Preferable Rome: Total War stories, but othr total war games are acceptable,a nd anything else that's interesting would be appropriate, too.

I'll start, of course.

Okay, here's the setting...My army has been sieging a town of Thrace (Apollonia?) for a few turns. I thought I could hold out until it fell, but I couldn't. They sent a very large army at me, and naturally, I withdrew.

But there was nowhere to run. I hit the coast and was trapped. And let me tell you, it was a steep drop. It might as well have been a cliff. How in the hell do you defend something you can barely stand up on without falling backwards?

Ah, a glimmer of hope! There's a small rocky area to the north, at the very edge of thearea in which I may deploy. it creates a slight plateau above the level of the incline, creating a bit of a ditch, hopefully enough to ruin the momentum of the attacking army. What's more, it is unapproachable from the other sides. A perfect defensive position....or a perfect deathtrap?

I set my archers up on the plateau, as far back as I could. I set up my soldiers in a slight crescent around the rim of the plateau, and my general on the most level part below the plateau, hidden.

The enemy army attacks. Its soldiers crest the massive hill and begin charging down. Pikemen. At least twice my number of them. My archers open up, but the pikemen are already so far down the hill that their arrows strike not only the enmy but the backs of their allies. They quickly adjust as the enemy brings more troops over the hill.

Much fighting takes place, but my men hold their ground well. The general charges out, cuts a swath of destruction, but is slain by a surprise charge from more pikemen. My soldiers are not broken. The enemy charges and retreats, charges and retreats, sends wave after wave of infantry, but my men hold. When the last of the enemy staggers back over the hill, and the dust settles...only half of my men remain.

But the damage inflicted upon my enemy was far greater.


No kiddin'.



Anyway, I thought it was a pretty interesting battle. I wish I could save replays of campaign battles...mayeb you can..either way, it's gone now.

So, tell your stories. Long or short, whatever.

And here I was ready to tell everyone how I got my *** shot off in Nam. :p

I don't have a screen, but once in Rome TW, I deployed something like 1500 men, vs the opponents 1300 or so. I lost like 120. I killed every last one of them.

Rome: Total War= Best. Game. Ever.

I've got a multiplayer war story. I just finished playing it, and then I came on here.

It was a 1vs1 multiplayer match between me as the Julii Roman faction, and my enemy, the brutal barbarians from Germania. It was my 2000 legions vs. his 3000 Barbarians.

Now, the guy playing the barbarians was all full of himself, as his army outnumbered mine by a fair margin. He had huge amounts of Chosen axemen, berzerkers, barbarian pikemen, chosen archers, horsemen, etc... And they were hidden in the forest at the foot of a hill.

Although my army was outnumbered 3 to 2, my army was as professional as they come, with a unit of First Legion Cohorts leading my main body of Urban Cohort Legions, the best of the best in the empire, with 2 units of Triarii spearmen to guard the flanks from cavalry attacks. I had some archers auxilia to skirmish with their archers, as well as 2 units of Praetorian Cavalry on each flank for protection. Finally, my General and his bodyguards took position directly behind the center of my lines to inspire my troops.

I positioned my army at the top of the hill overlooking the forest. with my archers out in front.

when his archers and my archers got within range of each other, they started mowing down ranks of the other. unfortunately, all my archers were brought down, while about 20 of theirs remained, but out of ammo.

At this point my enemy wanted ME to attack HIM, so I engaged in a little psychological warfare before the real battle to draw him up the hill toward my outnumbered troops. I then said to him "OMG your army looks terrifying marching up the hill to massacre some legions!" Talk about easily manipulated, his already inflated ego just got another boost, and he proceeded to tell me that he is "coming for my General's head on a spear". He then continued to march his army up the hill.

Now I had him right where I wanted him. My legions were set up in a 2 line checkerboard formation with the gaps in the first line being closed by the 2nd line a few feet back. When the barbarians got closer, they all started yelling, chanting, and banging their weapons together in the attempt to frighten my men and lower their morale. However, I made sure that my army stood it's ground.

