==your best battle==

[PittBull260]

Post a nice story about your best battle you had in this game
mine was when I was playing as the Italians, and I was expanding north into germany. When I set nice borders there, the French and Germans attacked me...

Location: Rive, one bridge, I was defending
French Men: at least 2000 men
Germans: at least 1000 men
My army: 900 men

Of course I set my people at the bridge. I build kind of a half circle with my men, so once the enemy crosses the bridge they're automaticly are sourrounded.

The enemy send huge waves, and my Chiv. Men at arms and archers fought them off easily. I just stood there in a circle and once they crossed I attacked, once the enemy wave started running away, I set my people back to their position and get ready for the next wave.

It was a nice and fun battle,
Outcome
French and German losses: 1700 i think, or so

My losses: 400 men I think


Did u have any amazing and fun battles? if so post them here :)

[{KotR}Sir_GreyFox{P}]

One was when I decided to defend Khazar against the Horde. I made an army that had lots of pavise xbows, varangian guard and some cav. They came with 10,000 men, versus my 2000.

By the end of the battle, the Horde lost 6000 dead for my 800.

Mostly my battles are fairly one-sided against the AI, hence the reason I play multiplayer so much.

[derF]

Hmmm, I remember playing as the Germans in a battle aimed to exterminate the Polish. I thought i'd done really badly, but when i looked at the scores i killed 2000 and lost 400.

That wasnt a bad fight.

I tend to enjoy scrappy turn-table fights more than colossal slaughters. Like one where I had to build a an emercency army to slow the Mongols approach to Constantinople.

[CherryDanish]

A couple come to mind.

My first campaign, as the danes without VI installed, holding back the Egyptians in Poland late in the game (hard). I had thought I was setting up a decent border, but unexpectedly was badly outnumbered, and mostly outclassed (not sure where their troops all came from). I had no business wining, but with some excellent tactics I pulled off a huge win. It was fun because I used light cav to disrupt their reinforcments while they concentrated on my spearwall and missle troops on the top of a steep hill. Disrupting the supply lines really did it for me. I could pick and choose what units to allow past, and what units to slaughter. Then I could also pick off withdrawing/fleeing units that were low on stamina and out of ammo. My harasment force got an extraordinary valour upgrade that fight.

More recently as the Byz, holding a semi circle highground with a set of woods full of VG and Huscarle units holding my right flank and a mixxed bag of PA, steepe and Katank cav spread wide on my other flank. I'd charge downhill and trap enemy units between my meat grinders (axe units) and the cav running in on their tail pipes with steepe cav units (light cav) chasing those units that escaped. It was amazing how badly I mauled the horde, but the fight took 4-5 hours and took the fight out of me. I had to autocalc the next fight because I couldn't sit through yet another 4-5 hour fight.

Last night I lost a 4 hour fight with the horde in the closing minutes of the fight. Although a loss, it was a good fight. I was outnumbered 13500 ish to 2300 ish troops, plus I didn't destroy my upgrade buildings in khazar, so the horde got my bonuses added to their troops. I ran out of cav and ammo and left a large force of huscarles and futuawas (no ammo) cornered in a large forest, but feints from the GH and poor pathing kept pulling my dumb troops out of the woods. It was a good fight with some pretty decent manouver's on my part, but I lost in the closing minutes due to a sudden unexplicable panic spread through my troops and some crappy pathing.

There are no best battles. Every battle has it's own unique characteristics, but some are more memerable than others. I always forget my desert fights ... I hate desert fights, unless they're quick.

