Shall the Egyptians ever develop Egypt ?

[caravel]

And that *still* wasn't enough?? Good gravy! I know the Varangians are tough, of course (especially when commanded by a 6-star Jedi), but it's still incredible they were able to rout your army like that.

I wonder what the VG's morale was like during the battle. You didn't happen to save the replay, did you?

Unfortunately not. I have a replay of my Ghazis routing a HRE crusade though. That was the first replay I've saved in years, in fact I'm not sure if I've ever saved a replay before.

The VGs morale must have been phenomenally high. You need to picture the outline of a ragged circle, around that circumference are the individual VG's, outside that circle dropping like flies was my army. Usually a surrounded unit becomes mingled with your own forces before being destroyed and trying to rout. In this case none of my units were inside the circle, they were all outside it. I can only think these units must have somehow had some serious "training" somewhere. When I had looked before, the Byz had two units of VG on a 60 man unit and the other 120 man unit which appeared earlier as part of a loyalist uprising in Nicaea. I think these two units had been involved in some skirmishes with the rebels and hungarians but can't say for sure. They must have won quite a lot and the survivors merged at some point.

Anyway you win some and you lose some.

[The Unknown Guy]

How about pinning them and repeatedly pulling back heavy cavalry and repeating the charge?

[caravel]

That's what I did. I had moved the Saracens in and had them pinned well. I hit them in the flank with Ghulam bodyguards and then everything else I could throw at them. These fellows shrugged off flank attacks like they were nothing much to worry about. Half the unit was facing about to clobber the Cavalry and the rest were eating through the Saracens like there was no tomorrow. I had a 60 something man unit of futtuwas as well, they were one of the first to rout after their flank attack bounced off horribly. I have a savegame exactly before that battle occured (not a prebattle save a normal one). The Jihad is there in Anatolia, and the enemy stack is there in Nicaea. It is around 300 men, my force is around about 1000. I'm sure that about 800 were killed with over 100 prisoners taken. There were only a handful of survivors remaining. The byzantine force is only made up of Trebizond archers, Kataphraktoi and the VG unit IIRC. I may try and fight it again and post some screenshots.