Then, it began. Rank after rank of barbarians started charging towards my lines. When they were close enough, all my legions threw their "pila" (legionary javelins) which took down many men (but never enough) right before the Germans crashed into my lines. my legions took heavy damage on the strength of the barbarian charge, but held their ground. My enemy made the unfortunate mistake of trying to send almost all of his troops in to engage my lines and punch through with power, so he ended up trying to flank me with only pikemen, which are not very maneuverable. As my main body of Urban Cohort legions were barely holding their ground in the center. I sent my Triarii spearmen to engage them from the front and hit them with my cavarly from behind. It worked just as expected, and their pikemen were routed. I now controlled both flanks.

My enemy, out of desperation, tried to charge his only two units of cavalry (including his general) straight through the middle of my lines, where I was suffering the heaviest damage - and right at my General!

Desperately trying to hold them back, I was forced to charge my own General and bodyguards straight ahead into the fray to block the Barbarians from breaking through. They fought like heroes, and held back the Germans.

Meanwhile, since I won the battles on both flanks, I moved my Triarii and Praetorian Cavalry behind the enemy army, and proceeded to charge them from behind. The sight of my Cavalry charging into their troops from behind was a sight to behold, as the Germans were getting killed in droves from all sides.

They all started to flee, but most of them were now surrounded by my legions. Most of the ones who did escape from the fray were cut down by my Praetorian Cavalry and my General.

At the end of the battle, the ground was covered with slain troops. I had killed 2,834 men out of 3,000, while they had cut my army in half at about 967 men left out of 2000.

Naturally, my opponent quit right after the battle, not saying a word. I think his bruised ego couldn't take such a defeat.
Damn, I love this game!:D

Man, I might have to get that game.

I won a game of Risk the other night; does that count as a war story?

Civ III: Conquests

The red land is controlled by Rome, me.

Guess how I acquired it. Hint: I didn't ask.

Singleplayer Julii campaign. Though admittedly I'm only playing on Medium|Medium difficulty (don't scoff! I haven't played a Total War game since Shogun!)

To relieve the pressure on one of my border-towns which the dirty Gauls had besieged with a massive army, I had sent my faction leader and a nominal amount of troops (General + Equites + Triarii + 3 Hastati + Archers) to besiege one of their neighbouring towns which was nearly deserted. I had also sent a larger army to attack the besiegers and aid in a sallying forth operation, but they were out of reach. *END TURN*

The Gaul army had lifted the seige, banded together with another army, and attacked my faction leader's army! As you can see, the odds were rather horrific, but I trusted in my leader's superior command skills and general bloodthirstyness ("I want to see blood! I want to bathe in their blood! I want to bathe in their blood for a WEEK! Now go and KILL THEM ALL!"). I was thinking that the situation looked pretty bleak, but that this was as good a way to go as any.

It was winter, and a somewhat forested area. I deployed on the highest forested point I could find which was to the far right of my deployment area, setting up my defenses in two lines like this:
Triarii-Hastati-Hastati-Hastati-Equites
---Archers---------------|--General's Bodyguard

They had 5+ warbands, 3 bands of swordsmen, Barbarian light cavalry, and their heavy warlord bodyguard. They attacked right away in a thin but long line, attempting to flank on the right with their cavalry and swordsmen and on the left with several parties of warbands. I set my Triarii at an angle at the end of the left side, enclosing my archers and solidifying my flank while I deliberately exposed my right flank, fighting a delaying action with my Hastati before bringing my cavalry crashing down the hill, sandwiching their forces attacking my right flank in a pincer movement between my rigid lines and the cavalry. All the while, I had my Hastati throw their Pilum freely whenever they could, and I had my Archers concentrate on firing raking fire along the ranks of swordsmen or any other targets of opportunity.

What can I say. It worked! The worst losses were to the Hastati on the right who took the brunt of the swordsmen+cavalry flanking charge. From the original 160 there were only 30 of them left standing at the end of the battle. I slew both their generals within seconds of closing the pincer maneuver. My Triarii and archers did fine on the left. The archers gained a rank of honour, they did the lion's share of the softening up, inflicting 400+ casualties while not losing anyone (silly shirtless unarmoured Gauls, Asterix & Obelix they are not), as did the equites and Triarii.

I love this game

Good God is it scary though being ambushed by Druids. Their chanting howling taunt is really creepy.

I lost my hair in 'Nom. True story.