So, tell me what is the biggest, most succesful or just the most fun to play of battles that you have played. My most succesful has been in my Gaul game, where I have crushed Romans 3 times outside Rome. Everytime they have had more troops than I but I have won them with skill/tactics/luck. I got 1 famous battle site icon near Rome, when I crushed Romans and saw about 400 Roman corpses floating on Po river.

I think one of my favourite battles was as Bactria against Seleucids. I had two armies and they had two larger armies where my reinforcement army was quickly routed and my main force just about managed to hang on for victory. The other one was a Bactria siege where the Seleucids attacked with twice as many troops and at the end of the battle I had 300 troops left whilst they had 200.

I don't know why but the fight the battle for Syracuse as the Scipii is always great fun. I love to see my Hastati get stuck into the Hoplites on the wall and watching the bodies fall off the wall! :evil:

Fought an insane battle where Iam outnumbered 2:1 and manage to totaly slaughter the AI.
I hid at the edge of the battlefield and ancquerd my lines at the corners. (yeah cheap I know)
Then Using Alexander I did hit and runs attacks from behind my lines

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k120/wmd2006/PC%20Games/RTW_Alex_0006.jpg


At the end I was simply amazed at the carnage
At the cost of 5 dead the Compaion heavy calvary had killed 910. :armata_PDT_11:

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k120/wmd2006/PC%20Games/RTW_Alex_0005.jpg

At the cost of 5 dead the Compaion heavy calvary had killed 910.
That is still an amazing kill ratio, despite the corner trick.

My largest was as Selucids marching southwest across north Egypt. I had an army of ~970 versus ~2000 of Egypt. We fought at a Nile bridge. In the end my army nearly annhilated them, but it took losses of over 200, the bulk of which were taken mobbing chariots.

well i don't have rtw but i had a battle in mtw that makes those battles look like scirmishes picture this 20,000 vs. 13,000. this is me :eek:

Macedon attacked Appolonia when it had no walls. 800 of their men, two hasteti divisions in mine. I lost, but in the process killed 550 of their men :)

Macedon attacked Appolonia when it had no walls. 800 of their men, two hasteti divisions in mine. I lost, but in the process killed 550 of their men :)

Thats not really a huge battle... sounds fun though! :D

mhmmmm

lets see, in Barbarian Invasions you can get simply massive armies attacking you, simply because of the hording....

Hold a city with 500 men against 4000...

its fun.

Biggest battle, hmmm, there were a series of battles between myself (Macedon) versus the Romans in southern Italy.

We must both have been planning on driving each other out of the penninsula, as I had amassed about 4 full armies, and I believe the Romans had about 7 or 8. However, these were my veterans from many other campaigns, whereas the Romans had green recruits. Also, their leadership was rather lacking in the first two battles, whereas I stationed one of my best commanders there. Anyway, the moron Romans used their usual style (at least usual in this particular game) of charging across the battlefield, full blast, and straight into the rows of razor sharp sarissa's. I destroyed their ranged units (who had ignorantly strayed too far ahead of their main line), and had my cavalry fall back. As usual the Romans charge headlong into the front of my phalanx. There was no chance for them to surround us, they didn't have enough men (I spread my phalanxes fairly wide), and while the Romans were hard pressed to surround my phalanxes, I sent my Companion Cavalry out to annihilate their Equites (which they did quite easily) and then proceeded to engage their general, whom they killed shortly after the initial charge.

After the initial flanking threat was dealt with, I had my Hypaspitai Swordsmen swing out around the flanks of my main battle line and hit the already relatively shakey Roman legions. By this time enough of them were dead, that I was able to shorten my battle line and start sending the phalanxes on the wings to close on their flanks. The Hypaspitai Swordsmen effectively encircled the Romans. It was airtight.

Close to 2,500 Romans entered the field that day, about 30 something left. I think I lost about 200-300 men.

Thats not really a huge battle... sounds fun though! :D

Your right, but it wasn't huge at all. But still fun.

I noticed that Pontus's chariots in RTR are the best. Experience 3 chariot unit's attack was 60. :D

I fought a nice battle against Armenia, my chariots slaughtered their king and after that killed 70 Armenian heavy spearmen. Hit in the rear, and ta-da, 30 bodies. I learned something in that battle too; don't run with chariots on a crowded bridge. I lost 40 skirmishers. They all drowned when hit by chariots.

You also learn very quickly not to challange chariots with cavalry, unless you don't like having cavalry in a battle.

Cavalry get slaughtered.

I have no opponents with chariots, or at least I haven't seen them with Seleucuds and Armenia.

Yes, chariots crushes alwaysother cavalry. It beats even cataphracts.

My largest battle was vs. the Vandals in Barbarian Invasions. They attacked one of my smaller cities (wooden palisade) with 6000 troops. I had 500, including 2 complements of horsemen, 4 groups of spearmen, my captain, and 2 archer groups. I fought off attack after attack. I had killed 5500+ of them before they sent in their 6 Generals (with heavy calvary). My men were slaughtered but it was a Pyhrric victory for the Vandals. The next turn I wiped out their faction.

Oh my God, 6000! Wow.

I played a custom battle, one of the Gaul-Rome ones. It's where the Gauls are outnumbered 1200-600 I think and are getting enclosed by teh Romans. So you, as the Gauls, have to fight the soldiers in front of you quickly and face the force to the rear. I beat their entire army only losing about 200 troops, no escapees for them!

I've also fought a number of small battles where I outnumbered the enemies but practiced on superior troops and tried losing as few troops as possible. IE leading 700 princepes, velites and equites against 300 Gallic druids, mystical swordsmen, and heavy cavalry.

I can't remember my biggest non-custom battle. However, I did put one together in which I gave all six armies nothing but peasants, and set them at each other. It was utter chaos. Battles everywhere, people running...

The good thing was that as more units were destroyed, the battle got faster as the machine I was using could cope with it.

