What has been your bloodiest battle in EB?

[Vendayn]

Mine was in Iberia and it was at the gate I just knocked down. Three rebel spearmen waiting...I rush in with my spearmen (they could phalanxe the rebels, I just had regular spearmen)

I had about 3-4 spearmen, 2 cavalry skirmshers, two archers and two generals. At first I rushed everything in, I like a head on rush when fighting in narrow spaces. I was losing men about every 6-10 seconds and they weren't dying except a few. I pulled my men back and the NPCs I guess never leave the walled city to attack so I had time to plan for another strategy. This time I rushed in (I forgot to add before, we were fighting for control of the gate, so my men were in a tight spot) and instead of attacking, I sent my horsemen about 20 feet back from the main battle INSIDE the town, my two generals followed and a group of spearmen.

The Rebels were still fighting at the gate (oblivious to my men who sneaked in) and I decided to go around a group of buildings and attack from behind. My spearmen were still holding ground and stopped losing greatly.

I rush my cavalry in (all of them, since my skirmishers ran out of ammo) and 5 seconds later all enemies route into the middle. I rush everything in the middle with what they have left and win with an heroic victory :)

Wish I knew how to take screenshots so...tons of bodies all over, two three sometimes four piled ontop of each other lol (mostly at the gate)...it was a huge battle, like a1200 (me) vs around 1000 (rebels)

[LorDBulA]

Mine was Gatai (me) vs Romanii. Both sides had about 2500 men.
This was pitch battle with neither side getting upper hand until the end.
At the end both armies where destroyed loosing almost all men. I had only few hundreds left. Total losses where around 4000-4500 men.

[eadingas]

One of my best battles - as Rome, I landed a scouting party (1800) at Rhodes and was ambushed by KH main army (ca 3200 with reinforcements from the city, equal gears and levels) (don't ask :)

With my back to the beach, after initial onslaught (KH cavalry wiping out most of my skirmishers) my infantry held out until about 60% of the enemy were destroyed. The Hellenes were so demoralized that for a long while they didn't dare attack my last three triarii units (set up in a triangle). Total losses - about 3800 men.

Needless to add, two turns later Rhodes was mine ;)

Another cool battle was as Sweboz, holding out against Rome - full stack vs full stack (during what I called "A War of Spoils - I was racing with Rome to pick up remains of collapsed Aedui and Arverni empires) - with a line made of Helvetii Mori Gaesum and those best sweboz spearmen in red shirts (forgot the name). By the end, you could tell where the defence was held, by a sea of dead bodies spread out in a straight line across the battlefield :) Unfortunately, I lost too many of my best men and even though I won a pyrrhic victory, the War of Spoils began to turn bad from then on :(

[paullus]

battle as getai against two epeirote armies. since i was attacking (with near 2500 men) their armies were able to roughly form up together (totaling over 4500 men, including almost 2000 in the phalanx).

My cav (except my gen) went skirmishing on the enemy flanks, and destroyed the enemy cav entirely, but i lost a promising young general in the process.

With that many phalanx units, it was hard to break in to their phalanx, even with the usual exploits. I made progress on the left flank and eventually got drapanai and keltoi in among the phalangites.

my own phalanxes on the right suffered badly, and part of the flank fell apart. Lucky for me, my slingers and archers poured fire into the pursuing troops, which made them weak enough to defeat by the end of the battle.

My general and his keltoi lifeguard avoided the rout,

and provided the necessary momentum to crush the epeirote center and right, though a box of pezhetairoi

and stubborn chaonians took a long time to destroy.

Then it was just necessary to crush their victorious left (though some of them managed to withdraw...hidden unit of hippeis, which must have killed 500 of my men in the rout). Over 5000 dead.

My computer was hating me after that battle...