[ExtraToes]

I've recently discovered that you can win most any province held by no more than a thousand troops simply by sending in your king, and no one else, over and over again until you win the province. see, your king will regenerate a portion of his security detail after each battle. eventually you'll have the enemy whitled down to a size that the king can beat. do this once, and you'll get some good virtues ("leads from the front", and such), do it twice and your king will be thought a fool and a madman.

at anyrate, what used to work really well for me in shogun, and still works, but not as well, in medieval is that any force that if you have reached the troop limit on the field, your enemy, no matter his size, can be defeated. my troop limit is somewhere just over a thousand depending on unit type cause my computer is slow and I have adjusted unit sizes to cope. but if I go against a foe who fields ten times that many troops in the battle, it doesn't matter, so long as I force him into "perma-rout" so that his reinforcements all turn back once they come on the scene. you must do two things to ahieve this effect: 1) kill the general, or at least make him run away. 2) take the real estate that the enemies reinforcements will enter on. you should also split up the enemies archers (and any other units that are weak in small numbers), and reduce them as much as possible without causing them to run away, thus denying, or at least delaying, further reinforcements. now in shogun once you've achieved this you will see men enter the field, and imediately turn back, and that will go on for some time, but in medieval they have made it so that the archers can attack from behind the border area that you units can't cross. this is somewhat annoying, since your archers cannot return fire. but if the reinforcements are spaces enough apart from eachother, it should conclude in your favor quickly.

[derF]

ah yes, the beloved pressure-pot tactic.

[Mount Suribachi]

Well, I've fought some epics over the years, but my favourite is actually a battle against the Egyptians. My Italian troops had invaded Egyptian North Africa and I had fought a series of defensive battles repulsing Egyptian counter-attacks. One fought around an Oasis was particularly memorable with a handful of my exhausted men hanging on in the baking heat as yet another wave of Egyptian cavalry attacked.

However, after about 5 years of this I had worn the massive Egyptian armies down to the point where I could go onto the offensive, and in battle after battle I pushed the Egyptians back. Now, nearly every one of these battles the Egyptian King had been their general and he had lost every one of them. This meant that he had accumulated a LOT of bad vices - good runner, poor attacker, poor defender etc.

So I start another battle to take another province and I start marching towards the Egyptian army, who are also marching towards me. Before we even get into archery range their army turns around and starts running away. Not marching backwards, not withdrawing, but routing! And all before an arrow had been fired I went and checked the Egyptian King after that and his V&Vs added up to a -15 morale bonus for his army. Ouch. Just the sight of my army was enough to make his troops flee

[TwinMfg]

I'm fairly new to MTW, so my experiences are minimal. The best battle from a roleplay/legendary perspective was when my Danish king and his royal knights invaded Sweden by themselves. 21 RKs vs. 120 Vikings. Final score: Danes 120, Swedes 6. Ah, the skalds were singing King Olaf's glory that night.

The most satisfying was the first battle in which I effectively used horse archers and mounted xbows to lure RKs away from their army where my spears and javelinmen masacred them (an all merc army). Three groups of RKs (two heirs and the king) met their fate. After that, I chased the rest of the army off the map.

[Saracen_Warrior]

Not the best battle, but the most fun, was when i had a rebellion. Some archers and spearmen. I brought 2 alan merc cav and 4 horse archers. The comp army was all archers and spear. I was able to route the archers with the alan merc then i jsut arrowed the spears till the fled. Then i ran them down with the lan merc. I lost 2 alan merc, but killed about 350 of the rebels. The other 50 or so fled the field. I had saved that replay but when i had to reinstall the game(since i got a virus and had to reinstall everything on my comp, dam friends and their infected emails) i of course lost it.

My best battle, from a perspective of good comming would be as egypt vs bysantive. they had varngian bysatine infantry trebizond and katanks and some spears i think. I had saracen, merc vikings, merc almohod urban militia, saharan cav, mameluke HA, my gen was a camel, and some armenian heavy. I was able to wittle down their army with my horse archers then i moved in, pinned with saracen and flanked with my mercs and armenian. It wasnt anything spectacular. It was just that it happened exactly how i planned to attack. It was a pretty perfect textbook, if the had textbooks for M total war with egypt, attack. I lost very few men and killed a huge amount. The only reason i might ahve lsot was because of the varangians and the 8 star katanks. The 8 star katanks withdrew and i was able to repeatly charge into the rear of the varangians with armenian since the varangians were pinned by saracen. The 2 saracen units who pinned the varangians were the opnly units to lose more than 10% of their numbers. The varangians were somewhat wittled down from the skirmishing by my mamlukes too.