7 Macedonia full packs vs 4 Egyptian fullpacks in huge scale meanning:

25.760 Macedonians (me) vs 14.720 Egyptian :) Rome Total Realism

Motsly phalanx for both side, game set on 3x speed, battle took almost an hour.

Casualties?.

I have no opponents with chariots, or at least I haven't seen them with Seleucuds and Armenia.

Yes, chariots crushes alwaysother cavalry. It beats even cataphracts.

Chariots are sort of bugged, in that the attack that they use to knock down infantry actually kills cavalry. That's why they do so well against them.

Chariots are sort of bugged, in that the attack that they use to knock down infantry actually kills cavalry. That's why they do so well against them.

I had thought they were largely obsolete by alexanders time. ?
(Commonly used shield walls ala "gladiator" to trip up chariots)

My most miraculous battle was when my unit of Urban Cohorts was ambushed by about 700 Barbarians. The only time I lost men was when their cavalry charged. I entered with 40 men, and left with 37. They entered with 700, and left with around 40. Timely counter charges, thinning their cavalry with pilae, and stretching out my line so as not to get surrounded helped, but I still can't believe I won. I grant you they were barbarians and barbarians kinda suck, but still, sheer numbers does account for a lot.

I wouldn't have believed it either if I hadn't seen it.

@ FriendlyFire: I have found that phalanxes stand up to them quite well. They take losses, but not nearly as much as other infantry. The phalanx has been able to hold up to chariot charges the best for me, keep them in deep formation.

Well, I just recently got RTW and I had a battle (which I thought was massive until I saw some bigger ones here).

I was the House of Julii fighting the Britons. I had about 1000 of my men battling 1600 or so Britons. I saw their hoard charging down to me and thought "oh crap". I just lined up my 3 archer companies and fired flaming arrows to divide them, and then flanked with cavalry charges. I never once moved my infantry, to make the most of the archers and javelin throwers. Then with my cavalry charging in and mopping up the left overs from behind, the infantry charged in just after a volley of arrows to completely surround the Britons (kind of like LotR: Return of the King, before they destroy the Ring). Oh, BTW, this was a campaign, not a custom battle and their army had a few chariots and some Woad Raiders, but the majority were those light infantry soldiers.

Great battle was won with about 60-70 Roman casualties!

That kind of battles are very fun to play. What unit scale you used?(small, normal, large?)

Hmm, I'm not sure, but it may have been set to large.

mine was around

15,000 of mine (approx) vs 20,000 (approx) of theirs
Romans vs Carthage

i just had some of my units that could steath(there were trees) use that ability, moved back my main army so that when my enemy attacked the stealth would hit them from behind....that was the plan anyways

it all went south.......unfortunatly i didn't see their cavaly which went through my stealth units only after i had committed myself to the battle and couldn't escape......the stealth were annihilated completely (600 losses).....my main army was devastated as well (reinforcement kept getting killed, 8,000) losses......fortunatly all that was left of my enemy was spearmen, at first they were successful (trapped my units, 6,000 losses).....so now i had 400 men, they had about 4,000

i saved my men by sending a distraction army ahead of the seperated speamen group and would send 1 squad of infantry behind them and devastated the group......i managed to win in the end

total death toll.........mine----14,800......enemy------19,000

and yes i was bored enough to actually do approximate head counts.....was finding the weakness to each nation, and their units......unsuccessful test....but fun

and the strike behind the speaman strategy can actually be that effective if used well (i've killed entire armies of spearmen with just 4 squads of hastati)

I had thought they were largely obsolete by alexanders time. ?
(Commonly used shield walls ala "gladiator" to trip up chariots)

I was referring to a game reality, not an historical one. In the game, chariots do well against cavalry, because the knockdown function kills cavalry instead of knocking them down.

Well, another large battle I had today where I was heavily outnumbered.

My troops: 700 (after a long bloody battle) against a 1900 strong Briton army heaped with chariots etc. I was actually besieging one of their forts, and thought, yeah I should be OK. Well, luckily I had my Hastati in a large double line formation, with 3 companies of archers, supported by 4 companies of Equites. I just held my line (seeing they sallied out) and watched their Warbands and slingers tremble and fall under a hail of spears and arrows. Once I had run out of spears (not good) I launched an attack on their cavalry. Now, I have no idea what happened, maybe it was all those flaming arrows, but they all just got up and ran off. I did my best to mop up remaining infantry with my cavalry, but I was so very surprised my heavily damaged troops pulled out :D

I set it to all heavy cavalry for the romans v all heavy cavalry for the huns and just charged. There was 1800 huns v 1600 romans and the huns trashed them. That was in BI.

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/1373/iwintx7.jpg
We both had two armies. I (Pontus) was seiging the last Armenian city, which had about 200 troops inside. I had a force of about 4 phalanxes, 3 archers, 2 light cavalry, 3 scythed chariots and a general seiging the city.
They had one army inside the city, about 3 generals, two eastern infantry and horse archers. Their second one was something like 8 eastern infantry (full health with weapons upgrades) and horse archers. So I built another army, consisting of mroe phalanxes, pelsats, and scythed chariots.
I merged these two armies outside the city. One had my infantry troops, the other had all of my scythed chariots (about 6) two hoplites one archer and a general. I used my infantrymen to seige their city (Artaxarta, their capital and last city) and tried to pursue their Eastern Infantry army.
They attackded my seiging army outside the city, which had about 400 troops. They had 200 in the city and 300 attacking me, so they outnumbered me. I auto-fought the battle (:blush:) and won with only about 40 casualties (one of which was my general). I maintained the siege, but they still had most of their trooops in the city.

