Your best victory so far?

[GFX707]

Here's mine. Hero of Nicaea wins a "Heroic" victory (no surprise there then) against mainly hastati and velites with a couple of triarii and principes....mainly thanks to my cheesy hoplite and archer tactics which have won me many a victory. Most of my battles go like Agincourt, except instead of sticky mud you have the ineptitude of the AI enemies....

As you can see my own archers killed more of my men than the enemy did!

How about you guys? Peasants don't count.

[TinCow]

Well, that depends on how you define best. My best in terms of casualties was about 2200 kills and ~85 losses while defending against a two-stack sally. My best in terms of personal satisfaction was a desperate defense of a reinforcement stack being sent to aid my faction leader's army. I had about 8 full legionary cohorts and a 2 star general and was attacked unexpectedly by two large stacks. I ended up defeating them both, but with only about 70 survivors of the entire battle, including the 2 left in my general's unit. Fortuntately, I had a fabulous 'heal' afterwards and got back about 300 men. It's nerve wracking when all your remaining units working together are outnumbered by a single enemy cohort. The battle finally ended with my five puny units chasing archers across the field until they routed.

[Haido]

One of my great famous battles were the best one. The AI hade assembled a massive gaul army steaming for my Capital i couldn't raise any good troops and the only thing i had was TW in arretium. But i had bundle of Family Member close by. So what happened was that i rode in with 7 members of family and crushed the oppnonents and killed something in like with 900 people. It was like a famous last stand.

[GFX707]

My best in terms of sheer relief and satisfaction at the end was one against an immense egyptian stack that assaulted my city, where a thousand of my Eastern Infantry (surprise) got mangled on the walls and mowed down by chariots....and at the end their 8 star general and hundreds of their men faced my general and a small unit of archers that had routed back to the square....

anyway the AI charged the general into my square on his chariot and I charged him with my archers and routed him, then I chased him with my general and killed him! Ha ha ha! I won with 50 left from 1000 or so. So close and such a dramatic battle

[HicRic]

The best battles are always the ones where you're so outnumbered and outclassed that you don't stand much chance at all-but then you fight anyway, and give it your all. It can really have an epic last stand feel to it-and it's good fun even when you lose.

Those kinds of battles-while not occuring often-have always been the pinnicle of my enjoyment in TW games.

[troymclure]

aye i've had some great kill ratio battles 1000 : 50 odd or even more with the parthians (gotta love those HA's :) but i'd have to agree with a few o' the posters above and say the battles i didn't expect to really be fighting tend to be the best. Like when i'm moving troops around maybe to reinforce my main army and an enemy general intercepts them, instead of odds and positioning and unit setup to my liking it's all down to luck. Evens the odds for the ai general a bit and my defeats tend to come from these sorts of battles. I also don't mind the odd against the odds seige. his 800 strong roman army vs your 160 militia hoplites. You know you'll lose but it'll be fun seeing how many you can take with you.

[Soulflame]

No-one can beat infinite ratios... I once had a 320-0 kill ratio, but I suspect that others have even done better. I already described my battle in another thread (which is about RTW best moment, and this battle was )

My best moment so far was the Battle for Corinth at the start of my Greek campaign. (hard/hard)
I had 1 unit of Rhodian Slingers, 2 of Creeeesshhian Archers, 2 mercernary hoplites, about 5 hoplites, 2 peltasts and 4 militia Cavalry I think (could have been greek cavalry).
The bad thing was that the enemy (Macedonians) had 5 units of Light Lancers, and the general as cavalry. They had the same number of hoplites and 1 unit of archers, no peltasts.
I needed to kill that opponent cavalry, so I devised several small plans. I put my archers in front.. and when the lancers were close, moved them behind my hoplites. That unit of lancers was killed half and then fled. Next 2 enemy lancers moved past one of my flanks (the right actually), trying to turn into the back of my hoplites and peltasts that were there. I had anticipated this and wuickly wheeled my slingers around. The peltasts were send in melee to hold the lancers there. One unit of Creshian archers also launched a few volleys there. Those 2 lancer groups were routing too (although my peltasts fled too). About now the main body of the hoplites reached eachother and it was an aggrevating attrition fight, as both sides were almost equal (don't know if they had any upgrades, I had weapons bronze only). Their general and last lancer group each tried to flank a side.. unfortunately, with the peltast gone, the cavalry ran straight through to my slingers. I send in my general and hoped it worked. It did, I killed the enemy general and that group was routing. Unfortunately, from the other side, the lancers had run straight past all the exposed backs of my hoplites, right into my general. My general unit was almost wiped out by that first clash, and my general fell. I deperately send in one of my remaining militia cavalry as a shock and that broke them. When I looked around, most of the earlier routed lancers were fighting my cavalry and kept hit-and running and then routing again, only to come back again.
I figured the only way to end this was to win the hoplites war (which was still going strong). So I sent some cavalry in their back and they routed. Only to have my cavalry be hit by the once again rallied lancers. Lucky for me, they crashed through my cavalry, into my hoplites, and that was the end of those last lancers.
The Macedonians fled the field.