[_Aetius_]

I havent got A best battle so ill probably post a few but this one is probably my biggest.

Year:1231
Location: Khazar
Enemy: Mongol horde (25,000)
Me: Byzantines about 4500 men.

I guess it was such a large horde because i sent in so many men with the best gold armour. I challenged them because i didnt want to see what had been for about 80 years a very stable and prosperous empire be picked apart for about 3 decades by mongol raids so i got most of best imperial armies led by the emperor himself and sent them in.

Was awhile ago, but i remember it was very flat terrain and the enemy had alot of mongol heavies and mongol warriors in its fornt line with organ guns, i charged straight into their cavalry with kataphraktoi and PA's and used varangians to punch through the warriors, the enemies first line began to break but my cavalry rampaging about took some casualties to the deadly organ guns, which i wore down with byz cavalry before charging them with the byz cav who were expendable anyway.

I was chasing the first wave off the field when they rallied and both sides heavies clashed in a large cavalry fight in the centre which was alot closer than i expected so we took some hits, i broke them then pulled my cavalry back to the frontline, the enemys next wave was mongol horse archers which peppered my line whilst my byzantine cavalry fired back i was sick of this so charged everything to the back of the field where the enemies reinforcements would come, the first line of about 800 men held the back of the field for 3 hours against what must have been about 12 or 13 thousand men (occasional byzant reinforcements helped hold the line).

My mens valour sky rocketed under such a constant onslaught and they refused to run even whenon totally exhausted which they where for along time, eventually my general was slain but still my kataphraktoi and varangains refused to retreat not that i could do anything about it because they were totally surrounded. After absolute chaos for 3 hours i was pretty tired lol but in the end my first line broke and i decided id done enough damage and retreated. The emperor was killed plus 2 or 3 of his sons but 1 survived who led im happy to say a byzantine golden age.

End of the battle over 3 hours 20 minutes. Classed as a byzantine defeat but it was the best defeat ive ever had HA! :P

Mongol killed or captured, around 13,000
Byzantine killed or captured, around 1200.

The mongol khan was dead with no heir and although the now rebel controlled mongols were still numerous they were mopped up by russians and myself over the next decade. Biggest battle ive ever fought by a mile.

[Saracen_Warrior]

I jsut fought off an italian crusade as egypt in constantinople. It was 1209. I had 4 pavise arbs since i started bulding them at 1205. I also had a lot of nizaris, ghazi, some kwarzmian, armenian, saracen and my general was a 9 star expert defender. I set up my arbs infront of my sarace, and placed nizaris behind saracen, with cavalry and ghasi on my wings. They had lots of longbowmen, but since i was on hill my nizaris could fire on them sooner than they could on me. I let my nizaris attack unarmored troops, while the pavis arbs attacked order of the foot soldiers and knights hosplitar. My HA drew away troops that might be able to brak my lines. The casualty indicator was almost all green. About two pixels of red from the 1 nizris, and 3 sarcens who got arrowed. I ended the archer duel by sending all my cavalry to finish them off.

The comp wouldve attacked my line, but my HA were able to draw away some order of the foot and knights hosplitar limiting their attacking power.


End score

Me(egypt): I captured 400 and killed 400
Italy: 0 captured and the yonly killed 33, random deaths from spearmen turning around and spearing my kwarzmian and armenians

[Sensei Warrior]

Its might not be my best battle but it was the most recent. I was playing England, 1101 and it was time to snag Flanders. I know a little slow on the draw but I always am. I had 2 archers, 3 longbows I bribed from Wales, 3 Fyrdmen, and the Heir Prince leading the charge 3*. 621 men in all.

