What are your biggest military blunders?

[Spartan117]

I was playing rhye's mod. I was england under the hardest difficulry. I just researched rifleing, so i figured this was my time to shine. I built up a force about 35 units give or take as quickly as i could. (this includes upgrading previous units).

I was going to invade france. I thought i was super powerful(given redcoats strength) and i had superior navy(given english power). I was expanding in canadian regiion of north america. From what i seen of france it appeared as if they did not have a big military.

I sent a force of maybe 10 units to spain. Redcoats and canons. Since i had open boarders from spain i though i would launch an attack in southern france. I picked my route too. I could not provide naval support there because "stupid romans hated me(no open borders). I brought 6 frigates to "shut down" mediterrean. I didnt want french ships leaving. I could see that had some frigates and galleons in their coastal city in southen france. I couldnt get spain to ge rid of open border with france.

Anyway though i was confident and broought nearly the rest of my invasion units to land on this tile where there was hills. I felt i could secure beach lhead there. ideally i would have chosen a better spot for invasion. Well i land. I kept "standbye" units to reinforce the position after initial wave. As myunits in the boats would have full strength.

Suddenly what do i know canon after canon attack my stack in northern france. i suffer hugh casaulties. I was left with three units. i killed a good amount of canons. but my main invasion force was completely decimated.

My blunder was miscalculating their strength and choosing a spot that would be reachable by like three cities. I should have launched main invasion force through spain. I am still thinking what i could have done better. Any thoughts? What are your blunders?

 

[Boom22]

Well I have a couple but my most notable were with Mali and US. Anyway, I invade Mali, for land, so my units are closeing in Timbuktu, suddenly he launchs a massive invasion to the North west and manges to capture Hamburg. I retreat take Hamburg back wait to regroup for 200 or so years before I finish Mansa off.

My invasion of the US, was amphibous, so I mange to take and raze alanata and ecomony just DIED I retreated to defend from a incoming Mongol invasion. I make peace with Roosevelt, 600 years Me and Roosevelt win from Domination victory. Can't believe he signed a Permenat Allice

 

[HectorSpector]

Sending my whole army (30+ units) deep into opposition territory to take out their capital in one strong movement. Marched in unimpeded thanks to open borders agreement, and took position at the capital's gates. Declared war the next turn, and BOOT... kicked right to hell out of the enemy's territory

Was during one of my first games, so I was a real noob at the time. So funny when I remember how mad I was at that dumb mistake.

 

[romelus]

i was also playing rhye's huge world map, as cathage on monarch. i took south america from the barbs with grenadiers and rifles, and monty, who had all of north america, but was still stuck with maces and knights, decided he would declare war on me.

laughing, i dropped 3 galleons of siege, grenadiers and rifles in monty territory, and took a city the next turn. soon he counter attacked. he threw everything at me, maces, xbows, knights, longbows, trebs. he took me out with brute force and retook the city

my grin narrowed a little, but i was soon laughing again as i now had infantry i once again invaded monty with about 9 infantry (with garrison 2 and 3), siege and 5 cavalry. i took a city easily, and sure enough monty began counter attacking with his crap units. i was confident that my garrison 2 & 3 infantry could easily hold him off, until i realized he was attacking with many dozens of units! they just kept rushing me that turn, and eventually they massacred all my defenders and retook the city again!

i didn't play around the 3rd time. i dropped 2 dozen infantry and this time they held the fort, and monty's mighty army was too wasted from the last 2 fights to do much this time. i eventually vassalized monty.

should have been much more careful. monty had the most backward units, but his power rating was #1 in the world. it was probably the most fun i had with any war. felt like the early europeans facing endless native warriors in the new world

 

[carl corey]

One of my Cyrus games: I'm attacking England I think and their capital is on grass plains, so not much of a natural defense there. I bypassed a city on a hill to take that capital, thinking what the heck, I'll attack it later.

Now I'm happily throwing my Immortals against the capital and due to some lucky retreats I manage to take it quite easily. Guess which city became the capital now? Bingo! The city-on-the-hill! Protected by no less then five archers. Earlier I have severed the road between the capital and city-on-the-hill, otherwise some of those archers would probably have come to defend the capital.

Of course I blindly went ahead trying to finish them off. I lost most of my promoted Immortals while making no progress and giving the Archers "free" promotions. Needless to say this wasn't one of my proudest military achievements.

 

[Trapy]

It took me 3000years to defeat the Russians. I started with Archers and Axemen, and ended up finally beating them with Tanks and Nukes. Then I realised that cities had defencive bonuses and can be damaged by collateral damage. Also, pillaging resources (like iron) would have helped. Pillagers and Catapults would have made it alot easier :\

 

[Birdmanthepuny]

Just last night I was playing as Monty. Had a Jag in my second city which hda just built the GL. A Barb warrior appeared and pilliaged my gold mine. Forgetting about the hills and mele bonus barbs get, I moved my Jag to attack and lost Needless to say I lost the city, and when I retook it, lost the lighthouse Pretty dumb on my part.
I won't get into the time I moved most of my defenders out of my apital to the front line and my enemy landed a force from the sea.