[Obelics]

good stuff there above! have to try Getai...

bytheway one of the blodiest battle I fought was against Epirotes too, i had a fresh trained KH general near Pella, i was fighting Makedonian who wanted to take back their latter Capital, when i was suddendly betrayed by Epirotes (my allies) who sieged one of my town near there, i went with my general and i was attacked by too stack of epirotes (a big one and a small one, but the big one had 2 unit of Epirotes Elite Guard), i knew there were no hope for my army (I was playing on VH/VH bad choice, so the elite guards are almost invincible), so i retired on a hill and waited, there was a massacre, even if tired, the enemy troops didn't give up, and i lost almost all my army, anyway i get an average victory, but i lost most of the best units, like a 1 silver chevron torakitai oplitai, and a 3 silver chevron elite cavalry, anyway i hope the Epirote will not bother at me for some time, (i need just the time to reform a good army and to punish them, but they have allied with makedonian now, so 2 enemies on the northern front...)

[Antagonist]

I've had a number of epic encounters, but the greatest for sheer slaughter was also one of my earliest. My relatively small but high-quality Aedui army against a full Sweboz stack. The battle took place on a bridge map. I brought my heavy cavalry across the bridge before the Sweboz could close, and although they took a severe beating they eventually overwhelmed the general's bodyguard and the few elite units. However, they were in no fit state to deal with the great majority of the army, mostly Chausci and Cherusci spearmen, who remained.

Anyway, brought the remains of my cavalry back over the bridge, and the entire opposing army, unwisely perhaps, attempted to pursue. Apparently they failed to notice the small ground of naked gentlemen who had made it over to their side of the bridge.

Long story short, I had 2 units of gold-chevroned Gaesatae, one positioned at the front entrance to the bridge, the other at the rear. The entire remainder of the Sweboz army, some 3000 men, was trapped on the bridge between them. Suffice to say, it was not a good day for them. At all.

Antagonist

[Orb]

My bloodiest

2 full stacks, 3960 men in total, all armoured Greeks, Hoplitai Ekdromoi, Hoplitai Iphikratides and Hoplitai Thorakitai. There were maybe 3 units hippeis and 1 hippeis xistophoroi, as well as a couple of Thureophoroi and Peltastai. Most of their troops had a few chevrons.

I had about 800 Armenian cavalry (I think), 3 units HAs, 2 units Ayrudzi skirmishers, a Pontic general, a unit of the cataphract horse archers and one unit of Aspet. All of these were at 3 gold chevrons. I also had a few mercenary infantry (3 units Kluddolon, 1 Enoci curoas, 1 Mistophoroi phalangitai - total 960 men).

I, desperately needing to repel these Greeks from Asia Minor, attacked. I drew off the General and cavalry of the first army and shot them to bits while my force employed an advanced hammer and anvil tactic (ram dirt-cheap mercs in front, smash cavalry into back). It routed the first army, but took too long. It ended up as a violent melee involving even the horse archers seeing a lot of combat and dozens of multidirectional charges to break up the second army.

I wiped out both Greek forces and lost about 85% of my own.

[tk-421]

When 0.72 was released I played as Koinon Hellenon and assaulted Pella with a 3-4 stack and a small Epeirote ally army in a desperated attempt to draw the Macedonian full stack armies away from Athens, Thermon, and Korinth. The Macedonians had a full stack of mostly Pezhetairoi. My army was mostly Thureophoroi, Thorakitai, Ekdromoi. and Peltastai. The battle lasted nearly an hour and a half. I received about 70-80% casualties, the Epeirotes lost half of their men, and Macedonians were killed nearly to the man. The streets were clogged with dead Greeks and Macedonians, including all three generals. Later that turned my forces were starved out of Thermon, the Macedonians assaulted Athens. They failed to capture Athens but killed Chremonides and nearly most of my small garrison. That was a pretty bloody battle too. The turn after that (Sometime in 251 or 250, I think) I destroyed every building in Pella and sent what was left of my army in a mad dash to relieve Athens but I didn't make it. The next turn Makedonia captured Athens and Epeiros took the opportunity to occupy Pella. I don't remember if Makedonia captured Athens by assault or siege.

In case you're wondering, I generally don't remember campaigns from 8 or 9 months ago. This was just an exceptionally fun series of turns in the first EB campaign I ever played.

[Slartibardfast]

Trapping those all those men on a bridge between Geastaste is astounding. Ill attempt to use it at the first oppotunity.