Here's where my slaughter comes in. Awaiting this moment for a couple of years (years in the game, actually maybe half an hour in real life :p)
We met on the battlefield the next turn. My scythed chariots against their eastern infantry. Their reinforcements came from inside the city and my reinforcements came from the army sieging the city. Because of the size of my seiging army, I only got to use 100 or so troops from them.
They started in the trees at the bottom of a hill, their infantry in a line. I grouped my scythed chariots and archers into two groups, my charioteers approaching their flank while my archers shot from the front. I massacred them, but they had their stupid horsearchers firing at me and killed a few of my archers.
Then their reinforcements arrived behind me, so I had to turn around and fight. I kept two companies of scythed chariots (about 17 men) behind to disperse of the routing eastern infantry, and moved everybody uphill to the other side of the map. My archers were pretty tired, but had to exchange arrows with horse archers from them, who ran away every time I shot at them . Then I had my charioteers flank them (again!), while my hoplites had to absorb a charge from eastern infantry (not pretty). I killed their general (and faction leader) and still had plenty of troops to spare.
The battle wasn't over yet. It turned out their first horsearchers (about 9 of them) were still stalking the woods, harassing my charioteers, who were standing still. I had to kill them off with archers, all but one. That one I had to chase down with my exhausted charioteers half way around the perimeter of battle.

Overall, few casualties. About 9 people, while I destroyed all of their troops and, simultaneously, their faction.

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m64/duckmanbro/battlewin.jpg

This is the battle I won a while ago. Mind you, I had the game on easy battles because I had just started playing... :mischief:

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m64/duckmanbro/battlewin.jpg

This is the battle I won a while ago. Mind you, I had the game on easy battles because I had just started playing... :mischief:
I'm not sure which I'm more impressed with, your overwhelming victory over barbarians in the snow, or the fact that you had 1337 troops left.

Hah! I thought that too. But it was a tough battle...

That kind of barb-battles are fun. It's pretty easy to win a battle like that, especially on easy settings. You can crush the first smaller army before the huge horde. The amount of remained troops is the thing what really makes me impressed.

Keep the men in formation. Formation=Strength, Strength tends to equal less casualties. I also don't commit my entire army to dealing with the small army that arrives first. I'd have sent maybe 1 units of Equites, 1 unit of Archers, and either 3 or 4 units of Hastati depending on the type of infantry I was facing. If I did go with 4, I'd probably stretch out the battle lines of 2 Hastati and then keep 1 in reserve, and whilst the enemy is engaged, send the remaining Hastati to hit them in the rear along with the cavalry (unless you're riding down their ranged units with them).

Better to have some of your army face stiff odds and potentially lose more men, rather than tire our your whole army chasing individual units.

After the enemy routes, then by all means send your entire army chasing after them

Had a fun battle today. Seleucid army attacked me, Pontus. I had twice more men than they. It ended up like my normal battles; I suffered as many casualties as they had men in the end.

The best battle I ever fought was in Egypt. I was the Scipii, and was invading from the West. We had been fighting a back-and-forth war for probably thirty years, from Cyrene to the Nile, back and forth time and again; very expensive.

Well eventually the Marius reforms came along, and I coincidentally won a peace with the Egyptians, at the expense of losing Cyrene.

I then spent the next several years constructing the most envious army you've ever seen: 15,000 Legionaries, fully equipped and ready to go.

I combined this Grand Army with the 10,000 pre-Marius troops I had stationed around the Empire, and disembarked Carthago Novo: destination:Aegyptus.

I fought a few small skirmishes on the way, but the climax of the war came just east of Thebes: the Egyptians met me with 24,000 men; I got lucky, and they attacked in a way that put me on multiple sides of them. Slaughter ensued; but the legionaries won out. I think I lost about 5K men, but absolutely devistated the Egyptians. That was the last real offensive movement they made; I bulldozed them all the way to Damascus, where I hit my 50 province requirement, and subesquently won.

Well, I was playing on easy seeing it was my first campaign, but I learnt very early that a mass charge with infantry is useless. How embarassing.

But all I generally do is keep 3 archers behind 2 rows of 8-10 principes/legionaries (depending where I am situated in the campaign progression). Equites or other light/heavy cavalry sit tight until, say, spearmen lift their spears to retreat from incoming fire. I also leave my principes/legionaries on free fire so they instantly shoot down any charging foes. Once they run out of spears, CHARGE!!

Well, I was playing on easy seeing it was my first campaign, but I learnt very early that a mass charge with infantry is useless. How embarassing.

But all I generally do is keep 3 archers behind 2 rows of 8-10 principes/legionaries (depending where I am situated in the campaign progression). Equites or other light/heavy cavalry sit tight until, say, spearmen lift their spears to retreat from incoming fire. I also leave my principes/legionaries on free fire so they instantly shoot down any charging foes. Once they run out of spears, CHARGE!!


Wait until you meet Egyptian Axemen. Your life quickly becomes a living hell.

Well, I was playing on easy seeing it was my first campaign, but I learnt very early that a mass charge with infantry is useless.

Infantry rush isn't useless, you have to use it well. For example if you face hoplites, which are hell to non-hoplites, you can lock hoplites on their place with a massive infantry rush. It takes casualties, but sometimes that makes the battle much easier. Rush is even better if you have hoplites and regular infantry; hoplites face their front, while barb-mercs slaughter them from the side.

Heh, but I didn't use it well, that's what I meant...

I know that a charge can be useful if you lock up hoplites, but these weren't :D

This is a tale of Battle of Astiacus.

Pontus was a growing empire in area of present Turkey. It had fought many wars against the big and bad Seleucid Empire. But neither side had fought a battle like this before. It was the battle of Titans.

King of Seleucid Empire was fed up of the cheeky Pontus. It was time of revenge. Spartacus the Conqueror and Pharnacices had conquered many cities from Seleucids; Eusebeia, Nicomedia, Pessinus, Sardis and Smyrna. They had to be stopped. So a big army was sent through the mountains of Turkey. Luckily Teiranes of Chachbta, who was sieging Ancyra, spotted that rampaging gang. Teiranes had to act quickly. So he lifted the siege and attacked the army of Seleucids. Luckily no general was in their army, which was a huge advantage for Pontus later on.

The battle begun. Both sides started cautiously. Both sides marched their armies towards the enemy. Then the action started. Pontic Archers were sent to cause havoc to enemy lines. But Seleucid Javelineers surprised them, and started pursuing Archers. Luckily Sarmatian Mercenary Cavalry was in right place, and crushed the Javelineers.

