5 hour battle

[lugh]

Sun Tzu would laugh at my lack of resolve.

I don't know why, but I laughed at that.

I love the horde battles! 4 hours minimum is what I seem to get. The AI seems to home in on the player, I've played the Turks and had Georgia buttoned up nicely, citadel, 5000 man teched up army, the plains can be clear or better, occupied by a weakened Byz empire, yet the Mongols will insist upon dashing themselves against my Saracen Spear walls!

Then I just changed the AI descriptor to mongol_expansionist (I think) and they settle down a little, they don't just plug all their men into one province and steamroll across the continent, though they're still hard to winkle out of hte plains.

[The Darkhorn]

I don't know why, but I laughed at that.

I love the horde battles! 4 hours minimum is what I seem to get. The AI seems to home in on the player, I've played the Turks and had Georgia buttoned up nicely, citadel, 5000 man teched up army, the plains can be clear or better, occupied by a weakened Byz empire, yet the Mongols will insist upon dashing themselves against my Saracen Spear walls!

Then I just changed the AI descriptor to mongol_expansionist (I think) and they settle down a little, they don't just plug all their men into one province and steamroll across the continent, though they're still hard to winkle out of hte plains.

I love 'em too. My favorite and most spectacular battle was as the Polish when I moved a couple of stacks into Khazar on the turn they invaded...just to cull their numbers. It lasted six hours and I LOST...but it was awesome. The field between these two forests was just white and brown, littered with dead horses. You could've walked all the way across and never had to step on the ground!

[antisocialmunky]

64 units of longbows getting rotated in and out along with a few billmen, CSes, and CHs took care of them nicely.

[_Aetius_]

I've had a similar battle, as the Byz I wasnt happy with allowing the Horde to wreck everything i'd built, by 1230 i'd built an incredibly advanced empire that included all of the Turkish and Egyptian territory. So I took 3500 of the empires finest troops including 5 princes and the Emperor himself to lead the army and waited in Khazar for the Horde to arrive.

Over 15,000 Mongols arrived and the battle began, I was afraid that the mongol horse archers would wear my men down so I went for a mass cavalry charge my kataphraktoi and PA heavy cavalry smashed the Mongols first wave and totally cleared them from the field killing the Khan along with them. I considered withdrawing since the mongols without a khan where no longer a faction, but the thought of allowing 15,000 barbarians to live and ravage everything was unattractive so I carried on.

The second wave of Mongols arrived and after some skirmishing between our horse archers I routed them and to impede further reinforcements I positioned my army along the border of the map, so any reinforcements would be attacked immediately.

I did this for 3 1/2 hours constantly repelling wave after wave after wave of Mongols, until eventually my line was just completely buckling so I rallied my remaining troops (about 400 of my original wave) into a circle as I called for my own reinforcements who had the entire map to travel. The Mongols by now were free to join the battle without being attacked so they swarmed around my surviving troops who by now had so much experience despite being exhausted stood their ground.

After a few more minutes of intense pressure the lesser units of my army started to rout and only the Emperor was left in his kataphraktoi unit and about 100 men from various units were left. With my entire royal line at stake I rushed my tired reinforcements across the map before my force was crushed, luckily a couple of princes were able to withdraw as my light cavalry charged the Mongols. Unfortunately though the Emperor was unable to escape and was cut down somewhere in the melee.

After that and 3 1/2 hours of sitting on my butt I decided to withdraw entirely, I'd lost 800 men including 2 princes, 7 governors and my Emperor but had killed 11,000 Mongols. Easily my greatest victory, which totally gutted the Mongols, 800 men wasnt alot but many were Varangians and Kataphraktoi which either couldnt be replaced properly or not at all at that time so I did suffer severe casualties to the core of my army.

[ajaxfetish]

I've also learned the hard way not to try and pin the Mongols at their edge of the map. They've got too many waves of elite troops for it to work. Better to set up a more conservative line at your edge and let their reinforcements do all the walking. That way you can pull out and replace troops in comparative ease and safety, and they're perfectly content to send each wave one after another for as long as you're willing or able to resist.

Ajax

[_Aetius_]

The reason I pinned them at the edge of the map is that if their horse archers were allowed to enter the field they could run rings around me all day wearing my army down. I had to destroy them at the point of entry, its a double-edged sword the pinning tactic, you can hold the line but its impossible to disengage without being overrun. Your effectively leading 1000+ men to certain destruction.

[ajaxfetish]

Exactly. Which is why it can be such a great tactic in many situations, but against the horde in its early years they simply have too many elite troops for those 1000+ men to hold.

Ajax