What was your most unlikely battle victory/defeat?

[Brundlefly]

I'm just talking about a single battle where you overcame great odds to win or lost despite having a huge advantage. Either between stacks of units or between individual units. I don't know if it makes a difference to the outcome what difficulty level you play.

Last night, I had a Veteran Numidian Mercenary killed by a concscript barbarian warrior who escaped without a scratch. I was playing an Emperor game.

[vmxa1]

You are correct the level has no impact. I have had all kinds of strange out comes, but to tell you the truth after a few hours, I forget them.
I do recall a spear beating a tank in vanilla civ, but I have not seen in again. Then again, I don't see tanks vs spears much either.

[Efugia]

Last night I had a pretty bad one.

I was 'just playing a few more turns' on the mesopotamia conquest after I had achieved a victory point win as egypt.

My 3 unit calvary army (5 attack + army mod, 13 hp) went up against a veteran spearman in a size 4 city on a hill.

The army was knocked down to 1 hp... the spearman lost 2 hp.

That was the last of my 'few more turns'.

[Catt]

I tend to remember my defeats better than my victories .

I once (civ vanilla or PTW) had a 12 HP all-cavalry army retreat with 1 HP after failing to take even a single HP from a veteran rifleman unfortified on grassland.

Difficulty level will play a role in barbarian battles -- at all levels except Deity the human gets a combat bonus against barbarians -- at emperor it is 50%, so your numidian merc was defending with a value of 4.5 plus whatever terrain bonus it was entitled to.

Catt

[notyoueither]

Catt, your PM box is full.

[Rhothaerill]

I haven't ever seen a spearman defeat a tank, but I did have a tank lose to a pikeman once. It wasn't too bad though since the game was almost won at the time.

The one that I usually remember though is when I had an elite knight attacking a catapult-damaged, unfortified regular warrior on grassland. My knight got creamed, didn't retreat, and the warrior didn't even lose a single HP.

[Theseus]

Longbow takes MI (admittedly at 1 hp).

I've had lots of near misses... an Army left with 1 hp on defense or attack, that kind of thing.

[SirOsis]

Just had an amazing victory in a PBEM game with my brother. A single medieval infantry killed his full health immortal army.

I could post the save so we all could relive it.

[Bonaparte]

It seems like every time I attack a spearman with a tank that the tank ends up losing, although the spearman ends up being half dead, so I end up killing it with something else anyways in the same turn. So I'm used to it - it would probably bother me if it stoped happening.

[Vince278]

Originally posted by SirOsis
Just had an amazing victory in a PBEM game with my brother. A single medieval infantry killed his full health immortal army.

I always thought those two "medieval" units were a little overpowered...

Originally posted by SirOsis
I could post the save so we all could relive it.

The random seed was preserved?

[SirOsis]

I assume so. I will have to check. If it is I'll post it up here.

[Brundlefly]

Originally posted by Catt
I tend to remember my defeats better than my victories .

I once (civ vanilla or PTW) had a 12 HP all-cavalry army retreat with 1 HP after failing to take even a single HP from a veteran rifleman unfortified on grassland.

Difficulty level will play a role in barbarian battles -- at all levels except Deity the human gets a combat bonus against barbarians -- at emperor it is 50%, so your numidian merc was defending with a value of 4.5 plus whatever terrain bonus it was entitled to.

Catt

I was defender in the battle. Not fortified. Do barbs get a bonus depending on aggression setting? I always play SP games w/barbs = raging.

[Catt]

Originally posted by bfg9000


I was defender in the battle. Not fortified. Do barbs get a bonus depending on aggression setting? I always play SP games w/barbs = raging.

No bonus for for "raging" -- it just increases the frequency of barbcamps and the number of barbs spawned.

And what I meant by te 4.5 defense is that your numidian merc is a base defense of "3." At emperor against barbarians, you get a 50% bonus - so the 3 becomes 4.5. Whether or not fortified, defenders get a terrain defensive bonus - between 10% for flatlands like plains, grassland, desert, etc. to 100% for mountains (with hills, forests, jungles, etc. giving either 25% - 50%, can't remeber each specifically). A fortified unit gets another 25% bonus.

So, at emperor, an unfortified numdian merc on a hill, for example, would get base defense of 3; 50% bonus (1.5) for hill; and 50% bonus (1.5) against barbs -- it would defend at "6." On flatlands, it would defend at 4.8 (not sure how the rounding works with combat calculations).

Catt

[Smellincoffee]

Two German Veteran Knights landed on my island city defended by one regular spearman and one regular warrior. The first knight died on the spear. The second knight killed the spear, but died on the next turn when he went against the warrior.


And I saw my elite tank be whipped by a veteran Impi on Civ3 1.29. I thought it was pretty funny.

[Gibsie]

Hmm, the other night two of my fortified veteran musketmen and an elite cavalry unit sat on a hill in a city, and were attacked by two regular longbowmen and a regular medieval infantry. The enemy beat all three units without losing a single health point- in fact, two of those units had more health after the attack than when they went in thanks to promotions (Dunno about the third unit as the fog of war came up, but it wouldn't surprise me).