The biggest blooding any of my Arvernii campain armies recieved was near the Saxony Coast outside the top '-Hotoz (That early-German must of been a jaw cracker!). The Sweboz had forgotten the peace treaty nutted out the season before and had moved to lay siege to the 3 unit garrison of 160 men with an army of around 1800 infantry led by their King.

My 600 man mostly infantry rei-enforcement column was being led by this Family Member "On Deaths Door" who I intended to use as a govenor despite his "Victor" trait. Paying through the nose for some 600 assorted Germanic mercenaries I moved him up to the besieged city and just managed to get five cavalry units from the my nearby main army to the other flank. Beauty thinks I.

One of those battles were whilst arranging my smaller command into an inclined line led by two Geastate I accidently push the ENTER key, all my rienforcments are late and have to add lib.

My army jostles for about ten minutes as I try to get the formation together and positioned for the heavy punch and the Sweboz trying to keep it as a straight line.
With out knowing who started it someone somewhere charged and all I could do was try to position both my cavalry units on the forward inclined flank. My cavalry and infantry on the right defeated and chased off the enemy as one of my Geastate units and the centre were locked in a viscious action around the enemy king.

My expensive mercenaries are slaughtered on the left and chased off the field of battle. As my cavalry return to hit the Sweboz king from the rear in succesive charges my other cavalry arrives and they get to the action just in time for the regicide of the enemy centre, its route and
massacre and the town garrison show up to watch the mopping up of the returning enemy right.

Around 700 Arverni dead, including most of my mercenaries, and the Sweboz lost around 1750 men.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I've had plenty of 1 stack vs 2 stacks battles, many fun candidates to choose from. However the one in which I suffered most casualties, which was also one of the few battles I lost, was Rome vs Sweboz. Sweboz had expanded a lot and had almost reached the Adriatic sea, starting a war with me by besieging Patavium. I only had an understrength legion in the area, so I assembled it and attacked the Sweboz siege army, and relieved the siege. I was eager to pursue the retreating enemy and quickly respond to their attack by taking one of their closest cities north of there. However as I marched up the alp passes, reinforced by a few units from the former Patavium garrison, I realized too late that I had underestimated my enemy. They had around 35 units split up between 3 stacks, and 3 general's units, all with 5-6 command stars. Early in the battle my cavalry chased away half of the enemy light javelin cavalry but couldn't rout them completely. Then the infantry lines crashed together, and the enemy turned out to be vastly superior in that fight, with many chevrons and many command stars. I had to gamble everything on managing to rout the enemy line before the remaining enemies arrived, and sent my cavalry (I almost exclusively had light javelin cavalry) hit the rear of the enemy repeatedly. I had some limited success with routing some lighter enemy units, and tried to attack the flanks of the enemy. Most of my infantry was losing badly, so I ended up matching each enemy general unit with 3-4 infantry units and kept hitting them to the rear with my cavalry. But I had no success, and then more enemy infantry arrived at my line. I had trouble protecting my flanks with the little cavalry I had left after all charges, and now some of the routed enemy cavalry along with new units arrived. My cavalry was routed and my infantry line broke instantly. I lost some 700-800 men, the enemy lost 500. After the battle Patavium was threatened, however while the battle had been going on I had been training many new units, so only 4 turns later I had a full legion to use to go back there and successfully conquering their city, establishing a base from which I later conquered 4 cities and linked up with my legion in Gaul, beginning a slow war against the Sweboz (which I unfortunately never finished because it was in the earliest EB open beta and progress got blocked by a CTD).

[The Kataphract]

My bloodiest?

My bloodiest battle took place when around 25BC [ironically, the Romans by this time had conquered the indentical set of lands that they conquered in real life. That rarely happens with the AI in this game...] the bloody Romans decided they'd gotten sick of sending army across the Rhine river only to have them massacred in ambushes. They gathered up a full stack of troops from the Italian peninsula and sent them up through Noricum and snuck past my southern border.

A spy who was passing through to check out a rebel army picked them up as they were hiding out in a fort in the middle of a forest for the winter to the southwest of Gawjam-Silengoz. I mashed together as many troops as I could from my northern lands and sent them south, and placed them in an ambush just in front of a bridge. I also sent a smaller force to gaurd the entrance of the pass that they'd come north through. Next turn; it was spring.

