Post thy Truely Epic Battles

[Jediknight73]

work's way better with screenshots.

[Mechstra]

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometimes a thousand words is worth a hundred pictures.

That battle sounds fantastic. I know what you mean about those last stands, they're great.

[Sheogorath]

Trouble is I didnt save the replay. It was 1am at the time and I was tired and not thinking clearly. I wish I had though. So no screens, anyway.

[Headlocked]

sounds great, well-written post!

got any regular battles?

still waiting on my copy from play.com :( :'(

pictures might be good, but one's imagination is enough sometimes!

HDD

[TinCow]

This is too good an idea for a thread to let die. I have had two battles (well, 4 battles, but 2 pairs of 2) lately that both had me on the edge of my seat.

Playing Venice on VH/VH.

Having finally secured all of northern Italy, I dispatched my faction leader with a strong army and siege weapons to take the Sicilian territories. I am at war with everyone who surrounds me, except France. Milan and Venice are up to large walls with ballista towers and are defended by almost full stacks of Italian Spear Militia and Pavise Crossbow Militia, with 2 Corrocio standards (or whatever the morale boost things are called) and 2 catapults in Venice, as well as my faction leader, a fabulous general with gold chevrons. HRE sends a full stack to besiege Venice. They assault the second turn.

It is a large army composed of mainly spear militia with a few units of knights and some assorted dismounted heavy infantry. I have two peasant archers who fail miserably to burn the siege towers and approaching ram. With most of my spears on the walls, I watch in horror as the gate breaks. I have 2 spears there in schiltrom formation as an emergency and immediately rush 2 more from the walls to help. The schiltroms hold against the initial cavalry onslaughts, but they are wiped out by the following heavy infantry. A few tentative fireballs from the catapults, stationed on the road back from the gate, results in friendly casualties and a quick ceasefire. By pinning them in the gate area with spears on two sides, I am eventually able to win, but at a loss of 2/3 of my men. Still on the AIs turn, a half-stack HRE army arrives and lays siege again, preventing me from producing reinforcements.

The second battle looks nearly hopeless. It is only a half stack, but I am down to 1/3 of a stack myself, and most of that is crossbowmen. My melee is limited to 2 full strength Italian spear militia, two partial strength dismounted feudal knights, and my general. Their forces are mainly inferior spear militia, but with a core of 2 feudal knights and the general. Once again, the ram fails to burn and in rushes all of the melee. This time I could only afford one schiltrom by the gate and it is hopelessly outnumbered. In desperation, I pull all of my remaining melee units off the walls, letting the crossbowmen fight there, and rush to the gateway. The mass of HRE horse and foot completely fills the gate area and annihilates the schiltrom, then begins to push outwards in both directions. My thin lines of spearmen from the walls are holding, but they are slowly being pushed back, allowing HRE infantry up onto my walls through the gatehouse doors. In desperation, I unleash my catapults again. With such a huge mass of HRE men in the gateway, it is impossible to miss. The second fireball takes down what looks to be about 50-60 men at once, including the enemy general. 3 of the units break and I charge in my faction leader in an effort to route the rest as well. However, the rest hold and my faction leader goes down. I\'m in despair as the last of my dismounted knights dies on north side of the gatehouse and there is nothing to prevent HRE from taking the city with cavalry from that direction. However, I still have my 2 Corrocio standards, placed a bit of a way off to both sides of the gate, providing morale to the walls. They are only 40 or so men per unit, but they are all I have left. I tell them to drop the standards and charge in. They die, but slowly and hold the line on both sides. A few more catapult fireballs breaks the HRE morale and they all route, chased by my 8 surviving bodyguards. When it is all over, the only melee units I have left are 2 half-strength Carrocio standards and 20 spearmen. Remnants of a melee heavy full 20 stack army prior to the first battle.


Ragusa has been entirely isolated and self-dependant for almost the entire game. I sent a few generals and critical reinforcements across by boat when possible, but Ragusa held on by the skin of its teeth for the majority of its existence. After I had gained control of all of Italy, I was finally starting to have a good economic return, allowing my to build up Ragusa and train loads of Venetian Archers and Dismounted Feudal Knights. I sent a large contingent off south under a captain to counterattack against Byzantium. Hungary took this moment to launch a fresh wave of assaults.

