NationStates Jolt Archive

So, what about it, any great battles you have played, what do you think of it?

I once fought of an equal sized cataprack only army using 18 units of urban cohort that were in TESTUDO FORMATION, they were a bit apart, and the Parthiens were cought between "boxes" of romens after they had charged, and they'd be cut down at the same time as they lost their mobility. They were sloughtered, and they couldn't pull out as the other cataprahcs who were also chargin were stil behind them, blocking their path....
52x19cataprachs+ 1 general body guard, 18x82urban cohort..
A great victory......

I had 3 Urbans (about 300 troops) and I wiped out some hoplites and a general unit.

I generally like to have more men than that though. ;)

medieval > rome

You must mean Medieval2. That's going to be awesome.

medieval > rome

Dunno, my greatest battle was in Rome. One army of Roman troops, pre-Marius, led by and eight-star General (he was old enough to be a liabilty realistically, but still kicked ass), consisting of two cavalry units, my general, four units of archers, two skirmishers, four units of the light infantry, two medium, and two triarii.

They took on and defeated and army that outnumbered them more than five to one, consisting of huge amounts of heavy cavalry and heavy infantry. My special tactic? Run up the steepest hill I could find and keep charging down at them. Killed nearly two thousands for three hundred losses. Good times.

Dunno, my greatest battle was in Rome. One army of Roman troops, pre-Marius, led by and eight-star General (he was old enough to be a liabilty realistically, but still kicked ass), consisting of two cavalry units, my general, four units of archers, two skirmishers, four units of the light infantry, two medium, and two triarii.

They took on and defeated and army that outnumbered them more than five to one, consisting of huge amounts of heavy cavalry and heavy infantry. My special tactic? Run up the steepest hill I could find and keep charging down at them. Killed nearly two thousands for three hundred losses. Good times.
sweet :)
yeah i've had battles like that in medieval... i just didn't like rome. i played it too slow: it took me a week of playing to just get out of italy as the brutii (sp?) family. got so bored i stopped playing. :(

besides i'm really one for the strategy map part - don't bother concerning myself with the actual battles, just let the computer work it out :p


see, on the strategy map, a real awesome victory is not if you can win against superior odds (which is great in an individual battle of course), but whether you can manouver yourself into a pwning position where you have the superior odds and have managed to fuck your opponent's strategy/economy... like back in shogun TW when i had 24,000 units against the one of the last daimyo's on the map with only about 2 or 3,000 men to his name... mwuhahaha! :D

I loved shogun, I liked the maps with bridges when you are defending, archers to the fore, i've lost track of the number of times when they've had to wade through the mountains of their dead to get to me (ah happy times)

though when I attacked what was annoying was that they kept on running away from me so I had great dificulty causing them damage.

I loved medival total war to but when I bought it and the expansion pack before I could load it my computor died.

now the computor i've got i'm not able to load games on it (i've got specialist software so you get death by systems conflicts) which sucks arse

One multiplayer round of RTW I played was particulary good. It was 3 vs 3 and the team I was on was one of 3 roman families. The other side has Macedonia. Round starts and all three Macedonia teams swiftly muster toward the corner of the flat map (Desert plains). From there they proceeded to box up the whole corner with staggered formations of phalanx. Directly behind them was about a dozen catapult units.

Our units were fairly mixed. I had my usual army which consisted of 7 Heavy Cav, 8 infantry and 5 archer. The other teams were fairly similiar, but I cannot recall the exacts of what they had. Anyway, we form a plan. We place all of our archer units forward, while we hugged each corner flank with heavy infantry and cav, just out of reach of the catapults, but close enough to make them think twice about breaking out.

Needless to say, the archer teams suffered heavy casualties. They stood their ground though and after a long shootout most of the enemy catapults were burning wrecks caused from fire arrows. Then came the attack. We took just about everything we had and wheeled it into the left flank, eventually breaking the line and making our way behind it, while Cohorts from the front kept pushing forward. The remainder of the archer army just sat behind the front line and rained arrows the whole time into the big brew of phalanx. It was a brutal fight and eventually we ended up routing or killing the whole of the enemy.

I love this game, strategic movement is king rather than micro-ing the game to death (Warcraft I'm looking rightat you).

I enjoy sieges too much though, keep spending all but 3 minutes taking the walls then having to rush into the centre in the countdown.

