could not win the battle. Now, I said to myself, let me take as many of them down as possible... Charge after charge against infantry, with little effect... a few would fall here and there... not much accomplished. Fine. Die, you Armenian scum! I charge their King with my bodyguard. Their king is slain. Bwahahahaha!!! Now the forces of fate have turned in MY favor!!!

But 40% of their total forces remain. I have like 5 horse riders left on the field, one of them being my general, everything else is routing. The king's bodyguard unit of course, did not rout. In fact, the routing forces started to turn back. They had seen the battle shift in their favor. Now the battle indicator says that the odds are more like 25:1.

Finally I realize, too late, as the massive sea of axes and bloody spears descended upon my general who was basically fighting an entire army by his unhinged lunatic self, that there was to be no victory at all today. In fact, as a spear knocked my general from the horse, and he lay bleeding, a flurry of axes began hacking his body into pieces. First one arm was chopped off, then another.... but my general got up, took an axe blow to the chest, and another to the skull. Then his right leg was severed completely.

And so he began charging the enemy on one foot, and with his final breath uttered the following words:

The Black Knight always triumphs!



EDIT: THIS IS MY 1000th POST!

[phonicsmonkey]

hmm

I just remembered why I stopped playing that seljuk campaign

because I got bored of surrounding georgian all-infantry stacks with my super seljuk horsearchers and sticking pointy pins into them all day

plus I had allied with everyone (getting a bit carried away with how much more reasonable the BC diplomacy is) who now have surrounded me and have ma-hoo-sive empires

so there are no more un-allied targets once the georgians are dead...

luckily that will be soon, so now, which ally to turn on first? the abbasids I think, tee hee

here's my campaign, whaddyathink?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Askthepizzaguy]

If that's the case, phonicsmonkey, just remember that others might come to that same conclusion about where to expand in the future...

[ReiseReise]

Back with Baldwin I can't get the AI's men to rout. I'm not sure if the garrison script gave them veterans, or if it's just because they've got twice as many men in the melee as me

Awesome battle.

In regards to what I quoted, I just noticed this a few days ago - You can tell the experience of enemy units on the battlefield by the number of small standards the unit is carrying.

I noticed it in BC but it must be in Vanilla. Am I blind for not noticing this earlier? Nah, it just never mattered to me whether I was slaughtering green militia or "battle hardened" militia.
"So all of a sudden this cockroach crawls out, and let me tell you, this thing was as big as a rat. The wife is screaming her bloody head off, so I grab my trusty spear and stab the damn thing. Honestly. I tried stomping on it but it was just too strong."
"Your spear is rusty?"
"Is that what I said? No, I said my spear is TRUSTY, you know, its never failed me in battle"
"Battle?....... against giant cockroaches?"
"Well, ermmmmmmmm........"
"Yeah, me neither thank God. But Bob, is it any good against lice?"

[Askthepizzaguy]

Hats off to ReiseReise for a brilliant non-sequitor.

[Ramses II CP]

Awesome ATPG. I love those battles that just shock you. I mean, the odds on my battle were 1:1! I can't remember the last time that I got those odds and had such a hard time of it. That garrison script trick really produces some good battles, and the best part is that I really only had two full stacks of troops. One weaker one spread out in the north, and about one and a half in the south. Now I've lost effectively a whole army and my entire assault on Egypt is in question.

Phonics, you know you want to take on the Kwaz. You should wrap them up right around the time the Mongols come pouring in. Then it'll really be a campaign.

Reise I didn't realize that either until I started playing KotR, where we had spawned enemy armies of triple gold experience. Now that's a lot of little pennants; still, I wasn't interested enough in the question during the battle to stop and count the banners.

edit: I should also note, per the screenshot, that I had to turn down the unit graphics during the battle to keep down the lag. It was a monster.

[Askthepizzaguy]

The decimation of the Turkish Third Rank happened at 3:2 battle odds in their favor, but in truth, I've become so good versus the AI with my cavalry that I've won 5:1 and 10:1 battles before.

The problem was that my general was but a tiny fraction of what theirs was both in side and experience.

If I had managed to slay their general, I would have easily, easily routed the rest of their troops, I don't care what kind of experience they had. Cavalry in the hands a human player decimates AI infantry, if the player has any sense of tactics.

I believe my vanilla replay battles involving a pair of light horsemen decimating the entire HRE army proves that cavalry are indeed superior if handled properly, and the AI is totally braindead.

However, in this battle they had their invincible Jedi Master at the reins, with a sea of equally skilled Jedi Guards. The only way to beat these kinds of units is with a lucky shot from your artillery, or smashing them with gold chevron heavy spearmen with 32 for a defense stat.

Otherwise, you can get your own king and slay the guy, and hope you don't go down with him. But my king was off holding the mountain-spawn stack by a river crossing so they couldn't affect my seige, and my heir was dealing with Jerusalem. (I don't shy away from taking on multiple AI factions simultaneously)

In all my battles, I had never been so thoroughly pwned. Lesson learned regarding units of 40 or so gold-plated bodyguards... do not engage unless prepared to bleed, or you have much bling around the necks of your own units. The Armenian King was in full Pimp mode, and I was a ragtag group of militia men and hired merc horse archers.

I thought I could win, but the rain of arrows on the enemy had no effect. The charges had no effect. My spears had no effect. An utterly impotent attacking force... but then again, I had suspected the seige to be over, as they had only their king and a few units trapped but a turn ago.

Spawned stacks of doom... yes, the addition of these gives Broken Crescent some teeth... Even if I usually decimate them anyway, I still have to fight hard to win, as opposed to creating tank-like stacks and just rolling the map, stomping the enemy to death and crushing their skulls underfoot.


_

edit: just realized one of my above posts was my 1000th

[Galain_Ironhide]

Bit of a letdown - I get a crash when I try and load your battle. Shame really.

Mind you Saladin's just decided to give me a hard time at Gaza. He has got Prince Guy and Balian besieged inside with a full stack. The outcome of that should be pretty cool.

Check these guys out. They don't look anything special huh?

I just seiged a castle where I outnumbered the enemy roughly 650 to 250 and these nasty little critters absolutely decimated a unit of Templar Knights, a unit of Mtd Seargent Spearmen, a Generals Bodyguard unit and a unit of Outremer Swordsmen before finally running out of steam. They were going beserk! BC definately got the 2 handed bug sorted.

The next couple of battles I had against them I avoided them until I could kill the enemy General Unit, at least then they take a morale hit.


PS. Congrats ATPG on 1000!

[Ramses II CP]

Doh! A crash? You might have to set your unit sizes to huge. I loaded it before uploading to make sure it was working on my end.

I can't think what else it could be unless the upload went wonky in the middle. Sorry!

Saladin had a couple of companies of those axemen with him. They're like most two handers, death on cavalry in a melee, but they fall like grass if you smack 'em with a charge or some crossbows. Two handers are definitely improved for general melee in BC.

ATPG you were in the same situation as me at the bridge. I couldn't get their Sultan, Saladin, to die and, even worse, I couldn't line up any good charges because all the important fighting was at the bridge. I was slaughtering those reinforcements with charges though, not many of them got the chance to surrender.

I didn't have any trouble with the Ayyubid's spawned stacks o'doom in the field, which is why this battle came as such a pleasant shock. I was starting to think the KoJ units were just so friggin' good that the campaign wouldn't be much of a challenge. I was ever so deliciously, wonderfully wrong.

There's nothing better than reaching out to pet that weak little AI kitten and drawing back a nub.

Anyway, I'll download that save in a little while and make sure it's not messed up. Sorry to anyone else that had a problem.