Tally;
800 of my 1100 men killed
1100 of their 1400 men died.

The remaining enemy army was more then happy to return to the fields after a little nudge by my diplomat. And Corinth was mine.
This was a battle in which tactics played a large role, instead of the normal: I have better/more troops and I just win.

[Zatoichi]

My favourite battle so far was a siege assault - a recently conquered Spanish city (Cordoba?) had a gladiator rebellion and kicked out my 500 strong army before I'd had a chance to retrain them from the initial seige. Without thinking, the next turn I assaulted the city again - not noticing the bulk of the rebels (7 units of gladiators and several assorted light inf) were actually outside the city. So I'm busy rumbling my seige tower towards the city, when his reinforcements appear on the other side of the city - it turned into a race - I took the gate in front of me, and my got my troops in suffering major casualties doing so. The AI realised it couldn't get my troops from that direction anymore as I had control of the gate, and so went for the other gate - I had to rush my one unit of beleaguered hastati round the walls as fast as possible, capturing the towers so they peppered his gladiators as they rushed for the far gate - I got to the gatehouse literally seconds before the first of his units got there - it was awesome! By this time, what was left of my army had made it to the town center, and after a brief struggle, the last 100 or so men of my force held it for the countdown. Ended up with a close victory, most of the casualties were from the archer towers - that's definitely worth an epic poem or several. I just loved the fact that the outcome of this battle came down to whether my unit could survive the constant attrition of tower fire, hold itself together and be fast enough to get round the castle walls in time - if the AI reinforcements had made it in, they'd have made mincemeat of my troops - you've just got to love this game!

I even tried explaining all this to my wife, but she wasn't as impressed as I'd hoped (what was I thinking?). I can't imagine why...

[Doug-Thompson]

aye i've had some great kill ratio battles 1000 : 50 odd or even more with the parthians (gotta love those HA's :) but i'd have to agree with a few o' the posters above and say the battles i didn't expect to really be fighting tend to be the best.

Attacked a Selucid army of 1,770 with 475 Parthians, mainly HA. Killed 1,172 including a family member and lost 1, not including regained prisoners.

[ChaosLord]

Well, in my Roman campaign I got alot of Heroic victories(two in the one turn with the same army fighting the Egyptians once), but few battles were really that close. So my favorite battle has to have been in my Briton campaign. The battle was 4300 Gauls(600 of them reinforcements) versus my 2800 Britons. My army setup was 1 General, 4 Light Chariots, 4 Head Hurlers, 6 Swordsmen, 3 Warband, and 4 Woad Warriors. Or it might have been no Warbands and 7 Woad Warriors, can't really remember now. This was still fairly early in my Briton campaign so I was working out their tactics still.

I did well in the initial melee(facing mainly Warbands/Skirmisher Warbands with the core of his army 1 Chosen Swordsmen and a few Swordsmen units. However the numbers start to turn the tide and they overrun both my flanks so my line soon collapses. The battle turns into pure chaos with units routing/rallying and lots of different pockets of fighting. Through it all I manage to pin down the enemy general and kill him. Sadly, it appeared to all be for nothing my few troops left were getting surrounded and killed or routing. However, I still had my skirmishers left and I started putting them to good use.

Long story short, through LOTS of skirmishing and brushing enemy flanks with my fear-inducing Chariots I manage to kill(with archer fire) and rout whats left of his army and the 600 reinforcements. This is because the Gauls brought no archers or cavalry beyond their general to the battlefield, otherwise I would have been dead meat. Two of my four Chariot units still got decimated though by brushing units, Briton Chariots really go down easy.

In the end the battle results were:
Me: 3636 Killed, 1581 remaining.
Him: 2218 Killed, 448 remaining.