The icky French decided to trot out an army of 1600+ men. 9 units of archers one of their own princes and the rest were peasants and urban militia.
I thought I bit off a little more than I could chew.

Set my army up with archers in front, fyrdmen next and my longbows bringing up the rear. My Prince was initally staged in the back. The army advanced foward with the knights cutting right to flank. The frenchies sent their numerous archers to engage but by the time we started trading shots I had the knights charge from the rear. Almost all those units disintegrated. Well the french sent the remainder of the army after my knights so I pivoted my archers and spears right and the longbows left to form a nasty V like funnel. My knights walked out the bottom of the V and right around the time the AI realized it was being pincered it was to late. Death rained down and the bulk of their army which still outnumbered me 2 to 1 tucked tail and ran. The only one who stuck around was the french's Prince who was smacked ten ways to Sunday by my Fyrdmen. The spears hit his flank but he somehow managed to wiggle out of the trap and ran all the way home.

All said and done I killed 338 bad guys and captured 169 more. I lost a mere 33 men. My Prince got the skilled attacker virtue and the french's general pulled some icky vice like eager to retreat, bad defender, coward, or some rot like that. I hope he's heir to the throne.

Morale of the story: Never underestimate the power of Welsh Longbowmen.

[Saracen_Warrior]

You lost the same amount of people as me. Except i wasnt outnumbered. If i saw someone lose the battle that I fought I could safely say they were a moron. Very easy battle for me. I never like to fight when the I know the enemy has an advantage. Ill attak with 600 people against 3000 as long as their units are crap though. Whenever I fight battles where the enemy has the advantage, I always end up winning somehow, but with too many casualties. One time when I had a 7 star general I let him get killed instead of just withdrawing him when I had the chance. Ever since that I never willingly fight when Im outnumbered. Ill still definatly fight when its fair since its really not fair since the AI isnt that smart.

[PittBull260]

I just got done with my new best battle ever :)

I was using BKB super mod (GREAT mod)

Ok I was playing as the Scots, and I controlled all of the English Island...I took Ile De France from the French.

Then 2 years later, The French attacked!!

The Battle:
My army: 1200men, 5 star general
Enemy army: I tihnk it was in the mid 4000's, 3 star general

Ok I was defending..and luckily there was one bridge in the map, so it was kind of easy to defend.

Anyways, the french had tons of feudal knights, and chivalric knights, along with crossbowmen and chivalric men at arms...

I had, 4 units of Scotish pikemen(BKB super mod feature) with 4 units of pavise crossbowmen, and the rest was Highland Clansmen, and Chivalric ment at arms...


I formed something like half a circle around the bridge, so when the enemy crosses it, they'd be trapped.

The attack:
The enemy charged, with horsemen going first, my crossbowmen shot them while they ran across the bridge, once they got across it, my pikemen charged them..HARD, it wasn't long until the enemy's cavalry routed away (and their reinforcements came)

That's when they send their chiv men at arms, and I send in my infantry, with some help of my crossbowmen, they fell easily...

and I kept on doing that until I destroyed their army and reinforcements...but I couldn't get the general!

[Mikeus Caesar]

My best battle was playing as the english. The only main countries left were me, the germans and the almohads. The almohads had conquered spain, and a large build up of troops was beginning there, as both of us prepared to invade. What i didn't know was that they had landed troops in sweden and norway, so as soon as i invaded, ker-pow, 3 whole stacks landed in Ireland. I only had 1 and a half stacks in Ireland, so it looked like the end was nigh. The battle began, and at first i was slaughtering the almohads, but they just kept on coming!! Sometimes lots of them routed, and others lots of my troops routed. But eventually, in the end i won!! I suffered 1000+ losses, while they suffered 2000+ losses. Now they have brought over another stack, and are laying siege to dublin castle. They've blockaded the irish sea, so i can't get reinforcements over in time. Will my army be victorious? We'll have to wait and see!!!