They moved north toward this particular bridge, and BAM!

Ambushed 'em. The Roman force consisted of about 1500 Cohors Imperatoria, one unit of Cohors Sagittariorum Levantinorum, and two Generals.

My army was mostly comprised of Frameaharjoz, Sahsnotoz, and Bugimmanoz, with three generals, totaling about 950 men. My main advantage was that one one unit of mine had less than four experience bars. In laymans terms, my troops were the better fighters by far.

It started with the Romans in a column, marching up the road, with the Generals and their cavalry in the van, the Legionnaires in the center, and the Sagittariorum in the reargaurd posistion. My troops were broken pretty evenly, about 400-odd on each side of the Romans, and well hidden in the forest. The two Roman Generals began circiling back towards the rear of their army, giving a spectacular chance to perform an action I 'd always wanted to try.

I charged my massed infantry groups towards each side, leaving the Bugimmanoz hidden still. Just before the infantry crashed, my Bugimmanoz opened fire on the bulk of the column, scaring the bejeezus out of the bewildered Roman troops. The Sagittariorum tried to fire back, but their arrows just got blocked by trees [germanic archers seem to be the only ones who know how to fire through dense trees....].

By this time, the Roman generals had just reached the midpoint of the infantry column, and right then my massed infantry groups smashed into both sides of the column, smashing the general's cavalry up against the shields of the infantry, making it impossible for them to move. I moved the Bugimmanz up out of the forest onto the roads, and split them so that both ends of the Roman column were now cut off.

A picture perfect ambush.

The enitre Roman force was ahnnilated; something along the lines of 1700 men were killed, along with two prominent four-star ranked generals.

The pile of corpses was impressive.

Shortly after that, I was able to foist 25,000 Mnai of the Romans for ceasefire. Making it all the sweeter.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Wonderful first post Mr. K.!

[cunctator]

My bloodiest?

My bloodiest battle took place when around 25BC [ironically, the Romans by this time had conquered the indentical set of lands that they conquered in real life.

Wow! Never thought the AI would ever manage to conquer anything as big as the real roman empire.

CAn you post any screenshots of your game?

[The Kataphract]

Wow! Never thought the AI would ever manage to conquer anything as big as the real roman empire.

CAn you post any screenshots of your game?

I'll try, I still have that particular game saved. It'll be iffy though, as my computer and I aren't the best of freinds as of this moment.....

EDIT: Well, I tried, and failed. I don't know what I did, but just trying to take the picture means a rather nasty CTD.... hmmph.

[Slartibardfast]

Wow! Never thought the AI would ever manage to conquer anything as big as the real roman empire.

CAn you post any screenshots of your game?

Check out the "Pictures of your EB empire" thread.

The first post has a picture of the campaign map and his Roman Empire has a couple of large adversaries still. I reckon the mass cash injections and traits are giving the AI a decent chance. Empires seem to develop more MTW than RTW like if you know what I mean.

I'm only about 70 years into my present Arverni campaign and I can already see several budding empires, the Getai by themselves as well as the Ptolemy and Carthaginians with their protectorates the Selucids and Iberians respectively. As for my own budding empire its supposed to be the largest and I'm lucky if I can seal my borders, deal with rebels, pacify recently conquered areas and save any money for provincial upgrades.

[The Kataphract]

If I can't give you pictures of my bloodiest battle, I can still tell you about my funniest.

During an Arche Seleukia campaign, in an ironic twist, three of my huge armies were defeated by a massive revolt in Judea. All whilst Bob Marley's "Iron Lion Zion" happened to be playing in the background..... oy.....

[Gaelic Rebel]

The bloodiest battle that I can remember occured today. This particular battle invloved me (Casse) besieging the city in the Northern half of Ireland. The Gaelic army consisted of about 3800 men. I had approximately 2500. After my troops smashed through the gate and wall the Gaels rushed down upon my men with just about everything they had. And so for a very long time we fought a standstill battle. Little by little I began to push them back, though with very heavy losses and many of my units routed. Then I killed the enemy general and after that his troops began routing back towards the center of the town. My troops had already killed thousands of enemies but we managed to cut down more during the pursuit of the broken enemy. Unfortunetly time ran out and I ended up losing since the enemy managed to hold out. It was one hell of a battle and I believe I slaughtered all but 600 of the enemy. I lost well over 1000 some men.