They besiege and assault the second turn with loads of missile cavalry and light infantry. With a 2-wall fortress to defend and a still rather large stack of high quality archers and heavy infantry, nothing could hurt me, right? Wrong. A hit the Start Deployment button and to my horror, the battle simply begins. A spy has opened my gates, preventing pre-battle setup. My units are scattered all over the fortress and it will take several minutes for most to arrive at the attack area.

I rush as many as I can to the gates, rushing them up to the walls to fend off the 3 ladders and 2 siege towers. The men at arms hold the walls, but take high losses from what turns out to be several full units of Crusader Sergeants who must have returned from a failed crusade. Just as I think I have them beaten on the walls, I notice the unit I have placed by the gate for emergencies is fighting! I had forgotten that they could enter the gates anytime they wanted, and they had finally done so, driving a mass of cavalry in when I was not watching. I have 2 mounted feudal knights units near the gatehouse and I charge them in to hold the breach. All available infantry come off the walls and arrive to help hold the enemy. In a long battle of attrition, the enemy is routed and destroyed, by I lose every last one of my feudal knights. My melee units are down tot 1 and 1/3 units of dismounted feudal knights and 1 and 1/3 units of armored sergeants.

Of course, Hungary besieges again that very same turn before I can reinforce. On the second turn, they assault again… once again with a spy who has opened the doors, preventing me from deploying. This time it is hopeless. The only units near the gate are a unit of 17 venetian archers, 19 armored sergeants, and a full unit of peasant archers. Everything else is scattered around and no-where near available. Hungary advances with 2 seige towers and 2 ladders, their army being almost exclusively infantry. There is no way I can get enough men to the main gate in time to hold it, so I order all other units back to the second wall defenses. The 3 units near the attack remain to do what they can and to keep the outer defense towers shooting as long as possible. I pull the peasant archers back when they are threatened, since it is a large unit and I will need their arrows. The walls soon swarm with Hungarian infantry and my outer wall units are destroyed. I have just barely managed to man the inner wall defenses when I completely lose control of the outer.

There are two entrances to the inner area, the gatehouse (door open thanks to spy) and one end of the main wall, which is accessed from the outer wall area. Hungary assaults from both directions, with heavy infantry and cavalry and my melee is now limited to 1 unit of dismounted feudal knights, 1 large (but not full) armored sergeants, and 1/3 of a group of feudal knights. The segeants hold the gate and the knights are on the wall, to protect my archers, who can hit anything in the city with their long-range arrows. If I keep them alive and shooting, I might be able to win. The enemy general tries to force the gate. With half my segeants down, I charge in my general and manage to kill him. His bodyguard route and are cut to pieces by the archers as they flee. Hungary then moves 2 dismounted feudal knights and 2 crossbowmen units to the wall and beings marching towards the wall entrance to my rear area. I send out the 1/3 unit of dismounted feudal knights to re-activate the towers in the threatened outer-wall area and to hold them for as long as possible. They do not last as long as I was hoping, routing and dying to the last man. However, I noticed that the combination of my archers and the re-activated outer towers were inflicting significant losses on the enemy. I decide to go for broke and send my full unit of feudals to do the same thing the smaller group did.

While this is going on, 2 Hungarian infantry units attempt to charge the gateway, but massed arrows inflict heavy casualties and they are repulsed after a short bout of melee with the remaining sergeants. On the outer wall, the towers are doing much more damage than I had hoped and the feudals are holding well, but the Hungarian crossbows in the street are firing at them and I cannot get to them as enemy foot on the wall blocks the way. With my archers now running out of arrows, I charge my general out and take the crossbows in the rear. I route them with about 6 surviving bodyguards. All across the fortress, the Hungarians are retreating, so I pull all my archers off the walls and send them out across the city to re-take the outer walls. There is some final hand-to-hand fighting near the gatehouse, but the fortress is secured and the battle won.

