cockiness killed the faction leader

[Vasiliyi]

Interesting story. I finally had enough cash to build an army worthy for my faction leader in my arche selekia campaign and my first battle with it was excellent, a thousand some kills for 20 of my own casualties. My next battle the same army attacked a half-strength single unit of pandotai. I decided to make it quick and ordered my faction leader and 4 units of hetario to charge. As soon as my calvary hit there pandatai (sp?) my faction leader died! And the next seconded after the movie the unit of spearmen routed! What a pain! Anything like that ever thwart you from campaigning into your enemies land? I'd like to hear the stories

[Majd il-Romani]

once I lost like 3 egyptian equivelants of quinquirenemes and 2 penkonterioi to 5 "lightly armed pirates" because of the f***ed up autoresolve. Faction heir and halfstack army were on it too!

[Vasiliyi]

I feel for you majd. Losses like that really make you want to throw your computer out the window. Btw I forgot to mention that I only suffered 1 casualty in the second battle...

[fenix3279]

I'm careful enough to only keep my FL in combat for a limited time. If things look bad, I pull him out and keep him safe until the battle falls more in my favor. Even when I'm sure to win, I keep a pretty close watch on him at all times. No suicidal heroics here. Just charge at the back, rinse, and repeat.

[Vasiliyi]

Trust me I do that too, but in this campaign I was roleplaying and the faction leader had a 'beleives he's define' trait.. So I'm sure he was pretty cocky.

[Majd il-Romani]

I feel for you majd. Losses like that really make you want to throw your computer out the window. Btw I forgot to mention that I only suffered 1 casualty in the second battle...

I cursed at the computer for a good 20 minutes in Enlish, Spanish, Arabic, and the few curses I know in Tagalog.

When I finished I saw my friend in the doorway with his jaw halfway to the floor like this

[We shall fwee...Wodewick]

About losing brilliant navies to pirates, In a Romani game I had 8 fleets consisting of 2 quinqriemes and 2 Quadriemes in the mediterrean with half of those in the west, and then a fleet of one triereme and a pentekonteri shuttling men and governors between Bocchoris and Iberia.

Then 10 pirate fleets that were huddled up on the south east coast of Gaul all sailed round Iberia at once and destroyed my massive fleets, one of which had a 5 or 6 star admiral without really impacting on them. Then I sent the ferry fleet which had no stars and it wiped out 3 fleets of about 5-8 ships before being destroyed. This led me to building nothing but triremes, liburnes and pentekonteri for the rest of the game beacuse the larger ships seem to be useless against pirates and the new combination could defeat any navy in the game(I had at this point the entire med coast line).

Is it built in that larger ships are useless against pirates?

[Aemilius Paulus]

I save regularly (before & after every move on the campaign map) and reload just as regularly when spy/assassin/diplomat missions fail or a battle goes a bit too wrong. I have never had a general die from natural causes (such as old age), much less in the fray. I did have a ten influence (actually about 17 influence, but there is a limit on those neat little green wreaths as you all know), ten management and five command, plus quite a bit of splendid traits such as "National Hero" or "Extremely Confident Troops" die, as a first casualty while charging in the back of the a unit of Lugoae that was already engaged with a unit of Triarii!. I did reload the battle immediately though.

[TWFanatic]

Hey let's sticky this and make it the official EB bitching thread. Instead of a barkeep we can have a psychiatrist.

[Senshi]

I save regularly (before & after every move on the campaign map) and reload just as regularly when spy/assassin/diplomat missions fail or a battle goes a bit too wrong. I have never had a general die from natural causes (such as old age), much less in the fray. I did have a ten influence (actually about 17 influence, but there is a limit on those neat little green wreaths as you all know), ten management and five command, plus quite a bit of splendid traits such as "National Hero" or "Extremely Confident Troops" die, as a first casualty while charging in the back of the a unit of Lugoae that was already engaged with a unit of Triarii!. I did reload the battle immediately though.

And now tell me where's the fun in that?

I simply include appearingly random events like that into my roleplay elements, shit happens during war, so why not during my game. Of course one is used to slaughter everything without much of a problem, but heck, such things actually keep me playing! Always having to expect the unexpected, that's pretty cool.

This particular event of course is annoying, but who gives? One Faction leader died in combat, so the political system trembles, another one of the FMs manages to advance and life goes on.Heck, I once lost 2 stacks (actually all my army) during a big campaign in Epeiros as Romani because Epeiros somehow had really huge and MANY armies battering and battering me. The army included my FL and two good FMs.
Every single man got cornered and killed before I could extract them by boat.

I only had 2 FMs left and about 1-2 levy units (rorarii) as garrison in every town.

I lost 5 cities in Italy in the next years (only holding Roma, Arretium and Bononia) as the Carthagians took their chance and steamrolled in from Sicily after I was rendered helpless. Epeiros brought in their troops over the Adriatics at the same time. Just Rome managed to become the turning point of war where I managed to corner some stacks of Epirotes and slowly regained a firm hold in Northern Italy until I had enough troops to retake the south. Hell, never thought I had to use WW2 tactics (blitz, surround, destroy) in EB
Technically, this sucked bigtime, costing many many years and very good generals, but this was one of the greatest campaigns I ever played!

