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.

[squidums]

It's not a humiliating defeat, but...

I started a VI campaign as the Welsh and it was my very first battle of the campaign.
I had 5 units, 2 of Archers, 2 of Celts and my General had a horse unit.
I was arranging my troops in the first minutes of the battle, the enemy were not even in sight. One of my units of Celts suddenly got disturbed by the lack of flank cover while they were moving into position, and they began to route!!
What a bunch of Chickens!!
It's a shame they enemy wasn't on the other side of a hill, if they'd have seen it they may have laughed themselves to death.

[Sensei Warrior]

My most embarassing defeat came when I had gotten used to the game and was trying to play with it. I had gotten into the habit of attacking an army with the smallest force possible to win and I was doing very well. My main gen. had alot of skilled attackers and stars to boot.

Well the current king died and his son that took the throne was pathetic. I figured I'd put him in a few battles to train him up. Well, I took a look at my opposition and saw the opposing army had mostly peasant rubbish with some seige weapons. So I took my 1* king and a small force of men and attacked. My MAA attacked head long into the main force and my king was busy flanking to crash into the side of the mob of peasants. As I was setting up the king I noticed my MAA weren't carving through the peasants as quickly as usual.

While flanking my king was killed by a hit from a catapult shot. I groaned at my misfortune but it wasnt all bad I had some other spares running around. Then I noticed my MAA's start to waver and then everything hit all at once. The rubbish started to wrap around my MAA's and I noticed the small force of cav I had suddenly routed due to man loss, from the enemies inferior cav, my MAA routed. Those who weren't killed were captured.

How could I lose? Well, after the battle I noticed the 1 thing I missed. This peasant army of peasants, urban militia, a catapult and ballistae, a couple of spears and a unit of light cav were lead by an 8* general. Ooops my bad.

[Don Corleone]

I was playing as the Turks onetime. I was following Katank's 'Ransom the Sultan' opening strategy. My sultan's unit got worn down, and rather than take a chance on him getting wiped out, I withdrew him and damn if he didn't pick up the good runner vice in Antioch. What happened next was the battle that taught me to pay attention to morale, because the Byz decided that was the perfect moment to invade. As the Byz troops weren't all that great, I was quite excited, figuring I would have no problems taking them out. Have you ever seen a full compliment of Turcomen run from a ragtag group of napthas at 1/2 strength? I'm afraid I have. Multiple units! It was humiliating. I got off maybe one volley before they all started running for their lives.

Well, needless to say, anyone who gets a morale vice doesn't last long in my factions these days.

[Procrustes]

I had a couple of humilating near-defeats recently - still fresh in my mind. It was nice not to have lost all together, but it was pretty embarassing that I let it get so close.

I was playing as Novograd. I had a stack-and-a-half sitting in Khazar for many years, facing a smaller stack of Turks in Georgia. No problems - I didn't pay them much mind as I outnumbered them pretty well, and my stack was lead by a four-star general. What I didn't notice was that the Turkish stack grew to include five Ghulam body guards - and the rest was filled out with some nasty infantry. I had some vikings, spears, couple of steppe heavies and a lot of horse archers - my general was a Druz cav (dismounted). They attacked when I wasn't looking - I figured I would do OK as I outnumbered them by quite a bit. I had a good position on a hill, but they flanked with all their cav to one side and I couldn't hold them - even threw my steppe heavies into it, but they evaporated. My line of infantry was heavily engaged when the Gulams wheeled into them from behind. I desperation threw my general into the back of the Ghulams, but then they were engaged by some infantry and got stuck - pretty soon they were cut to peices and running off the field. I did eventually win, but only because I had a lot of reinforcements - mostly horse archers. I brought on masses of horse archers to distract and harrass the tired Turks - I eventually shot the rest of their Ghulams to pieces and they left, but not after nearly destroying my army. My general got the "good runner" vice.

But I thought the vice was a little unfair, and I decided to RP a little. My general became obsessed with winning back his reputation and he went on the attack. I got him a new stack of troops and together with his remaining men he fought several battles, actually gaining a star and the "expert attacker" virtue. I started thinking that moral penalty was something I could ignore. Then the large hand of reality slapped me again. He was beseiging a fortification and about to assault when the Turks sallied with an almost all cav army, this time supplemented with camels. I get brazen and after narrowly defeating the first wave so I advanced out of my position towards the fleeing Turks. That's when their next wave arrived - before my reinforcements could arrive I was beset by camel warriors and heavy infantry. Everyone started fleeing - I couldn't hold any of my cav on the field. The camels and the turkish foot started mercilessly slaying my infantry. Then my general just up and runs. And runs. And runs. The only thing that saved me was that my reinforcements included a lot of archers, and they made short work of the camels. After that I was able to hold on long enough to win a very disatisfying victory. This time my general got the "coward" vice - minus 9 moral or some such. Five stars or not, I sent him slinking home - I'm thinking of using a spy on him now.

[Martok]

Have you ever seen a full compliment of Turcomen run from a ragtag group of napthas at 1/2 strength? I'm afraid I have. Multiple units! It was humiliating. I got off maybe one volley before they all started running for their lives.

Oh man, I couldn't stop laughing for almost 5 minutes after I read that! God that was funny.....

[PittBull260]

here's my humiliation..how can i loose with these numbers??? lol

[cegorach]

I can see you have tried historical battles in PMTW
Battle at Moscow in 1612

[bretwalda]

Now I am pist! ... ... ... ... ... ... @#%$#@@#%!!!!