[Randarkmaan]

I was playing the Egyptians, on H/H and I had conquered Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Aleppo and Antioch as well as the African region to the west, by some feat of stupidity I had not yet moved against the rebel cities to the west, well anyway it all soon started to get a little complicated... First a crusade was called on me and nearly all Catholic factions joined against me, I had tried to secure an alliance with the Turks and I were already allied with the Byzantines. The first crusades to arrive were the Polish, whose crusading army consisted of lots of crusading sergeants and knights as well as those annoying mounted crossbowmen of theirs. This army was destroyed, though with relatively heavy losses, by my main army led by my faction leader consisting of mostly Mamluks (heavy cavalry and archers) and some infantry as backup. The next army (Hungarians) was a lot easier as it almost entirely consisted of pilgrims and fanatics, against whom I suffered about 30 losses and captured nearly the entire army. Then came the French, Venetians and Danish armies, all properly equipped. I beat back the French force though with very heavy losses for my already weakened army, I sent the cavalry to retrain in Gaza and the infantry to help garrison Jerusalem. Then the Venetians fell upon Jerusalem the next turn, without waiting for the Danish, and took it with not much losses as they rode their overwhelming number of heavy cavalry in through the gate as I did not manage to burn down the battering ram. After that I got peace with the Danish and they simply turned and left for home. But then the Byzantines betrayed me, they besieged Antioch which I managed to relieve with my retrained, enlarged and experienced Mamluk army. Though they kept coming and I took Cyprus to make them more fearsome of me, if that works, so I could force them to peace, which I did not get, but I left some strong forces and started training more. I turned back to besiege and retake Jerusalem. Then the Turks attacked Antioch after defeating a nearby Byzantine army, the subsequent turn they took it and sent their army southward. I took Jerusalem and diverted my army to defeat them, which I did, then they sent another army which I also defeated, time for my army to retrain again, though some units simply had to be replaced as they were lost.

Then the worst possible thing happened, which I have been building up to, the Mongols arrived in Baghdhad and to my surprise ignored it as they allied themselves with the Turks for some reason If you have seen it you will know that they have lots of stack with high command generals with lots of dread and troops with 6 experience a piece. First they took my castle at Aleppo, which despite defending very well was taken, anyway the Mongols had more than enough troops, so they could afford to lose a battle. I again diverted my once again retrained army led by my Sultan Moussa the Holy Warrior and one of his sons. I tried attacking the smaller stacks in night attacks to sort of bleed them dry, but it did not save me as they soon attacked me with two of their armies, one led by the Khan. They outnumbered me by 2-1 (2.5 to 1 to be more precise) and this may be a bit more fatal versus Mongol armies as they have lots of experience as well as very good generals giving further boosts. The battle started and I used my Mamluk archers varying success to fire back at the harassing Mongol horse-archers. I used my Mamluks and Arab cavalry mostly for swift attacks against the foot archers, which had to retreat quickly for fear of being overwhelmed by the lancers (heavy and light). After a little while of skirmishing they attacked with everything they had of cavalry, and I charged my men against, for a while I thought I'd win as I managed to chainrout some of their cavalry units, but then I saw that they had not attacked with everything they had and that this was mostly just the first army, which then fell upon me. I still resisted and in the chaos my Sultan's bodyguard slew their Khan. Their other general was killed by flanking Arabs. It was then I started to realize the advantage their numbers gave them. I was steadily losing men though forcing them to take a heavy toll for every Mamluk that fell. But in a slugging match such as this battle turned out as, the most numerous foe usually wins. And the victory went to the Mongols. My Sultan was killed as he was surrounded on all sides, my other general fled and was captured and put to death along with the other prisoners.



I'm not sure if I'm going to continue playing on this campaign, as it is a little hard, which may be a good thing, but I think I did some stupid things along the way, and the Mongols have captured Acre, Damascus and are moving towards Jerusalem, I am thinking of an escape plan that basically involves moving to Cyprus and starting to expand anew from there.

[Tamur]

I'm definitely a words are worth a thousand pictures person, and this is a brilliant thread. Some brutal battles! I'll hope to add something soon, but it's great fun just reading.

[Headlocked]

This is thread is such a great Idea!

For the record- i have encountered the so-called 'passive AI' bug only Twice so far in my campaign, and im nearly fimnished. Also, those occaisions were at the satrt of the campaing- i have a feeling the AI 'ealrns, or is more adept with larger armies, ie less worried about loosing men because, quoting the film Braveheart- "We have Reserves! Attack!"
Annnyways.

