Happy little surprises

[Colovion]

I was defending my settlement and there were a load of Pontic Spearmen on the wall fighting against a losing 40 Hoplites. Before realizing this I had sent some Militia Cav towards the front gate. They were running past where this wall battle was going on and I guess fire at will was on. As they pass the Spearmen they all unleash their Javs as they ran past - totally decimating those poor spearmen and saving that portion of the wall. These are the kinds of surprises that I love happening.

[Oaty]

Yes I've noticed javelins are actually more effective for hitting troops on the walls instead of archers. Now on the wall archers are only more effective because of the rounds that they carry.

[Tamur]

When first working with British Light Chariots, I would order them to move forward, hoping they could get a shot off at the cavalry general who suddenly decided to charge them. They began retreating, but I was still seeing the enemy's general lose horses.

Huh? I zoomed in and realised the archers on the chariots were still happily flinging arrows while the drivers were busy watching were they were going. I knew chariots worked this way, intellectually, but to see it actually happening was a very cool surprise.

[Colovion]

For every Happy Surprise it seems there are 2 Evil Surprises behind them.

1) It's nice when a random Family Member General can charge his fancy Chariot around through your troops without dying even after you've told everyone to attack him. Then he routs your whole army. It's almost as if he's just cruising along saying "Heyyyy, Check out my 30" Spinners on this Chariot, bra!" and then they're too shiny and your troops forgot to bring their sunglasses.

2) When the enemy attacks your army that just was routed, they're sitting by your huge army which has your awesome general in it. You don't get to choose which army to control so you have this rabble which has no chance of doing anything besides trying to stay alive. THEN you go and just pan over your huge army. What do they do with their phalanx? Well they enjoy changing out of phalanx and having the WHOLE ARMY charge at the enemy lines; that's General, Phalanx, Archers, Velites - everything. General dies, archers get cut to pieces. Yayyyy... *throwup*

[-Abbey.keeper-]

Good point, Colovion!

i hated it when the AI general had enough sense to stay alive while your own reinforcement general just charged head on.
Well i know it's for the sake of huge battles and realism that they made the reinforcement uncontrollable, But seeing the cream of your troops getting cut to pieces with your own eyes... well... thats another thing.

[barocca]

I have an "auxilliary" army (led by a captain) seiging a city,
my Real army arrives and joins the siege, they will be building seige equipment this turn and attacking the next,

and then Enemy sally out attacking my Captains Army...

So, I have my Captain (who i get to control) with a ram or two,
and my General (ai controlled) and all his crack troops have nothing,

So what does my General Do?
He marches up to the walls and stands there, getting himself and all my crack troops shot to pieces,

then He realises i have made a breach in the wall,
so he marches, not runs, but marches his entire army around the walls to my "breach"
- if any of them are left alive after they casually saunter past all the enemy towers and missile troops then they run for it as soon as someone points a finger at them...

if i elect to withdraw on the campaign map i automatically lose almost, if not all of, the units to desertion and "casualties".

If I choose to use the Captain to initiate an attack, thats becasue i want both armies on the field,
But if the AI initiates the attack i should get to choose who I want to personally command...

[Kraellin]

i had a happy little surprise in a custom battle recently. i chose to attack rome with rome having epic walls, of course. i initially took a bunch of heavy onagers to bust the walls but i also noticed in the custom battles that i could add siege towers and rams to the mix, so i added a few of each. mind you, i dont play a lot of battles in campaign game; i auto-resolve most of them. so, i wasnt really familiar with siege battles.

it took me a while to figure out how the siege towers work, but i soon realized after several failed attempts and re-starts, that the onagers were preventing me from attacking the enemy units on the walls because i would break the walls and split the troops up there, not being able to cross the breeches in the walls once i had troops on the walls myself. one happy little surprise did come once doing this, though, by breaking a wall immediately supporting one enemy unit. the wall crashed to the ground and so did the enemy unit.

