What was your most heroic victory?

[alexanderthegreater]

What was your coolest victory ever? Post pictures if you can, and explain how you achieved it.

Mine? well i had many heroic victories are easiest when defending against sieges (phalanx in da street) or when defending bridges.

But my most recent one was while playing with the Getai, I had just recruited 4 units of tarabostes and tried them out against an eleutheroi stack to see if they were any good.
The eleutheroi stack: 1 unit of hippeis, 1 unit of dacian light phalanx, 2 units of triballi infantry.
I splitted up my cavalry, so the ai splitted up its infantry and hippeis to engage each of my parts individually.
But now its hippeis were far away from its infantry so I wheeled around and charged them from 2 sides. In the cavalry battle I incredibly took not a single casualty while the hippeis took 83 then fled.

After that it was running around with one cavalry unit at a time (the one that was being pursued) then after AI units where all exhausted and mine still warmed up I took them out one by one.



So you boys and girls NEVER complain about cavalry being to weak or expensive ever again.

[Jebivjetar]

I will never forget this one. I was playing with Pontos, and that annoying AS stacks made me extremely mad, so i went with my most powerful army into their territory. But that rich and powerful AS blocked one bridge (with fulstack of phalanxes and 2 FMs). As i said, i was mad and thirsty for revenge, and I've attacked them even i was slightly outnumbered and even the enemy had that huge advantage with phalanxes holding the bridge . It was clear butchering: i have lost most of my army, because AS phalanxes were stronger than mine natives, and their FMs with 40-50 bodyguards just butchered my men. After all i made it, even i thought i was going to lose there. Field was full of corpses from both sides, and i had my Phyric victory: but i was proud

[delablake]

an entrenched consular legion of my brave Polybians, aided by socii and mercenaries, repelled the attack of 4 Quarthadastim fullstacks...luckily for me they came one after the other

[Zradha Pahlavan]

Playing as the Lusitanians, I had attacked Carthage and gained a foothold in Africa. In response, they sent a full stack of various elite cavalry and infantry, plus three groups of elephants. My army had been engaged in rather hard fights recently and was mostly depleted, and it wasn't exactly on par with the Carthaginian one anyways, consisting mostly of medium troops and numidian skirmishers.

Fortunately, they followed a predictable route, and when they wandered up to the city, they were ambushed by my troops right in front of it. Their army was attacked from all sides, and I had my numidians kill their elephants in the first moments of the battle, and then they turned on the Carthaginian general's unit and killed him. The enemy phalanxes held out for a little while but not even elite troops can fight off an attack from all sides. The battle ended fairly quickly.

Enemy dead was 3000 and something. I had lost about 250 men, not counting wounded guys who healed later. Only 6o or so enemy troops escaped the massacre.

[athanaric]

Playing as the Saka Rauka, 1.2, H/M. On the way to Sulek, my Faction leader and heir plus a smallish group of light cavalry (edit: actually 1 unit of Early Saka Nobles and 2 units of Saka light HAs) were ambushed by a large Eleutheroi stack from Gava-Haomavarga. Being taken completely by surprise (which also meant I couldn't order my troops before the battle), I had no chance but to fight the battle. My 460 riders vs. a mixed infantry/HA stack of 1819 men deployed all around my troops. Here's the result:

[Apázlinemjó]

This is from RTW vanilla, fighting against Carthage. They had only light infrantry and peasants, it was a funny battle.



This is from RTR. I held the hill, while the three Seleucid army attacked me from three sides in the same time. Slingers and the phalanxes saved the day.



From EB. The Seleucid army held the hill, I was lucky since they didn't have real cavalry, only the BGs. Hammer and Anvil tactic won the fight for me.



EB, roleplaying. I disbanded the starting army and sit down in the capital. After a few years, AS attacked me. They had one Pezo and 2 native phalanxes, some skirmisher and slinger units and an FM, it was funny to see them routing as my BGs overwhelmed them. Sadly my king died in the battle.

[Cullhwch]

Alexander's royal army was attacked by FOUR full stack armies while it laid siege to Sardis. My original goal was to lure Darius Codomannus into a decisive battle there, but he just sent four captains to do the job. These four captains commanded a combined total of over 13,000 men (huge unit settings). I experienced this two years ago. To this very day, I have yet to see any screenshot that details a larger campaign victory.