[Saracen_Warrior]

Once it hits the high era and you can get pavise arbalesters it seems really easy to kill the AI generals. The last 3 battles IVe had as egypt ive killed the enemies generals.

The first was against the golden horde and my PAarbs easily killed him.

the second aginst the bysantines whose 41 katfraktoi i was able to pin with sarecen and flank with ghazi. SOmehow the katanks ended up facing my PArbs and i had them on fire at will so they just shot at kats whenever they got a clear shot and eventually the once fearsome 41 katanks became a bunch of tin cans filled with crossbow bolts.

The third battle was against the horde again and they did the same thing, i jsut pinned, flanked with abynissian guards(felt like using them even though ghazi are better) drew my forces away and shot them in the back with pavise arbs.

[Sensei Warrior]

You lost the same amount of people as me. Except i wasnt outnumbered.

Your battle is what stuck in my head. I fought that battle just after I scrolled through the Forum. Well when I fought the battle the number of men I lost was exactly the same. I snickered and then figured I would post it because it was one of my better ones.

The battles that I remember the best are the ones that I think I am going to lose. Like ones against horrible odds and all that muck then in the end I win by a landslide.

[Orda Khan]

Probably the best battle I've had was MP in a 4v4 early MTW just after 1.1 patch. I took a Russian army and faced a Byzantine army. Our front left guy was immediately doubled and barely saved a few units. I defeated the Byzantine guy, rescued my ally to the right, and finished the other enemy central army, killing a total of 1614 yet we still lost.
There have been others but that one stays in my mind for the audacious things I got away with.......

4 Steppe Cav
4 Boyars
3 Pavs
2 Halbs
3 Militia Sgts

.......Orda

[PittBull260]

[edyzmedieval]

Well,

My best battle.

Mongol Horde vs Byzantines(me)
Troops: 2500 Mongols vs. 3000 Byzantines
Volga Bulgaria

This battle took me bout half an hour to make, and both os us attacked only with cavalry charges. I only had 2 units of Kataphraktoi, which saved the day. The Emperor and 1 other unit. I had tons of Pronoiai Allagion and Armenian Heavy Cavalry(my game is modded). Wave after wave of cavalry, until I was forced to regroup and rest my troops, because all of my unit were very tired or exhausted(the Emperor was Totally Exhausted) . Reinforcements came in, as I rested my troops. 400 Byzantine Infantry. Reinforcements for them also, consisting of Mongol Heavy Cav, Mongol Warriors, Mongol Horsa Archers and Steppe Cavalry.
On my final charge, as I made the Cavalry Formation, and crushed the Mongols after some hard battles. Their Khan was killed, and my Emperor got +5 valour.

[antisocialmunky]

Best battles...

The funniest battle was a custom battle test of JHI. I gave teh french a full stack of chivalric knights. I had JHI with maxed out stats. I charged the Knights and killed them all. Ah, the JHI evaporation effect...

Probably the most epic battle was againt the Spanish empire.

It was the same English game mentioned in the Byzantine Secrets thread. The Spanish sent 6 massive span armies into the Pyrennese, two good stacks and 4 of javelin men and jinettes.

It was somewhere like 10000 vs 1200 defenders. I sat on a hill with two units of Jinettes and two Chivalric Knights/Crusader Knights on a hill opposite so I could flank. Basically, the first wave hit and I killed the general and some 800 odd men and my cavalry chased them half way across the map. And then it was a marathon of killing army after army until my men were so tired and depleted that I attacked the spanish and cut them apart. Spanish jinettes inflicted a good deal of casualties on my men, but we won. Next turn, that army and a seaborn invasion too Castile and then Leon. At this point, the Spanish empire fell apart.

The funniest series of battles has to be against the six Khans in the same campaign.

