War Stories

[Lil_Rimmy]

Baaack in 'Nam -

No, gaming war stories! Huzzah! The glories of RTS conquest, of simulated war, of complete war, or maybe all war, or perhaps fully war, or mehaps Total War?

So, tell me, Escapistabumbles, what are you favourite war stories? No matter if Total War, RTS, Civ, some kind of Space Game or anything. Hell, even Risk or Warlight, or some kind of D&D game. Sometimes, these kind of games can bring about the funniest, best or most retarded stories.

I'll start us off with two:

THIS IS A COPY PASTE FROM ANOTHER THREAD:

One of mine, a small one, would have to be me playing Total War: Medieval 2 - Kingdoms today.

I am playing the Welsh (woooo fuck yeah welsh people!) and I am kicking the English ass left and right. I have to expand quickly, because as Wales you start with like, 3 regions but a CRAPTON of units, so your unit upkeep quickly drags you into the negatives. Anyway, there was this one fort I had to defend from some English people. They just barely outnumber me, but those fuckers have Armoured Swordsmen and Dismounted Knights. Basically REALLY tough, REALLY hard hitting infantry. Wales has nothing of the like.

So, in my clever thinking, I take my special archers who can deploy spikes. Now, the way spikes work, if cavalry move across them, they die. That's it. Dead. So I set all of my archers up, in front of the various gates, and put down spikes . Then I form up, and have all of my archers fire and such whilst my infantry get ready to defend. So, they batter the gate down and their general leads the charge!

... On horseback.

*THE ENEMY GENERAL HAS FALLEN!*

I laugh like crazy, and then watch as the Armoured Swordsmen begin to push through. Now, what I had done was basically make a semi-circle around the gate, to get the maximum attack I could on anyone running through. Multiple units attack at once yadda yadda. Anyway, the Swordsmen begin to push my units back, and I am getting worried. But then I decide to push, and charge my general in. He does an AMAZING job, and the swordsmen are pretty much thrown out of the gates. My archers are still raining hell, their army is unorganized, some routing, some trying to go in, and my infantry charge out to wipe them out.

I decide to pull my general back inside, so he wouldn't be accidentally killed by some scrub as they rout.

*OUR GENERAL HAS FALLEN!*

... I forgot about the goddamn spikes. I still won, but still. Mega derps.

.

So, from the same game, I had this group of rebels who just kind of sat in my lands, doing fuck all. I sent out my general with a few units, and he got kind of defeated and sent back. For the longest time, I kept sending units after them and auto-resolving and I got so frustrated, because somehow these 2 peasants and 1 archer militia in open land have resisted trained soldiers forever.

So I actually battled.

I'm kind of ashamed I did worse than the auto-resolve. Goddamn laziness.

 

[Dragonlayer]

One Total War incident has always stood out for me: I was playing Barbarian Invasion at a friend's house and we were co-operating in the usual fashion, namely we both took charge of a single faction, divided it's territory between us and governed them separately, taking it in turns to sit on the fancy chair of command (Oh what we had to do in the days before proper multiplier campaigns....).

We opted to play as the Byzantine Empire and it was my turn when a rebellion started somewhere in Baltic provinces. In the ultimate show of force, I dispatched a huge army led by the Emperor himself to crush the peasant scum and that was achieved in short order. However, even though I had won the battle, I elected to stay in the battle map to run down the routing enemy troops for fun and that's when it happened: the Byzantine Emperor, one of the two most powerful men in the ancient world was killed by a fleeing peasant with a pitchfork!

A bloody pitchfork for goodness sake!

An even more disastrous TW event occurred in Empire during one battle where I ordered a dashing cavalry counter-attack against the enemy, only for the AI horsemen to stupidly pile into the spikes set up in front of my artillery, massacring themselves. And let's not even start on the siege battle AI in Empire or indeed, any pre-Shogun 2 TW....

