Failure Stories

[Noncommunist]

While reading stories about successful campaigns can be interesting. (Especially as I haven't had MTW2 for about 8 months now due to some upgrades to the computer.) They almost always win. And usually every battle. A mere excommunication or mongol invasion can be a bit of a pain but it never seems to stop the endless wave of human expansion over pitiful AI opponents.

It is nice to see humans win but usually, when the human actually has troubles, it seems more interesting as victory isn't guaranteed.

So has anyone put up a story where they actually failed in the campaign? It would certainly break the monotony of constant human wins and might prove to be a more interesting story.

[Zim]

I haven't done any aars where I failed (even did one as one of the weakest countries in a fairly hard mod expecting to fail, and still won..). I have had a few games that went badly.

In one of my early games as Russia I decided not to expand west past Finland, only east into the steppes. When the Mongols came I had militia crossbowmen and, where lucky, regular spearmen. It wasn't pretty. I still wiped out their first 7 or so armies, thought that was it, disbanded most of my troops (I was in bad debt by then) and had 4 more stacks show up...

I also had an EB game once upon a time playing Macedonia where I didn't fail, perse, but my expansion was ground to a halt and I lost some pretty nasty battles.

Unfortunately since the AI can never competently push any victory it's hard to actually lose. If I did nothing but keep hitting end turn in that first game I still doubt the Mongols would have taken more than half of my territories by the end of the game.

[Noncommunist]

I don't think I've ever fully been destroyed but especially in my earlier games, I've done so poorly that I abandoned the campaign. Usually, it was because one really important city of mine was taken or because money was running out. I guess when I am able to play it again, maybe I could try to salvage those situations or just fully lose.

[Ratwar]

As with the other responses, I have never been totally destroyed, though I have been put in a situation where I believe that I couldn't have actually won the game with the skills I had at the time.

In my first campaign with Russia, I made the mistake of expanding at a slow pace. I expanded both East and West, but due to this two front war, I never really got very far in either direction. Also, since I was expecting the Mongols to appear in the South, like they did in all my other games, I changed my Eastern Settlements into cities. Looking back that compounded my situation.

Once the Mongols arrived, I knew I was in trouble. My financial situation had never been very good as it was entirely dependent on Kiev and Novgorod, and my attempts at building up massive garrison armies in my Eastern Settlements made my kings as poor as Church mice. Of course, as the Mongols marched through my lands, the Militia I had raised did little to stop the Mongol onslaught. They died by the hundreds in a series of assaults on towns.

At this point, I was in a bit of a panic. I had no money, no great generals, and certainly no forces capable of meeting the Mongols in an open battle. I did what any good Total War player would do as the Mongols approached Kiev, I prepared to defend the river crossings to the last man. Any unit I had available, and any family member I had available was sent to the bridges. This forced the Mongols to pause for a moment, but their invasion was not over.

As soon as one of my Generals saw the horde of Mongol troops staring at him across the river, he rebelled against my rule, taking with him an entire stack of spear men and archers, and allowing the Mongols to cross the River. From there, the Horde reached Kiev easily, and though my garrison fought heroically, spear militia can only do so much against three stacks of Mongol troops. I lost about 30% of my income in that turn, and although troop upkeep fell about an equal amount (if not more), I had little chance of fitting a large offensive force into my budget.

With my family tree stripped of all but a few leaves, my economy in shambles, and my army spread out in isolated pockets of survivors who were slowly going rebel, I decided that the situation was hopeless.

Looking back, I think I could have recovered even from this level of defeat, but it would have taken me far too long to even have a chance at winning in the time allotted.

[CountMRVHS]

Well, this is interesting -- two failures as the Russians. I'm playing the Russians right now, H/H, and I'm expanding *very* slowly, so in a couple of days I may well have a failure story of my own to post.

To be honest I hope it's a hard-fought thing. I'm playing a short campaign and really taking my time. It's past turn 60 I think and I only own Novgorod, Moscow, Finland, Smolensk, and Kiev. A few turns ago I got the message about the Mongol threat, so they'll be showing up in a while. But I'm mostly focused right now on building up my couple castles and keeping the Polish out of my realm.