The battle continued like this for a while. Armies marched forward, and missile troops fought against missile troops. Seleucids didn't have any cavalry in this battle, so Pontus could dominate the missile-battle with her cavalry. When all arrows were shot and javelins thrown for each side, the missile troops retreated from both sides.

Time for true action is now. Teiranes sent his infantry, containing hoplites, pezois, Galatian swordsmen and warbands, to the enemy. Phalanxes fought in front line. Both lines separated on few sections. That was great news for Pontus. Now they could use their barbarian mercenaries against phalanxes by attacking from the flank. That worked greatly. Both sides suffered casualties, but the better morale of Pontic troops changed the battle to Pontus. Victory for Pontus!!

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/7184/bobbx1.th.jpg (http://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bobbx1.jpg)

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/7981/bibjo7.th.jpg (http://img212.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bibjo7.jpg)

I'll make more of these tales when I fight more big battles.

I am outnumbered 3:1 as I am attacked by the armies of Rome. Who won?

I did. Wiped out one army, leveled another.

I've never had any particularly large lone battles, but there are a few very bloody geographical locations.

In a vanilla 1.3 game as the Scipii, I made an amphibious landing at Antioch to relieve the pressure on my Egyptian protectorate. The Pontic empire sent tens of thousands of men to die at the foot of the walls over the following years.

And playing an early version of SPQR - the main feature of which was no-wait troop training - a particular mountain foothill in northern Macedon was buried under heaps of bodies. 3,000 Roman men laid siege to the capital every few months, and every time withdrew to the same foothill as twice their number (or more) in Macedonians counterattacked. Instant-training troops meant this went on for quite some time, until the AI finally ran out of money, population, or both. By that time the mounds of dead were higher than the foothills themselves.

i had one city (Sidon) that proved itself untakeable, i had taken the city from egypt (i was the Scipii) in a naval strike so it was completely surrounded by egypt, peace followed, and i wa able to build up the defences knowing attack would come soon (i made peace with egypt several time and they always attacked 10 turns after peace exactly) they decalred war as usual and the expected attack came (200 Romans to 1000 egyptians), they held off attack long enough for me to build the final level of defences, many more attack came, and about the time i stopped counting it was at about 15 seiges (i know that there were a lot more), all with 1000 or more losses on egypts side, and rarely over 400 on mine, egypts addiction to attacking this settlement (which i had to keep restocking with tropps from my closest settlement in Kydonia, Crete, which served as a midpoint to the italian area production).

by the time that i was able to mount a counterattack, egypt was falling apart in rebellion and war on multiple fronts, thanks to that city i was able to capture allt the areas south of the city

several attacks came to that city during wars with the nations to the north, the city was only lost from my control once, and that was becasue of a recent northern attack which created the highest losses the city had seen (only 200 of over 1500 Romans were left), and the high population made the city rebel the next turn, 5 turns later i put the city under seige and exterminated the population (so that it would not happen again if i lost that many soldiers again)

Chariots are sort of bugged, in that the attack that they use to knock down infantry actually kills cavalry. That's why they do so well against them.

You need to use infantry on loose formation... Then , there won't be any problem;)

Had a pretty good battle last night. I was moving an army from Sardis (I think) to besiege the city of Pessinus with about 700-800 men, made up primarily of skirmishers and light infantry, and barbarian light cavalry (had 1 Mercenary Hoplite unit, 1 Galatians Mercenary unit, and 2 Thracian Light Infantry, were my best units). We were ambushed by an army of about 900 Seleucids, commanded by a fairly skilled family member. He had some Galatians Mercenary units (2 I believe), 2 full units of slingers, 1 unit of slingers with like 4 men left, the generals cavalry, and about 4 Chryaspirades (I have no freakin idea how to properly spell that, but RTR players should know what I'm talking about. To those that don't: basically a very heavy phalanx with gold colored armor).

The battle took place on the crest of a hill, we had no time to prepare, and on top of that, there was a heavy sandstorm. We were in the column formation as is usually the case and I quickly ordered my men to spread out into a battle line. They somehow managed to do this very quickly and just as they finished, the Seleucids were on top of us. The family member did his suicidal charge that nearly broke my line where he hit, so I ordered two units of skirmishers into hand to hand combat to help the barbarian warband they hit. Eventually the family member routed, and I managed to break up their lines a bit and destroyed each set of units one by one.

I lost about 400-500 men, but when you defeat an enemy superior in number, quality of units, and after being surprised, you definitely earn a "heroic victory". They lost close to 700 men. I still have no idea how I managed to do this, especially since I vamped up the difficulty level when I started this particular game.

Originally Posted by shortguy
Chariots are sort of bugged, in that the attack that they use to knock down infantry actually kills cavalry. That's why they do so well against them.
The attack could do that because the scythes or whatever they use to cut down the infantry, break the horses legs. And a horse with broken legs is basically good for just dog food, as 9 times out of 10 you will have to kill the horse afterwards.

Ya were Pontus, Tankguy?

MUMMMMYYYY


I marshelled five full stacks of soldiers, Most have upgraded Plate and masterswords. Remembering MTW where I pinned the AI behind a river and then threw forces at them in an expensive attritional war eventually swamping them with sheer numbers.

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k120/wmd2006/PC%20Games/MTW2_0019.jpg

This is Rome: Total War battles. If you want to start your own thread with MTW/2 battles, do so.

already made one

It was Hannibal's greatest moment, my army slowly movedtowards rome, amred with elephants, cavalry, spearmen and the most important ingredient... Catapults.

I would face 4 armies in the Battle of the Great Bridge. I was on the opposite side, the enemy had spearmen, infantry, incendary pigs, archers, but they lacked catapults, thus spelling their doom.

My army didn't cross the bridge but let the enemy come for me. As they began to move across the bridge, their units were massed together in tight formations. slowly they moved onto the bridge.

