How often do you lose battles?

[TinCow]

In RTW, I pretty much never lost a battle. Maybe once per campaign and even then it was usually do to being incredibly outnumbered. Now in MTW2, I have been beaten several times by the AI. Some have been outnumbered situations, but I have even lost a few times when I had superior forces. Just last night I lost while sallying from a siege and was so amazed at the defeat that I just gaped the entire time.

For the first time in many years, I have avoided some battles due to fear of defeat. Just last night I had to break off a siege because of a risk of losing the sieging army and then called off another attack on an enemy city because I felt my 3/4 stack could not beat their full stack. This is revolutionary for me. (Playing VH/VH by the way.)

So, how often are you losing battles in MTW2?

[Doug-Thompson]

Not only have a lost some, I'm suffering many more losses in men than I used to and getting some very close shaves when I win.

[Flavius Gonzo]

I'm playing my first campaign on H/H specifically for this reason, and also so I can get a handle on the game mechanics first.

But even on H battle settings, I've had a few unexpected tough losses (particularily during seiges), and also, some frustrating battles where I managed to maneuver the AI into an outnumbered battle on the campaign map, thinking I'd be able to destroy their units with minimal losses, but only to incur big losses myself.

Even in spite of the "passive AI" bug, which only seems to happen to me on occaison, I think the battle AI in this game is much better than in RTW.

[Kommodus]

Are naval battles included? I've lost quite a few of those recently due to a massive Byzantine navy in the Med.

[Bob the Insane]

Playing on VH battles getting used the troop morale levels took a few battles.

I tried rushing walls with ladders a la RTW but it did not get me very far...

I lost surprizing few men, mainly because they spent alot of there time climbing ladders and then immediately retreating down them again!!

[TinCow]

Are naval battles included? Ive lost quite a few of those recently due to a massive Byzantine navy in the Med.

Sorry for being unclear, no naval battles are not included for the purposes of this thread.

I started this because there has been a lot of discussion about how the AI is better in M2TW than in previous games. However, the true test is whether it can beat human opponents. I wanted to see if it was just a few isolated incidents or if there really was across the board improvement. From the initial results people are posting, it does indeed seem that there has been a major AI improvement. Even reporting 5 to 10% losses is a major step up from before, IMO.

[Kagemusha]

So far i have lost one battle. In my French campaign the bloody English landed a full stack and sieged&assaulted Paris in first turn after the siege.I only had my King,unit of peasant archers and one militia unit there. While the royal bodyguards fought like Lions the english got all my men eventually. While i havent lost other battles, i suffer huge losses compared to RTW continuosly.But then im only playing on M/M.

[Yoko Kono]

I had a couple of VERY close calls in my first few battles (when i outnumbered the enemy) but now im more used to the game im defeating the ai with rtw regularity
i should point out however that its only m/m im playing but in saying that ive had occasions where ive sent an heir to certain death only for him to completely destroy the enemy
im going to move up to m/vh (its the campaign that gets me - im always skint) as from what i gather its not blatently biased ala rtw

[Cataphract_Of_The_City]

In 3 campaigns I lost 1 siege. I was Byz and i was sieged in Bucharest by the Hungarians. I had 4 crossbows and a general and was attacked by 1 general, a couple of hungarian nobles, 1 croosbow and 5 or 6 spear militia. The city had just a palisade wth1 gate. I managed to kill 60% of the enemy though. Since I started using all cav armies with the Byzantines in mid 2nd campaign I have never lost a battle.

[Wartz]

I have lost only 2 battles where army numbers were close. However the main difference is I now wont plow through an enemy country who has several stacks of troops with one part stack of my own due to my new found fear of losing. I have to try and manipulate battles on the campaign map so I have the advantage, otherwise I suspect I would be losing a lot more often than I am right now.

[Dr_Who_Regen#4]

I voted 10 to 25%. I play on H/H or H/VH. I have excluded whenever I am up by a large advantage or the computer is in terms of number of units.