Anyway, I don't recall any M2TW failures, really. Not in campaigns, anyway. I have lost a few battles, but even that is rare.

Most recently, I lost a battle in the Brittania Kingdoms campaign. I was playing the Norse, fighting the Scots. During this battle, I decided to use the general cam. The Scots were attacking, so I set up on a hill overlooking some woods, so I could keep an eye on how things played out. Unfortunately, the Scots brought catapults with them, so I was forced onto the offensive to disable the machines. Things got messy fast, and my general barely escaped with his life.

I don't know if it was the general cam that did me in or some other factor, but it's always fun when you get surprised by the game.

[oz_wwjd]

I've had a few bad campaigns as the English,when I was fighting the frehch,danish and HRE all at the same time,as I never had the time to do anything about there frequent attempts to take my mainland cities, I was always rushing my forces to repel yet other attempt to conquer one of my cities. When the Portguese launced naval invasions of Dublin and the Spanish joined them,after a bit I gave up and started over,as I was getting nowhere fast,and I could see that 'my main force were being gradually whittled down,as I never had the time,or cash spare to re-train more forces.

[ConnMon]

After only having M2TW for about a week, I had done "really well" as the english (M/M), so I decided to try the French. My main problem was not expansion. I had killed the English, Scots, Milanese, and the HRE (partially), when my problem came into view.

The Pope thought that "the fires of eternal damnation were too good for me." The entire campaign I had really been a bad catholic. Long story short, I get excommunicated, and then Spain, Portugal, and Venice declare war and attack (along with HRE, but they already hated me). What really screwed me over was that the Papal States sent an army of inquisitors to kill my nobles, who were all paganistic. I ended up losing most of my faction people, and I just quit that campaign.

[Lancome]

As with the other responses, I have never been totally destroyed, though I have been put in a situation where I believe that I couldn't have actually won the game with the skills I had at the time.

In my first campaign with Russia, I made the mistake of expanding at a slow pace. I expanded both East and West, but due to this two front war, I never really got very far in either direction. Also, since I was expecting the Mongols to appear in the South, like they did in all my other games, I changed my Eastern Settlements into cities. Looking back that compounded my situation.

Once the Mongols arrived, I knew I was in trouble. My financial situation had never been very good as it was entirely dependent on Kiev and Novgorod, and my attempts at building up massive garrison armies in my Eastern Settlements made my kings as poor as Church mice. Of course, as the Mongols marched through my lands, the Militia I had raised did little to stop the Mongol onslaught. They died by the hundreds in a series of assaults on towns.

At this point, I was in a bit of a panic. I had no money, no great generals, and certainly no forces capable of meeting the Mongols in an open battle. I did what any good Total War player would do as the Mongols approached Kiev, I prepared to defend the river crossings to the last man. Any unit I had available, and any family member I had available was sent to the bridges. This forced the Mongols to pause for a moment, but their invasion was not over.

As soon as one of my Generals saw the horde of Mongol troops staring at him across the river, he rebelled against my rule, taking with him an entire stack of spear men and archers, and allowing the Mongols to cross the River. From there, the Horde reached Kiev easily, and though my garrison fought heroically, spear militia can only do so much against three stacks of Mongol troops. I lost about 30% of my income in that turn, and although troop upkeep fell about an equal amount (if not more), I had little chance of fitting a large offensive force into my budget.

With my family tree stripped of all but a few leaves, my economy in shambles, and my army spread out in isolated pockets of survivors who were slowly going rebel, I decided that the situation was hopeless.

Looking back, I think I could have recovered even from this level of defeat, but it would have taken me far too long to even have a chance at winning in the time allotted.

Hi RATWAR!!!!! I had the same problem on my russian Campaign. Around the time the mongols arrive shouldnt you already have Novgorod being capable of producing Kossak Musketteers? I was able to hold them down at the bridge Near Kiev just with 3 Muskets, like 7 spearmen, 4 cannons, 2 boyar archers and my general. My Gen. got alot of Dread from that.... w/e eventually Hungary invaded me and my funds were to strained to have a war in the east and south.