I opened fire, Catapults shot flaming rocks down upon the enemies formations. Men died where they stood and enemy cavalry divisions were obliterated.

then I noticed, only 3 enemy armies where at the bridge. To the West, another army was crossing the river the hard way. I turned several catapults on them but kept the mass on the bridge. As the Army left the water and got on my side of shore, a sent my cavalry and elephants.

The Enemy General died. But my own General was hit by a random catapult shot, killing him. But I pressed on.

I followed the army to the other side of theriver, routing the enemies retreating forces.

By the end of the battle, of my own 1200 men, I had 850 remaining. But I had killed exactly 4912. The Army had atleast 500 men remaining, but if they were unable to beat me with such overwhelming force. They are truly done for.

This is the battle I just finished. I now continue the march to Rome.

Once i was playing as Carthaganians and attacked Rome with 3 Armoured war elephants and 12 round shield cavalry and several mercenary hoplites.
And 5 Catapults

Had a 8 star General commanding my troops cant remember his name though.
Was the coolest battle i had ever fought.
Was wonderfull to see a cavalry charge against the roman legions frm two flanks While the Mercenaries attacked the legions Head on.

Later on i destroyed all the Roman Factions except Julii
Faction which extended till Gaul. Am a newb to this game.

I had this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5191605&postcount=748) rather epic battle today. Rome vs the Sarmatians, with two armies each, though their second was some time away from arriving.

Was quite proud of myself after winning, as I'm terrible at regrouping and taking on a second attack, and winning :D

http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/4070/009ur5.jpg

When I sallied out against a Macedonian army, the army withdrew. Have you ever seen the computer do this?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/108813/what.JPG

Yes several times, ive even marched over about the entire map just for them to retreat at the sight of my glorious armies.

Your armies seem evenly matched (at least in numbers). The computer probably thought it could handle it, and as your own armies got closer it slowly realised it couldn't devise any sort of computerised tactic to fight back with.

Therefore, leg it!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/108813/untitledwinner.JPG
My biggest battle in BI so far. I like BI for its big battles even though the large armies are disorganized. Horse archers rock!:hammer:

Here's another big battle
http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/48/crushmk5.png (http://imageshack.us)

I once fought the SPQR's most powerful army (1300) with only 300 men. I was lucky to win because I deployed my cavalry to early and only had 2 left. But by god I was able to defeat the enemy army.

How did you win?

How did you win?

Luckily I quickly formed up a plan that tricked the Romans.

I focused all of my Armored Hopites into a circle so I could not be flanked, in the center of this circle was my Spartan Hopites, not in Phalanx so they could move fast. I got lucky. The Romans focused their attack on one side of my circle, I opened the circle and caught the Romans in a Pincer movement. I had the Spartans run around and form a new circle with move of the enemy army caught in the center. I didn't really have them in a circle but I had the spread out then. And once one unit begins to rout the rest seem to fall apart too.

Here's another big battle.
http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/5159/senatemu0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I fought a battle as the Huns against one of my neighborus. I had 2000 men, maybe less, I can't remember for sure, and they had 6000. I won. Somehow. Despite that that was ont of my first battles in RTW (BI).

In M2:TW as England, I had a great battle against Scotland. Whoever won the battle had clear passage to each others country. I won. :trophy:

Each side had about 1500 men.

I forgot to take a screenshot of this battle I just fought, but it was awesome.

I am the Seleucid Empire.

I have a general and about 400 men (each milita hoplite unit holds 80 men) holed up in Pergamum.

Pergamum is besiged by a Pontic army two thousand strong.

When they storm the city, I plug up the street entrances to the plaza with hoplite formations, supported by a unit of archers, thracian mercenaries, and a few peltasts (i mean like 20 guys) and of course my general.

I killed 1900 Pontics and lost maybe a hundred men. I hold the city!

I made a HUGE 11,000 man battle in Alexander with me commanding the greeks and the other three nations attacking as one. They lost really badyl. My calvalry easily swept them aside. Unfortunately I pressed enter accidently so I didn't see the battle report:mad:

I forgot to take a screenshot of this battle I just fought, but it was awesome.

I am the Seleucid Empire.

I have a general and about 400 men (each milita hoplite unit holds 80 men) holed up in Pergamum.

Pergamum is besiged by a Pontic army two thousand strong.

When they storm the city, I plug up the street entrances to the plaza with hoplite formations, supported by a unit of archers, thracian mercenaries, and a few peltasts (i mean like 20 guys) and of course my general.

I killed 1900 Pontics and lost maybe a hundred men. I hold the city!
Pontus is unbelievably weak in the game without a human player.

Show some respect to Mithridates and Pontus, CA!

Pontus is unbelievably weak in the game without a human player.

Show some respect to Mithridates and Pontus, CA!
This is because the Eastern factions just keep on training eastern infantry instead of horse archers and cataphracts. :crazyeye: They can be better is the AI is improved.

This is because the Eastern factions just keep on training eastern infantry instead of horse archers and cataphracts. :crazyeye: They can be better is the AI is improved.

If Pontus and Armenia had trained more than three units of Cataphracts in the entire game thus far, they could have easily removed me from the game. But they didn't, and I crossed the Cilician Gates meeting nothing but Eastern Infantry and Skirmishers. Egypt, though, is making me bleed for every inch of desert I take. They're Pyyhric Victories, but victories nonetheless.

If Pontus and Armenia had trained more than three units of Cataphracts in the entire game thus far, they could have easily removed me from the game. But they didn't, and I crossed the Cilician Gates meeting nothing but Eastern Infantry and Skirmishers. Egypt, though, is making me bleed for every inch of desert I take. They're Pyyhric Victories, but victories nonetheless.

The Egyptians are defiantly a pain... I've come into conflict with them dozens of times. However, I never really took the time to invest into an Invasion of Egypt. Except for 1 game:

I was the Brutti, I had an Army sent from Greece and landed at Alexandria (The Egyptian Navy was huge, but so was mine, I brought about 12 Ship Units in all) I was lucky enough to land my Army right near Alexandria and seige the city. I ended the turn and I was forced to fight 3 Battles. It was Chaos, but I was able to hold out and completly destroy the City Garrison and capture the City. That was the start of the Egyptian Fall...