I've also pulled off a successful Stalingrad scenario in Hearts of Iron 2 Armageddon, when the glorious and heroic armies of Prussia were cut off in Copenhagen and forced to fend off ferocious Communist Dane attack while being (barely) kept in supply by aircraft. Eventually I was able to reach the encircled troops with reinforcements and they were able to escape intact - suck it Paulus!

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

my favourite happened years ago playing rome total war.. 2 pike militia and my general vs around 1500 who were beseiging me, they breached the walls and my pikemen bottled them up in a street, they were still wittling down my men though. but they held JUST long enough for my general to travel the long way round, and hit them from the rear.. mass rout and slaughter.. i would of hatted to of been in that street

Hammer and anvil.

I'm pretty sure every single Total War game has it. Even a modern total war game would involve it. I can see it now...

"HOLD THE TRENCHES MEN! WE STAND FOR BRITAIN!"

Meanwhile...

"CHARGE THE TANKS! CRUSH THEM!"

And so, 20 tanks rush from a random forest and run over all of the Germans. Battle is won. Because who the hell puts tanks BEHIND your lines, or you know, attacks from the front anyway? Although, I'd dread to see the moment Total War shows some good AI and uses Hammer and Anvil on the players. Oh, the panic.

 

[Summerstorm]

I remember back to the grat Khergit-Siege of Dhirim in ... whatever the year was.

So the Khergits (pretty much a Mongol-Horde expy) were at war with my faction (The Kingdom of "Rockhard") and had a huge army of about 1600 riders.

I had recently "obtained" the City of Dhirim from another faction and as such it was weak and undefended, except of one of my Lords (Who was also my Father-in-Law and new lord of Dhirim) who was recouperating from some skirmishes with around 50 dudes and maybe another 50-low-level men in the garrison.

So, i saw the huge horde getting to my city. Annoyed as i was, i traveled to my capital city, switched out my army 100% heavy infantery (Nord Huscarls - highest level unit in the game, pretty much heavily armoured viking elite fighters with a mix of 2 handed weapon, sword and board and all with throwing weapons) - about 180 of them... and went back on my way. Got through the siege into the city and waited.

The damn thing was a bloodbath. I was personaly fighting for MINUTES at the ladders, after i killed like 20 dudes with my heavy crossbow (i ran out of bolts), and senselessly hacked away with my greatsword until my mouse-hand got tired. My character was totally painted in red, with the blood of my enemies, but also my own out of many light wounds.

Wave after wave there was. And then it was over... after 3 assault-attempts they got the city... but paid with over 1200 men for it.

Even though i was defeated and captured and my troops disbanded (they barely died... they merely got wounded and knocked out and couldn't keep on murdering *g*) i felt like a winner.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

SNIP

Oh god, how could I forget to include Mount and Blade?! Argh, such a good game. That story is pretty awesome, but I think what's even cooler is the multiplayer sieges. Especially in Fire and Sword. See, people use the slits on the castle like crazy, and the siege's get HECTIC. You have bullets pounded into the ground all around you, your friend just got his head blown off, a guy just fell from the tower above you, the ladders were just pushed down but your horsemen are charging through the side door and all of a sudden his horse is cut down by a pikemen, so you fire a single shot the puts the pikemen down. The horsemen gets back up and you both storm the gatehouse, after stealing the pike, and raise the gates, and you hear the sounds of many horsemen charging below.

Glorious victory.

But yeah, one of my own stories from M&B would have to be the firing line of Fire and Sword. I know a lot of people complain about muskets and such but I really liked them. See, there was this one time, when I was attacked (I was acting as a Merc for Russia) by a massive force of the Swedish. I couldn't run, so I stood my ground. The Swedish are known for their pain-in-the-ass or potentially greatest-troops-ever Raiters (is that how you spell it?) Pretty much, heavy mounted soldiers with guns and sabers. They hurt.

