The strangest battle you ever fought

[J.Alco]

As you've guessed from the title, this is a place where you post the strangest things that you ever did see in a battle. From AI randomness and stupidity to your own catastrophic blunders or unexpected successes, here is where you can vent about it!

To get the ball rolling, I'll describe what happened once during a merry ol' invasion of Sicily during 250-something BC, playing as the Romani, fighting against Karthadast.

So there I was with my army, a typical Camillan-era force with Hastati, Principes, Triarii, Rorarii, Equites, and a good splash of allied troops, namely Samnites and one unit of E Extraordinarii. I was marching towards Lilibeo, and managed what I'd been actively seeking and ran into a Karthadastim army. By using spies, I saw that it was all of Lilibeo's garisson, that I outnumbered them nearly 2-1, and best of all that is was composed of medium-poor troops (akontistai, balearic slingers, equal numbers of Poeni citizen militia and Liby-Phoenician spearmen. The only truly dangerous units among them included a group of Iberian assault infantry, the general's bodyguard unit and Citizen cavalry unit, and a unit of African Forest Elephants).

So I went into battle gleefully, expecting a good experience. It kickstarted in the usual way, with my slingers exchanging some brief fire with the enemy slingers. At the distance we were at, there weren't many dead, and seeing how the enemy was keeping still, I decided to order my brave troops forward to engage the enemy troops, who seemed to be replying to this by advancing as well.

And then, something must have clicked in the enemy general's head because he suddenly stopped still. Stared at my marching forces, and turned his entire army around and promptly ran right off the field.

Leaving me with standing on an empty battlefield after fifteen minutes of minimal activity staring at the receding dust-cloud in the distance and going 'wha?'

Final result: 11 Karthadastim dead to 15 Romani dead. That happened during the slingers' skirmish. I had a 'clear victory'.

And I'm STILL amazed that happened

[Tellos Athenaios]

I had one really weird battle. Weird in the sense... this couldn't possibly have happened could it?

Well here it is:

I: AS one half stack of medium troops - mostly archers & and slingers + some eastern axemen & one pantodapoi phalangitai unit. Some light cavalry. All in all about 10 units.

Reiforcements: another half stack, comprising of archers, archers and a few phalangitai.


Enemy: Baktria. One full stack mainly archers, archers, some light cavalry and a lot's of pantodapoi.


Well here it is: the enemy was defending a bridge; hence my need for some reinforcements. But the odd thing was that the enemy did not hold the bridge; and of course that my reinforcements did not arrive till the battle was basically already won.

So I quickly realised the opportunity to capture the bridge and hold it with my phalangitai hoping that I could 'negotiate' a secure crossing for my archers to start the usualy archery duel with the enemy. If I could do this- it would be the same as any ordinary battle; only with half the field to manoeuver. I wouldn't need those reinforcements anymore. So off my pantodapoi phalangitai went.

Of course the Baktrians weren't going to let that happen - they rushed with half the army towards the bridge. So I ordered my pantodapoi to stop right in front of that bridge - and just stare them away again. But the Baktrians refused to be stared away and as one mass tried to run right through the phalangitai. Needless to say they only ran into certain death; especially so when I ordered the archers to shoot flaming arrows into the mob on the bridge, ordered the slingers to target the mob on the bridge; and ordered my axemen to cover the phalangitai' flanks... And since those axemen carry javelins with them...

Result: the pantodapoi, on their own hold about three quarters of the entire army; and that were three quarters who didn't see Baktra again. The remainder of the army that had not run into the death trap or slipped over the slippery mess the bridge had become by now was shot down by reinforcements that had finally made it to the field.

--------

Coupled to another battle which earned me the crossed swords mark on the strat map this battle meant the end of the Baktrian kingdom.

[Intranetusa]

Well, I'm not sure if this is weird or not, but it was two battles:

I was fighting against some horse faction in the North East, when I encountered a half stack army of horse archers, which basically raped my infantry force. They retreated back to their nearest city, which I sieged and took without resistance after 4 or 5 turns.

Then I bought every horse archer merc available with my general, and created an army of 19 horse archers + 1 cavalry general. I then encountered a 2/3 stack Macedonian army (no idea what it was doing that far north), and basically annihilated their entire army with only 19 loses.