[Jebivjetar]

[QUOTE=Apázlinemjó;2232082]



Oh, i remember those vanilla mercenaries from pea-town

[Fluvius Camillus]

Alexander's royal army was attacked by FOUR full stack armies while it laid siege to Sardis. My original goal was to lure Darius Codomannus into a decisive battle there, but he just sent four captains to do the job. These four captains commanded a combined total of over 12,000 men (huge unit settings). I experienced this two years ago. To this very day, I have yet to see any screenshot that details a larger campaign victory.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Dude that is a spectacular one!

I have never seen such an enourmous battle, congrats on your victory! I will be honoured if you accept this balloon!



~Fluvius

[Macilrille]

Hmmm... I do not actually have any idea which one was the largest. both in vanilla and EB I have an average of one every 3-4th year or so. That is a lot over the course of a campaign. None really distinguishes itself like the one of Cullhwch. They all blend in my malware-infected memory ;-)

So, I cannot compete in this, but there are some nice ones posted indeed.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Meh, vanilla battles are too easy. Enemy routs right away. So do one's own troops, but a human is much better in battlefield tactics. I remember that time when after playing EB for a year, I go Alexander expansion. I was attacked by two barbarian armies, who outnumbered me 3:1. The battle was a joke, despite the fact that their army was composed of very good troops, not just levies. Their units simply routed on contact.

The easiest battles I had in vanilla were with the Roman improved bodyguards. Those blokes were immense tanks, all the better because of their experience. And I was fighting in Iberia, where the Spanish (hehe) had no spear units at all. An entire faction with not a single spear unit. The Town Militia did not count either, because their spears were only good for killing peasants. So anyway, I remember time when I won victory after victory over 1500+ men armies against my two BGs, 26 men each. It was not even amusing. I charged and destroyed their armies with inconceivable impunity.

So those victories did not count for much. As for my EB Heroic Victories, I have many of my own, most from my previous long-lasting Romani campaign, so I have forgotten most of them by now, and the screenshots I took are useless since I had Anti-Antialiasing on. Now I have Fraps, so everythign is recorded.

[Cullhwch]

Dude that is a spectacular one!

I have never seen such an enourmous battle, congrats on your victory! I will be honoured if you accept this balloon!



~Fluvius

Hah! Thanks. You know, we could turn this into a sort of contest. If anyone can post a heroic victory of a bigger campaign battle in the open field, I will bow before his tactical prowess and he'd impress damn near everyone on this board.

[seienchin]

Hah! Thanks. You know, we could turn this into a sort of contest. If anyone can post a heroic victory of a bigger campaign battle in the open field, I will bow before his tactical prowess and he'd impress damn near everyone on this board.

Does it get any bigger?
I would gratulate you, if I would have never played the Alexander Battle at Hydaspes. Everyone, who has beaten that 3 9Goldchevron Elephants gets a ballon from me

[Cullhwch]

Does it get any bigger?
I would gratulate you, if I would have never played the Alexander Battle at Hydaspes. Everyone, who has beaten that 3 9Goldchevron Elephants gets a ballon from me

That battle is a BITCH, though I personally found Issus to be a bit more challenging before I learned how to game the AI. You have to almost completely ignore the first crossing point, but put a unit of archers there purely to pin the Indians there as well, and take the rest of your army to the secondary crossing ASAP. Use Alex and the Companions to obliterate their light cavalry and whatever light units follow quickly, but withdraw into your own phalanxes when the scythe chariots and elephants give chase. Chariots die immediately when they touch pikes, so that shouldn't be too tough. The eles will be a different matter, though if you're lucky they'll get pinned in the phalanx and you can annihilate them with javelins. The whole affair is seriously touch-and-go, and on Medium difficulty I don't think I've ever had less than 33% of my army KIA. I'd imagine that it would be nigh-impossible to win on Hard or Very Hard unless you managed to get extremely lucky in pinning the Indians with the phalanx.