but the real surprise came when i started using siege towers to gain access to the city instead of the onagers. my siege towers moved to the walls and i instructed my units to attack enemies on the walls and they'd climb the siege towers and emerge up top and attack the enemy. cool. but even more cool was that once up on the walls, my units could capture the enemy wall towers! ok, now that's slick! i can capture enemy fortress towers and stop the rain of arrows on my troops below. and, once i hold the enemy tower, i can climb down through it to the city below! this is a HUGE improvement over mtw! i recall asking for this improvement when we saw mtw and was disappointed that it was never realized in that game, but now we've got it. tres cool.

after that, it was just a matter of wiping the enemy on the walls, going down into the city and fighting on the streets of Rome till i could make it to and capture the city center. very slick :)

K.

[Spartiate]

@ Barocca and Colovion

I am sick to death of the way the AI performs in these battles when i have 2 armies present and it decides to destroy my elite one which it controls.I never leave 2 of my armies near each other any more as i detest this glaring bug in the game.You are far better off being totally out-numbered and having only one army in the field than having 2 armies plus numerical superiority but the AI controling the larger and better of your 2 armies.

Sorry about the rant.

[RedKnight]

So far I've only had a few battles where additional troops of mine come in, probably because I tend to spread myself hopelessly thin, lol...

Is it true that, if you want to control your other troops (that come on board later), you can Withdraw your currently-controlled units, and you'll get to control the other units, for however many of yours withdraw? Which is to say (I think) that the game only lets you control 20 units at a time?

[therother]

Mine is similar to Tamur's, which is apt as I was playing his Britons game at the time.

I (well he) had Gaulish invaders in one of his provinces. 3 units of swordsmen, IIRC. He had an army that could easily destroy these measly invaders, but I knew that I wouldn't get any good traits if the odds were too high in my favour. Not having fought a battle with the Britons, I guessed at the best mix: 1 swordsmen, 1 warband, 1 Light Chariots, 1 General. I sent the chariots round the back of the Gauls, and the infantry round the front (on the campaign map). I attacked with the general, and the odds (thankfully) were reported to be close. (I believe it has to do with MP unit costs?)

Anyway, to cut a long story short(er), I advanced with my infantry from the front whilst closing with my chariots from the rear. Once I had them nicely sandwiched, I opened up with my light chariots. I maximised their effect by making the AI believe that my infantry were the main threat, and so they always had their backs to my chariots, which has the added benefit of making them uneasy by having enemy behind them. I concentrated on each unit individually until their morale started taking blows, then I concentrated exclusively on the captain's unit.

The second he died, I sent my infantry charging into the front of the enemy, whilst simultaneous closing my chariots, but only at a walking pace. As soon as the enemy starting thinking of a counter charge, I stopped and reversed my men. When the AI turned round to deal with the slowly moving chariots, I warcried my infantry and charged my men in for real. The AI desperately wheeled his forces around, but now I sent my chariots charging into too. They hit, as I had intended, almost simultaneously (the chariots first), and the Gauls broke immediately. I pulled my chariots out, having knocked down many men, to allow them to rout. I then pursued them, using my chariots to knock men down, and my infantry to slaughter them on the ground.

The result was a crushing victory, having killed every man without a single loss, and three traits for my previously one star general. I think he went up from 1 to 4 stars, with an extra 3 when attacking. Having read how ineffective British chariots were, I was happily surprised to see them work so well in a mixed army.

[Mori Gabriel Syme]

Having read how ineffective British chariots were, I was happily surprised to see them work so well in a mixed army.

I've learned to disregard any comments that such-&-such a unit doesn't work. Besides, figuring out how to make it work is part of the fun.

I remember reading an old article in Life magazine decrying how bad the American Sherman tanks were compared with German Panzers. Toe-to-toe the article was correct, but it neglected to mention that the Panzer was made for fast, heavy hits with little support while the Sherman was made to support advancing infantry. Military planners knew better than to get Shermans involved in battle like the German-Soviet tank slugfest at Kurtsk.