I even suffered one defeat where I got totally overrun the way we all used to do against the AI in rome. I was playing denmark and had a mix of Norse swordman, Norse archers and a few cavalry units (including a 4 star general) hiding in the woods near were Poland liked to send armies to attack me. My troops "ambushed" a returning polish crusader army in the woods. They had a large number of crusader knights (maybe 7 units), some polish nobles (2 units) and a General. I attempted to outflank their units with 3 (of 4) units of my heavy cavalry while moving my infantry (forward) into the woods to fight their cavalry heavy army hoping to use the woods to my advantage. Needless to say my flanking force was held off by a two of the crusader knights while the rest of their Cavalry and troops overwhelmed my Norse warriors who were fighting in the woods. My troops began to rout and my poor general was not able to flee the field (I ordered him to withdraw trying to save a decent general) as he was cut off by some of their knights.

I think I lost like 1100 men and only killed 150 or so of the Poles...A bit embarrassing

[Sheogorath]

In campaigns, 10-25%, I would say.
Mostly in sieges where Im totaly outnumbered by an attacking force and couldnt get reinforcements in time. One or two when I get a little overeager in attacking, which follows by the AI slaughtering my forces :P

[econ21]

The computer says I've lost 16/174 battles by turn 90 of my VH/VH English campaign. However, most of them were probably my fleets getting repeatedly trashed (kudos to the AI for investing in sea power) so I would say 3% or so.

The only defeats I remember were:

- losing Antwerp to the Danes, perhaps even twice. The one time I definitely remember, I had two longbows, three spears and a general. They had a stack of dismounted feudal knights and huscarls etc. No contest. How the Danes outmaneouvred me on the campaign map to get to this situation was even more impressive than the power of their attacking stack.

- trying to take Caernarvan from the Welsh. That was funny. My ram, burnt. My tower, burnt. Levy spearmen climbing up the ladders walls, getting shot to pieces by three Welsh longbow units. The couple of Welsh melee units running like pros from crisis to crisis, smashing my men who were on the walls. Levy spearmen climbing down the ladder walls, gettnig shot to pieces by ... you get the idea.

There may have been some other defeats, I am not sure. I certainly found the first few battles a shock to the system. But the turning point was getting armoured swordsmen/dismounted FKs and getting longbowmen or better missiles. After that, it's been like returning to RTW or RTR as Rome - I have a definite edge over my neighbours. (pretty historical, in fact, although added by the passive AI bug).

[Quillan]

I'm in the same boat with Cataphract on this one (not surprising as I've only played Byzantium so far), in that the majority of my armies are all cav and I haven't lost a battle with them yet. However, I've had a couple of close ones, and battles where I'm running infantry are much tougher than they were in RTW. When the AI doesn't get bugged, it does much better than it did in the last game.

[Whacker]

Are we talking about just M2TW single player? If so ok... I'm not including any "test" battles that I've run trying to determine game mechanics, only battles where I was actually playing actively and trying to win.

Off the top of my head:

1. With me as the attacker, I've lost 3 siege battles due to my idiot troops refusing to kill routers running back into the city to rally at the square. I do believe that if the game would have worked right and I killed/captured the routers, I could have won those battles. Most of them I did win however. Won all that I can remember when the odds were even or in my favor, and and won about half or so that the odds were significantly against me.

2. With me defending, I won all but a few sieges. The ones I lost where where the beloved French, my supposed allies, blitzed me and attacked both of my mainland english holdings with very large/near full stacks, vs my petty 3-5 garrisoned castles while my mainland army was off trying to get that rebel town that's right near London. They took both cities from me, but paid very dearly trying to do so. Their losses were usually 4-6 to 1.

3. I believe I've won most of the non-siege battles I fought, attacking or defending. The ones I did lose were ones on the campaign map where I had small reinforcing armies on the way to reinforce bigger ones or cities, and they were caught in the open by larger rebel stacks that pop up or the odd enemy stack. There was one brilliant ambush by the Scots that nailed one of my lone generals.

Probably should admit that I've been playing these on easy or medium.