Horse archers FTW!!!

[Ketchup]

A post in this thread just made me think of something, so here it is:

Does anyone know the exact requirements to get that crossed swords thing on the campaign map and also the exact requiremtents to get a heroic victory?

Cheers

[Cheexsta]

The "Famous Battle" markers are just places of Heroic Victories. To get a Heroic Victory, you usually need to have the odds against you and still win with comparitively low casualties (less than 30%?). I don't recall anyone ever actually testing this extensively enough to get the exact requirements.

[Malik of Sindh]

Same as Intranetusa,im not sure if this is wierd
.
As Pahlava,yesterday, I won a battle with 0 casualties.Enemy:2400 bactrians,mainly pandatapoi and thanvares,54 generals bodyguard,one pandatapoi phalangite,1 unit of thureophoroi.My army:6 units of horse archers,1 generals bodyguard,4 units of various foot archers,mainly archer-spearmen.2 units of hyrcanian axemen.

The horse archers killed everything that moves.Too bad enemy general escaped.The thanvares just stood there doing nothing exept running from my generals bodyguard.

[TWFanatic]

I once had a battle with ships flying overhead...

They funny part (as if the mere fact isn't odd enough) was that the admiral of this fleet had the "good-navigator" trait. Yeah right.

[Malik of Sindh]

I once had a battle with ships flying overhead...

They funny part (as if the mere fact isn't odd enough) was that the admiral of this fleet had the "good-navigator" trait. Yeah right.

[Achilleus]

If outnumbered, the enemy will generally flee after either taking a few casualties or just seeing how outnumbered they are, the former of which seemed to have happened when you went against the Qarthadastim. Let's see... the strangest battle I fought was as Romani against two Ptolemaioi full-stacks. Totally outnumbered, I took out almost all of one stack and then the other stack appeared. They just stood at the fringes, some units wandering randomly, never assuming a battle formation. Needless to say, despite my losses I took them out easily in a piecemeal fashion with my remaining forces... got a heroic victory for that one

[Strategos Alexandros]

Not sure if this is weird but it seemed so at the time, I started an aedui campaign yesterday and made a stack with 3 bataroas, 2 light cav, some lugoae, a general, the faction heir and 3 slingers from the starting forces and attacked Viennos. I outnumbered them and got inside the settlement fairly quickly, killing all of their alpine shortswordsmen and arriving at the centre wiping out their general and light cav. They had a unit of 100 lugoae, another 7 lugoae and 15 slingers when my faction heir died to a spear thrust andmy entire army minus 3 slingers routed. However 3 units of lugoae that added up to 1 full unit of them and a unit of bataroas rallied and took the settlement. It's near defeats like this that make you love EB.

[Siruso]

Ha I just remembered this one. I was carthage fighting a battle against rome in whatever the southernmost provence in rome near sicily.

I don't remember the specifics, but Rome had about twice the force of my own. I began the battle and both armies were by the water. My army was marching towards theirs and they were far away so I put it on 3x speed. Before I knew it it gave me a shot of their general drowning in the water! He just killed himself I guess lol.

It made the battle way easier.

[L.C.Cinna]

Well I guess this counts as a weird battle as the AI surprised me by being smart, mean and EVIL....and it was the only battle I lost in my current campaign.

So, I played with Pontos a few years into the campaign. Had taken Trapezus and the neighbouring provinces and tried to capture the Crimea. I had only sent a small expeditionary corps there as I used my main army in Asia minor. After capturing the Province of Tyrranesis I was a little overconfident and thought I'd already send a general with 2 units of levy phalanx, 1 unit of slingers, 1 unit of Archers and 1 unit of horsearchers to besiege Chersonesos while I bring up some more troops to reinforce them....

I didn't pay attention to the full stack of heavy cavalry and horse archers sitting in the forrest nearby...

the city garrison consisted of 1 medium cavalry, 1 horsearcher, 2 archers, 2 skrimishers, 2 ekdromoi hoplitai. and some light spearmen. So what happened was that the AI moved the full stack from the forrest next to my small army and THEN sallied with the besieged forces!