I have this massive firing line of my trained men, I have my mercs off to the left flank, I have my spearmen in-front, I have my swordsmen to the right flank and I have my personal bodyguard (the "Hero" characters and my best mounted Dragoons) following me. So the Swedish begin their march, but most of their troops are mounted so they quickly arrive. My musketmen rain hell, and I have never seen a better sight than horse after horse piling up and being crushed by the riders behind it. As they near, I charge my mercs in. They crash with my spearmen, and my swordsmen head in as well. I am laughing, I think I have this in the bag. The horses are being slaughtered, and my men have circled them.

URGH URGH URGH.

All of a sudden, men start falling, as the Swedish musketmen reached a good range. Due to how many of my men where packed in, they were dropping like flies. So I left my musketmen on their hill to cover men and rode at the musketmen with my guard. It was goddamn scary, as I couldn't get a really good angle on them, so every now and then I'd hear a "ARGH!" and see a Dragoon drop from beside me. But we made it, and cut through their musketmen like butter.

I turn back to the battle, wounded like hell, to see what I really didn't want to see. Somehow, the goddamn Reiters(Raiters? Riters?) have massacred the Mercs and dealt with my swordsmen. A line of spearmen was the only thing that held them back from my elite musketmen. I turn and lead what remains of my personal guard into the backs of the Reiters, just as they break my spearmen.

The most epic moment happens when my horse is shot out from me, but I live. I get up and charge in with my guard, just as my musketmen reload. Imagine you are fighting a line of men, about to die when all of them just drop, and you hear the sound of thunder. All of the Reiters hit the floor as I see a massive cloud of smoke rise. I pull my double barrel pistol and finish the last one off before firing into the air like a bad-ass. Greatest moment ever.

And then sometime later, I lost to Winged Hussar's. Goddamn horsemen, killing my elite infantry.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Well i'm not that into (read: bad at) RTS games but I do sometimes play Starcraft 2 online, I got destroyed in my first few games and in my fourth I was immensely proud of the fact that I got a bunker full of marines down at the entrance to my base quickly enough to fend off the first wave of attackers. I then decided to build more bunkers, more troops, drop more rearguard and vanguard Siege Tanks behind and in front of the bunkers, put buried mines in front of the tanks and use all this stuff to decisively beat the next wave of enemies and use that to push out on the attack.

He had built an ENTIRE base outside my base just out of my vision and just steamrolled through everything... I was feeling really good about my fantastic idea of putting down mines too.

I haven't touched the game since but I'm completely happy with that match, honestly nothing but good feelings on the matter. The fact that I didn't lose within 5 minutes makes me entirely too happy.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

Co-op SNIP

That sounds like an awesome for co-op. I know the feels of losing your general. Most of my generals are Captains that have been promoted, and I had this really well skilled one that ended up sacrificing him and his small army to delay a besieging force. The King survived though, so LONG LIVE THE KING! I have Shogun 2, but I... really... didn't like it. It just gave a feeling of eh all around, but as far as I know, Shogun 2 is the only TW game with co-op, right? I would love to play a co-op of Medieval, Rome or hell, even Empire. But Shogun 2 (haven't played 1) REALLY didn't grab me. Like, turn it off in the first 30 minutes kind of didn't grab me. The paper-scissors-rock, streamlined well, everything and the mega lack of special units per faction (Seriously, it's awesome to be Rome and fight with Romans, not be Rome and fight with the exact same units as those other guys you are fighting.

Anyway, funny thing happening ATM:

I took over Dublin as part of the Britannia campaign, and it keeps revolting. Low taxes, full army, courthouses everywhere... Well, I just kind of found it funny that Dublin was the only city I had trouble with. Damn you, drunk people!