Why doesnt this ... game saves after each and every battle??? An autosave would be sooo nice. Anyway I played a huge battle beating the Horde reemergence AND Egypt in Armenia in an epic battle, attacking and outnumbered 2:1. And guess what? I won after a 2 hour battle. Great. It switches back to the campaign screen, tells me what happened... and crashes to desktop... What the ...? Now I had enough.... Grrrrrrrrrrr.

[tigger_on_vrb]

I had a fairly spectacular embaressment as the Italians. I went to war with the Byzantines and decided to invade one of their islands which was defended only by only one unit of spearmen. I took a my heir to the throne prince and his royal knights and two units of genoese sailors. I was employing my usual tactic for this kind of battle which is parade my knights up and down while their spears trot along after them, meanwhile my archers are wasting them then my knights would chase the routers to a man so I wouldnt have to storm the keep. (I've always found this works very well)
Well heres what happened.....
It was going great, they were down to maybe 30% of their initial size and I hadnt lost a man. My grilfriend walks in the room and wanting to show off at the cool features of MTW I said "come and look at this" and switched the 'follow projectiles' option on and gloated as my arrows thudded into the enemy. What I hadnt noticed is how close the spears had got to my prince.... the coward, obviously worried about the threat to his rear ran like a girl before a single blow was even struck! I rallied his unit twice but he immediately fled again each time (nowhere near the enemy!). My sailors easily handled the spears, but 1 or 2 of the enemy escaped. After the battle my prince got two negative morale vices and the port was destroyed. In disgust I sent no reinforcements and left him there to die in the uprising which occured the next turn and NO I didnt ransom him back - I felt my empire was better of without him!

I have never seen a unit, especially knights, do that before. He wasnt that tired, had no morale vices (at that point) and hadnt even lost a man, but he runs from a depleted spear unit without a fight??? So much for chivalry!

[bretwalda]

I guess what could happened was that you run away so many times from the enemy that you got that morale hit. It is built in the game so you can't win a battle by running around and playing for the time run out. Luckily it does not apply to the horse archers (as long as they have arrows) so you should use them, instead.

[squidums]

Why doesnt this ... game saves after each and every battle???

Do you have the VI expansion?
There is a quick-save icon when selecting troops.

[antisocialmunky]

Well... I was playing the Italians and the Byzantines had taken over everything East of Venice in a quest to kill the Pope. And they took over Rome, so inorder to save my crusading ability and to hold Rome ^_^. So I decided to take a medium sized unit stack(a mounted x-bow, lots of genoese, Mounted Seargents, a FK, Italian Lites, and a 4 star heir). Well... they were met with a 9 star general with 2 trebizonds, 1/4 of their starting Varangian Guards, a unit of Byzantine infantry, some peasants and a unit of UMs. I thought I had it in the bag as I held the high ground and had my mounted X-bows and Genoese sitting up there taking shots at the the Byzantine peasants running around in a small gully infront of thier main army hiding in a forest. Well, after I ran out of ammo, I charged the peasants and the archers that had come out of hiding with my Mounted Seargents. Low and behond, that unit of UM comes to the rescue so I pull my guys back and send in my Italian Lites. Low and behond, they counter charge with their peasants and that UM they had. I thought I was going to win, but slowly and surely, the peasants and UM began to melt through my infantry as I was tring to fight my way through a few Byzantine infantry. They rout, my cavalry rout.

I hate 5+ valour Urban Militia now.

[bretwalda]

Do you have the VI expansion?
There is a quick-save icon when selecting troops.

Sorry for the rant. I have VI and the reason that I still have hair (ie I did not tear each of them out) that I could go back to that save. My problem was that I won the battle (two hours of hard work ) and it crashed on returning to the campaign map before I could save (or in matter of fact even blink two...) But I was still very, very angry and pist...

[squidums]

it crashed on returning to the campaign map before I could save

ooo... that really sux.
My problem was always that I got crashes when loading up the battle, the quick save in VI was a godsend for me.

[Zarax]

ZXMOD, Early, Italians.

Opening offensive against Naples after the sicilans have been excommunicated.

I marched at them a 2 start prince, 5 v1 UM and 5 vanilla spears against a mix of ~800 spearmen and murabitins led by their 4 star king.

The unit mix wasn't ideal but with great numerical superiority i though there would be no problems...
Both armies advances on an hilly terrain, my spears clashing enemy spears while UM covered the flanks, all seemed good BUT the murabitin starts to get high ground and rain javelins on my poor spears, who starts to waver...
I send my general RK to chase down the murabitins but it gets countercharged by the sicilian RKs...

Starting to be tactically uncertain i mass charge my UM on the sicilian RK hoping to leave my own cav from the entanglement... It almost worked when a unit of murabitins shoots its last volley at my prince, killing him.

Seeing my RK flee and without general my spears starts to run, quickly followed by the UM that got charged at will...

Final result: ~300 kills against ~700 between losses and captured men (being poor troops they weren't ramsoned).

Got a big lesson from my own mod: Italian militia based armies aren't made for raw strenght confrontations, their morale is too poor for that...

Still, I was happy as that was the result in terms of gaming experience I were looking for my MOD.

[tigger_on_vrb]

I guess what could happened was that you run away so many times from the enemy that you got that morale hit. It is built in the game so you can't win a battle by running around and playing for the time run out. Luckily it does not apply to the horse archers (as long as they have arrows) so you should use them, instead.

I've used this tactic loads of times and every time it works perfectly. I'm not just waiting for the time to run out as the archers are killing the spears. Anyway as the attacker I would LOSE if the time ran out. When the enemy routes (or I run out of arrows) I charge the spears with the knights - game over for them.