My best battle yet....

[clovenhoof]

Or at least, my favorite. a unit of 23 chivalric foot knights, another of 40 CFK and 40 arbalesters vs a resurging Papacy of 3000 troops. Mostly CK, some feudal knights, some CFK, some spearmen, archers and arbs. My three units were in a citadel. Each had a valor of 3.

It was a frontal assault, I put my 40cfk in the outer ring, in one long line at the very back between two arrow towers. The other two were inside the inner ring. After they broke into the outer ring, it took 2 units of CK and two units of feudal knights to finally break down the inner gate. I had my CFK right at the doorway in a small formation. They beat two cfk units into retreat, and were then hit with two more cfk and two feudal knight units. At this point, I brought my 40cfk around from the rear and hit the feudal knights from behind. My two units of cfk totaly obliterated everything that was caught between them.

To make a long story, short, after very many succesive waves of units, the very last 6 units to hit me were the popes CFK's. I thought, "well, ok, its over now". They fought for awhile, two of the popes cfk units retreated, and my two units were down to 6 men apeice! I sent the arbs into attack mode, and beleive it or not it was just enough to overhwhelm the enemy and send him into retreat.

I was actually amazed I held the citadel. My goal really was only to force the papacy to take major losses in the assault so I could have an easier time cleaning him up with my own forces which were on the way from serbia. There were over 1000 of the enemy killed. The outer-ring was carpeted with enemy dead.

I am finding the papal resurgence to not be so scary. A mixed army of 7 units CFK, 2 chivalric knights, 4 Pavise arbalesters and 3 catapults under a solid general is totaly sufficient. It is a fun battle to look forward to every few turns, and a sure way to build up the valor of new chivalric knight units.

[Despot of the English]

Nice one! I think defending obstacles, like castle gates, provides troops with a fighting bonus.

[katank]

it's the fact that the opposition troops being forced to be crammed in the tight spaces such as bridges or gates that causes a reduction in combat efficiency.

the valor difference is also significant in that you have 3 attack and 3 defense edge over the enemy.

[CherryDanish]

Very cool! I'm going to try and get the horde to attack a citidel with a barbican tonight. I'm going to withdraw all my troops (1.5 stacks) but a damaged unit of Xbowmen, a ballista, catapult and an organ gun. Trying to keep enough troops to provoke a LONG siege to encourage the AI to attempt an assault. I have yet to defend a castle in an assault, the AI prefers siege.

[Lonewarrior]

Yeah dude, I had a similar battle like that, it was against the Papacy, but I only had 3 units, and they were at least half down to the unit size, I retreated to my fortress, adn the enemy attacked it. The Papacy lost so many men trying to break the doors, while all my units where waiting in the 3rd level, the keep, I did lose, but I got the papacy so many casualties, than I could easily retake the province, but decided not to, until almost the game was over.

[Lucius Lucullus]

One of my favourite moments was defending a citadel with two units of Byzantine Infantry against around 5000 Mongols.

At the end only 17 of my Byzantine Infantry was still alive, but the entire Mongol army had been routed

[Sinner]

I had a victory that left me shaking my head in amazement during a Hard English campaign that I began in Early, having reached Late by forcing myself to stick to GAs plus a few other personal allowances... I can't resist taking Byzantium, Khazar and Sweden.

Anyway, I had an absolutely awesome prince, Prince John, with moderate to high stats, with a Command of 8 including V & Vs, rising to 9 in risky attacks, plus he was a Famous Warrior & Argumentative... only one problem, he was the heir to the throne & I didn't want to suffer the wrapround idiot princes I'd get from a king with such a high Command rating. He had 3 younger brothers: the second oldest being perfect king material with Command 6 & good stats, the next was nothing special, then there was the youngest, the family trouble maker: proud, argumentative (hmmm, a family trait perhaps?) & chinless.

I didn't want to lose my heir, but for the good of the family he had to go. I decided to give him a fun send-off, sending him & his youngest brother alone into Naverre against the Spanish who'd been bugging the hell out of me by attacking my shipping. Both units were full strength Late Royals with +4 Armour & Attack, the Discipline bonus from the Military Academy, and Morale bonuses from the Cathedral and Reliquary after a quick tour of my best troop production provinces - absolute killing machines.