[littlebktruck]

In MTW and RTW, I won (for the most part) by simply being able to put competent, high quality armies in the field. Now that the AI is much better at this, I'm finding the going pretty difficult on M/M (my usual level). When I'm outnumbered by a decent force in the open field, I expect to lose. This still doesn't happen often, but I've been crushed pretty badly in big field battles two or three times. I've never been very good with tactics or maneuvering, but it actually matters now.

[Vlad Tzepes]

I voted 10% to 25%. I lost two cities to the Mongols in one campaign, during just a couple of turns. Other battles, I've won by slight margins. Me too, I start avoiding some battles just to protect troops and fight another day.

I can't remember me ever losing two cities to the AI in RTW in the same campaign.

[PseRamesses]

I´d say around 5% and I´m so happy to admit to that. In RTW i NEVER lost, unless heavily outnumbered, so M2 is far better. The only things I find annoying with the battlefield AI is the "pasive bug", that and advancing army advance and retreats back and forth many tims and that the AI is alwys in "hot pursuit mode" and chases you around alot which is a bit silly when I´m the agressor and I have to win the battle, they justy have to defend. I don´t mind the generals suicide rush anymore since cavs are finally as powerful as they was. I´m loving every bloody battle in this game - great work CA!

[Reapz]

I lose 25% to 35% of the time on VH/VH campaigns. Sometimes I know its a longshot to fight but I don't have any choice as I don't have the cash to build full stacks and the AI is attacking vigorously. So I'm getting used to losing from time to time. It makes the game more fun.

[sapi]

In a nice change from rtw, i actually lose when surrounded and outnumbered :P

Thumbs up in that regard ;)

I just wish CA would differentiate between naval and land battles in the statistics; i'd like to see how i'm doing in battles i actually control...

[FrauGloer]

In my two campaigns (HRE and Scotland), I've lost only one land battle, when a full Milan stack attacked a single general's unit of mine that had used up all it's movement points and thus couldn't retreat. I had the morale victory, though, taking about 300 enemies down (mainly archers and crossbowmen) before they finally caught me.
Ergo: 300 enemies killed compared to my 31, hardly a defeat, I'd say. It was a bad general, anyway.

Annoyingly, I haven't had many field battles at all. The A.I. marches full stacks into my land, but hardly ever attacks anything with them, bar cities, which it sieges for one turn and then retreats again. In about 200 turns total, I've yet to fight a siege defense... shame, really. In the field battles I did fight, I took only neglible losses (most of them Highlanders I was using to bind the enemy line while I flanked them with nobles and cav). Kill ratios were way above 3:1 most of the time.

In siege battles, the defender hardly ever has more than 5 units (IMO, the A.I. should pay more heed to garrisons: just yesterday I took Frankfurt (Huge City) without any losses because it was held by one general's unit only), so victory is certain most of the time. Most of the losses I take in sieges aren't due to the enemy, but to the sheer stupidity of my own troops. It has happened several times now: I have 2 units of upgraded Highlanders (112 each) climb their ladders on each side of a 88-men unit of Town Militia and attack them from both sides simultaneously. Both units are fully on the wall before they engage, but the problem is... they don't! Only 2-3 of my men fight, while the rest just stands around stupidly. As the Town Militia didn't seem to have the same problem, they easily slaughtered all but FOUR (4) of my highlanders with more than 60 (!) militiamen left. I was like... WTF!?! To top it off, they managed to kill all but 16 of my reinforcing Highland Nobles unit (90 men) before they finally broke. And, unlike my own cavalry, the enemy did manage to charge inside the city, 28 general's bodyguards bringing down my 89-men unit of Dismounted Feudal Knights (2 chevron, armour and weapons upgrade) to 24 men in about 8-10 seconds. Even after they had long stopped charging, my numbers were dropping amazingly fast.

Sorry for raving on that much!

To sum it up, field battles can be won with negligible losses, but sieges can turn into some heavy carnage, but not due to superior enemy A.I., but to daft unit A.I..

Still a great game though! It's just that the AI needs some fixing...

