Greatest Victory

[Legerdemain]

My greatest victories are hardly worth mentioning; during a Roman campaign on medium/medium (what I play at) it's easy to get to the stage where you don't lose more than a hundred men in each battle.

More fun was a Germania/Gaul custom battle, a full stack of Gauls (barbarian cavalry, chosen swordsman, warbands) against 10 spear warbands, three units of berserkers, and two of chosen archers. My line was a lot shorter than theirs. The berserkers managed to rout two warbands and a unit of chosen spearmen to keep the right flank clear, but while I was keeping an eye on that battle the barbarian cavalry got to my left flank and sent one unit of archers routing off the field. I sent my second group in to keep the cavalry, now supported by a pair of warbands, away from the flank of my leftmost spear warband, which was still in combat with a few stubborn units of chosen swordsmen. I started my now-very-tired berserkers across the field behind my line to push the cavalry and warbands back, but the archers were losing quickly. It could've been over there, if the chosen swordsmen hadn't routed and I hadn't turned a phalanx to meet the cavalry. Once that was done, it was all mop-up. Around 1200 out of 1400-odd men on my side were left, compared with around 1000 out of 1800 on theirs--None of my units were fast enough to give effective chase.

The other recent memorable battle was generally the same setup--Gaul vs. Germania. It was a city siege custom battle. Gaul's forces were, again, chosen swordsmen and warbands--2021 men--and Germania's were a bit larger--ten spear warbands, four chosen archers (never saw combat--I kept them in reserve), a unit of screaming women for morale support at the breaches, and two units of gothic cavalry, around 1700 all told. I gave the Gauls four battering rams, and lined up my spearmen on the road in the city, with the cavalry on one flank and the archers on the second level of the city's mound, just in range of the gate. The Gaul warbands moved forward, beginning to open breaches at three wall sections and the gate. Strangely, though, they abandoned the other rams once the gate broke, and charged all 2000 men through that gap. Pausing every once in a while to counter the five frames per second my dated computer could manage, I thought things were going reasonably well--until my center phalanx started to disappear. By the time I realized how quickly it was going, it was down to around sixty men. I managed to keep them pinned down by moving a second phalanx in from one side, and then putting another in the center while they were distracted by the pointy sticks coming from the new direction. They finally started to rout, and then I sent the gothic cavalry in. They chased the pursuers all the way across the map. It's my opinion that the AI would've won if it had used its numbers better--that is, used all four battering rams and charged in all at once. The only reason the phalanxes at the gate didn't break and run was the unit of screaming women behind it, a benefit which the flanks did not have. Anyway, that battle ended with an impressive body count--2020 of the Gauls' 2021 men were dead, and around 250 of mine were. When chasing down the routers, one of my units of gothic cavalry picked up a staggering 932 kills with no losses, and the original center phalanx pulled off 460 kills with 118 losses--three men left at the end of the battle. I probably could've made a similar victory with five phalanxes, one unit of cavalry, and the screaming women, all things considered.

[HarunTaiwan]

I had an interesting battle yesterday.

First of all, I was beseiging and was attacked by an outside army...interesting that it didn't take place at the city.

So I line up on a nice hill on the edge of my space and when battle commences I see the one small unit of the city garrison.

I say, where is his reinforcements?

Then all my units start flashing! The reinforcement army of 1500 Greeks materialized literally within my unit lines.

Pure chaos there. I also had two small allied Julli armies appear which was much needed as I might have lost.

[SOSamurai]

It's moral breaking which usually makes the number differences huge in my experiences. Usually distracting/holding off/grinding down units with my infantry and missiles, and flanking with cavalry to break units works well. And then just cut the army down as it runs. That's how my biggest kill ratios are usually achieved.

[breakfastsausages]

The battle I remember was the most enjoyable was fittingly the final blow that won my 50th province for the greek cities. I had been mostly ignoring europe except for italy and was happily stabbing my way through egypt when the gauls decided in the grand scheme of things they would prefer it if I were dead. It turns out all the time I was ignoring them they were building up several full 20 unit armies, but luckily I had just finished putting together a nice division of spartans. I managed to fight the gauls more or less to a stand-still just west of italy with my rome-conquering armies. Then dropped the army of spartan hoplites by sea into southern france. I only needed 1 more city to win so I went straight to siege the most southwestern city in gaul. It turns out that city contained their largest and a general or two. A second army came to attack me from outside the city so the initial numbers were 1200+ gauls against my 500 ish greeks (vh difficulty settings). And we aren't talking a hoard of peasants here, the weakest thing the gauls had was a warband, but also a good quantity of chosen swordsmen and forester warbands. Since I was heavy on the hoplites I backed myself into a corner of the map and let them come, by the end of the day both sides had been almost completely wiped out, but I came out on top having killed 1100+ barbarians, several hundred greeks died as well but I had enough left to take the city and the world victory.

I admit ratio-wise it wasn't even close to my most efficient battle, but I find that it was much more satisfying to win an epic battle where the enemy has the strength and willpower to hurt you.

[dismal]

I had a battle as Parthians vs. a good Scipii stack where the casualties were roughly 1200-3 in a battle that lasted about a minute.

They were busy marching up a hill into 10 or so units of P-cav and a couple eles when an onager ball took out their general and white flags went up everywhere. The rout was on, and 10 units of P-Cav thundering down a hill made pretty fast work of the routers. An archer unit must've got off one volley to account for the 3 casualties.

[GFX707]

I had one yesterday with 1400 kills, no casualties versus macedon. Not a single man lost.

Gotta love armoured elephants

[Mikeus Caesar]

For a complete massacre, i just play on huge units mode and do this: I play as Carthage, with 4 units of wonderful armoured elephants, and put two armies of pontus and parthian eastern infantry in a fort (parthians and pontics make good elephant fodder). I then batter down the walls, attack the huge army inside, and before the elephants have killed the last few people, i pull them out to admire my destructive powers. The ground will have quite literally turned pink and blue with the dead pyjama people (i call them pyjama people because they look like they are wearing pyjamas).