 

[superpandasauras]

I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but back when I used to play Halo Reach, I met this gigantic douche in a match, talking about how awesome he and his crew was and how no one could take them down. So, obviously, me and a friend decided to challenge him to a 2v2. Then he beat us. Of course, the map he made (He had one pre-made) was so broken and unbalanced that it was actually kind of funny. His side had Tanks, and most of the power weapons. Our side had a few of the mid tier weapons, a quad, and a few grenades. After that, me and my friend went to our mutual friend, who had experience dealing with this kind of thing, and we made an equally broken map, and let him play the winning side. He still lost. In fact, he lost so bad, his whole "clan" as he called it, disbanded. Still one of the favorite things I've ever done in a video game.

 

[Dragonlayer]

I remember back to the grat Khergit-Siege of Dhirim in ... whatever the year was.

So the Khergits (pretty much a Mongol-Horde expy) were at war with my faction (The Kingdom of "Rockhard") and had a huge army of about 1600 riders.

I had recently "obtained" the City of Dhirim from another faction and as such it was weak and undefended, except of one of my Lords (Who was also my Father-in-Law and new lord of Dhirim) who was recouperating from some skirmishes with around 50 dudes and maybe another 50-low-level men in the garrison.

So, i saw the huge horde getting to my city. Annoyed as i was, i traveled to my capital city, switched out my army 100% heavy infantery (Nord Huscarls - highest level unit in the game, pretty much heavily armoured viking elite fighters with a mix of 2 handed weapon, sword and board and all with throwing weapons) - about 180 of them... and went back on my way. Got through the siege into the city and waited.

The damn thing was a bloodbath. I was personaly fighting for MINUTES at the ladders, after i killed like 20 dudes with my heavy crossbow (i ran out of bolts), and senselessly hacked away with my greatsword until my mouse-hand got tired. My character was totally painted in red, with the blood of my enemies, but also my own out of many light wounds.

Wave after wave there was. And then it was over... after 3 assault-attempts they got the city... but paid with over 1200 men for it.

Even though i was defeated and captured and my troops disbanded (they barely died... they merely got wounded and knocked out and couldn't keep on murdering *g*) i felt like a winner.

The one thing that Mount and Blade has told me is that Swadia is determined to commit national suicide: I've sunk several hundred hours into a campaign where I managed to become a rather powerful feudal lord with the Swadians and while I was fighting tooth and nail against the Khergit (my castle was right on the border with the Not-Mongols, isolated and miles away from reinforcements), King Harkas or whatever his name was just kept throwing banquets and tournaments while our enemies cut the kingdom in half and then captured castle after castle after castle.

Seriously, I was getting a "Downfall" vibe the few times I visited the capital for a feast: Rhodok siege missiles falling on the battlements, doomed aristocrats desperating gorging themselves on drink, food and flesh even as the enemy breaks down the gates; the end of the world.

It got so bad I eventually rebelled and became an independent nation.

Captcha: BUY SOME TIME

Yes, I was buying time for Swadia with my blood and sweat while they partied like it was the fall of Rome!

 

[Pandalisk]

Medieval II Total war's Mongol invasion events were so epic, My Venice militia and small cadres of decent heavy troops fighting tooth and nail for the gates of Jerusalem, Those stories write themselves. Rome I with the SPQR mod does this too, the high AI unit stacks means every fight and siege is a maelstrom of death.

I have a pretty good story from Shogun II, My army had crushed the Takeda in the open field and killed the entire army save for their general who got away. This essentially created an army of one on the campaign map, and when I fought the lone general with my entire army again I sent my generals bodyguard to finish him off. During the charge both our generals met and the rest of the bodyguard charged past and didn't even assist my general, just watched as the Takeda general killed my Faction leader with a head chop.

I filled him full of arrows since clearly the man was possessed by some devil, I was annoyed he killed my general in a 1v1 but goddamn if it wasn't cool.

Wargame: ALB has a lot of these as well, my favorite was a 4v4 total destruction game with no time limit. Went on for one and a half hours. The opening and middle game was all about fluid advance and movement and we had managed to take a majority of the map very cleanly but at late game a massive NATO push on our flank rolled up our entire side and threatened our rear and center. Took all four of us to plug the gap in the line and stop their push. I used about about 44 T-80 series of tanks (30 of which died) to blunt the advance while another player cut off their advancing NATO's rear. We spent half an hour just trying to wipe out what remained in that pocket and normalizing the lines again. Shit was intense, I'll never bad mouth the Chieftain series of tanks again, those things are rolling bunkers.

