Random RTW crazyness

This topic was inspired by a really,really funny happening in RTW today.
I was assaulting a Roman-held fort and had my archers playing "Romans in a Barrel" when the fort commander rushed his bodyguards to the wall closest to me. One unit of archers launched a volley of arrows and all but one struck the fort wall. That last arrow flew over the wall and hit,of all individuals,the Roman commander himself in the chest just as he reared his horse back on its hind legs,causing the animal to rear all the way up and fall backwards before dying.
I know this might seem mundane,but I had to pause the game until I stopped laughing so I could effectively command my troops.

Do any of you have any funny,ironic,or crazy but entirely random happenings you'd like to share?

PS - I took the fort and lost only one hoplite doing so.

Something like that happened to me once, only that I didn't find it so funny because it happened to my commander. My general was struck down by the wooden wall defenses while chasing a routing troop. D= I restarted the battle right after that.

Hahaha... mirth!

Anyways not really as funny but more immensely lucky. One time as the Kingdom of the Parthians I was fighting endless Scipionic full-stacks with my experianced army, (led by my only commander ever to be called the Horseman... I was amazed). Anyways after winning two heroic victories in a row (in one turn) their faction heir (Gaius Marcellus, at least its similar to a historical character) rocked up with another full-stack with a half-stack of reinforcements. Somehow I managed to win again, but during the fighting, Marcellus and his bodyguard were surrounded and broke. He still had a sizeable bodyguard and I didn't want him coming back so I immediately set three units of HAs chasing him to run him off the map.

He was actually out of range you could see the arrows (hundreds of them falling well-short). Anyway just as he reached the edge of the map one single arrow (that I could see) soared into the middle of the pack of Romans and hit Marcellus between the shoulderblades, and bang he was gone.

I was in shock for the next five minutes. Thats not supposed to happen!!!!

Thats also the moment I decided to start a new campaign, (even the Gods were with me... absolutely no challenge... lol).

Was that bad? I would be ecstatic.... haha.

I remember once, in a BI bridge battle versus the Huns, I was winning, and chasing the routing enemy across the stream when I suddenly got a message that my general has drowned. After surviving and defeating the Huns many times, he drowns. Still, it was a hard-fought battle, and he was old anyway, so I let him go.

Must have wanted a cool down after all that fighting but forgot he still had all his armour on.

Was I going crazy, or have I seen weak units that are forced to man the walls in a siege jump off and commit suicide rather than fight? I remember that and remember laughing at it too, lol.

Also, I love seeing how high I can make an enemy soldier go flying when he's charged by cavalry, chariots, elephants, etc. I once made a Roman soldier fly higher than the walls of a large city!

During a Julii campaign against Spain, General Flavius - the Conquerer of Gaul, Germania, and Britain, Faction Leader with command stars and cool traits coming out of his butt - did battle a tiny army of Bull Warriors and riff-raff with an Onager, outnumbering them 10 to 1.

Naturally, the 1 Onager shot they fired before getting flattened hit Flavius right on the bonce, crushing him.

There's probably a lesson in that

Onagers are great for targeting enemy generals

Playing as Scipii I sieged Carthage, they had a full stack with 2 units of ellies, I had half a stack of general, hastati/princeps and missiles (velites and merc peltasts) I fought off their infantry on the walls and lined my forces up. They ran their ellies around by the walls en route to the town centre, I set infanty/ missiles to fire at will, both ellies went amok about 8 intotal straight through their forces who were coming from the centre to the walls, on normal unit sizes around 300 perished turning the battle to my favour. You should of seen those ellies!!

Originally Posted by Shieldmaiden

During a Julii campaign against Spain, General Flavius - the Conquerer of Gaul, Germania, and Britain, Faction Leader with command stars and cool traits coming out of his butt - did battle a tiny army of Bull Warriors and riff-raff with an Onager, outnumbering them 10 to 1.

Naturally, the 1 Onager shot they fired before getting flattened hit Flavius right on the bonce, crushing him.

That sounds exceedingly familiar. Many a time my general has had a huge rock hurled at him, and many a time it has hit him directly. When I've tried it against the enemy general, the projectile has rarely managed to hit even a single one of his bodyguard - never mind the general himself.

On one occasion, however, I decided to try and dodge these missiles. I saw one a rock coming directly in my eight star general's direction. When the missile got closer, I concluded this it would probably hit somewhere around where the general was currently standing, so I moved him out of the way in the hope of preventing his death. Lo and behold the stone hits exactly where I moved him to, resulting in him instantaneously ending up massacred.

I fought the same battle twice due to problems, and twice my general got owned. Roman catapults are bugged.

Originally Posted by Punicus

Was I going crazy, or have I seen weak units that are forced to man the walls in a siege jump off and commit suicide rather than fight? I remember that and remember laughing at it too, lol.

This kindof thinhs are not funny when they happen to you
I had a hoplite unit on the wall when the enemy broke through my walls .. I then ordered the hoplite unit to go down so they could go and defend the hole ... but what they did??
over a half of the unit jumped down from wall and got killed!!!
I won the battle but deleted that unit in the camp map .. sometimes the shortest way to somewhere is not the best one!!!!

I once had one of my onagers fire a large flaming rock at the enemy general only to hit just wide of unit, but the unfortunate general standing a little to the left of the unit got the flaming ball of death square in his chest, it's kind of hard to believe how a large rock like that only kills one man and it turns out to be the general.