[Recoil]

well in one of my battles (me Rome vs AI Carthage) I noticed that a Carthy unit of men was wavering, even though it was quite strong. I didn't have time to maneuver anyone around to flank em so i sent my general in to rout them with his charge. True enough the enemies began routing and I let him chase them for a bit.

All this while the Carthy general (127 men!!) comes around my left flank and sees my general chasing his men down so tries to catch off my general. Too far away from our lines to be reinforced and outnumbered 3-1 I pull my general back. Now normally the general is always at the front left of the unit, next to the standard bearer and all that (yunno, where he would have been SAFE) but MY general decided to mix things up and as soon as the Sacred Band hammered into the bodyguards right flank my general died. Luckily I won the battle but lost my idiot commander who seemed to try and go out of his way to high five a Carthiginian whilst retreating. Fool.

[mcantu]

right before the FM's unit makes contact, hit 'F'. this will make him do the rally animation and keep him from getting killed a the front of the charge...

[tapanojum]

In my Koinon Hellenon to Massilia game, I usually have 1 General leadering the army, and one young FM as his "Aprentice" learning the ropes of how to be a competent general.

After numerous games of losing Generals in insane bullcrap situations, (Such as the general being the first casualty,etc), I keep my generals out of battle.

They both stand behind the main lines and just watch the battle. They are basically my Triari in a sense, where if the situation get's REAL ugly, I use them to plug the holes.

They are also there to screen my archers/slingers, other than that, they watch! Now I have many more FM's alive and kickingit =]

[Maion Maroneios]

Ha! My Basileus of Makedonia once got killed by a unit of Akontistai while charging head-on during a siege in Anatolia! Now I'm always careful and press the ''F'' button before chargine, as it leaves the general a little behind, as to not participate in the initial clash

Maion

[muha]

And now tell me where's the fun in that?

This particular event of course is annoying, but who gives? One Faction leader died in combat, so the political system trembles, another one of the FMs manages to advance and life goes on.Heck, I once lost 2 stacks (actually all my army) during a big campaign in Epeiros as Romani because Epeiros somehow had really huge and MANY armies battering and battering me. The army included my FL and two good FMs.
Every single man got cornered and killed before I could extract them by boat.

I only had 2 FMs left and about 1-2 levy units (rorarii) as garrison in every town.

I lost 5 cities in Italy in the next years (only holding Roma, Arretium and Bononia) as the Carthagians took their chance and steamrolled in from Sicily after I was rendered helpless. Epeiros brought in their troops over the Adriatics at the same time. Just Rome managed to become the turning point of war where I managed to corner some stacks of Epirotes and slowly regained a firm hold in Northern Italy until I had enough troops to retake the south. Hell, never thought I had to use WW2 tactics (blitz, surround, destroy) in EB
Technically, this sucked bigtime, costing many many years and very good generals, but this was one of the greatest campaigns I ever played!

WOW! I wish my campaigns were this interesting, what setting do you play on?



And to keep the topic going, I had an FM (lucky me he was ussless) die to a routing unit. It started routing just before the charge, so they unit was still holding formation and just starting to turn around.

[fenix3279]

And now tell me where's the fun in that?

I simply include appearingly random events like that into my roleplay elements, shit happens during war, so why not during my game. Of course one is used to slaughter everything without much of a problem, but heck, such things actually keep me playing! Always having to expect the unexpected, that's pretty cool.

This particular event of course is annoying, but who gives? One Faction leader died in combat, so the political system trembles, another one of the FMs manages to advance and life goes on.Heck, I once lost 2 stacks (actually all my army) during a big campaign in Epeiros as Romani because Epeiros somehow had really huge and MANY armies battering and battering me. The army included my FL and two good FMs.
Every single man got cornered and killed before I could extract them by boat.

I only had 2 FMs left and about 1-2 levy units (rorarii) as garrison in every town.

I lost 5 cities in Italy in the next years (only holding Roma, Arretium and Bononia) as the Carthagians took their chance and steamrolled in from Sicily after I was rendered helpless. Epeiros brought in their troops over the Adriatics at the same time. Just Rome managed to become the turning point of war where I managed to corner some stacks of Epirotes and slowly regained a firm hold in Northern Italy until I had enough troops to retake the south. Hell, never thought I had to use WW2 tactics (blitz, surround, destroy) in EB
Technically, this sucked bigtime, costing many many years and very good generals, but this was one of the greatest campaigns I ever played!

Good God ALMIGHTY! If my campaigns were anywhere near this interesting, I would've dropped college and quit my job years ago just so I could spend more time playing EB. Come to think of it, it's probably a good thing they're not. It might cause my mind to implode

[SwebozGaztiz]

Well i once got my sweboz general killed by a group of the roman levy spearmen, i dont remember the exact name, i was so fucking frustrated because those guys where causing a lot of losses to my bodyguard unit, and then all of the sudden one of the levies killed my general i was so pissed off!!!of course i restarted the battle, in that battle i was laying siege to Mediolanum, that aedui city that starts close to the romans, and well i always try to keep a close eye to any suicidal action, and by the way hitting the f key before charing is a good piece of advice!