___

This post gave me an itch to play mount and blade again. Do you use any mods or just vanilla?

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

SNIP

Ha, Swadia! Foolish men on foolish horses with pain-in-the-ass heavy cavalry. The true nation is the glorious Rhodoks! You might have your elite knights or crazed Vikings, but I have an 1000 man strong line. Tower shields planted and crossbows raining hell. I'd like to see you charge this.

Ah, the glorious life of a Rhodok defence.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Co-op SNIP

That sounds like an awesome for co-op. I know the feels of losing your general. Most of my generals are Captains that have been promoted, and I had this really well skilled one that ended up sacrificing him and his small army to delay a besieging force. The King survived though, so LONG LIVE THE KING! I have Shogun 2, but I... really... didn't like it. It just gave a feeling of eh all around, but as far as I know, Shogun 2 is the only TW game with co-op, right? I would love to play a co-op of Medieval, Rome or hell, even Empire. But Shogun 2 (haven't played 1) REALLY didn't grab me. Like, turn it off in the first 30 minutes kind of didn't grab me. The paper-scissors-rock, streamlined well, everything and the mega lack of special units per faction (Seriously, it's awesome to be Rome and fight with Romans, not be Rome and fight with the exact same units as those other guys you are fighting.

Anyway, funny thing happening ATM:

I took over Dublin as part of the Britannia campaign, and it keeps revolting. Low taxes, full army, courthouses everywhere... Well, I just kind of found it funny that Dublin was the only city I had trouble with. Damn you, drunk people!

I've never had a Captain lead a TW army ever since that fateful day in Medieval 2 when Captain Hans betrayed his oaths to the Holy Roman Empire and defected to the French, taking the biggest army of Teutonic Knights I had with him. Traitor scum!

Wow, really? Shogun 2 is my favourite TW yet! I love just about everything about it (especially the gorgeous fighting animations), except the broken diplomacy: I can only express a weary sigh when blood-bound allies for decades, who have fought alongside me in the bitterest of wars, suddenly turn traitor because reasons. But then again, TW has always had pretty poor diplomatic systems so what can you do?

I could never get into the Britannia campaign: the English have to govern too much, the Scottish take eons to make any worthwhile funds and the Welsh and Irish are too Welsh and Irish. Now the Teutonic Crusade campaign on the other hand....

 

[Sarge034]

Back in the days of StarCraft (the first one) my friend and I took to 2v2 pvp like you do and proceeded to fight in a near stalemated match for almost 2.5 hours. No joke. We depleted every resource on the map and all armies were ground down to almost nothing. I was terran and my bro was protoss. Our enemies threw one last desperate wave against us that resulted in only four of my siege tanks and three of my bro's turrets standing on the battlefield. We had done it, now all we had to do was air drop my tanks on their last combined base (it was on an island in the corner of the map) and we win! But combined we were three minerals short of a transport... After all of that we had to call it a draw. They had no units but we couldn't get to them with the four units we had left.

God... now I'm getting flashbacks...

OK, LET'S ROLL OUT!

AWWW AWWW AWWW RAWWW

 

[Dragonlayer]

Medieval II Total war's Mongol invasion events were so epic, My Venice militia and small cadres of decent heavy troops fighting tooth and nail for the gates of Jerusalem, Those stories write themselves. Rome I with the SPQR mod does this too, the high AI unit stacks means every fight and siege is a maelstrom of death.

I have a pretty good story from Shogun II, My army had crushed the Takeda in the open field and killed the entire army save for their general who got away. This essentially created an army of one on the campaign map, and when I fought the lone general with my entire army again I sent my generals bodyguard to finish him off. During the charge both our generals met and the rest of the bodyguard charged past and didn't even assist my general, just watched as the Takeda general killed my Faction leader with a head chop.