I placed my phalanx on a hill opposite the gates and my archers and slingers behind it. I did not expect to win that battle because I was seriously outnumbered and they had better troops. First the troops from the town attacked me but I managed to rout their hoplites and general. Now the weird things started:

The garrison army moved their horsearchers to my flank and the huge rebel army placed itself next to the town and did nothing except for sending forward 4 units of horsearchers. They lost some but my troops soon ran out of arrows and I lost nearly all my archers, slingers and ha cavalry. and then they retreated!!!!

I was like "wtf?" the big army didn't attack me. they left when their archers had used up all ammo. I already thought I had won but realized it was only a draw because they had sallied...


back to campaign map and then the AI showed it's true evil face. They attacked me now with the big army! (still same turn). All I had left were my general and the 2 already damaged levy phalanx units (and 3 lonely archers...). AI waited for the reinforcements from the town. then cam with its horsearchers, one unit on my left, one on my right, 2 and a half in the front. when they were empty they brought their archers forward and fired some more. in the meantime they drew up their hoplites and pantodapai in front of my melting phalanx and 2 units of those sarmatian noble cavalry on each flank together with the (now empty) horsearchers. When their archers were done they all charged and smashed my few troops into pieces.

I was surprised how smart the AI had acted by attacking me twice with full ammo....

[bovi]

Wow. I'd like it if it did that regularly! Hit&run for the win.

[Hooahguy]

I once had a battle with ships flying overhead...

They funny part (as if the mere fact isn't odd enough) was that the admiral of this fleet had the "good-navigator" trait. Yeah right.

oh ya! u put pictures of that over at the funny screenshot thread IV at the official TW forums in the RTW section!
that was funny...... lol


as for my strange battle........ probably when i defeated a much larger Mak army, just because i was in a forest (broke up their phalanxes).... i should have lost, by odds 11 to 1. but for some reason, when i was fighting them, they all of a sudden stopped, and just stood there. so i massacred them. only at the very end of the battle did they start to fight back, but by then 90% of their units were completely wiped out... i have no idea why they didnt route...
but still....... somehow 340 romans massacred 2,000 Maks......

[konny]

Two strange battles:

The first was the one that probably everybody on this fourm has fought allready: the initial battle between Pyrrhos' army and the Makedonian main army. I was playing the Maks. I had aligned my army in a proper Phalanx line. The Epeirote on the other hand were making stupid twist and turns along my line outside missle range. I let them do and waited for the AI to get finished that we can start a proper parallel battle.

But then came the chance that I didn't want to miss: Pyrrhos and his bodyguard became somehow isolated in front of their left wing in a position where he was the closest man to my line. I ordered my two FM on that wing to charge, and Pyrrhos didn't do anything, not even change facing of his bodyguard. So, they were hit by two successive charges in the flank with Pyrrhos beeing the first one to go down...


----------------------------

In the second battle I was able to defeat a full stack of AS with two units of Baktrian foot archers and a FM. It was a siege battle and the AI was so lazy that it had just built one ram. This one was approaching the gate form the most distant corner of the deployment zone and my archers managed to shoot it in flames long before it even came close to the wooden walls.

Casualties were about 0:3, but nevertheless it counted as real battle and the Seleucids had to retreat back to their territory; time enough for me to bring my army up.


Since that battle I always build two rams when assaulting a town when at least one archer is inside.

[soibean]

weirdest battle I ever had resembles strategos's above
I besieged a town and quickly made my way within the city, I placed my slingers on one side of the town square with my infantry and cavalry on the other side. I ordered my general cav to walk to the side while the infantry launched there attack at the same time as the slingers shot their missiles.

I was watching outfor my slingers when the screen shot to my general, who had decided to try to march through the town square instead of just turning around and walking out the side of the circle, getting hit in the head with a lead bullet while completely surrounded by Aedui spearman.

My general's bodyguards ran which turned into a chain rout and I lost the battle...

[Chris1959]

Konny I,ve had a similar thing happen to me regarding the Great Phyrus.

