I think here I shall recount the most epic victory I've ever managed to experience on my own. I was playing the game with no battle time limits, to make turtling an invalid strategy against siege attacks. Unit size of huge because I'm awesome like that. It was the first early years in Rome: Total War, and I was playing as Carthage. If you played the game, you know Sicily starts out divided between the Greeks, Romans, and Carthaginians, and usually the Greeks and Romans both end up attempting to take the Carthaginian city before attacking eachother because Carthage doesn't have much of a military in the one city on the island, and their starting units are comparatively weak.
I knew I needed to be aggressive to hold the city, so when the Greeks attempted to attack me, I already had a sizable army to pit against their city on the island. Unfortunately, due to line of sight issues, I didn't see that they had an army consisting primarily of hoplites, as opposed to mine consisting primarily of very light calvary and some infantry, that just happened to be five times as large as my army on the island.
But they weren't attacking my army, they were attacking the city. I knew attacking with the army with my own army would be suicidal. but it would take time for them to siege the city. I could try to siege the city and take it before they do, and build up a little more from the other side before attacking.
Cue the Romans, who also hate me. They sick their army onto mine, and almost completely obliterate it, as it consists of heavy infantry and spear men primarily,
So I have a few reserves back at the city. The infantry I have are only good because they're particularly fast and vicious and can frighten and chase down enemies, but are nearly useless in a fair fight. The calvary I have are only useful because they're somewhat faster than most others, a bit more punch to them I think, at the expense of durability.
I only have a couple units. Three calvary units totaling to 360, plus a commander, and five infantry units coming out to 800 men. They had a full army. Twenty units, all of them Militia Hoplites. Militia units are twice as large as professional units... So their army came out to being six thousand four hundred
I forgot I didn't have a battle time limit. I attacked in the hopes that a victory would make them back down, since they didn't have siege equipment. Instead, I spend about fifteen minutes staring in horror as a wall of spears that stretches from one end of the map to the other steadily marches closer to my walls, waiting for me to try to attack them. It would be stupid, obviously, to attack them. There's no way to get around to their sides, since they're shoulder to shoulder from one end of the map to the other.
Using infantry is out of the question. I know the stats, and in a hand to hand combat, my infantry just manage to be slightly better than militia hoplites, and a frontal charge with light calvary into a wall of spears is stupid. But not as stupid as I initially thought. Unwilling to surrender, I concocted a strategy too awesome to fail. After all, it is not necessary to kill every unit in the map to win, one only needs have the only units left on the map. An enemy running away is as good as dead.
So, calmly, I walk one of my calvary units out of the gates, and just let it sit there on the other side, Naturally, a group of about five hundred hoplites start approaching. At first I think it won't work, but then I see they're all marching in Phalanx position. and closing in directly on the unit. I march it slowly to the left, and the hoplites start curling around to face it. Perfect.
I bring out a second unit of light infantry, and have them charge into the Phalanx line from behind, while the other calvary unit runs some distance away from the hoplites. As the greeks reorient themselves and attempt to bring their spears against the Calvary behind them, that unit quickly disengages, and immediately retreats to the right. The rear of the phalanx line exposed to the calvary unit to the left, I order it to charge in. The process repeats itself more than I care to remember. A lot, to little effect. But eventually, it wears their numbers down, and whatever's left of the five hundred sounds a retreat. The calvary chase them and mow them over easily. They're exhausted from marching in phalanx, and the constant pounding they took from the calvary.
The greeks send more men out from their line of six thousand, and I repeat the process. The greeks, already deeply shaken by the first retreat, put up less of a resistance, and sound the retreat much earlier. I chase them down, towards the enemy line. This causes a chain reaction, where the men they run pass also start retreating. I Mow them down, and their neighbors retreat, like a wave of fear propagating out from the middle of the line, my calvary surfing on it. It's a wholesale slaughter as the greeks are chased off the east and west edges of the map. 240 horsemen versus 6400 men with ten foot long spears. The horsemen win. The rest of my army never even moved.
I don't think I breathed the entire battle.
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Topic: Medieval II, Total War in general, discussion time (Read 74714 times)