Underdog triumphs...at YOUR expense

[PershsNhpios]

What does MF stand for?

Briefly, because I have to get back to CAPO DE TUTTI CAPI II,
could someone offer advice upon my problem with the Romans?

I have detailed it higher up ^!

Thankee! Capo.

[johnhughthom]

Mamily Fembers?

[fenix3279]

It means Mother F**kers

[PershsNhpios]

...

What do the, '**' stand for between the letters capitol f and k?

I am actually finding it difficult to believe all the new posts in the EB forum.. Intriguing.. Perhaps there is a secret role here somewhere.

[marodeur]

Ever been in a campaign when you're the one whose strongest, with great cash flowing in your coffers and excellent standing forces that are composed of factional AND regional troops, and are essentially the undisputed power in your little area of the EB map? And has it ever happened that you invade a province/faction that you know, by using spies, is weak and should easily be a pushover, only to find yourself a couple of turns later licking your wounds and staring at your still-standing enemies in enraged surprise?

It was such an interesting thread until now - back to topic!


Recently I ran into some Eleutheroi in the libyan desert: two units of Akontistai (light greek skirmishers) and one of greek slingers. I hab two units of Antesignari and one half unit of numidian light Cavalry. The odds were 3:1 in my favour. It was a desaster. The slingers killed of my numidian cavalry, and the skirmishers did not treat my antesignari very well. I simply could not force them to make a stand-up fight. In the end I lost 2/3 of my forces, killing only 10 % of the enemies... . I simply had the wrong type of forces at the wrong place at the wrong time. Later on, I destroyed those Eleutheroi with two units of greek cavalry - perfectly suited for this task...

[Dhampir]

I'm playing 1.0 as Baktria. I

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

cheat

to get lots of money because I suck.

I am aware of the great threat that rebel cities pose to attacking armies, so I decide to take Kophen with overwhelming force. I have four armies of several thousand men each of a mix of cheap and mid-level units, units that I bribed from the AS and mercenaries.

With so many troops, if I fight on the battle my machine will bog down and most of the attacking forces won't even show up, being inexplicably "delayed". So, I simmed it.

Well...

[PershsNhpios]

..?

I don't see any problem here. The AI probably knew you sucked and decided to suck themselves.
I don't mean to be rude, but I really would like to know how people defeat Roman units without ending up as sucky as Dhampir.
Or does no one else find any trouble with them?

Oh, by the way - I recommend the Win Conditions thread in the unofficial mods forum for those who haven't read it - it has destroyed any boredom I was feeling with EB.

[marodeur]

bye, bye, little bactrian boys...



give peace a chance...

Post No. 100! Yuppie!

[Gebeleisis]

OMFG!!!!!!!!
I think in that moment i'd trew my monitor of the window and eat my desk

[Tiberius Nero]

That can only be photoshopped.

[bovi]

I believe it. The autocalc can do weird things.

[Gebeleisis]

i do also bovi.
why photoshop your own defeat to make it bigger ?

[Dhampir]

The campaign at the hardest setting has the most ridiculous rebels imaginable.

[blado]

I haven't really been defeated by a smaller force on land. But when I was at war with Greece (can't remember the EB name) I sent tons of my fleets and they completely destroyed them all. I must of lost 100s of ships. Finally I managed to destroy their weakened fleet and they lost more than a stack of men.

[Barbarian]

Well, not really a defeat, but a strange event. Don't have a screenshot, but that wouldn't really portray the story.
Now. I was attacking one of the AS cities (playing as Baktria, of course). Don't remember the name really, but that makes no difference. I had quite overwhelming force, to take the city, which was being protected by the large stone walls. Odds were 3vs1 or 4vs1, but didn't have many units capable of taking walls, my army consisted of cavalry, archers and phalanxes. So, I was very happy, when the walls fell easily, although, the fighting of them was long, due to the high-quality armor of attackers and defenders.
After this, I surrounded the town square from all entrances, because there were some extremely good cavalry units inside it and I didn't wanted to loose a lot of men needlessly, I expected to attack from all directions, and finish them quickly. Setting all units at their positions took a lot of time, but I thought: "who cares? I still have 10 minutes left to kill some 200-300 riders".

I ordered to lunch a volley, and hundreds of arrows and javelins filled the air. After that - surrounded the enemy with my phalanxes, axmen and heavy cavalry. They held well, but all were dead, when 3,5 minutes were left. I didn't got the "clear victory" message, so, I begun looking for any enemies left on the square. Here are the next events:

Time left till the end of the battle/ what I thought:

3:20 / "Ha! Found you! Only their general left! This will be fun. (pressed ctrl+a and ordered all my army to attack him)

3:00 / (a counter of time left till the victory of AS appears). "Oh, That's nothing. I only have to kill their general. Hmm, he is still alive, usually totaly surrounded soldiers die instantly "

2:30 / "Wow! He is tough! Should be dead already, he is receiving some 10 hits per second! A heroic last stand "

2:00 / Hey! How many hitpoints does this dude have?!? He must be a real trait-machine "

1:30 / wtf? This is not funny anymore!

