Battle accounts and discussion

[Vantek]

Welcome to the Org, Vantek! A pleasure to have you with us.

Thanks! A pleasure to be here ^_^

Thanks for the advice as well. In fact, had a battle where I needed it just today. I was attacking Burgundy, as Italians, with a 5 star general, on Expert (my first!). Since I had no cavalry I decided to go for a Pyrrhic victory against the odds (he had about six units of Chivalric Men-At-Arms, as well as two of Feudal Knights and four of Hobilars, I had various spearmen and Arbalesters), but it became a... how to say this... Pyrrhic loss? :P Casualties maybe 3:2 against me (rather than the hoped 2:3 for...). By the second battle the enemy was so weak however that I could mow him down.

Your suggestion worked perfectly in both cases. I happened to be lucky enough to have a unit of mercenary Mounted Crossbowmen, and they won me the conflict. First of all they mopped up redundantly placed siege engines in both battles. Then in the first one they didn't have to do much more to make the enemy launch a full attack, just dance near and shoot someone. In the second one he was just ridiculous. After I had wiped off the siege engineers, he chased me with a unit of 80 Chivalric Sergeants and let me shoot them down to 50 or so from twenty meters while they stood with their BACKS towards me. Then he sent a lone unit of PEASANTS, out of all units, to chase my ranged cavalry down straight into my ranks. They routed in a few seconds. Then he sent a lone unit of Chivalric Men-At-Arms straight into my ranks. He was shot down to half before he even reached my men, and routed as quickly. Then he sent pretty much everyone at me and unsurprisingly failed miserably. So yeah, I achieved some 6:1 victory when attacking by making my enemy attack me instead. I guess I never realised he might actually be stupid enough to do it. I may have to start limiting myself to keep a challenge!

[Martok]

Excellent! Glad it worked.

I may have to start limiting myself to keep a challenge!

Heh. Yeah, overall it's not that hard to trick the AI into abandoning a strong defensive position. I too try not to exploit it more than I can help. Of course, given that I'm not the greatest at commanding offensive battles, I still wind up using that trick fairly often.

[Vantek]

Had a few interesting battles today.

Let's start with the shortest. I had invaded deep into French territory (hey, the bastards started it themselves!), and Champagne was completely cut off from the mainland. And there was just one unit of Chivalric Knights sitting in it! The pope had warned me not to mess with France, and it was the turn after the one where I got the warning, so I couldn't stand a siege even if I was willing to waste men on it. So I decided to try to kill every SINGLE enemy knight in battle :D I attacked with: one of Feudal Knights, one of Chivalric MAA, two of Arbalesters and 25 high valour Mounted Crossbowmen. Luckily the enemy didn't retreat to the castle. And can you imagine, it worked PERFECTLY! I positioned my Feudal Knights randomly between two houses, and the enemy decided that he should charge them! So now they were between the buildings so I could nicely shoot them in the back with MC, as well as Arbalesters positioned on a hill nearby. Once my knights started failing, I ran my MAA behind enemy and attacked. So now they started fighting the MAA instead, so I ran my MC to the other side and shot them in the back. Soonafter my knights decided they should rout, and there were only about 10 knights left. I think the general got killed when there was just one other unit left and luckily it didn't manage to escape, but was captured. I executed the captive just to be sure XD

Another one was a bridge battle against the French again, I was defending. I had two Trebuchets, three of Halberdiers, two of Chivalric MAA, three of Arbalesters, one of Handgunners and Italian Infantry, and one of Royal Knights led by a prince. The enemy had some MAA, some knights, and I think three of Archers and one of Crossbowmen. I gordoned off both bridges and put a Trebuchet facing each, but the enemy only attacked one bridge. It was a pretty boring slugfest until the enemy finally routed, at which point I decided to chase the Archers with the Royal Knights. I know, I know, not a good move, and the results were according. Went well at first, they took 150 prisoners and killed a few more, but some of the enemy Archers managed to rally. I decided to charge them. Bad idea. I lost a few knights before I even reached them, and it took them quite a few seconds to rout again (damn Expert moral bonus which I'm not used to!). Meanwhile other Archers rallied as well, meaning I was being peppered with arrows from every direction once I finally retreated, and on top of that I was being chased by a few enemy Hobilars. There were only 7 Knigts left when they reached the bridge again. Oh well, all's well that ends well, right? *thump* Oh what's that? Oops, my Trebuchet is on fire at will... *whooosh* Oh, that's okay, they never hit anything! Right? BANG! And there went the prince, the general, and half of the remaining noble band of knights, dismaying the other lucky four to the point where they abandoned their courage completely and fleed from the ten damned Hobilars, who were shot to pieces within seconds later. Now I'm left with just one prince of age, who is a Drinker, as well as a Good Runner, whereas my dear Doge is nearing the ripe age of 70. The battle wasn't over yet: it featured hundreds of Benny Hill impersonators in blue-yellow suits, who would courageously approach the bridge, get shot to ribbons, and run away, over and over and over again, until my Arbalesters were out of bolts. This didn't put an end to the performers' ambition: they would follow the exact same routine even without the hail of projectiles! If some band of perverts managed to cough up the courage to actually walk ON the bridge and even reach the other end, the masochists were greeted with loud noise and smoke coming from the Handgunners, and finally recieved a sufficient dose of fear. The show ended at the promised time mark.