I had invaded Russia to evict the Mongol from the strategic map. I hacked my way through hordes of archers and heavy cavalry eventually arriving in a river provence(that R one). There I sat with an army of 4 valour billmen and longbows under the command of a 6 star Hobilar. They sat there for six turns, turning back bridge charge after bridge charge headed by the Khans until they began spawning in Rum instead of around Bulgaria.

[Budwise]

Against the horde and I have unlimited archer ammo

I had 5 crossbows in my frontline
Billmen line behind them

I lost 275 men to their thousands.

WOOT

[Ciaran]

I don´t remember the exact circumstances, but the outcome. It was a very bloodless battle, about a dozen dead all in all, in a battle with about 200 men at both sides. It was just pure maneuvering, I moved closer, the enemy fell back, I followed, etc until all enemies ran off the map with hardly any fighting at all.

[Martok]

Probably my most memorable battle was a couple years ago when I was playing as the Spanish. It was early in the game--maybe 10 years in. My king had attacked Cordoba and was starving out the castle garrison when the Almohads sent in a large force to break the seige, led by the Caliph himself.

I had excellent ground on which to defend--the top of a long wooded hill up which the enemy had to climb--but I only had about 450 men, whereas the Almos had something like 1200-1300. The only other real advantage I had was that King Alphonso had 7-8 Command stars (because of the +2 bonus from his Expert Defender trait), and the Caliph only had 4-5.

The Almos wasted no time in attacking my position. My 1 unit of urban militia and 2 units of spearmen (all of whom were under-strength) managed to hold off repeated assaults by the Almos' infantry for what seemed like an eternity. Meanwhile, my 2 units of archers and 2 units of Jinnettes were doing a wonderful job of picking off the AUM and Berber Camels, although my Jinnettes were eventually forced to pull back to my left flank when the Caliph sent a strong detachment of enemy troops to engage them.

Despite the spectacular performance of my front line and my archers (who seemed to kill someone with every arrow they loosed), I doubt I would have won the battle--except that the Almohads made what turned out to be a critical mistake. The Caliph, growing increasingly frustrated by my stubborn defense, decided to take matters into his own hands. He led his bodyguards in an attempt to smash my spearmen that were holding my right flank (who by now were right on the edge of breaking).

That was when two things happened: 1.) My archers (who were almost out of ammo by this point) started gunning for the Caliph; and 2.) King Alphonso and his knights finally emerged from the woods where they'd been concealed and charged right into his rear. Caught completely flat-footed by my king, and unexpectedly coming under fire from my arrows, the Caliph's bodyguard simply collapsed and he was soon slain. My Jinnettes (who had finally managed to rest a bit), immediately attacked and fell upon the enemy's (now demoralized) right flank, which crumpled almost instantly.

A scant few seconds after that, the entire Almohad army was fleeing down the hill. My exhausted infantry and archers could only watch and cheer on my king as he and the Jinnettes chased down dozens of routers, all the way to the edge of the map. Once there, they stayed and ran off the few reinforcements that appeared (just some peasants and spearmen).

I don't remember the exact final tally anymore, but it was something like 600 enemy killed and 300 captured, while losing about 150 men. All in all, a most excellent and satisfying battle.

[DensterNY]

Very interesting battle Martok... I just fought one of my best fights and it seems I was in a very similar situation but at the other end as I was the one trying to attacking uphill through a wooded hill at a strong, entrenched army.

One thing that I discovered is that either the AI hates Hobilars with a particular passion or else marching light cavalry uphill through hoods present an irresistable target. I marched the same unit each time up the hill and one or two units would detach and they'd chase me down into my spearmen archers and men at arms. Of course, a human player wouldn't do this but its always fun finding new ways to get an AI to come down from a good defensive position.

[PittBull260]

Probably my most memorable battle was a couple years ago when I was playing as the Spanish. It was early in the game--maybe 10 years in. My king had attacked Cordoba and was starving out the castle garrison when the Almohads sent in a large force to break the seige, led by the Caliph himself.