[NightStar]

I lost my first battle I fought in M2TW...Playing as spain I attacked El Cid in Valencia, thinking that my 900 crappy troops were enough too defeat his 450 crappy troops...I got my backside spanked royally

After that I have only lost one battle, which actually was brilliant. I was beaten fair and square although against superior number of equal quality troops. It was a battle I would definitely won in RTW. I was besieging Lisbon and the Portugese sent a force to relieve the siege and I got crushed between 2 portugese forces working in cohesion.

Admittedly I am only on turn 54 so I will probably lose some more battles
I think the tactical A.I is a vast improvement.

[chunkynut]

Voted 5%-10% but I'm on my first campaign and playing as English (grand campaign) on M/M. I think I'll refine the difficulty after this campaign.

I've not really lost more due to successful campaign map manipulation e.g. asking the pope for a crusade against the danes at one point (could have been hit or miss as the french (enemy at the time) sent a stack the attack the city too).

My main concern is those pesky Mongols reducing my middle east expansion of crusades to antioch to nothing, they've destroyed Eygpt and weakened the Turks and the Bysantians but I've caused them a lot of grief with spies and religious conversion. I've not yet beat them in the field yet but I can just keep them out of my city/citadel. Had a funny battle last night where numerically we were similar but they were split into three armies and I thought I should attack the middle one (with the faction hier) first. Started with a massive up hill run to get to that army with 2 other armies slightly behind and to my left and right! I took out a lot of their troops at the loss of most of my men was a fantastic battle though. This attrition is the only thing that kept my city safe (they still attacked but I saw them off).

They also attacked the citidel that I had taken twice in 2 or 3 turns. Love the 3 walls! Only just kept those 2 armies out 2 with major losses on my side too.

Great

[Brighdaasa]

so far i've lost 2 battles in about 200, not including naval battles

i lost one battle as the french where i attacked a full stack of those milanese crossbowmen and militia with 5 knight units, i lost because i hand't anticipated that the map was completely covered in trees which makes charging near impossible

my other battle was to 3 stacks of mongols as the turks, i put up a hell of a fight though

to be fair though, i do pick my battles, and tend to not assault a castle but wait till the ai sallies the last turn of the siege, and the passive ai bug did score me a few wins when i was heavily outnumbered

[Clearchus]

I generally don't lose because I don't put myself in a position to lose. (ie I have good units, plenty of them in my vulnerable armies) So I pretty much only lose if they (really) surprise me, usually on a lightly garrisoned (or poorly garrisoned) city. The battles are definitely tougher though.

[Cos3]

I've only lost one battle in the few H/VH campaigns I've played part of, so far. I only lost that because I didn't bother reinforcing one of my border armies after a large battle. That in itself says a lot about the challenge of the game; I did not feel the need to reinforce.

The A.I in MTW2 is smarter, but it's still painfully easy to beat for an experienced player. Unless you seriously handicap yourself, the battles really arn't challenging, and it doesn't take long for boredom to set in (for me anyway).

I've stopped playing MTW2 already. Not finding any fun or challenge even in 2v1 custom battles, or the campaign, so I'm waiting for the patch. If the patch doesn't fix it then I won't play it again and hopefully Rome Total Realism 7.0 will fill the gaming gap (if they release it before I forget about it....)

[wzup]

I´m playing as england on h/h and its just a bit easy, havent lost yet, except for naval battles but i dont care much for them

[Kobal2fr]

Like Clearchus, I don't often get beaten because I won't stay and fight battles I know I'll lose in the first place, dodging full stacks, running and hiding, bribing, buying truces etc...

Oh, and I don't assault cities, much less castles, either :)

On the whole though, I do take much more casualties in my victories than I ever did in Rome or MTW, and fighting at even odds often results in Pyrrhic victories for, especially when using armies relying mostly on heavy cav.

[Orda Khan]

Not only have a lost some, I'm suffering many more losses in men than I used to and getting some very close shaves when I win.

That sounds more like it. I won a Hun campaign in RTW/BI and only lost three battles

.....Orda

[frogbeastegg]

I haven't lost yet. I'm playing on very hard.

Did have a couple of close calls though, and I'm still only 28 and 41 turns into my two short campaigns.