I once played a custom battle, playing as the Egyptians versus the Romans in a siege. I wanted to see what a siege would be like against the best walls, since I hadn't seen that in action yet. I got plenty of Pharoahs archers, and some spearmen and dumped the archers on the walls. I had chosen a Roman army of decent heavy infantry and cavalry.

I was hoping most of their army would be dead before they reached the walls, but the archers and towers weren't as good as I had planned, probably because I forgot to take into account the Romans shields and armour. Anyway, soon they had two rams, and the first one was quite swiftly taken out by fire arrows before it could do much damage to my door. However, the second was clearly going to break my door down, and I braced my spearmen for the attack.

Add to that, the Romans were sending in siege towers to scale the walls a bit away from the gate. I remeber my archers firing at them from an extreme close up range, before charging in with daggers. They were archers and I figured they were doomed at close range, so concentrated on the gate.

Soon, the gate crashed down, and I unleashed my plan. From two side streets, sythed chariots charged at the roman units which were swarming inside my town. I had hoped they would disorganise the enemy before my spearmen charged from the front. It worked at first...but there were just too many Romans. My chariots got bogged down, and were quickly destroyed. They had being an expensive addition to my army, and now I thought I was a gonner.

The spearmen did their work, and cut down a sizeable portion of the remaining Romans, but it was clear that they alone could not defeat the army, especially with Romans on the walls as well. It gradually got so there were about 30 spearmen and 22 Romans left...but the Roman troops were better, man for man. However, to my amazement, the archers hadn't only managed to hold back the Romans, they'd wiped them out. Only 14 remained, but I dashed them down the tower to charge into the Romans back. With only about 14 Spearmen and 8 archers left, the Romans fled!

The battle started with over 1000 soilders on each army...there were less than three dozen left in entireity. It wasn't my most skillfully played battle obviously, as my chariots and archers weren't as useful as I hoped, but it was certainly my most thrilling and close.

well, yeah, you can read through the moderation forum if you like, but anyways maybe we meat in battle on rome:D

I call my self, SExiusMAxius
OR, MedPowerRomeSPQR

well, yeah, you can read through the moderation forum if you like, but anyways maybe we meat in battle on rome:D

I call my self, SExiusMAxius
OR, MedPowerRomeSPQR

You're just asking for an IP ban.

Eh, I prefer RTR by a long shot. That's not to say RTW isn't a good game, it's just less once RTR is on your hard drive. A united, realistic Rome is muuuch more fun to play as.

Still, if you want to know one of my favourite battles, I was playing as the Romans against Phyrrus of Epirus' army, and deployed in the standard Quincunx formation. (that's where you have gaps equal to the length of your units frontage in the hastati line, where the principes can charge though once you've pinned the phalanx. I advanced forward, skirmishers in front and cavalry alae to the sides, towards the first phalanx line, as the second was closing behind me. The line joined, and I crushed each phalanx block individually in detail, using the cavalry to charge the rear of each unit repeatedly until it broke. I then managed to turn round and reform my practically unhurt line to repeat the process against the second block, suffering nearly.... 100? Casualties compared to at least 2000 Greeks. It's not perhaps my finest, as I lost too many men, but it was a good test of my speed.

I don't like dealing with large scale battles- 5,000 on one side, 6,000 on the other. The battle gets away from me and too many things begin to happen and it spirals out of control becuase I can only be in one place at a time.

I end up just mashing all my various troops together in the centre and piling forward. :p

Once I fought against the Britons. I outnumbered them 2 to 1, I had some 2000 troops while they had some 1000. My troops were brand new, legionary cohorts, archer auxilias and auxilias. I was sure I was going to win this battle.

Result? British chariots broke through my front line right to my archers, causing them to flee. This routed my central line, thus cutting my flanks off. My general routed AND got himself killed, which routed my both flanks. I couldn't help but watch my army flee....

They killed some 1500 troops, while their casualties were under 300.

Not one of my best days.

I had a grand battle while defending the city in Arabia with Parthia against the Egyptians. I had only my general, two catacrapths, one eastern infantry and a horse archer. The Egyptians had three times more troops and many chariots. Just to make my life more difficult, the city had no walls.

I used my horse archer to lure enemy army to a trap. The enemy army was supposed to attack only from one street and confront my eastern infantry unit. During that, I would flank them with my catacraphts.