1:00 / This must be some bug! I should inform the EB team

0:30 / Die you bastard!!!

0:15 / Noooo!!! I Can't afford to loose this battle!

0:07 / (the general dies finally, giving me my well deserved victory)

[General Appo]

I´ve experienced the immortal general myself a couple of times, but I´ve never seen one hold out for that long. Frustrating.

[NeoSpartan]

dude.... don't ever autocalc unless ur sending 500 cheap units vs 200 AI cheapos.

[marodeur]

Time left till the end of the battle/ what I thought:

3:20 / "Ha! Found you! Only their general left! This will be fun. (pressed ctrl+a and ordered all my army to attack him)

3:00 / (a counter of time left till the victory of AS appears). "Oh, That's nothing. I only have to kill their general. Hmm, he is still alive, usually totaly surrounded soldiers die instantly "

2:30 / "Wow! He is tough! Should be dead already, he is receiving some 10 hits per second! A heroic last stand "

2:00 / Hey! How many hitpoints does this dude have?!? He must be a real trait-machine "

1:30 / wtf? This is not funny anymore!

1:00 / This must be some bug! I should inform the EB team

0:30 / Die you bastard!!!

0:15 / Noooo!!! I Can't afford to loose this battle!

0:07 / (the general dies finally, giving me my well deserved victory)

I know that problem too. Especially with seleukid/makedonian generals. Only way to kill those guys in adequate time (in my experience) is with slingers or other ranged weapons - but normally at the end of a hard battle, there is no ammunition left. Already lost twice beacause of an immortal faction leader.

[Dhampir]

dude.... don't ever autocalc unless ur sending 500 cheap units vs 200 AI cheapos.

I'm not even going to try fighting a battle that big.

[Belisarius Maximus]

I've only just installed EB myself, so I dont have any major/weird defeat stories (yet..) but I remember two exceptionally bad ones from Vanilla RTW. the first was during my julii campaign and I was ahead of schedule (historically speaking) and I was conquering Gaul with a pre-marian army around 240bc. When I reached condate redonum the Gauls threw a gigantic full stack at me accompanied by Condate redonums's garrison. The battlefield had conveniently some woods to the left of my army, into which I hid about one quarter of my forces. The battle begins and as the Gauls emerge I suddenly realise the larger army is coming up my rear thanks to the illogical deployment of their forces in relation to the campaign map. I begin to fight a rather desperate battle, and thanks to some still unknown circumstance to me, my army made a mass rout, and routed straight through the larger gallic army, and so none survived. Everyone was seemingly dead so I wondered why the battle hadn't ended, upon which point I realised the 1/4 of my army I had hid at the start was still waiting patiently in the woods. Taking into account the swift dispatch of the other 3/4 I then won a seemingly impossible victory with only the last 1/4 against the horde that I had thought minutes ago had spelled my doom. It was a great victory as far as my tactical skill is concerned but, back on the campaign map the gauls wiped out this now paltry army and took back all the territory between condate redonum and narbo martius, which was guarded by skeleton garrisons of mercenary warbands.

Later in the same campaign, after conquering Gaul a second time, I was in the process of eliminating the spanish. Narbo Martius (which by now was a large city) had a gladiator uprising on a huge scale. I had just had the marian reforms and so I reluctantly diverted a newly recruited full stack bursting full of praetorian and legionary cohorts to deal with the rebels. I then lost every last soldier in a battle against a preposterously huge army composed of every elite cavalry and infantry unit from Britain to Armenia. I was not amused. Eventually I crushed them with an army of surplus pre-marian troops, winning the victory through weight of numbers more than anything else...

[Ayce]

I know that problem too. Especially with seleukid/makedonian generals. Only way to kill those guys in adequate time (in my experience) is with slingers or other ranged weapons - but normally at the end of a hard battle, there is no ammunition left. Already lost twice beacause of an immortal faction leader.

That's why I never use time limits.

[Visitor13]

I'm not even going to try fighting a battle that big.

I've had stuff like that happen to me also when autoresolving, my casualties exceeding five thousand while the AI got out with nary a scratch.

Generally, an enemy settlement + enemy full stack + autocalc = crushing defeat. Especially if the AI is led by a family member.

Set "allow unlimited men on the battlefield" to true in the preferences.txt to have all your men show up on the battlefield at the same time. So that you can command them personally instead of autoresolving.

