Total War: Rome 2 has been out for a while, but before moving on, this is a replay from the first Total War: Rome I’ve wanted to write about for a while. It’s a bridge battle on Moon River, which is not wider than a mile in this map as the Macedonians discovered the hard way. Macedon is led by [USMC]mrrappingjake, who I will call USMC, and the Seleucid Empire is controlled by Prince of Macedon, who I will call Prince. They’re using CWB with a gazillion wad of cash.
USMC massed his pikemen at the bridge with several units of archers covering, which is the default way to defend a river in this game. He’s got mercenaries hidden in the woods near the ford. Prince positions his legionnaires near the bridge to decoy the Macedonian pikemen and hopefully draw archer fire, which he does for a while. After a standstill, Prince rushes his pikemen and cavalry across the ford. USMC fails to block the landing, Prince gets his men across, and the battle is essentially over at that point.
Battle’s over here, boys. Macedonian pikemen didn’t get the invitation.
The battle doesn’t require in-depth analysis. USMC had guys crossing the ford en masse and he failed to act. Allied soldiers were landing in Normandy, and the German reserves remained babysitting Calais. Basic Sun-Tzu decoy, mobility and force concentration stuff. But unlike the Germans who had a vast coastline to cover, USMC had just two crossing points. I’m assuming USMC is a marine and so it’s surprising that someone with a military background would have fallen for that.