In 10 Turns I was able to Throw the Egyptians back past Jerusalem. Im planning an Invasion of their Turkish Possesions and Im Seiging Cyprus. But Im sad, now, I have no major challengers left but my fellow Romans :(

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b357/PrinceScamp/Total%20War/medieval22007-04-2720-37-59-93.jpg
I was surprised my men held out as well as they did, my General killed at least a score (20) of the enemy alone.

This was the defece of Sarkal, that little town to the far east of Russia. I was on my way to take it and when my armies arrived there the Turks had just finished sieging it.They were swiftly forced out and for the next years they lost several small armies as my army fought it's way into the Caucasus mountain range. Lost 3 generals to them now :( But I retook the town!

Are you drunk/tired? I haven't seen that many typing errors in your posts for some time...

This is Sparta!
http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/9813/thisisspartaan8.jpg

And yes Roman had all upgraded as same as me.

This is Sparta!
http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/9813/thisisspartaan8.jpg

And yes Roman had all upgraded as same as me.
Your opponent must not know how to counter phalanxes.

Just had another great battle in M2:TW. Terrain CAN make a huge difference to the direction of a battle.

I was the Portuguese, and my foes were the Moors. My army was lead by Prince Affonso, who I was trying to train to be a perfect general. The Moors attacked me with a large, 3/4 stack army composed of desert cavalry, archers and spear militia. They were at the bottom of a huge (and I mean huge) hill. I, meanwhile, was at the top. :D

My archers and crossbows were positioned on a ridge, and could fire directly down at the enemy. Naturally, they fell like flies as the arrows bounced off their rather unprotected heads. Even soldiers what made it to the top were too tired to fight my spear militia gurading the only passage to the top of the hill. I only lost around 30 men, out of about 470.

Just had another great battle in M2:TW. Terrain CAN make a huge difference to the direction of a battle.

I was the Portuguese, and my foes were the Moors. My army was lead by Prince Affonso, who I was trying to train to be a perfect general. The Moors attacked me with a large, 3/4 stack army composed of desert cavalry, archers and spear militia. They were at the bottom of a huge (and I mean huge) hill. I, meanwhile, was at the top. :D

My archers and crossbows were positioned on a ridge, and could fire directly down at the enemy. Naturally, they fell like flies as the arrows bounced off their rather unprotected heads. Even soldiers what made it to the top were too tired to fight my spear militia gurading the only passage to the top of the hill. I only lost around 30 men, out of about 470.

You should post this in the Your biggest MTW battle thread.

My oponnent couldnt, i was on corner, 3 lines deep ;)

The Egyptians are defiantly a pain... I've come into conflict with them dozens of times. However, I never really took the time to invest into an Invasion of Egypt. Except for 1 game:

I was the Brutti, I had an Army sent from Greece and landed at Alexandria (The Egyptian Navy was huge, but so was mine, I brought about 12 Ship Units in all) I was lucky enough to land my Army right near Alexandria and seige the city. I ended the turn and I was forced to fight 3 Battles. It was Chaos, but I was able to hold out and completly destroy the City Garrison and capture the City. That was the start of the Egyptian Fall...

In 10 Turns I was able to Throw the Egyptians back past Jerusalem. Im planning an Invasion of their Turkish Possesions and Im Seiging Cyprus. But Im sad, now, I have no major challengers left but my fellow Romans :(

Somewhere in this forum is my story of how, as the Scipii, I fought a Rommel-Monty style war back and forth across the Sahara with the Egyptians. Eventually I got tired of getting nowhere, made peace, and then built up and sent around 15 fully packed post-Marius-reform armies into Egypt and annihilated them.

As for this Seleucid game we're talking about now, I just finished my conquest of Aegyptus. I've gotten the war machine cranking, and I've taken over Pontus, Parthia, Armenia, Egypt, the Greek Cites' foreign posessions (Rhodes, Pergmamum, etc); Scythia was just stupid enough to attack me, my glorious armies are only two turns' march from Campus Alanni :evil:

Somewhere in this forum is my story of how, as the Scipii, I fought a Rommel-Monty style war back and forth across the Sahara with the Egyptians. Eventually I got tired of getting nowhere, made peace, and then built up and sent around 15 fully packed post-Marius-reform armies into Egypt and annihilated them.

As for this Seleucid game we're talking about now, I just finished my conquest of Aegyptus. I've gotten the war machine cranking, and I've taken over Pontus, Parthia, Armenia, Egypt, the Greek Cites' foreign posessions (Rhodes, Pergmamum, etc); Scythia was just stupid enough to attack me, my glorious armies are only two turns' march from Campus Alanni :evil:
I usually never fight in the steppes. The lands are very poor and the distance is too long.

I usually never fight in the steppes. The lands are very poor and the distance is too long.

Normally the farthest I venture into the steppes is the Don River; I might go after Campus Scythii if they're really pissing me off, but I tend to stop at Dacia. But in this case, I need to teach the Scythians a lesson, Sherman-style. Also, going north allows me into Campus Sakae, where I can finish off the Parthians, with whom I am still at war.

I fully intend to keep my border at the Cacausus.

This is what happens when your support army decides to take an extended lunch break and not show up for the battle.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/60761/Battle_of_Rhodes_-_No_Ally.JPG

This is the city of Rhodes. The Scipii attacked me from four sides with two and a half thousand men. I had just under 1000 inside the city, with another thousand sitting around outside, in case, you know, the 2.5K decided to storm the city, they could come and even the odds. Well they never showed up during the battle. I proceed to get slaughtered. I can only defend two portals, the other two got rammed and the bastards walked to the center of the city while I fought to the death on the walls at the other two gates. Granted, I still had men left, and granted, I was probably going to lose anyway had the battle not automatically ended because of the Scipii at the town center, had that army shown up I still might have had a chance.