There was one more battle, which however went ridiculously unexpectedly. I was defending Venice from a seemingly suicidal attack by German pigs (they were excommunicated soonafter), aided by a small band of Hungarian brigands led by the crooked king himself. I had a very solid defensive army, with three of Arbalesters, perhaps five of Italian Infantry and two of Halberdiers, as well as my own king, whereas they didn't have much to show, a few units of Knights but they had only a two or three hundred more men and were fielding several junk units like Urban Militia, Spearmen, Archers, Feudal Sergeants and Militia Sergeants. I was confident in victory even thought I had to defend on nearly flat land. A few small units of riders that came to the range of my Arbalesters were halved in seconds. Then a lone unit of Militia Sergeants approached my line, lost 20 men to Arbalesters, and started hacking away at my Italian infantry. And now I don't understand what the hell happened here. I didn't pay much attention because I was sure that my infantry would stand ground easily, but after a while I was surprised to see that the formation was completely trashed, I had lost something ridiculous like 30 men, while some 30 Sergeants were still "Winning Easily". What was even more disturbing was the fact of how it turned out that spacebar showed that the unit was intending to place itself exactly under the right angle from what it was supposed to, with one flank invading into my arbalesters and one sticking out of my whole formation. I can only imagine the idiots must've decided that they should reposition after being forced into the ranks of another unit by the attackers, chose the most ludicrous facing ever, and since it was going to leave them with their backs towards the attackers, were now recieving horrible penalties. The only other possibility is that I somehow misclicked madly and didn't notice it, but something like this has NEVER happened before. Anyway I didn't manage to correct this before the mass of enemy army reached my men and had to charge everyone outwards from original formation to keep my Arbalesters clean. I evacuated my King's Royal Knights out of the chaos and halved and routed a unit of Archers with them until I recieved attention from the enemy General's unit of Chivalric Sergeants and retreated to safe distance while being chased by them. The melee between the mass of the armies was very close, with casualties nearly equal. The King of Hungarians was shot by my Arbalesters and all that was left of them fleed shortafter, as well as some unit of German Urban Militia. But my units were still outnumbered and beginning to waver as well, and some of them routed from random flanking penalties which I couldn't figure out because the formations were trashed completely. Somehow, it didn't start a mass rout however, and more and more enemy units started routing along with my own. I thought the battle was over and ordered my Arbalesters to save their honour and withdraw, but funnily enough soonafter the place was as clear of the enemy soldiers as my own, and I told them to return just before they exited. They actually managed to cause a few more destroyed units to rout (again), but sadly they were attacked by some 15 hobilars, and even though only maybe 6 reached them, that was still enought to inflict lots of casualties, make them waver, make it impossible for them to run from the remnants of enemy units and prepare for enemy General's unit that was the only enemy unit left along with a few archers that wasn't depleted down to something minuscule, and soon even they routed. If my men had stood for just a few SECONDS longer in the mass melee, I must've won, it was THAT close. I don't understand how it's possible that the mass of BOTH armies routed but they did, and sadly the enemy still had his General's unharmed Chivalric Sergeants (who were away from the battle because they were chasing my king), and my King had only a handful of knights. I should've withdrawn my King at this point but I guess I felt the need to make him a good runner, in the hopes that this would perhaps prolong his life a few years more until the next heir reaches maturity, so I can send the poor drunkard prince on a suicide mission.

This invasion was much a Pyrrhic victory for the Germans nevertheless, leaving nearby territories empty of soldiers, allowing me to invade them on top of taking back Venice without battle, and another failed invasion left their front with me in shambles. After this and the excommunication, Holy Roman Empire finds itself in another civil war. They will be gone soon.