My plan was a great success. The whole enemy army attacked my eastern infantry at the same time and when I charged my catacraphts, their general died and their whole army was destroyed.

That's what I call luck.

I remember one time I had about 1900 troops vs the Greek's 3000. It was a rout - I destroyed like 2600 of them for only about 200 of my troops. I was so pleased, because when I first looked at them I saw they had a huge number of hoplites and I was afraid I was going to lose horribly since I had mostly inferior roman infantry with a few light cavalry units and my general's bodyguard. :D

medieval > rome
Uhh, yeah!

While carving my Polish USSR, I had this war going on between Novogrod and Byzantium at the same time. I was aiming for contamination, and that means racing across the steps and taking over every rebel provience between me, and the Uralish area that is the end of the map. Well, I got to that last big provence. And it had the purple stench of Constantinople on it.

My army of one unit lumberjacks, one unit urban soldiers, one unit Polish retainers, and a horde of steppe cavalry against a little smaller, but better equiped force. It was a plain battle. No mountains to hide on. I sent my cavalry sprinting across the map, in one big mass of steeds, death, and spears, while my retainers flanked around. The infantry came along just in case my gamble lost, but they skipped.

Anyhow, my units general position was more or less known, due to the gigantic moving dust cloud. However, the Byzantine infantry couldn't withstand the huge ammount of men I was throwing at them. Sure, they cut down the first three or four units without a problem, but they just kept raging and eventually they were envelpoed. Everyone began to run, and then I sent all my forces against the general, who was a family member. He fought to the death and I won! That was a cool battle there.

The next best was when I took over the remaining parts of Europe blitz style with my hordes of lumberjacks and cavalry. Anyhow, when the Mongols came, we played the same game. Only they were outnumbered four to one or something. That was a great game.

Greeks kick arse on that game.

six units of hoplites, two archers and three cavalry (including generals) beat off an entire roman/macedonian combined force.

Just got barbarian expansion.....Frickin awesome!

(didn't want to start a new thread on this...)

been playing Rome loads recently, and unlike my previous post on this thread, many months ago, i now have to say the game fucking rocks :D
i'd been playing it the same as i'd played Medieval and Shogun, and hadn't changed my strategies or playing styles at all. as such i was being whupped and was having no fun at all. now, however, i've finally totally gotten into it (better late than never) and just wanted to say how much this game kicks ass :cool:
medieval 2 will be so coooooool...


i've just been playing as the Britons and haven't done too badly. its about 230BC and i've got all of Gaul and Germania, as well as some territories in Spain and Greece. all was going well and i was building up my money reserves and solidifying my borders with forts etc, just minding my own business, when one of the Roman factions (obviously on senate orders) decides to attack my largest town. this pisses me off.
i happened to be transporting a full army of chosen swordsmen on a large fleet of boats, intending to go on a raiding party in Egypt (take big settlements, kill everyone, take the loot, run off and repeat)... so i swing the ships by Rome itself and, without a particularly overpowering army, sack Rome after the best and most difficult battle i've had in the TW series :D
here's (http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/3779/sackingromejpgsc4.jpg) a wee screenshot of my victory (my faction leader died that turn so rather than having a level 8 general i had... none :( still won tho - i like it that after the battle the centre of power for the Roman Empire was left with 5 men to defend it :p)



anyone still playing this awesome game then?

SPORE>Civ IV>medieval > rome

edited for accuracy. :p

edited for accuracy. :p

I don't understand how "SPORE" is supposedly one of the greatest games ever when nobody has played it because it hasn't even been released yet - hello!

Like so many others before it - Fable, Black and White, etc., there's no way it'll live up to the hype. It'll probably be good, but let's have a reality check.


Anyway. Rome:TW is good.

edited for accuracy. :p
heh, we'll see :P

I don't understand how "SPORE" is supposedly one of the greatest games ever when nobody has played it because it hasn't even been released yet - hello!


the videos rock tho. if it plays anything like those then it'll be good enough to be pretty damn awesome in my book :)

Ah, good ol' RTW. I loved that game. I remember quite a few battles in which I was seriously outnumbered, but turned the tables and managed to have the enemy's remaining army be somewhere in the single-digits range. And I was playing on hard mode. :D

In regards to the MTW vs. RTW deal...
The ultimate TW game would be MTW's gameplay with RTW's strategic system and graphics. I dont care if its Roman or Medeival units, although more variety would be nice on the part of RTW.