I've started 5 campaigns as Mak, three under 0.82 and two under 1.0 in each one I took the Demetrias and Pella garrisons and attacked Phyrus first move in 4 of these battles Phyrus charges straight at my left flank and I've hit his bodyguards on the flanks with my FM's bodyguards in all of these the first caualty inflicted is Phyrus himself, I think it is the left flank bodyguards that do it every time. Phyrus must be the most fragile General in the game!

[The General]

As you've guessed from the title, this is a place where you post the strangest things that you ever did see in a battle. From AI randomness and stupidity to your own catastrophic blunders or unexpected successes, here is where you can vent about it!

To get the ball rolling, I'll describe what happened once during a merry ol' invasion of Sicily during 250-something BC, playing as the Romani, fighting against Karthadast.

So there I was with my army, a typical Camillan-era force with Hastati, Principes, Triarii, Rorarii, Equites, and a good splash of allied troops, namely Samnites and one unit of E Extraordinarii. I was marching towards Lilibeo, and managed what I'd been actively seeking and ran into a Karthadastim army. By using spies, I saw that it was all of Lilibeo's garisson, that I outnumbered them nearly 2-1, and best of all that is was composed of medium-poor troops (akontistai, balearic slingers, equal numbers of Poeni citizen militia and Liby-Phoenician spearmen. The only truly dangerous units among them included a group of Iberian assault infantry, the general's bodyguard unit and Citizen cavalry unit, and a unit of African Forest Elephants).

So I went into battle gleefully, expecting a good experience. It kickstarted in the usual way, with my slingers exchanging some brief fire with the enemy slingers. At the distance we were at, there weren't many dead, and seeing how the enemy was keeping still, I decided to order my brave troops forward to engage the enemy troops, who seemed to be replying to this by advancing as well.

And then, something must have clicked in the enemy general's head because he suddenly stopped still. Stared at my marching forces, and turned his entire army around and promptly ran right off the field.

Leaving me with standing on an empty battlefield after fifteen minutes of minimal activity staring at the receding dust-cloud in the distance and going 'wha?'

Final result: 11 Karthadastim dead to 15 Romani dead. That happened during the slingers' skirmish. I had a 'clear victory'.

And I'm STILL amazed that happened

Hahah, I've had a similar match.

I was playing as the Ptolemaioi, and engaged a AS army. Most of the battle consisted of me marching troops slowly in a forest towards the enemy. Then I finally get them where I want them to be and how I want them to be, and order my single slinger unit to fire at the the enemy Thureophoroi and then the general, and order my army to advance... And the enemy start a hasty retreat. My slingers did manage to get perhaps 10-20 kills and my generals manage to chase three units down.

[Warmaster Horus]

Hmmm.... My strangest battle was a defeat during the invasion of Krete. The Eleutheroi town was just siting there, and because I (Rome) wanted to begin an attack on Greece, sent a Legion over there.
A legion here means: General, Tribune, 1 Camillan Triarii, 2 Principes, 2 Hastati, 2 Rorarii, 2 Accensi, and auxilia; in this case, 2 Toxotai, 2 Hoplitai Haploi, and 1 Akontistai. Now, this 16-unit army seems strong, right? Nothing can beat them? Right? No battle I fight should be lost, eh?

WRONG!!!
Because I'm such a cheapstake, and because I was lazy, I built one (1) ram. Bad idea. The AI was smart enough to... Burn the ram down. Before I had time to destroy the gates.
So, there I was, my Akontistai bearing a burning ram, burning arrows falling all around... And I could do nothing! Oh, how I felt when I realized what happened... Because I set the timer, the time slowly trickled by... I read a chapter of a book and then it was the end.

The worst were the few seconds of peace when the computer realizes the end of the battle... And then came the battle screen...
Close Defeat
Rome: No kills, no Dead
Eleutheroi: No kills, no Dead.

Needless to say, everytime I besiege a town now, I build 2 rams. At least.

[Pharnakes]

Did you lose the army?

Nasty when that happens, and by the sound of it you probably did, and if you didn't you were pretty lucky.

[Dodge_272]

Why didn't you just withdraw when the ram was destroyed?

[Warmaster Horus]

I had music playing in the background, and a book to read. So... 15 minutes of relative peace for me there. After all, with EB in front of me... I wouldn't have resisted.