 

[ferenginar]

Not so much a military blunder as a total strategic cock-up.

I recently played a duel game as the Romans and was going for a Praetorian rush and early conquest victory. I then discover that I had neglected to change the map settings from continents to pangea.

By the time I can ship units to the other continent Asoka is way ahead of me in techs and my praetorians are hoplessly outclassed. I eventually win by time victory mostly as a result of having a larger continent to work with.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Captured an enemy holy city on a hill with heavy losses and moved my stack into it. Next turn, I meant to leave a few defenders and send the rest of the stack into enemy territory. Sent the wounded units back to a nearby city with a medic and thought I clicked the first unit in stack to move toward near enemy city. The stack was still grouped, I move everyone out of the city into a forest in the AIs cultural borders leaving a badly wounded pike as the only defender. AI walks a crossbow and 4 more longbows into the vacated city and the 60% cultural defences reappear.

 

[carl corey]

See, Robert, I'd just reload when this happens since it's an interface related mistake, and not a strategic one.

 

[weimingshi]

started a war against saladin in another continent. I rebased 20 stealth bomber to a friendly city not far from him. When I end the turn, saladin moved one of his fighter to the same city. All 20 of my bomber were lost. Moral of the story, never rebase plane to a city where you enemy also has open border agreement with.

 

[Birdmanthepuny]

See, Robert, I'd just reload when this happens since it's an interface related mistake, and not a strategic one.

I can see the temptation in reloading, but when that happens to me (and it does enough that I curse myself every time ) I just have to accept that I - not the interface- scewed up. You learn, sooner or later, to ungroup the stacks.

 

[shivute]

In one of my early games, I was Egypt and declared on the Mongols.
Advanced my stack to their nearest army to take it out and had a very narrow border with them.
Imagine my surprise as Keshiks came bounding through Asoka's land through my land and smacking my border cities! I had to retake my cities and make peace. Didn't make the same mistake again when I kicked his ass!

I still am prone to lapses of concentration and sometimes leave myself vulnerable to mobile counter attacks.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

I can see the temptation in reloading, but when that happens to me (and it does enough that I curse myself every time ) I just have to accept that I - not the interface- scewed up. You learn, sooner or later, to ungroup the stacks.

I agree after wasting another bunch of units retaking a city a couple of times you learn to immediately ungroup the defensive units you plan to use. Some lessons are so painful they are quickly learned.

I tend to think of this as a strategic mistake not interface. I didn't think about defence when I took the city. Its a slippery slope to losing the city to a counterattack and thinking "I meant to leave one more unit behind and the interface screwed up".

 

[manwiththehands]

Back in my very newb days I went to war with Alex who had theocracy (I knew about that one) but also this stange civic called "vassalage".

("STUPID GAME!!!")

 

[tuckerthecat]

I was waging a war against Ghandi & had a good size tech lead on everyone ( I had tanks/bombers & was still fighting inf/cav ). I had just taken one of Ghandi's last cities, it happened to be very close to Louis' border. Well I moved my entire invasion force into the city to heal ( 15+ tanks 5 inf & some cav, all highly promoted, even had 2 GG attached to 2 of the units ) I also rebased all 15 of my bombers into the city so I could reach Ghandi's last city. Well the next turn Louis' culture crept up to the border of the city & he declared war on me ( he was pleased ) & attacked with like 30 artillery. He wiped out my entire invasion force & captured all my bombers in 1 turn. I was so disgusted I quit the game.

 

[synthboy]

started a war against saladin in another continent. I rebased 20 stealth bomber to a friendly city not far from him. When I end the turn, saladin moved one of his fighter to the same city. All 20 of my bomber were lost. Moral of the story, never rebase plane to a city where you enemy also has open border agreement with.

Am I reading this right? You based your planes in a neutral third nation's city. Saladin moved one fighter to the same city and automatically wiped out all your bombers? Well that sucks.

 

[Chode]

Am I reading this right? You based your planes in a neutral third nation's city. Saladin moved one fighter to the same city and automatically wiped out all your bombers? Well that sucks.

Open borders in this game is implemented pretty retardedly anyway.

 

[Godwynn]

I had most of my military stacked up on my Western border with Spain preparing to attack with swordsmen, archers, and spearmen. Through my Eastern border here comes the Russians.

Momentary lapse of judgement on my part.

 

[Birdmanthepuny]

I had most of my military stacked up on my Western border with Spain preparing to attack with swordsmen, archers, and spearmen. Through my Eastern border here comes the Russians.

Momentary lapse of judgement on my part.

I had the ssame thing happen to me. Getting ready to attack Louis and had a huge force ready to go at one end, then Alex stabs me in the back (we shared a religion as wel as a border.) I survived and wiped out my so-called "friend", but delayed my conquest by 100 years.