[Celtic_Punk]

fighting the persians as baktria. they sieged us with 3 fullstacks. I had 2 levy phalanxes and 3 generals. One of them was my main general, had 4 stars and 2 gold chevrons. I put the phalanxes on the 2 main roads and positioned my generals to charge anything that comes through the street. eventually they began breaking through the main road, which was a straight line from the gate. The right flank held firm and took everything they threw at them. so they focused on the main road. I had to charge my generals into the fray, and the street became a disorganized deathmatch, the phalanx was messed up and had the majority were using their axes. The battle was long and epic, thousands of persians died, hundreds of our guys died. fair trade. they started to break through so i sent my best general around the through the street they failed to get through, and put the phalanx there into the fight. the General got to the top of the street, and the trapped routers went nuts! big charge down wide street. destroyed the rear ranks of them, i told them to go to the square, so they pushed forward with their swords and cut through the persians. hardly any of them survived out of the thousands that attacked..

did this on huge / medium

[Olaf The Great]

Playing as the Byzantines in the Late Period(Medieval 1) Nicaea was attacked right after I invaded some other territory, the only unit I had was ONE unit of Peasants in the field, I think they had about 4 units of some type of swordsman and the general.
Just because I was bored, I decided to actually fight the battle.
The Generals bodyguard charged the peasants in the first minute and the general himself died on contact...I have no idea how but he must have been important because the entire army routed right after that.

It was awesome.

[Tanit]

In a previous Carthage campaign I bribed a Roman General sent against me in Sicily who I then sent to conquer all of Italy. He did so in record time with back up forces moving in to hold the cities he captured. The most tense battle I fought against the Romans was outside of Rome itself as I was besieging it. This campaign was either H/H or VH/VH, I can't recall.



I then sent him to secure northern Italy where he fought one of the largest Eleutheroi armies I've ever faced. It was a perfect plan. I let them come to me under heavy missile fire before enacting a perfectly timed counter charge that broke their ranks and allowed me to crush them utterly.



After this I repaired his army and I was going to send him to Britain to conquer but that was when the campaign was lost to a corrupt save. It was probably my favourite campaign I ever played.

[Mithick666]

Cullhwch congratulation for your victory it was amazing, and too for Tanit 21casualtys i do not have words

i had many heroic victory but without any picture
maybe this but the pic is very low quality and the 2, i do not know why it was not a heroic victory.

[alexanderthegreater]

21 casualties? I only had 4 (of which i healed 1) :P

[Silence Hunter]

This one is from my ongoing Hayasdan campaign:



It wouldn't be such an interesting battle if I was defender, but here I was attacking. The first army I faced forced me to engage asap as they had 2 units of scorpions who were obliterating my light troops and almost killed my general (I closed on to the general's unit riding on the flank of the enemy just to be shocked to see 2 bodyguards right next to my king die from a scorpion shot). As I play with unlimited men on battle field, the second enemy army arrived into the field while I was still closing to engage the first one. It was an interesting battle involving a lot of maneuvering and tactics to beat the enemy. I was proud to win that one

[Fluvius Camillus]

Does it get any bigger?
I would gratulate you, if I would have never played the Alexander Battle at Hydaspes. Everyone, who has beaten that 3 9Goldchevron Elephants gets a ballon from me

I did, King Porus ran into my Phalanghlites and died! The others then routed after a phalanx, javelin and cavalry charge move.

I dont have any pics because I did not find the battle that hard... Fougth it 3 times and won twice.

Should I win again and proof it with a pic or are you going to believe me on my word?

Aemilius Paulus, you are right.

I remember hosting a custom battle. I was the house of Julii and made a nice Polybian manipular army, against a Gallic army. I tried not to fight tactically but historically...

My triarii fled on touch with a warband....

~Fluvius

[machinor]

My most heroic and epic battles were in Medieval (I) Total War (with Viking Expansion). I was Russia, preparing my kingdom for the arrival of the Mongols. If you have ever played Medieval Total War and experienced the Mongols there you know FEAR. Their armies were massive, several fullstacks full of their superior heavy cavalry (kinda like cataphracts), innumerable heavy archers, gunmen and quite some artillery. In Medieval Total War, the AI was quite good, especially in battles. Usually I would retreat until their armies were thinned out over a large area, however this time I decided to risk it all in an all-or-nothing-battle. So I massed my armies, 3 fullstacks of mainly heavy spearmen and arabalests plus some medium steppe cavalry and boyars (basically armoured horse archers). The battle was a slaughter. It was quite close but then I managed to kill their Khan and their whole army broke apart. It was one of the bloodiest battles I've ever had.
However my most glorious battle was against the Turks. In the very same campaign the Turks had been eradicated by the Byzantines and the Egyptians. After I had survived the Mongol invasion, I left one fullstack in Khazan to guard my border with Egypt; the rest of the army was either put in garrisons throughout my kingdom or disbanded, as the immense costs of maintaining such a large army drained my treasury and nearly bankrupted me. So I thought that I had survived the worst danger. Then all of a sudden the Turks reemerge... in Khazan... with 5 fullstacks. I thought I was done for sure but decided to try to kill as many of their troops as possible so my empire would not be comlpetely overrun. Same basic strategy as with the mongols. Only this time I pulled a desperate suicide move. I charged with all my spearmen into their line, trying to open up a gap in their lines so I could try to kill the Sultan. It worked. As soon as their Sultan was dead, the armies fell apart. I slaughtered about 6000 to 7000 enemy troops with my one fullstack. It took me nearly twenty minutes to rout all their incoming reinforcements who basically routed as soon as their entered the battlefield. The battlefield was a sea of fleeing men.