Here you can see where the two armies fought for control of the gates:


Another angle:

[Antagonist]

Awesome screenshots Gaelic Rebel, I wish I had taken some shots of my battle. I had trouble capturing Emain Macha as well, those Ordmhornaghta can really mix it up against heavy armour.

Antagonist

[CountArach]

Now that is an awesome battle!

[toxicseagull]

hmm i am scared of thermon at the moment, as makidonia i have wiped out the getia, epriotes out of my lands (currently funding them to resist the romans) and the KH, and also pontus.

i still dare not take thermon. they have two full stacks of peltasts and hoplati

my biggest has been at kydonia 4500 rebels agasint my 1800 (roughly) army.

luckily i have triumphed and am mopping up pontus and planning on cutting the selicuids out of asia minor.

[iberus_generalis]

i was being sieged by 4 Makedonian armies....was outnumbered 4 to 1, and then they striked..but i was lucky, and one of the armies was delayed by some of my valorous reinforcements en rout to the siege, so i allowed them to come into the city and ambushed them , it was a desperate last time stand...they had 2000 cavalry and i a small bunch of low time infatary, a few triarii, but through preserverance, great tactics, and a great commanding skill i was victorious, and one third of the total Makedonian Armies was wiped out......if by chance the fourth armie arrived i would be in a desperate position, cuz i would not be able to even repel them...in the end this was the result




the remaining of my men were overjoyed, i felt Good, and we sacked the richest spoils of the dead soldiers, and left the rest for the pppl of Rome...then we put the corpses a mile away from the city, and torched them....

[-Praetor-]

Christ...

How many Hetairois where in those armies?

[iberus_generalis]

you ask me? it counted 20 cavalry units, everyone of those were of those dead Makedonian horses you see in the pic...if they are hetairoi or not, i can't tell, cuz im not a hellenic unit expert...

[JeffBag]

you ask me? it counted 20 cavalry units, everyone of those were of those dead Makedonian horses you see in the pic...if they are hetairoi or not, i can't tell, cuz im not a hellenic unit expert...

Hetairoi are all those horses with that fancy blue blanket over its back.

[Keba]

My bloodiest?

KH against Epeiros. I was playing the KH ... having a blast, I've conquered Macedonia, liberated most of Greece, got into a war with the Epirotes.

I've conquered their capitol in a series of rather bloody battles, leaving my main force exhausted and spent. So, I decide to pull that force back for retraining in Athens ... then, on my way out, I encounter, who else, but Pyrrhoy, with a full stack and another half-stack of troops.

Fortunately, there were no elephants there, only a whole load of phalanx, skirmishers and that elite Epirote cavalry (the Greek one).

The two armies clashed on a steep incline (neither side had higher ground).

I managed to break their cavalry, but Pyrrhos continued behind their lines, and with his command stars, those troops just wouldn't break.

Half an hour later, the field was littered with bodies. Pyrrhos got away, and continued being a headache. My main army was completely spent, and would take years to be brought up to strength.

Although, the general (the younger Spartan, the one you start with, I can't remember his name), got a whole clutch of traits that made him one very, very good general and ruler.

[The Kataphract]

Go look in the Pics & history of your Empire thread and you'll see my largest battle, which If I believe is correct, is the largest ever.

[Atreidis]

You guys are playing in huge settings right? I want to try it but i am afraid it will drain cities. Should I try it?

[CountArach]

It makes for a great game. I cannot speak against it, as long as you ensure you build pop growth buildings in your troop producing centres, and only build armies when you need them (You can always return them later and disband the survivors if you have to).

It is completely worth it.

[Trithemius]

Make sure your system can handle it, you might need to turn down unit detail if things start to get treacle-like.

[abou]

Mine was in a battle for the fully garrisoned town of Arsé against the local Greek tyrant. I was playing as the Kart-Hadastim and threw a full stack against the defenders. There was very intense fighting around the front gate when the defenders sallied, which that lasted for about 40 minutes. I had finally taken the town, but with +60% in loses. Those Iberian troops are tough!