As to great RTW victories...
I was once trying to hold a city on Sardinia against the evil Carthegenians. They had a full stack, and I had a unit of Hastati, a unit of Principes and a unit of Triarii.
Thinking all was lost, I left the city walls to fend for themsleves and set my three units around the roads to the town sqare in defensive formation.
And I won.
I didnt issue any commands until the last few seconds of the battle when I told my guys to chase the routing Carthagenians.
Yeah, thats right, I took out ten units of Carthagenian infantry, some cavalry and a unit of elephants using the one of each of the three most basic Roman units ;)

The only thing about RTW that really annoys me in regards to the Romans is the fact that it takes forever to get to the point where you can build Triarii, usually (for me at least) Im about to go into the Marian Reforms by that point, thus meaning that I dont get to build them.

In regards to the MTW vs. RTW deal...
The ultimate TW game would be MTW's gameplay with RTW's strategic system and graphics. I dont care if its Roman or Medeival units, although more variety would be nice on the part of RTW.

Then I have good news for you, my friend... Coming soon:

Medieval II:Total War!

The only thing about RTW that really annoys me in regards to the Romans is the fact that it takes forever to get to the point where you can build Triarii, usually (for me at least) Im about to go into the Marian Reforms by that point, thus meaning that I dont get to build them.

but once you get to the Maritus reforms, who cares about Triarii when you can have Urban Cohorts? and Legionary Cohorts? those units kick so much ass its amazing... the number of times i've found myself with only a couple of units of urban cohorts in a city under assault, and they've not only managed to hold their own and keep the city but butcher an entire army on their own... they're so fucking good :D:D

The greatest victory I ever had was when the massive Egyptian army was bearing down on my pathetic outpost in Carthage. I had been busy conquering northern Europe and Greece and so hadn't paid much mind to the southern part of the Empire.

The Egyptians came at me full strength, lead by the level eight King himself, backed by three princes, chariots, spearmen, archers, swordsmen and heavy artillery, all fresh and well-equipped.

I, on the other hand, had merely three units of legionaries, two of which had been weakened by engagement with some barbarians, one unit of cavalry, two units of spearmen and NO archers. My only trump card was the heavy catapault I constructed literally a turn before I was attacked.

The battle began in earnest. I fortified my position behind flimsy wooden walls and placed my artillery at the forefront, in a pathetic effort to somewhat weaken my Egytian foes from afar.

The first shot from my catapault killed the Egyptian king.

The huge host broke like a twig and began to flee, the princes totally panicked and desperately tried to rally the troops, but I wouldn't allow that. I charged full steam straight into the fleeing archers with my cavalry and hacked them to pieces, meanwhile my one of my units of spearmen burned all their lovely expensive artillery to cinders.

Whilst this was going on, my other spearman unit charged full pelt into the Princes' elite guard, the only force which wasn't routing. I then flanked them from both sides with my legionaries and finally brought the event to a close with a brutal charge from my triumphant cavalry straight into their rear.

Final stats

My losses: 78

Their losses: 812

Of course shortly afterwards I resolved never to let the Egyptians surprise me again, I launched a massive campaign and crucified the populace of every city I conquered. Any army that was raised against me I bought off with the funds I had aquired from my adventures in Greece, any and all Princes were swiftly isolated and crushed with overwhelming force.

The lesson: Don't fuck with the Romans :D

but once you get to the Maritus reforms, who cares about Triarii when you can have Urban Cohorts? and Legionary Cohorts? those units kick so much ass its amazing... the number of times i've found myself with only a couple of units of urban cohorts in a city under assault, and they've not only managed to hold their own and keep the city but butcher an entire army on their own... they're so fucking good :D:D
Unless you have BI...in which case both Roman factions suck. Badly :P
I like the Franks in BI, mostly because I tend to favour infantry over cavalry.
In my book, cavalry is used pretty much only for two things, flanking/rear attacks, and fending off other cavalry.
A subcatagory goes to missile cavalry, although I find javaline throwing cavy to be useless, since the automatic skirmish function for them is set to about the same range at which they throw their spears >_>
I occasionally use archer cavalry in stacks of one or two to wear down heavy enemy units.

Bridge. Escipio troops

One unit of Triarii, down to less than half troops.

General with four guards. A unit of five.