Playing in singleplayer, I was the Brutii. It was me vs Egypt. I lined up my men in perfect formations, mind you we both had nearly full stacks. He had arround 8 units of chariots. I advanced forward at walking pace...he moved his chariots. Instead of attacking me, he moved directly behind my cohorts, 2 of them urbans...they all routed instantly before the fight even began.

I was so shocked I had the screen on pause while I looked through the forums on how to stop a mass rout. This is where it gets funny.

Admitting defeat, I pressed the pause button to resume play. Please note, my entire army is routing. now, instead of attacking me with his chariots, he moved his chariots back to his own line, and astonishingly he sounded the retreat. His units were closer to the OOB line.

Results?
None of us lost any troops, I was declared the victor by average victory.

Now, that is odd.

That is odd. Don't you just lose the battle outright if all your units rout?

No, sometimes you do but sometimes they have to leave the battle area.

What determines whether you lose the battle instantly or get to see your rout play out first?

Originally Posted by Quirinus

What determines whether you lose the battle instantly or get to see your rout play out first?

I suspect that AI also has END BATTLE/CONTINUE BATTLE choice, as human has when he routs enemy army. In first case you lost, in second you must run away first.

one thing i've noticed that's absolutely crazy is the diplomacy, now, i've known the diplomacy has been flawed since like forever, but i've lost count of the times an opposing faction has bugged me and bugged me for an alliance only to attack one of my cities the following turn

maybe they're trying to lull me into a false sense of security.

Battles provide one team a victory when all of the enemy troops have either died, are current routing or have withdrawn manually from the field (passed the red line).

Due to this, the only possibility is that at least one of TruePretorian's units was either still being manually withdrawn or was still remaining standing on the field.

Originally Posted by placenik

I suspect that AI also has END BATTLE/CONTINUE BATTLE choice, as human has when he routs enemy army. In first case you lost, in second you must run away first.

The AI sadly doesn't have access to the ability to run down and destroy enemy troops. Due to this, I consider chasing down routing enemy troops when the battle is already won a bit of an unfair exploit.

sorry going off topic, but Tomo are you from the Netherlands or from Belgium.? I have that strange feeling... am I right?

Yes, the diplomacy can be crazy. In my present Vandal campaign I cannot even give Corduba to the Huns even though they besiege it intermittently, and seem uninterested in anywhere else.

Originally Posted by Permenion

sorry going off topic, but Tomo are you from the Netherlands or from Belgium.? I have that strange feeling... am I right?

huh? yh but why?

one time is a siege(greece vs. carthage or rome, cant remember)me being greece,(big walls)i ordered my troops to go down and hunt down the remaining troops, but my troops would go down 1 by 1 every like 5 minutes and i had my unit size set on huge, so it took like an hour for all of em to get down, really got me bored ( the remaining troops were hiding....)

Well, I"ve been on the other side of the onager-squishing-general thing. During my first Roman civil war ever, my veteran, but depleted, army squared off against a Scipii full-stack. The two sides were still manuevering for position when the Scipii general noticed a steadily growing shadow around him...

SQUISH. Ah, that was a good day.

One other mildly hum'rous incident was of my own making. I was Parthia, and I had an itty bitty empire out on the fringe of the map. I had a small garrison of horse archers and eastern infantry holding Palmyra, when a full-stack Egyptian army besieged it.

THe turn they assaulted, they sent a diplomat to the town, demanding I become a protectorate of Egypt. I promptly made a counter-offer with my little garrison: They ought to become a protectorate of ME. Nice show of defiance, I rather thought.

The Egyptians laughed and began their assault...But just as they got midway through the streets my relief army of about 5 Persian cavalry arrived and poured into the town behind them. n_n Not one Egyptian escaped.

Originally Posted by el_dext0r

one thing i've noticed that's absolutely crazy is the diplomacy, now, i've known the diplomacy has been flawed since like forever, but i've lost count of the times an opposing faction has bugged me and bugged me for an alliance only to attack one of my cities the following turn

maybe they're trying to lull me into a false sense of security.

Ugh, yes, I know what you mean. In my current Greek game, I didn't want the Romans as my enemy, so I evacuated Syracuse and tried to give it to them, only to have them refuse, and then attack it the next turn.

About your account, though, I think maybe it's because if the Huns got Corduba, they'd be forced to settle down, so maybe the diplomacy engine didn't want you 'trick' them into settling down.

Unlike STW and MTW, RTW diplomacy feels quite disconnected to whats going on in the Campaign

Is it much better in MTW2 or..?

And back on topic... am I the only one to lose against Carthage because of Flaming Pigs stampeding away from the elephants? Hello smoky bacon, goodbye battle line!

I don't use them at all-- I find them a little too ahistorical for my taste, like wardogs and the German phalanx.

The wierdest must be my 10 star commander, age 50, getting a HEART ATTACK and dying just before sounding the charge to bring his hippeis into a squad of routing legionaires!

Originally Posted by Tom0

huh? yh but why?

"They ran their ellies around by the walls en route to the town " => you wrote this

but the fact is that you write Allies and not ellies
and and not en


Thats why I tought knowing where you come from, my neighbour (haha) lol
But don't be shamed :p I make mistakes too sometimes