Although you'll probably have to lower your graphics settings to avoid a heavy FPS hit.

[Hooahguy]

That's why I never use time limits.

i second that- time limits can kiss my behind!

[Barbarian]

Without time limits some battles wold never end. For example: AI atacks a city, but just stands outside and does nothing. If there is atime limit, it loses the battle, or begins rushing at the gates, when some 2 minutes are left and receives a volley of arrows.
If there is no time limit, AI stands there forever, and I have to either go out and fight it, which is totally unfair, because I wasn't the attacker, or end the battle, which means an automatic loss.
Time limit fixes this: if you are the attacker, you really have to attack.

[Tiberius Nero]

Without time limits some battles wold never end. For example: AI atacks a city, but just stands outside and does nothing. If there is atime limit, it loses the battle, or begins rushing at the gates, when some 2 minutes are left and receives a volley of arrows.
If there is no time limit, AI stands there forever, and I have to either go out and fight it, which is totally unfair, because I wasn't the attacker, or end the battle, which means an automatic loss.
Time limit fixes this: if you are the attacker, you really have to attack.

I agree completely, time limits are there for countering AI stupidity in such cases; at any rate in the hundreds of battles I have played over dozens of campaigns there has been perhaps one or two instances where a battle ended due to time limit and I would have prefered it to continue; most big battles should be over in ~20 minutes at most anyway.

[Belisarius Maximus]

I agree, time limits are a good idea, but they can also be a real pain, for example, when I took syracuse (or tried to) I forced the defenders back to the town square itself, and they only had the remains of one unit of syracusan hoplites by this point versus my full stack. They were surrounded in the square fighting to the death with 2 minutes left. When the timer ran out they had something like 2 guys left, and I had clearly won, but because the timer ran out I technically lost, and had to assault the city again two turns later... This is only really a freak event though, I just took too long getting past the walls.

[eadingas]

Not really a crushing defeat, but something that shook my confidence a bit:

Playing as Sweboz, H/M (I don't feel confident enough for VH yet in 1.0) I've crushed Arverni, Casse and Romani, held pretty much all of Western Europe and left one province of Aedui as a buffer between me and Karthies, in case. The Karthies held all of Iberia except for two or three Lusotannan provinces in the west, and I was preparing for a showdown between us over the Mediterranean. I had my eastern horde trying for nth time to conquer one of the Boii province, the northern one cleaning up after Casse, and the southern one on the tip of Italy, preparing to march into Sicily, with just a half-stack of levies guarding the Pyreneean border, as the Carthaginian forces to the south did not pose as immediate threat as those in Sicily.

However, soon after Kart-Hadasht, as expected, challenged me to the war, they were encroached by the Lusotannan and - wonder of wonders - the Aedui, who managed somehow to muster two full stacks of good units. Within a year or two, Karthies were removed from the peninsula completely, and the Aedui and Lusotannan were moving towards my lands.

Before I managed to call all my hordes to that new frontline, I lost almost entire Gaul. The Lusotannan took entire Atlantic coast all the way to Seine, and Aedui went up to Gergovia in the north and Massalia in the east.

Two things made this turn out lucky for me: 1) Carthaginians pleaded for ceasefire after the beating they got in Iberia, so I had a full stack of experienced troops ready to be shipped from Sicilia across Med without their fleet harassing me on the way, and 2) My 10-star faction leader was in the area with a handful of triple-chevroned alpine phalanx and pikemen - entire Aedui military force bled themselves to death trying to go past him. It still took me a good couple of years to move my borders back to the Pyrenees and beyond.

Good thing my relations with the Dacii are very good so far. If they decided to stab me in the back then, things would look very dire for my Empire...

[marodeur]

I agree completely, time limits are there for countering AI stupidity in such cases; at any rate in the hundreds of battles I have played over dozens of campaigns there has been perhaps one or two instances where a battle ended due to time limit and I would have prefered it to continue; most big battles should be over in ~20 minutes at most anyway.

That's one of the reasons for me too, additionally there is the problem of horse archers running around infinitely if you do not have some very fast cavalry units too.

[General Appo]

Once as the Romani sometime in the begining of my empire building a small band of rebels had popped up near Taras. After finding out that the rebels only consisted of a single unit of leves I foolishly sent a unit of Triarii to take them out. The Triarii got there, charged them, and continued to charge towards them for 40 minutes. I just chased after those damn Leves for the entire battle, and they refused to stop. Nobody died, but I was getting damn tired and so decided to retreat. I did so, but got "your army has disbanded" message afterwards. Incredible! Not a single man died, but they still decided to disband. Next time I just auto-calced, won easily.

[The Celtic Viking]

I'm not even going to try fighting a battle that big.

Then auto_win attacker/defender is your friend. :)