Most humiliating defeat ever suffered by you

[Seamus Fermanagh]

As a Scipii, I lost a full stack -- not very experienced but made up of a goodly mix of Hastati/Princs/Archers two Generals and 3-4 cav units.

12 Mac Lancers charged frontally in a broad line and crushed the entire force, then mowed down the routers as 1 Scip unit after another briefly regained discipline just long enough to keep the slaughter going.

Another time, I had a full stack of Brutes attacking a smaller force of Greek phalangites in the Peleponese. While winning solidly, I ran out of time. My troops and general evaporated leaving nothing and delaying the attack of Greece for a decade.

[gardibolt]

I've had really bad luck with forest battles, to the point that I avoid them whenever. I've been Roman forces slaughtered by Germans with inferior numbers in the woods. I just can't keep track of what's going on and inevitably get destroyed before I can react (I don't use the Pause button).

[SOSamurai]

Several months ago (so I don't remember all the details), I was attacking a settlement with (I believe) just over a 1000 hastati and nothing else on huge unit size settings (I very rarely attack with armies without a general, or with just one unit type, but I was trying to be clever attempting a minor blitz campaign).

I got through the gate no problem and defeated a few enemy units, with not much left standing between me and the town square and most of my army intact. I remember at least one more obstacle though. A (huge unit-sized) group of elephants (I believe they were archer mercs, but I honestly can't remember for sure) wandering about on the, now, not-so-large-looking town square.

I marched my 1000 or so hastati towards the town center getting them into position, all the while thinking to myself "We'll I have nearly 1000 crack troops with projectiles, I should be able to win this.", when suddenly the buggers charge at me right into the middle of a formation-less mesh of hastati.

I made three mistakes that day.
One was to go into battle without a general.
The second was to automatically assume a group of wild hell beasts would let me line up my army without moving.
The last mistake was to commit the rest of my hastati to melee attack the tanks instead of falling back and spear 'em to death at the expense of a few hundred romans.
Instead I watch one unit of elephants break nearly 1000 hastati relatively quickly. I don't know the death-toll but i'm fairly sure it was at least 50%, and the other 50% disappeared off of the face of Europe, probably retiring after witnessing that horrifying massacre.
I also retired that day, at least from that campaign. It really did ruined my plans and I felt like hiding in a corner and crying myself to sleep rather than continue.

I now never use unbalanced and/or leaderless armies unless I have to, and whenever I see greyskins I make sure I can take them down before I attempt to take them on.

Also, in the early versions of RTW, I had a few bad experiences with large chariot armies. But not so much in the later patches.

[Somebody Else]

Defending Carthage with a Roman 9* general - admittedly, fending off about 7 sieges in a row had reduced my forces somewhat - but the 400 or so left were all rather high valour, more than capable of fending off a stack of Carthaginians/Numidians. Numidians assault, as I'm preparing my battle lines - placing units etc. I press 'enter' by mistake. Assault begins with none of my men on the walls, in completely indefensible positions. Still, I kill half their army, but lose the city nonetheless.

[Motep]

I had two bannerfulls of troops such as liblan spearman, poeni infantry, iberian infantry, long shields, round shields, and a few elephants, as well as 3 family members. I went up against half a bannerfull of triarii, principles, and 4 0r 5 family members. I could do nothing but weep, as the enemy infantry decimated mine, and their generals routed my elephants and then the worst of all...my stampeding elephants charged into my infanry, getting killed by the enemy infantry and falling on top of my men. 2 of my generals were slaughtered by theirs. but my other general, Theagus the Conquerer, killed 3 of theier generals, but I deemed
the battle to risky, and withdrew him from the battle with his remaining 7 bodygaurd. (unit scale is on huge) He and about 200 of the infantry and cavaly that routed made it safely back to Capua. So much for an easy conquest of rome.
I was carthage and my enemy was the senate.

[Motep]

I was playing the Carthaginaians and had recently taken Carthago-Nova. The peasants revolted and shooed my army away. They had a bunch of peasants in their army, witha few spainish scuutarii, most with gold chevrons and stars. I counted them littele, they were peasants right? My army consited of 2 generals, about 10 of the sacred band infantry, a few peltasts, and a couple of sacred band cavalry. I auto-resolved andd lost everybody...so of course i swore and beat on the desk...but I later calmed down and reloaded the campign. I fought the battle myself this time and was doing fine, inside the city, few casualties, and routing peasants everywhere. I made it to the city center, but with nobody running, my troops were drastically reduced to less then half of my original number. The enemy had a fraction of their original units to. I summoned up my remaining troops qand surged the city square. Mistake. My infantry was dwn in a minute, followed by my auxilaries, which included my general. But I remember that I had left some infantry by the gate and rushed them over before my generals died. They at least were able to kill the remaining enemy. Phyrric victory. However, the troop numbers in the settlement were so low, the peasants revolted again and landed themselves the same breakneck troops.

[Motep]

When I was playing the Brutii, thgings were going well. I had conquerd most of greece and was about to move on the macedonians. This was in the early days before i knew not to charge pikes. I brought my army, A bunch of hastati, some dogs, archers and a general, against theirs of pikes and compainons. Disaster. I caharged their pikees with my infantry and was losing men left and right. By the time my infanrty worked past the pikes, their cavalry surged upon my infantry and took them out. I thhen tried my luck withe the dogs, but ther cav had moved behing their infantry and my dogs were slaughtered by them. My Archers were slowly running out of ammo, when thier cav bum-rushed my general. Instant painfull death. My archers were soon assaulted and quikly defeated. I lost my best general that day and I swore revenge upon the macedonians. I never truly defaeted them untill after the marian reforms and I got urban-cohorts.

[Shottie]

My battle wasnt humiliating but it was still a loss. I defended a town with about 4 units against a whole stack of guals, I was the Romans in the RTR. It wasnt very pretty but I killed a crap load of them nasty barbarians!

[Roman_Man#3]

my battle wasnt a loss, but it was still humiliating. i, carthage, attacked syracuse, under the dominion of the house of scipii. i had 8 iberians, a merc pelt, 2 towers, elies, 2 small shields, and 2 generals. i thought it would be a cake walk. practically all of my iberians(save 20 or so out of the 640 of them) were killed by 3 hastati, 1 archer guy, and velite. i thought it was over for good then. i had captured the gate, which saved me the battle. i sent an elie into the town watch and hastati watching the gate, followed by the rest of the cav. we destroyed them all. then they went on thier merry way to the town square. when alas, a poor unit of equites tried to kill us. we destroyed them. once we made it to the square, i discovered it was gaurded by 2 full unit equites and a 40 or 50 man general unit. i had 2 (about half men) small shields, 2 diminished generals, and 11 elies. i figured it all or nothing. i sent my elies head long into them, followed by my cavalry(my very small infantry force now mopping up what remained of the enemy infantry.) we turned out the victors in the square, which in a sense made us the victors of the battle.
although we destroyed their stronghold on sicily, we do not have very many troops now, and i am not sure how much longer we will survive.

[Slartibardfast]

Mine was last night.

I was playing a short campain as the Arverni Gauls using the Europa Barbarorum 0.74 beta mod with the Resources Patch. After some dozen or so mooves, of what I must say was a brilliant strategy and clinically efficient tactical command on my part, I found myself about to siege the last Adui stronghold, end the Gallic Civil War and expand to hit Rome before she has expanded her territory or got a single large mobile army.

Thinking "How good am I!", the siege is quickly over with a minimum of causualties for the troops and I go back out to the stategy map and basking in my own glory hit end turn.

"You have been Defeated" - Selukia wins.


Talk about instant kharma.