I drop them both on Naverre, facing a mixed bag of some 1700 troops, some rather pathetic depleted remnants of old unit, 3 near full strength Order Foot plus about a dozen full strength & upgraded units led by a small unit of Knights Of Santiago with a 5 star general & no bad V & Vs. There weren't many Jinettes, but there were a lot of Spanish Javelinmen that I knew I'd have to be careful around.

The AI wasted 5 starting slots with artillery - 2 bombards, 2 catapults & a ballista - and were mostly set up on a steep slope with lots of woodland. I want to avoid an unlucky artillery hit, so I send my knights off at a tangent so that the rounds fall behind them, but then cut one unit back, again leaving the Spanish with low-odds high deflection shots, to try & tempt the Spanish into attacking my knights while they're seperated. The lure is too strong and a couple of Jinnette units - the only ones on the map at the start - plus a PA come after me, heading for the younger prince's unit, the one that had changed course. A bit of manouvering & I get the Jinnettes roughly between my 2 knights & set both to charging, ignoring the PA for now. The Jinnettes try to fall back from one knight, but then get spooked by the other, end up dithering while my knights draw ever closer, so that by the time they try to escape back to their lines it's too late; the survivors run away, and although they rally before routing off the map, they don't do anything significant during the remainder of the battle before finally running off. I send the general after the now frantically retreating PAs & the other knights back towards the main Spanish lines to try & lure them out again. The PAs manage to take down a couple of my knights before they break & rout towards the rest of their army, which spurred the rest into action... away from me & further up the slope!? Damned cowards!

I happily finish off the PAs & catch the exposed artillery, but not before a cannon ball or rock manages to flatten a knight... in revenge I slaughter all the prisoners I'd accumulated so far. Closing on the main Spanish forces, who are beginning to receive reinforcements for the destroyed/routed units, I start to slowly suffer casualties from missile fire & melee combat as I begin alternating charges from my knights: slamming one unit into the chosen victim then withdrawing them just before the other unit charges. I occasionally mess up my timing or the Spaniards ensnare me with a counterattack, but overall it's going well, I'm doing lots of damage & my losses are relatively low.

I then luck out & kill the Spanish general after the Knights Of Santiago finally enter the fray, this causes a few Spaniards to rout. Leaving my now very tired and depleted general's bodyguard to continue battling the remaining KoS plus those units still fighting, I harry the fleeing Spaniards with my younger prince.

The KoS die to the last man and all but a ragged unit of Order Foot waver & rout - the younger prince's unit is having a great time scooping up prisoners, occasionally hammering reinforcements before they can fully deploy, especially whenever I spot javelin units.

I then make a bad mistake, spending too much time trying to micromanage my general, breaking him free & re-charging the stubborn Order Foot to try & rout them. Just as I have them on the ropes, I notice that my other knights have been gutted by something, with just 7 men left. A small unit of Spanish Javelins appears to have caught them in the midst of a melee. I manage to free both of my units from combat and sandwich the javelins, quickly killing, capturing or routing them. I'm now down to my last 10 men, 6 with the general & 4 with the younger prince, so the end looks near although it's been great fun.

The surviving Order Foot come gasping up the hill after me & I decide to vent my fury on them, sending the general into their flank while they're busy with the other unit of royals. This finally routs them & I leave them be, turning on the latest batch of Spanish reinforcements, the first of their arquebusiers finally beginning to appear. I'm feeling drained myself by now, never mind how exhausted my troops are, so I forget fancy tactics & just click on both before selecting the nearest foe.

I start chewing up the arquebusiers, switching to a diet of handgunners & spearmen for variety as more reinforcements trickle in. I'm beginning to think that I might actually be able to win this, even though I'm down to 4 men, 3 of which are in the general's unit - I like to think that the younger prince had survived until this point, but I wasn't using the combat logs, so I'll never know, although the royal chroniclers will tell the appropriate tale of Prince Edward the Potato Head's heroic last battle. My first awareness of the unit with a mere pair of Jinnettes was seeing the solitary royal knight go down. My last 3 knights are trapped in the midst of some FMAA & handgunners, about a dozen of each, & I'm thinking the damned javelins are about to rob me of an unbelievable triumph after all, when the fools charge in instead of standing off! Maybe they'd already used their javelins, or maybe the AI thought they could win hand-to-hand, but it was the last chance for the Spaniards who were soon all fleeing the field with the last 2 bodyguards looking at the prince and gasping, "Sod off, we're not chasing them! You want them, you catch them!"