I had like two or three retinue members that helped recover casualties so I managed to salvage alot of them and was able to take the city(Condate Rendonum) after a couple turns. It may not have been a heroic victory, but the battle was close and epic in its scale. The intial warcry from all the troops was great to watch. So thats my favorite thus far, its fun playing barb factions as your enemies can actually match your troops/field better ones, unlike the Romans where your Legions roll over everything.

[Vlad Tzepes]

The best battles are always the ones where you're so outnumbered and outclassed that you don't stand much chance at all-but then you fight anyway, and give it your all. It can really have an epic last stand feel to it-and it's good fun even when you lose.

Those kinds of battles-while not occuring often-have always been the pinnicle of my enjoyment in TW games.

HicRic you're right. Happened to me the other day, when my allies the Britons backstabbed me, attacked 2 of my cities and besieged them. One attacking army was led by their bloody king himself, something like a monstrous 9 stars commander. He led a full stack army, in my city (wooden walls) was just a half, I was outnumbered 2:1. Well, I couldn't provide any help, so I went for an heroic and suicidal sally, hoping to take to the manes as many barbarians I could. My army - 3 Cav, 2 archers, 1 Wardog, 3 Hastati, 3 Velites and one lousy Town Watch. And of course, a Captain to lead this motley crew. His: lots of light infantry, headhurlers and chariots.

I faked an attack with my TW, made the Britons get close, then peppered them with arrows. They didn't seem to care. Attacked finally with everything I had, except the cav, which I sent out on another exit. A great melee followed at my gate, with red Julii banners hopelessly flickering a la route engulfed in a sea of pale blue barbarians (they seemed to enjoy taunting a lot and, I tell you, man, they seemed sooo happy to kill scores of Romans...). Archers, dogs and velites where chopped in instants. When everything seemed lost, with only 2 dozens of Hastati still fighting, my cav made the desperate charge from the back, killing the enemy 9 star general and generating complete panic among the britons. They run like hell ("run for your lifes..."), just to be slaughtered. All of them.

My garrison was basically destroyed after this and few lived to tell about that (truly, I thought) heroic battle, but their army disappeared.

Well, if the AI was just a little brighter and tried to counterattack my cav before the charge...

[Mori Gabriel Syme]

Possibly my favorite, I assaulted a Scythian town with a force of about equal size, 1200-1300 on each side. It was a mix of infanty, archers, an onager, two family members, & a pack of wardogs. The family member who wasn't a general wasn't really much; I brought him along thinking I'd leave him in the city as governor. The Scythians had several units of horse archers & as well as some warbands & archers. As soon as my onager had the wall down, I started feeding units in to avoid being slaughtered by arrows beginning with the wardogs so as to avoid losing men who would be more costly to replace. There was a lot of street fighting, but the entire thing was very chaotic, finally ending with the last Scythian unit dying to a man in the town square.

The unit-by-unit breakdown stunned me by saying that the unit of the non-general family member had killed 247. Then I noticed one unit had killed even more: the wardogs claimed 347.

[The Tuffen]

My best victory is when i was playing as the Julii.

I had about 200-300 hastati and about 40-50 equites. The Brits had a full strength army roughly about 1400 men. When the battle map came up i thought oh my god. They were everywhere.

I decided to just attack and try and take out as many as possible before my army was routed or destroyed. Thankfully i managed to take out the brits general (who was the faction leader)and after a while they started to rout. I thought how the hell did i just beat them, it wasn't until the campaign map came up and i got a message saying the brits had been wiped out (didn't know he was the last of his family before the battle). My captain got a quick adoption for a job very well done.

[mfberg]

No picture, but here goes. Hard/Hard

I had faction leader Flavius Julius (5* w/another general, 1 velite, 1 archer, 5 hastati, 1 town guard total 730+) taking on the first Gaul city. The Main Gaul army (Faction heir 4* w/950+ troops gen, barb cav, swordsmen, velites) is comes from the West, the city sallies from the east (@700 troops barb cav, swordsmen, naked fans, velites). They have me nice and surrounded so I set up horse on my far right, and as close to their line as possible infantry front, missiles rear. I go walk my infantry toward their general and when they move into pila range I charge my horses and crush the main armies flank and their center is breaks under missile fire from all units. My velites and archers (in the rear) and small general turn and start shooting their reinforcements, while I charge everyone else through their generals unit. They break and run.

I lose 64 men, (8 missile troops, 15 general cav troops, the rest infantry) they lose 1200+ and Patavium.
It is good to be surrounded and outnumbered 2:1 by the enemy.
mfhberg