RTW: Defeats That Shouldn't Have Been

Asharak · Post by **Asharak** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:19 pm

Anybody have any of these?

Earlier this evening I was playing a Scipii campaign and just starting an invasion of the Gauls (who had effectively held back the Julii all game). I got into a large fight with 3 Gaul armies against my one. Their forces totalled nearly 2300 men, while mine came in at just over a 1000.

By the end of the battle, I had lost barely 80 men (I still had about 950 left), while their combined tally was reduced to 850 - almost 1500 fewer than they started with! Yet, as I was the aggressor and failed to rout or kill all of their units within the time limit, I was awarded a Close Defeat and required to retreat on the Campaign map.

Huh? A kill ratio like that and I am declared the loser? I conceed that the game was on Medium and the AI was horrible in the fight (aside from a decent predilection for targetting my right flank they did next to nothing right), so the result was more lopsided than it really should have been, but really...

So, anyone else have any stories of defeats that should really have been scored victories?

- Ash

knob · Post by **knob** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:58 pm

I don't really have any stories like that, but I have had a few close calls that make me seriously consider installing the No Timer mod I've been hearing things about.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:07 am

I think the timer is a good part of the game. Without the timer, I probably wouldn't take as many risks as I do while on offense. And there have been times on defense when waiting for the timer to run was my main strategy before some stroke of luck opened the door for a counter-attack.

The worst battle where I lost on time was when I "sallied forth" to break a siege. It wasn't until the battle begain that I realized my enemy had a force consisting 90% of horses. If I left the protection of the gates, I was dead meat. I sent my cavalry archers out a side door to harrass the enemy and create a diversion. It took a while, but the enemy army finally took the bait and then retreated. That gave me enough time to get out 5 infantry units safely. The counter-attack was brutal, but I was able to get my own cavalry around in time (again, by the side entrance) to punch into the enemy's flank. Just when the enemy army started to rout, the timer ran out.

Still, I counted the loss as fair. I should have looked before starting the battle. The enemy had very little chance of taking the city, but could have starved me out eventually.

Snow · Post by **Snow** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 5:01 am

Playing hard/hard I haven't gotten the battle timer once. Every battle had it on medium.

khomotso · Post by **khomotso** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:09 pm

Yes, happens to me most often when assaulting a city. More than once I've actually taken the city centre and had my own 3-minute timer ticking down when it's been called a defeat for me. The full battle timer expired before my 3-minute timer did - by a margin of about 30 seconds - and the enemy only had a single, broken unit running around in the city somewhere. But, rules being what they are, I scored a loss.

I wouldn't mind the timer if it were just handled differently. Whatever calculation the AI uses to do the auto-resolves should be applied at the end of the timer limit (with the current numbers at that point), so that if I'm completely dominating the field at the time of the expiration these strange reversals won't happen.

tals · Post by **tals** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:22 pm

I'm not so sure, they give an advantage to the defender (no bad thing) and unless he has reinforcements on the way then i'm sure the following turn you absolutely slaughtered him

Tals