Humilation

[cegorach]

Have you ever been crushed by the AI in especially embarassing way ?

I remember testing Tatars for PMTW when I decided to attack The Polish.

My army was of quite a poor quality - 400 Ukrainian Peasants ( 'cannon fodder') and about 600 horsemen of all possible Tatar types ( Khan bodyguards - Kirim Suvari, scouts - Izci Tatarlan, mounted tatar peasants -Nogay Asker, Tatars with Arkans and basic Atli Tatarlar ). My enemy was led by 6 star commander ( historical hero Jan Tarnowski) with his 200 footmen, mostly Landsknecht Armoured Pikemen and Scottish Pikemen.

It was a bridge battle, but the Poles were too weak to defend both bridges and I decided to engage them with all the peasants to weaken Scottish Pikemen defending a bridge and cross the river with all those ultra-fast Tatars.
I achieved it without difficulties and even destroyed all smaller units supporting the Poles ( some Archers, Arquebusiers and similar) almost without casualties ( around 3 Tatars were dead).
After this I used all my horse archers ( more than 300) to weaken the Landsknechts as much as possible. At the same time my loyal christian slaves killed almost 20 Scots losing 100 - I couldn't care less.

So I killed 2/3rds of the heavy pikemen - only 25 were left and started luring them to a trap. Polish commander followed and I charged.
Well it was stupid.. I didn't notice that he had valour 8 or even more, and the pikemen were real combat monsters.

I couldn't admit defeat despite losing more than 300 horsemen - there were less than 60 Polish mercenaries ( including the Scots) and I had at least 10 Tatars for each of their man - so I charged again and again.

In the end I was left with less than 100 Tatars and their slaves killing less than 10 Landsknechts in close combat ( I lost more than 500 men to them).

It was terrible and stopped my offensive actions for more than 10 years because my largest field army was almost wiped out.

Ultimately I am happy with the results which proved that early pikemen in PMTW are exactly what I wanted to achieve and the Tatars were even harder to play with than I wanted - which is a very good thing

Regards Cegorach

[Roark]

The first time I tried to be a macho man and play out a battle without using the pause button was a disaster.

Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. My general, stunningly, was killed by a 4 valour Ballista before I had even come close to engaging. I was then trying to set up my troops into a defensive network when the opposing faction sent all his units into a full-blown early charge. Those boys must have sprinted for 50m.

Chaos ensued.

My units routed (to a man) into a steep hillside, where they struggled to climb to freedom. The enemy general cleverly led his fast cavalry up the surrounding ridge, charged down into my milling hordes, and mopped them up like roaches.

[edyzmedieval]

Now we definitely know we have a great mod that's waiting to be downloaded!!!

Congrats Cegorach!!!

[Mount Suribachi]

I have 2 that stand out, both from my Almohad PBEM campaign (which can be found in the Throne Room). That was one of the funnest times I've had playing MTW.

Defeat number 1 - I sent a force of Almohad warriors to Ireland, hoping to grab myself a useful port to support my growing trading fleet. In terms of numbers and quality I was superior to the Irish and I had a 4 star general leading my army. Unfortunately he got killed by a javelin as I was advancing on the Irish lines, seconds after this (and with my army still suffering from the morale hit) the Irish charged me with their gallowglasses and my army ran like a bunch of little girls. I managed to rally some of them, but they quickly broke and ran again. I was so angry with my army I refused to ransom the cowards!

Defeat number 2 - Was against the HRE. I had a veteran army, with a core of AUMs that had fought their way through Spain and France before taking on the Germans. Although the HRE army was similar in size, I had no fears, my troops were truly battle hardened and I was confident they would do the job with the usual ease (we all know how good AUMs are in early, especially high valour ones). Anyway, battle joined and before I knew what had happened, the entire centre on my line had just disappeared

I was like wth????

I had just had my first encounter with Swabian Swordsmen and they had made mincemeat of my AUMs. I managed to rectify the disaster by sacrificing my left wing to the SS and reformed with my right wing. Sadly for me, the HRE had lots of archers left and I had none, and my small cavalry force was also gone. So I was stood on a hill being peppered with arrows and with nothing to drive the archers off, I was left with no option but to withdraw the remnants of my army.

If I was angry at losing the first battle, I was just stunned at losing the second, and have had a profound respect for Swabian Swordsmen ever since.

[cegorach]

Now we definitely know we have a great mod that's waiting to be downloaded!!!

Congrats Cegorach!!!

Thanks, but it was team work - for most of time at least.

It is still very raw - there is no new music for example and some new animations will be added in the coming next release, the current ones aren't sufficient...

But the historical battles for example are really very good, I believe

[Kommodus]

The defeat that stands out the most to me occurred fairly early in my Byzantine campaign, against the Mongols. They attacked Trebizond with a force of about 600, including a lot of heavy cavalry, with some horse archers and foot warriors mixed in. I had about 900 men, mostly Trebizond archers and Byzantine infantry, with a couple units of spearmen and Kataphractoi. The two generals were roughly evenly matched, although I think mine had a slightly higher rank.

I arranged my infantry in a defensive semi-circle on a hill, with the Trebizond archers inside the formation. The heavy cavalry approached my position and spread out in all directions. They attacked straight up the hill on my center, left, and right all at once - they didn't try to get around my refused flanks, they just attacked head-on. They cut through all my defending infantry with ease; neither the spearmen nor the Byzantine infantry slowed them down much. The infantry line collapsed, and the archers were soon fleeing in terror. My general fought bravely, and eventually left the field without running away, but most of his army was killed or captured. Losses on the Mongol side were relatively light.

The same Mongol army marched against Constantinople that same year, and I barely managed to save the city - mainly through the stupidity of the Mongols.

[antisocialmunky]

:-\ I think that using Kataphraktoi to counter charge an enemy and then following in with Byzantine infantry is a good way to keep the BIs from running around liek ehadless chickens.

BIs love to mass route.