[mountaingoat]

all these stories of MTW1 games :( *shakes fist at Nvidia and the 8+ series*

[Geticus]

Playing as Sweboz on VH campaign, Hard battle difficulty. In 242 I besieged Eburon with my 8 chevron 10 star 5 hitpoint warmonger general, leading a full stack of level 3 Germanic swordsmen and level 4 Chatti spearmen, with a few elite Baltic Medininkas archers, 3 Germanic light cavalry and a wargozes mercenary. The defender of Eburon, Diazenis, attacked me in the off turn with 16 level 4+ infantry including some neitos and the level 8 solduros bodyguard, along with 4 novice mercenary infantry which to my astonishment he hired in the offturn before he attacked. Those of you who play as Germans or Romani probably know of Diazenis, he hates everyone, generally has 10 command, his axemen, spearmen, and heavy swordsmen are nearly unbreakable and he commonly forms a buffer state between the sweboz and Rome due to the strength of his army. He was reinforced by the city garrison of Eburon consisting of 14 level 4+ troops led by a strong 8 star Brihentin general.

I took a defensive position around a small slope at the edge of the battlemap and slugged it out with Diazenis, losses were gruesome on both sides, especially for my spearmen, and repeated light cavalry charges to their rear did only moderate damage and no one broke until nearing single digits. Finally after the lines thinned greatly Diazenis died in a Wargoz charge to the rear and the remnants of his huge army broke one by one. The garrison of Eburon meanwhile had arrived and strangely took up a defensive position on a slight upslope just as I had done, and refused to move. I rested up fully and then had the elite archers shoot all remaining arrows into them to try and induce a charge against my strong position. They however refused to move and took only minor losses. I then successfully baited their non bodyguard cavalry into a charge and surrounded and killed them off with my cavalry. After that their infantry held firm, refusing to move at all costs and just hurling javelins whenever I came to close. So at length I led the remains of my severly weakened army in an oblique attack against their left flank, finally they shifted position and I was able to gain a level footing against them on the slope. After charging and harrassing their archers as they regrouped, while my troops were in some disarray, the enemy finally turned and charged en masse. The Brihentin enemy general charged my left along with some infantry, while the rest collided in a disorderly slugfest. I set my Baltic archer reserves to hold the right while my FM, swordsmen and chatti spearmen regrouped and joined battle on the left. After grim losses on both sides the Chatti spearmen killed the enemy general, and repeated cavalry charges incited a mass route.
I don't have the numbers, but although victorious I had severe losses, it was a huge battle with lots of maneuvering lasting well over an hour.

[miotas]

Playing as sauro's I besieged some backwater germanic settlement that turned out to be much stronger than I anticipated.

They sallied and I went into the battle expecting to do the usual horse archer expend arrows then flee, however after all the arrows were expended there were a few units who were severely weakened and wavering so I figured that I would take them out before I retreated.

Things snowballed however and before I knew what was actually happening I realised that I had a bloody good chance at winning.

I my tactics were to first expend most, but not all, of my arrows, then to split up the enemy's force and cause them to become exhausted, and then to use alternating charges from multiple sides.

