Your biggest RTW battle

[shortguy]

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.

 

[FriendlyFire]

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)

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

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.

 

[duckmanbro]

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!

 

[Hitti-Litti]

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

 

[duckmanbro]

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

 

[jeff744]

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)

 

[shortguy]

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.

 

[duckmanbro]

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

 

[Macha]

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.

 

[LLXerxes]

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 )
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.

 

[duckmanbro]

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

 

[LLXerxes]

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

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.

 

[duckmanbro]

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

 

[Hitti-Litti]

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.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

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

 

[Hitti-Litti]

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.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

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.

 

[duckmanbro]

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!!

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

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.