Sadly, I forgot to save replays of any of these battles =(

[oz_wwjd]

I had the AI suprise me last night,when i moved half the garrison of the Crimea,as the Spanish were massing next to EGypt,and I needed to discourage them from trying anything. They invaded with 950 men,mostly rus spearmen,Balkan warriors,spearmen,armoured spearmen a few units of Druzhina Calvary and many crossbowmen,archers and horse archers,against my garrison of 2 units of the Vangarian Guard,a Kara unit,1 units of Kontarioi,and a unit of lancers,that also happened to be my 3 star general.

Luckly it was a bridge battle,so I waited patiently until 2 units of Baltics and a unit of Rus Spearmen had crosed the bridge,then I struck with my spearmen from the front,while sending my Guard units around to flank them,and them routed after some hard fighting.

But them my Guard units got tied up with the Armoured spearmen/Duzinha calvary on the bridge,and they were getting decimated by arrows/bolts,so I sent my Kara unit over the other bridge,and struck them from behind,which routed what was left of them,by this time I was down to 35 guard in one units and 20 in the other,and they had reinforcements comming in,which caught my heavy calv retreating and destroyed them to the last man.
Then they tried to bring some Druzhina calv over the bridge,so I again waited until the units had partially crossed the bridge,then i met with with my lancer group head-on while sending my depleted guard units around on the flanks,which after some hard fighting again,they routed and the entire stack routed along with them,ending the battle,which I was glad of,as I only had 7 and 14 Vangarian guard left,35 Kontarioi and 37 lancers.

[Martok]

Nice, oz_wwjd; sounds like a very tense battle (but in a good way).

Was this Novgorod that attacked you, btw? Kiev?

[oz_wwjd]

The Novgorods,which shocked me,as they'd been passive ever since I destroyed the cumans for them,but that's AI Gratitude for you. I dont mind admiting that when they intially invaded I though something along the lines of "o crap" but I thought that if I couldn't beat them at least I'd give them a bloody nose,it turned out better than I expected..

[Caliburn]

In a semi-recent High campaign as the Aragonese I had a nice hill battle against the Spanish.

They controlled a large hill or a mountain in one of the corners with a good quality army, it seemed to be very difficult to charge easily. Both generals with 4 stars.

I decided to split my troops into three groups to counter their superior position. The first group, consisting of 3 halberdiers, 1 Chivalric Sergeants, 2 Arbalests and a heavy infantry unit (CMAA or Chivalric Foot Knights, can't remember), was to approach the enemy from one of the sides of the hill.

The second group, consisting of 3 light cavalry units, screened the first party and tried to lure Arbalests from the hill so they could be charged and shot by the Arbalests in group 3.

The third group, made of 2 Arbalests, 2 halberdiers, CMAA and a light cavalry unit (Jinettes), took the long way around the hill, and was seated in a small forest waiting for their turn to charge the hill.

The plan was to make the enemy attack my main group, while the second group attacks from a flank, having marched quite a long way to get to an innocent-looking spot pretty far away from the enemy lines. Both armies were elite, so they could hold their lines long enough for the flanking force to attack.

Group 2 (light cavalry) managed to do its job to some extent, and a lot of enemy Arbalesters and almost all enemy cavalry were killed by Group 3. One of my three cavalry units got annihilated, though, as they got stuck between some enemy Arbalesters and some royal or another, a princeling maybe.

After this, my main group (Group 1) started climbing up the hill, while light cavalry continued to harass enemy missiles. They were heavily outnumbered and had to face enemies uphill, but their task was to hold the line long enough for Group 3 to join the battle from the flank.

Even though Groups 1 and 2 were heavily outnumbered, they were faring pretty well. The nifty Jinnettes managed to break some of the engaged units, but the enemy general was putting some pressure on my line, and it was starting to buckle. Good thing I had sent Group 3 to the back of the enemy: I didn't even engage with all the forces, and the enemy routed.

Their stream of reinforcements happened to be exactly where I had earlier put my Group 3, so as they were still fresh, I could pretty quickly withdraw Group 3 to its initial position and slaughter the conciderably weaker reinforcements while Group 1 mopped up the remainder of the Spanish main army.

EDIT: One thing always manages to surprise me: having to face a valour 7+ Saracen Infantry unit with limited Early Catholic troops, especially when you notice all too late, and having flanked it with all sorts of things your guys start running for mama...