I filled him full of arrows since clearly the man was possessed by some devil, I was annoyed he killed my general in a 1v1 but goddamn if it wasn't cool.

Wargame: ALB has a lot of these as well, my favorite was a 4v4 total destruction game with no time limit. Went on for one and a half hours. The opening and middle game was all about fluid advance and movement and we had managed to take a majority of the map very cleanly but at late game a massive NATO push on our flank rolled up our entire side and threatened our rear and center. Took all four of us to plug the gap in the line and stop their push. I used about about 44 T-80 series of tanks (30 of which died) to blunt the advance while another player cut off their advancing NATO's rear. We spent half an hour just trying to wipe out what remained in that pocket and normalizing the lines again. Shit was intense, I'll never bad mouth the Chieftain series of tanks again, those things are rolling bunkers.

___

This post gave me an itch to play mount and blade again. Do you use any mods or just vanilla?

I've gotten good Generals needlessly killed in Shogun because I want to watch them test their mettle in duels. As for Mount and Blade, I just play normal Warband: though it's been ages since I was on it and my younger brother has no doubt installed several hundred mods.

 

[AntiChri5]

SNIP

Ha, Swadia! Foolish men on foolish horses with pain-in-the-ass heavy cavalry. The true nation is the glorious Rhodoks! You might have your elite knights or crazed Vikings, but I have an 1000 man strong line. Tower shields planted and crossbows raining hell. I'd like to see you charge this.

Ah, the glorious life of a Rhodok defence.

Foolish patriots. Using only troops from one nation. The New Calradian Empire will crush you into dust.

Whats better then a strong line of the best crossbowman in the world raining hell upon your foes? A strong line of the best crossbowman in the world raining hell down upon your foes.....while guarded by a bunch of bloodthirsty vikings who happen to be the best infantry in the game.

 

[Dragonlayer]

SNIP

Ha, Swadia! Foolish men on foolish horses with pain-in-the-ass heavy cavalry. The true nation is the glorious Rhodoks! You might have your elite knights or crazed Vikings, but I have an 1000 man strong line. Tower shields planted and crossbows raining hell. I'd like to see you charge this.

Ah, the glorious life of a Rhodok defence.

Pffft, uppity Rhodok farmer! Experienced Swadian knights are not merely "elite", they are all but invincible; mounted juggernauts of death and destruction, easily capable of butchering an army many times their own number. 60 veteran knights and my own uber level character: we can take castles!

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

MRRRRPH! MRRRM RRRMMMMR MRRRRMPH!

Sorry, I can't hear your blue-blooded whining with those 100 or so crossbow bolts stuck into your various orifices. A knight that can fall to a sword can fall to a bolt. And I haven't seen a knight, not even one of your uppity-nobles, that can't be hurt and maimed by sword.

I'd stay here to challenge this argument further, but it sounds like the rest of your men just spit-roasted themselves on my spears. Pity. They had even survived the initial bolt barrage. I suppose they must really want to have an apple in their mouth.

The next time you see me, it'll be at your caravan. It'll take you to a far away ship, where you'll work and break your back as a slave. Would you like that? I would, because fat-cats like you net me a few hundred denars.

 

[GeneralOvertime]

My favorite was in mount and blade warband with the clash of kings mod. I had taken kings landing and i had King Stannis, King Renly, Lord Tywin, and Mace Tyrell seige my city along with a bunch of other lords. In total i had 245 soldiers all iron islanders and i was versing 1500 at least and i heald for a whole 20 mins killing and fighting. It took 4 seiges by the enemy to defeat me and i got away and fought them on the field with 100 soldiers left and they had 450, i ended up winning. Lost every soldier however and my awesome arache sabre thing and giant battle axe held the walls and retook it once i lost it.