A brand new unit of roman light cavalry (Équites, my game is in spanish)

Two units of skirmishers almost at half level.

Two units of lame city guards.

Like a dozen of gladiators.

The other side of the bridge, at least 500-700 britons, maybe more, complete with heavy chariots, heavily armed swordmen, and with a core of endless war parties.

After minutes of fighting that looked eternal, the outcome was that I remained, after slaughtering like 500 britons. It was impressive. I went to my boyfriend and pointed him to the saved repeat. I learned that fleeing troops stomps over others and force others to flee after losing many thrown into the river. The intent of the chariots to charge through their own and then trying to flee through a bridge filled with people was almost ridiculous.

I defended a city once with two units of carteginian cavalry, two units of hoplite mercenaries and three units of city guard against a roman army of more than 1000 troops...The city was entirely advanced, although.

medieval > rome

QFT

Medieval 2 looks like it will kick some major ass..too bad i prolly won't be able to play it on my current comp:(

Bridge. Escipio troops

One unit of Triarii, down to less than half troops.

General with four guards. A unit of five.

A brand new unit of roman light cavalry (Équites, my game is in spanish)

Two units of skirmishers almost at half level.

Two units of lame city guards.

Like a dozen of gladiators.

The other side of the bridge, at least 500-700 britons, maybe more, complete with heavy chariots, heavily armed swordmen, and with a core of endless war parties.

After minutes of fighting that looked eternal, the outcome was that I remained, after slaughtering like 500 britons. It was impressive. I went to my boyfriend and pointed him to the saved repeat. I learned that fleeing troops stomps over others and force others to flee after losing many thrown into the river. The intent of the chariots to charge through their own and then trying to flee through a bridge filled with people was almost ridiculous.

I defended a city once with two units of carteginian cavalry, two units of hoplite mercenaries and three units of city guard against a roman army of more than 1000 troops...The city was entirely advanced, although.


One of my favorite bridge-busting tactics is to use a cheap town guard/peasant unit to hold a horde of enemies on a bridge, then charge a squad of elephants across the bridge. You lose some peasants, but they take horrible lossess in terms of people getting chucked into the river.
Works especially well against the AI, whose bridge-crossing tactics are...somewhat lacking :P

One of my favorite bridge-busting tactics is to use a cheap town guard/peasant unit to hold a horde of enemies on a bridge, then charge a squad of elephants across the bridge. You lose some peasants, but they take horrible lossess in terms of people getting chucked into the river.
Works especially well against the AI, whose bridge-crossing tactics are...somewhat lacking :P

Add the effect of the chariot charge through the bridge, throwing their own troops down the river.

It was a narrow pass, if he wanted to attack my city he had to cross the bridge. He should had brought enough missile troops to clear the pass a bit, although.

I tried with peasants, but they do not hold enough time. A rock hard defensive troop, like hoplites, or legionaries, or triarii, can hold the bridge for forever, as they fight with only one unit at a time. Same with said hoplites situated at the door of a city.

Add the effect of the chariot charge through the bridge, throwing their own troops down the river.

It was a narrow pass, if he wanted to attack my city he had to cross the bridge. He should had brought enough missile troops to clear the pass a bit, although.

I tried with peasants, but they do not hold enough time. A rock hard defensive troop, like hoplites, or legionaries, or triarii, can hold the bridge for forever, as they fight with only one unit at a time. Same with said hoplites situated at the door of a city.

There are ways to beat them though, for bridges, its a simple matter of moving archers over to flank the defenders. Fire arrows + sides of Hoplites = dead Greeks.

As to cities, that is why I always have more than one ram if the defender is human. If not, the AI is too stupid to mount a good defence anyway :P

Funny thing, AI hoplites always seem to organize faster than my hoplites. Not a few times I have been faced with a charging barbarian horde only to find that my hoplites are a happy disordered mob, and arent bothering to get themselves together until the barbarians are three feet away.
Thats why I like the Franks. Who needs organization? Axe Heerban would eat hoplites if they met.

Unfortunately, I don't have those kind of games, as I have no money, and my parents are gameophobic. I want Rome: TW, though. :( I've played Age of Empires, if that counts.... :(

However, I must say, the board games will always triumph over the computer ones. It's so much more fun in Axis and Allies to watch the player playing as Russia cry as you storm into Moscow and obliterate his capital with a few short Blitzkreigen. :D