[Tristuskhan]

My most heroic and epic battles were in Medieval (I) Total War (with Viking Expansion). I was Russia, preparing my kingdom for the arrival of the Mongols. If you have ever played Medieval Total War and experienced the Mongols there you know FEAR. Their armies were massive, several fullstacks full of their superior heavy cavalry (kinda like cataphracts), innumerable heavy archers, gunmen and quite some artillery. In Medieval Total War, the AI was quite good, especially in battles. Usually I would retreat until their armies were thinned out over a large area, however this time I decided to risk it all in an all-or-nothing-battle. So I massed my armies, 3 fullstacks of mainly heavy spearmen and arabalests plus some medium steppe cavalry and boyars (basically armoured horse archers). The battle was a slaughter. It was quite close but then I managed to kill their Khan and their whole army broke apart. It was one of the bloodiest battles I've ever had.
However my most glorious battle was against the Turks. In the very same campaign the Turks had been eradicated by the Byzantines and the Egyptians. After I had survived the Mongol invasion, I left one fullstack in Khazan to guard my border with Egypt; the rest of the army was either put in garrisons throughout my kingdom or disbanded, as the immense costs of maintaining such a large army drained my treasury and nearly bankrupted me. So I thought that I had survived the worst danger. Then all of a sudden the Turks reemerge... in Khazan... with 5 fullstacks. I thought I was done for sure but decided to try to kill as many of their troops as possible so my empire would not be comlpetely overrun. Same basic strategy as with the mongols. Only this time I pulled a desperate suicide move. I charged with all my spearmen into their line, trying to open up a gap in their lines so I could try to kill the Sultan. It worked. As soon as their Sultan was dead, the armies fell apart. I slaughtered about 6000 to 7000 enemy troops with my one fullstack. It took me nearly twenty minutes to rout all their incoming reinforcements who basically routed as soon as their entered the battlefield. The battlefield was a sea of fleeing men.

Nice to hear about it...Reminds me... I also faced the Horde in a few campaigns as the Turks. A strange mechanism was that the most troops you had in the Horde's starting provinces, the most massive the horde was. With six of your armies stationned in the province, you could face twenty full stacks of heavy cavalry and horse archers, plus the best foot-archers in the game. Build a lvl 4 blacksmith in Khazar and the horde will be dressed in lovely shining armour. True meatgrinders those battles were. Four hours long and with thousands and thousands dead on both side. And if you killed the Khan and his sons right on the first turn, and won the battle (even without the Khan their reinforcements would keep coming for hours, hours!), the horde went rebel. Enough men for me to bribe them and have a 100% Mongol military until I could begin training Jannissaries.
PS: at the time I played those campaigns I was confined to bed for three month because of a very bad wound. So I could make my best to have true challenges.

Yeah, those must be the most heroic I played in a TW game.

[Maion Maroneios]

I've got a couple of pics from a battle I fought in my recent Makedonian campaign against the immigrant Epeirotai in Illyria. They had a fullstack of Illyrioi Thureophoroi and several Hoplitai (the Classical type), while I had some Pezhetairoi, flankers and Prodromoi (not to mention the massive bodyguard of my Startegos). Anyway, pics are coming soon.



Maion

[duncan.gill]

I would be interested to see what the best heroic victory was for a non-phalanx, non-missle/HA based army (e.g. Casse, Romani etc).

[alexanderthegreater]

I would be interested to see what the best heroic victory was for a non-phalanx, non-missle/HA based army (e.g. Casse, Romani etc).

See mine top of thread ^^ All medium cavalry, not a big battle with much kills but an effective 3 casualties.

[Maion Maroneios]

Truth is, it must be harder to get Heroic Victories (with small casualties) with non-phalanx factions, especially when you're defending. Mainly because phalanxes tend to hold out forever (like my Pezhetairoi did in the battle I posted) if deployed correctly.

Basically, what I did is the following; Wanting to wipe any remaining Epeirote presence off the face of the Earth, I decided to launch an expedition in Illyria. Before I did, I "upgraded" my 2 standing armies, including Pezhetairoi, Peltastai, Toxotai and Prodromoi, due to the fact that I had recently created 2 lvl3 factional barrackses in Pella and Demetrias (damn 15,000 mnai). So I sent a spy and assassin to survey the area where I knew the Epeirotai hung out. What I immediately noticed, was that enormous army composed of, almost entirely, Illyrioi Thureophoroi, some Hoplitai and a couple of Paraktioi. Hesitant at first, I soon figured out they had no way of winning. The resons are simple:

1) They are not called Artificial Idiocy for nothing
2) The army was led by a captain, while mine was led by the very Basileus
3) They had no pikemen to counter mine
4) I basically picked the terrain to my favour
5) They had no missile troops to speak of
6) They had no cavalry

So (1)+(2)+(3)+(4)+(5)+(6)=Heroic Victory

Maion