When the battle was over, the other thousand men that never showed up were also lost because they had no navy to retreat to when the city fell; the Romans had blockaded the island.

I demand that this battle go down in the "Last Stands" thread in the World History forum!

This is what happens when your support army decides to take an extended lunch break and not show up for the battle.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/60761/Battle_of_Rhodes_-_No_Ally.JPG

This is the city of Rhodes. The Scipii attacked me from four sides with two and a half thousand men. I had just under 1000 inside the city, with another thousand sitting around outside, in case, you know, the 2.5K decided to storm the city, they could come and even the odds. Well they never showed up during the battle. I proceed to get slaughtered. I can only defend two portals, the other two got rammed and the bastards walked to the center of the city while I fought to the death on the walls at the other two gates. Granted, I still had men left, and granted, I was probably going to lose anyway had the battle not automatically ended because of the Scipii at the town center, had that army shown up I still might have had a chance.

When the battle was over, the other thousand men that never showed up were also lost because they had no navy to retreat to when the city fell; the Romans had blockaded the island.

I demand that this battle go down in the "Last Stands" thread in the World History forum!

We need a Total War Last Stand Thread... I got a couple myself, quite an impressive one too. It was in one of my favorite scenarios, a Bridge Battle. Unfortuantly, I lacked my brave Spartan Hoplites. I had 3 Armored Hoplite Divisions, 2 Creten Archers, 2 Normal Hoplites and a single division of Cavalry.

The enemy numbered 3 armies, made up of Armored Elephants, Heavy Infantry, Chariots (It was an allied army, Selecuids and Egyptians!) alot of stuff...

I held for a long time, mostly because hte stupid Egyptians decided to send every last cavalry men to start the Battle. I always set up my hoplites so that theres 1 on both sides of the road going towards the bridge and one always on the Road. Nothing warms your heart better then seeing Chariots go down without a single loss!

The problem began when Elephants attacked, however, I was able to center them on the bridge so they come about 1 at a time. Slaughtered but I got my Armored Hoplites torn up. From there it was pretty much over.

I believe in the end I lost 350 men. The Enemy lost 1230 I believe. Thats mostly because I caught them in a major flank, when they stormed through my side of the Bridge I had my hoplites surrond them and hit them, then I had my Cavalry hit the Flank.

I never really had a big RTW battle.... it always turns into a slogging match in spain between my exausted armies and their just plain bad armies

Okay, new battle!

This one is in my game as the Bactrians in RTR. The battle took place in Cilicia, as one of my armies completed a massive flanking manouver that put it right in the way of two Seleucid armies marching East from The Gate. I managed to fight them peacemeal, and thus stopped a potentially disaterous counteroffensive in Syria. This particular battle was the latter of the two armies, a trailer to the other, fully loaded, 20 unit army.

In case the impact of that hasn't hit you yet, I'll say it again. I'm the Bactrians. I'm fighting in Cilicia. I own everything in between, and haven't lost a battle against the Seleucid Empire yet.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/60761/Bactria_vs_Seleucid1.JPG

Just today I fought my biggest battle ever.

I was the Greeks, I had 1 Army, not even full:
-3 Spartan Hoplites
-2 Armored Hoplites
-1 General
-4 Cavalry
-3 Catapults

I took on two fully loaded Senate Armies, complete with their own Catapults.

It was a magnificant battles, at first we dukefd it out with Catapults, I nearly lost a Spartan Division but I was able to flank their catapults.

Then I had to fight their Troops. My Hoplites held tight against the enemy troops, I cut down Roman after Roman with a flanking movement with my cavalry. I even cut down alot with my catapults.

But ultimately, Despite my victory. I didn't have enough men left for a march on Rome, I was forced to retreat.

In mtw, my biggest littke battle came when I (Venice) had about 300 troops on a rocky out cropping in the Arabian desert. The last of the Mongols (2,500) attacked me, but I have always relied on one tactic. I keep plenty of bowman in all my armies! So I had them behind the out cropping, protected. I had a unit or two of heavy cavalry and and sent them to protect the archers. Whenever the Mongols got too close, I simply slaughtered them. The rest, my bows took care of. Begining: 300 vs. 2500. End: 180 vs. a fleeing enemy of about 400! YAY! It got a famous battle marker.

RTW:BI as the Franks, I utterly crushed the Burgundians. Their only village had 3 generals in it, crushed those easily. I didn't know that I'd have to face 5 large horde armeis.

Plus, there is no way they could have gotten that many troops out of that town after I massacred it.

Anyways, two turns later, there's 1 general and 4 battered Burgundian units left.

I attacked 3 armies, the first one I let coem to me, and the broke upon my shield wall with my 5 archer units raining down arrows for most of the battle. My calvalry chased the survivors down, actualy killing most of them and harrasing the 2nd and 3rd armies that were advancing.
In both attacks the enemy tried to flank me around that rock formation but the first time I repelled them with a unit of raiders, the 2nd time I had to commit infantry.
Most of the time I was managing my calvalry, chasing down fleeing enemies and archers and counterattacking the calvalry (especialy the enemy generals). My infantry did a bunch of fighting too, but were mostly left to their own devices.
Needless to say, it went downhill very rapidly fast for the enemy. I got a famous battle marker though!

For some reason the first image link from photobucket isn't recognized by the forum lately, so click on it to see carnage!

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b357/PrinceScamp/Total%20War/RomeTW-BI2007-07-0214-53-18-09.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b357/PrinceScamp/Total%20War/RomeTW-BI2007-07-0214-53-55-87.jpg

I crushed the 4th army the next turn in a similar battle (except without the enemie having two waves).

