Your worst Total war defeat

One time when I was the Danes I sent three units of Huscarls and a few units of spearmen against a full strength Holy Roman army, with the works of armoured seargents, knights etc. I had no strategy other than simply frontal assualt and hoping that our valour would win the day... By the time our meagre army reached the lines their crossbowmen and catapaults destroyed most of us (Maybe half) and by the time we clashed we fought for a couple of minutes before fleeing. We called 7 men, our army was squashed...

Playing Viking Expansion Set for Total War I. Playing Irish I was attacked by one Viking huscarl. I had three armoured spear units. I hit it from 3 sides simultaneously. It killed every man in all three units and took the province.

The Platypus wasn't with you, Alex. Nothing bad in admitting that.

I had about 1,500 quality spearmen garrisoned in a fort, in eastern anatolia blocking the Mongols from getting out of Armenia. I was attacked by about 800 odd strong mongol army. I piled everyone up against the gate, I figured that a cavalry rich army would have real problems pushing through a narrow gate full of spearmen.
Boy was I wrong! They broke down the gate and then sliced straight through my spearmen. The carnage was amazing. I lost all of my spearmen, and killed hardly any mongols.

I never again engaged a mongol army without a significant contingent of Jannisaries. Incidentally I did manage to keep the mongols contained to Armenia, but it required so many troops my western expansion ground to a halt (leaving me with just a handful of troops free, which I used to conquer all of Russia and N. Africa )


Edited by Omar al Hashim - 19-Feb-2009 at 07:26

Was that in MII or a mod Omar?

I have had bad experiences with spearmen, too. Luckily most of the time I have a few cavalry units that attack. Usually having 2/3 spearman ranks in a guard mode at the center of the gate and 2/3 in regular attack stance centered around will contain the fighting in a relatively well defended U formation and after minutes of fighting I can move my swordsmen from the walls and concentrate all effort at the gate. Altough that hasn't always worked.

When you get your ass kicked by a gigantic army of peasants, then youve been defeated.