I had excellent ground on which to defend--the top of a long wooded hill up which the enemy had to climb--but I only had about 450 men, whereas the Almos had something like 1200-1300. The only other real advantage I had was that King Alphonso had 7-8 Command stars (because of the +2 bonus from his Expert Defender trait), and the Caliph only had 4-5.

The Almos wasted no time in attacking my position. My 1 unit of urban militia and 2 units of spearmen (all of whom were under-strength) managed to hold off repeated assaults by the Almos' infantry for what seemed like an eternity. Meanwhile, my 2 units of archers and 2 units of Jinnettes were doing a wonderful job of picking off the AUM and Berber Camels, although my Jinnettes were eventually forced to pull back to my left flank when the Caliph sent a strong detachment of enemy troops to engage them.

Despite the spectacular performance of my front line and my archers (who seemed to kill someone with every arrow they loosed), I doubt I would have won the battle--except that the Almohads made what turned out to be a critical mistake. The Caliph, growing increasingly frustrated by my stubborn defense, decided to take matters into his own hands. He led his bodyguards in an attempt to smash my spearmen that were holding my right flank (who by now were right on the edge of breaking).

That was when two things happened: 1.) My archers (who were almost out of ammo by this point) started gunning for the Caliph; and 2.) King Alphonso and his knights finally emerged from the woods where they'd been concealed and charged right into his rear. Caught completely flat-footed by my king, and unexpectedly coming under fire from my arrows, the Caliph's bodyguard simply collapsed and he was soon slain. My Jinnettes (who had finally managed to rest a bit), immediately attacked and fell upon the enemy's (now demoralized) right flank, which crumpled almost instantly.

A scant few seconds after that, the entire Almohad army was fleeing down the hill. My exhausted infantry and archers could only watch and cheer on my king as he and the Jinnettes chased down dozens of routers, all the way to the edge of the map. Once there, they stayed and ran off the few reinforcements that appeared (just some peasants and spearmen).

I don't remember the exact final tally anymore, but it was something like 600 enemy killed and 300 captured, while losing about 150 men. All in all, a most excellent and satisfying battle.

very nice battle, you're a good writer

[Martok]

very nice battle, you're a good writer

Uh, thanks. I don't know if I really deserve the credit, though. All I did was add a little color commentary--aside from that, the battle happened pretty much as I described it. My palms still sweat when I think back back to it, because it could very easily have gone the other way.

If the Caliph hadn't been so rash and had been patient for just a little longer, my front line probably would've broken in another minute or two. I had actually already ordered the King's knights into the battle (to bolster my right flank, which was wavering), when the Caliph made his appearance--and I suddenly realized Alphonso had a clear shot at his backside as a result. Now *that's* what you call fortuitous timing!

[EDIT] I should also note that this battle is the one that started my love affair with Jinnettes. Their javelins just decimated the AUM--who had to be destroyed (or at least greatly weakened) if my spearmen and UM were to have a chance at holding the line---and they were crucial in making sure the surviving enemy units routed after the Caliph was killed.

[Martok]

Very interesting battle Martok... I just fought one of my best fights and it seems I was in a very similar situation but at the other end as I was the one trying to attacking uphill through a wooded hill at a strong, entrenched army.

One thing that I discovered is that either the AI hates Hobilars with a particular passion or else marching light cavalry uphill through hoods present an irresistable target. I marched the same unit each time up the hill and one or two units would detach and they'd chase me down into my spearmen archers and men at arms. Of course, a human player wouldn't do this but its always fun finding new ways to get an AI to come down from a good defensive position.

Yes, using light cavarly to harrass an enemy's position (particularly if your opponent is the defender) is usually an effective tactic. At the very least, it wears down the enemy and demoralizes them, as your light cav has the speed to quickly strike and then withdraw before they suffer serious losses. If you're lucky, you can tempt enemy units to abandon their position (thus creating a breach in their lines), as you've already discovered to your advantage. That was nicely done, by the way.