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b357/PrinceScamp/Total%20War/RomeTW-BI2007-07-0215-03-08-82.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b357/PrinceScamp/Total%20War/RomeTW-BI2007-07-0215-03-17-76.jpg

As Gaul-

The pesky Romans had been running around with a full stack (Captain Gnaeus) in Gaul, even though they hadn't declared war. Eventually, they brought up a 2/3 stack with a new general (no command stars, ffs!) Then they sieged Mediolanium, which I had loaded up with a full stack two turns before. The same turn my original faction leader (Brennus) had died so my new faction leader was Euporedorix, inside Mediolanium.
I bring down an army about half the size of Captain Gnaeus' force with Lugotorix, a one star general who has done pretty much nothing the entire game. The force had 3 swords, 1 warband, 1 naked fanatic, 2 skirmisher warbands, and 2 barbarian cavalry. This sat outside Mediolanium while the other two played siege.
I end my turn, and the Romans take Gnaeus off of siege duty and come down to attack me, and Marcus Julius (their general) takes over a new siege. I notice Gnaeus has no cavalry, so I attack. They bring in Marcus Julius, with about 4 hastati and 3 cavalry auxilia, and I bring in Eporedorix, who has a full stack of mainly swords, skirmishers and cavalry.

Eporedorix had to come down all the way from Mediolanium, so he was pretty much a non-factor. I mean, his forces WALKED from one end of the battlefield to where I was, so I was alone against almost 900 men, with only about 375.
I put my infantry in front, in a group so I can easily select all of them. 1 cavalry on each flank, Lugotorix on the left flank. They line up with hastati and one town watch in front, velites in back. I march up to them quickly, hoping that Marcus does not catch up. I set one of my skirmishers to open fire on their hastati on their right (my left) flank, hoping that once I had taken out a few men I can charge, but they moved their velites right behind their hastati so I was reluctant to do so. Meanwhile, my other skirmishers open fire on their center, a unit of town watch. Town watch have poor morale, so I put my infantry on war cry and have all of them attack the miserable town watch, who are having arrows fired down on them. of course, my men decide not to follow directions, and only one decides to attack the town watch, the rest opting to take different hastati units. This means I have to pull my general from the left flank and daringly make him charge the town watch. Luckily, they broke after about a minute, and we had a domino effect where everybody around them starts breaking, and my cavs are right there to pick them up. Marcus arrives at that minute with some cavalry auxiliaries and starts trying to rally his men, but once again Lugotorix and his barbarians chase him and he flees. This leaves just my men and their men, my skirmishers all out of missiles. All of Marcus' hastati are now arriving, but all jump on their right (my left) flank. so my naked fanatics, on my right (their left) start a war cry and envelop the other line, so while their hastati have to face my swords, they also have naked fanatics and a warband flanking them. From there they broke, and Eporedoxius FINALLY brings his cavalry down to help clean up the mess of routing soldiers.

I lose only 80 men.

Was playing a german campaign- one of the most fun civs imo (if only they had siege equipment!)
Anyway I fought 3 post marius spqr armies of about 1k each coming at me from 3 different sides of the map. I had about 1k men in my army. 3 generals, 3 chosen archers, two chosen axemen I think 6 or 7 berserkers and the rest spear warbands.
I don't know how I pulled it off, as once my berserkers went berserk, when the other armies got to me the berserkers were on the other side of the map fighting in their own fantasy land.
At the end of the day they only survived with about 300 out of the whole army. I took heavy losses, but many of them were healed so I didn't actually lose any units :)

Yeah heling is a really useful tradte and/or staff to have.

Huge battle in Northern Italy just outside of a Roman city that the Vandals were siegeing (I attacked the stack that had layed siege so I guess that's why I didn't get a famous battle marker, as I got one for a much smaller battle where I massacred a small Roman army on a bridge).

I lost but I managed to deal a tonne of damage and many of my troops fought to the death. The Alan horse archers were the first to flee actualy.

I killed both their generals and one captain. My general survived as well as both Onagar crews and 7 other units. They are currently holed up in a fort in the Alps until I can get rid of the rebel roman general blocking their path.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b357/PrinceScamp/Total%20War/RomeTW-BI2007-11-1512-05-42-14.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b357/PrinceScamp/Total%20War/RomeTW-BI2007-11-1512-06-08-60.jpg

I fought three Germanic armies with one heavily armed Greek one, and killed about ten thousand men, whilst only losing around 800.

http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/2176/enormousgermanarmyuf4.jpg

That is a fear inspiring picture.

That looks like a custom battle set up in sarmation mound map ;)

Also, just a question, i also used some scorpions/ballistas in the past, how do they work effectively, i´ve tried a great deal of tactics...but i think a couple archers/onagers are way more dangerous...

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/6137/0022ri9.png (http://imageshack.us)
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/6137/0022ri9.ea61bbaeb9.jpg (http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=527&i=0022ri9.png)

I know its not RTW, but I could not resist. Think 3 large Crusading Armies, 2 english one French outside the borders of Antioch. I had only two full stacked armies vs their three. So getting reinforcements from Damascus and Antioch, I striked the English army first rushing their front while flanking their ends with the second army. The first army collided and there was a stalemate. However as the seconded army approached, they were surrounded by my green Turkish flags. The battle was won quickly when a mass rout occured and I spent most of the battle rounding up prisoners. I captured 600 hundred soldiers killed 200 english troops and only lost about 100 in the fighting.

Playing as the Germans, I scored two large victories. The first was against two Illyrian armies attacking from opposite sides. Placing by troops properly, I defeated them by forcing one to climb a high incline.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/39380/krtr1.PNG

The second was against Rebels in my invasion of Britain, but the Rebels had more troops and chariots as well. :ack: Nevertheless, I deployed my troops in a Romanesque formation and kept my stronger troops for later when the massive enemy army was weakened.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/39380/krtr2.PNG

how do youmake to have armies of 2000 peoples ? I bought the total war chest pack with all of them...my fave is Rome total war barbarian...I just hate merchants and and inquisitor in MTW2... I see people having big armies and 105 people. is it because you have higher PC performances or a mod?

^ You change the unit sizes in the options.

Try Moon River on very hard with either 1 unit of Germanian Berzerkers against 20 Gallic Warbands or 20 Berzerkers vs. 20 Hoplites. Total slaughter.