The prince is feeling moderately grouchy after the loss of his younger brother & the realization that daddy dearest had sent him to his death, so he kills all the prisoners.

I'm sitting there staring numbly at the screen, my 40 knights having killed or routed an army more than 40 times their numbers, although suffering over 90% losses in the process, thinking that my prince had perhaps earned his right to wear the crown after all. I get up to go get a much needed drink, clicking on the end turn button to save time while I'm gone... then feel like sobbing! The Spanish had retreated to their castle which was now being besieged by a mere 3 royal knights. Aaaaaarrrrggghhhh! A couple of clicks confirmed what I already knew... my prince was dead! Poor Prince John, he would have been a legendary warrior king, but instead he probably died from trench foot or dysentery.

Even though I'd intended him to die, volunteering the Spanish as his executioner, I felt the Dons had to pay for the death of my prince, so the next year I started my assault, ignoring the bleatings of the Pope until I grew tired of his flapping tongue and had it removed. I destroyed the Spaniards, laying waste to their lands, leaving not a single building standing, before retreating back to Aquitaine & Toulouse, leaving the French to claim the ghost-haunted Iberian Peninsula.

[katank]

that's awesome.

the Spanish don't know tactics.

the arqs and arbs used well could have mowed down all your cav.

the jinettes could have skirmished your cav all day also.

good story.

reminds me of some jedi battles I had.

[Sinner]

Yah, the AI used incredibly dumb tactics, especially with the choice of what units to start the battle, in particular the artillery. If the Spanish had used 5 units of nearly anything that they had waiting instead of the nearly ineffective redlegs then I would have had no chance. Cracking the starting units is always a key in battles like this, even when exhausted, high quality melee troops can often decimate the reinforcements as they trickle in by catching them before they can properly manouver. With 5 extra units of real combat troops on the field at the start, there would have been no way for me to break through to the Spanish rally point.

Against a human I'd have been thrashed within a few minutes of course, so I'm glad it was the AI this time.

I just wished I wasn't playing ironman that time. Poor Prince John. *sniff*

[katank]

actually I had the siege thing work for me.

I got one of my stacks facing just 3 units of Byz jedis once (emperor and two prince) and got defeated.

It was a long bloody battle and unfortunately no tree cover for me.

I ended up having my units stuck in the fort and am wondering how the hell I can get my troops out of the mess but I didn't notice that the Byz jedi total was single digits.

amazingly, the Byz jedis all died due to besieger casualties.

Thus, I didn't have to deal with super high valor katas that could take out a stack.

[CherryDanish]

I'm sitting there staring numbly at the screen, my 40 knights having killed or routed an army more than 40 times their numbers, although suffering over 90% losses in the process, thinking that my prince had perhaps earned his right to wear the crown after all.

Can you imagine the valour reward for that fight?

[clovenhoof]

Sinner, that sounds like an awesome battle. I always like to read those kind of dramatic tellings of battles and campaigns.

[katank]

@ cherrydane, I doubt he would have gained quite as much as you expect since quality of kills are important and relative to this unit and the fact that the valor was high to start with, I'd guess about 4 valor gained.

[Colovion]

though small... I almost routed two units of Urban Militia and a unit of archers with one unit of Horse Archers.

great battle, it was so close

[Lord DeVeau]

Excellent clovenhoof,
Congratulations:

I have two (2) favorite battles: one, I was out numbered 2 to 1: across two (2) bridges, I blockaded the bridges with footmen with large shields and I had many archers like 7 units, (2) long bows, that I concentrated on them. I finally advanced across one bridge after giving them many loses and routed them off the field.

The other I had a Rebellion in Ireland and I was blockaded at first. I sunk the blockade. I had a slight advantage in units but they had the much stronger units of knights. I set my 6 units of archer (4) long bows on a ridge and fronted them with foot soldiers and divided up my knights on either side to encircle them. I pulled the left flank back and ran them all to the right where I out flanked them behind cover of woods... I poured on the arrows toward there leader and after many loses charged them and routed them.

It was great to see them run...
Battle on!

[Lord DeVeau]

PS:

Lonewarrior, How do install the large Avatar on your site???

Lord DeVeau