English v. Milanese.
Milanese have gutted the French empire, splitting it in two when they captured Paris. i am not too happy about this, as Milan is riche, strong and obviously aggressive; whereas France was a great ally, i'd married off to their Heir, & King!, and hoped they might last longer so i could finish off the danes.

After pasting the french, and building up the their armies in north France, the Milanese attacked Bruges, which I had captured and then defended from the Danes only 2 years previous. Three tough battles were required to prise them away and give them a kicking to remember; which they did, because as soon as the Danes attacked Antwerp Milan again marched on Bruges, with c.1,450 men.

A 1,500 strong, veteran army led by Prince Rufus barred their way. Taking up position laterally across a ridge the English deployed in three line sof Longbows, Bill men (with dismounted knights & spearmen at the flanks) and a reserve of Feudal knights. 2 units of Mailed Knights guarded the right flank, while the steep slope of the left side of the ridge was considered sufficient guard against a fast attack. A ballista battery supported the Longbows, with their stakes planted.

The Milanese set up oppoiste along the spine of the ridge, on slightly higher ground, crowsboow militia in front, main infantry force behind, and 2 units of broken lances supporting the centre.

The battle began with a prolonged and bloody archery duel between the Longbowmen and the Crossbows. The english eventually gained the upper hand, their longer range giving them an edge. The knights, with spearmen and fdismounted knights in support, swung right and down along the slope, intending to come up and flank the corssbowmen. The idea was to remove the archery support and lure the enemy infantry to an assault on basically a prepared position.

It failed. THe supposed support from the infatry was disjointed and slow, leaving the knights vulnerable to a counter charge by the Broken Lances. A sudden assault by the main force of billmen, attampting to use the distraction of the Lances to theirt advantage was counter by the entire Milanese centre counter-attacking. The enemy slope was literllay swarming with men. Bringing up the Feudal knights held the line, while the longbowmen porued fire onto the rear enemy ranks. most of the hand-to-hand infatry combat took place under a scattered copse of trees, breaking up formations and attacks. Driving off the mailed knights the Broken Lances counter-charged and crashed into the English infantry, bulging back their line close to breaking point.A counter-counter charge by the Prince Rufus rallied the line, but was checked by the Milanes general himself. Falling back the enemy general seperated most of the Princes bodyguard from their Lord, who was quickly surrounded and cutdown by the infantry. The english centre began to break, with an assault on their left flank finding a hole between the spearmen and dismounted knights, and the main infatry line. Repeated charges by the Broken lances finally yielded a break-through and the English line fell apart. Chaos ensued, with the complete mix-up of units in the main battle prevent organised retreat or any semvblance of formation. Billmen fought where they stood, in groups and one s and twos. The milanese cavalry pushed through the mass to swing around and attack the english infatry from the rear. sealing their fate.

The longbowmen were ordered to retreat, as well as the knights. The out-maneuvered left division of spearmen and dismounted knights covered the retreat, leaving thier comrades to die surrounded, outflanked, out of formation and leaderless.

A crushing English defeat. Bruges fell shortly afterwards, as did Antwerp to the Danish. The Citadel at Caen is being approached by a 1,700 strong Milanese army. The decisive Battle of the Marne Ridge has convinced the English the the continent can go hang- trying to hold onto multiple possesions, with no natural denfense such as mountains or seas is pointless,
at least until a more friendly pope is elected, and stronger cavalry force is available.

The AI is this battle was exemplery. This is exactly what I deserved, and without any false bonuses, cheats or free men. I lost partly because of my failure to organise my right flank, but mainly because I left a prepared, srtring position, fighting at a disadvantage with strong, supported infatnry chargeing from higher ground. The combined fighting by the milanese, with infatry supported by cavalry, while thier remaining croswbow men harred my cavalry and flanks, was superb.

I LOVE THIS GAME.
Bless CA, they have come up trumps again, and to HELL with the Whiners, Moaners, Whingers and be-littlers who cannot accept this great game for what it is and just HAVE to nit-pick.
It's brilliant. Get over it.
:)

HDD