This battle comes from my solo-unit world conquest campaign and was the biggest/hardest battle of the campaign (and probably my 5000+ hours of Bannerlord). It was an emotional roller coaster and I hope you enjoy!
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Full Galadriel Campaign Playlist: kzhead.info/channel/PLJYyY2q0WfPHMYl60KztThn65RYu8todk.html&si=CR_U8wwhNmU-civz *A couple notes for this video - I was about 60 hours into the campaign at this point in only 4 days, so my voice was shot and my temper was flaring a bit. This specific battle took over 2 hours to complete and I ended up editing out 20+ clips of foul language/complaining lol but I kept some in so you could see the struggle. This is the full battle and how it ACTUALLY went down. I reloaded and fought it a second time to get the win, although I don't consider this savescumming because the game bugged out. I'll be editing the full campaign into a single heavily edited video soon and will post the link here and in the description once it's done!
i feel these types of fights. though ill admit its on a lower difficulty and with some mods. still nothing worse than just joining a kingdom and getting the castle or city in the worst spot and you get 4 factions running at your town with 10000 troops non stop. and yeah as you discovered if you leave the battle from outside the settlement its a retreat lol. but if you try manually its a surrender its a nice little cheese still since ill play prevent defense on the outside sometimes.
doing a campaign this difficult is an exercise in skill and patience even if you DO save-scum so go nuts as far as I'm concerned
reminds me of the time @LegendofTotalWar spent 2 hours in a single TWWH2 battle swooping the enemy to death
Why enemies never use bow? 👎 don’t like that kind of videos 😢
So basically you crushed 1.5k troops with just a horse and bow? Now I see how Genghis Khan conquered half of the planet
Along with walls, catapults, and a limitless supply of arrows.
Yeah pretty much lol it's all about that resupply and bringing extra mounts
@@Nurk0m0rath that's... also basically how genghis conquered the world. At least the arrow isn't exactly limitless though, and maybe without wall
Also explosives
@@unholyknightwhowanttowield5522 Carrhae was won similarly. The Parthians brought wagons full of arrows to restock, so they could keep up the loop of charging testudos and shooting before they reform.
The beautiful irony of the Khuzait getting destroyed by horse archery. Well done!
Haha I didn't think of it that way, but so true
Their shields are smaller and less numerous, so other factions might actually have taken a lot more time.
Should have brought their horses with them
This is like before Janissaries Ottomans use mostly horse archery after europeans stole it (winged hussar cossack and baron)
Props to the squire that decided to stock 2k plus arrows in each of the barrels that morning. Not all heroes wear capes. 💪
Lol exactly!
it's like that American cop that carries like 1000 9mm bullets on patrol after he almost died to a wolverine type of criminal
Props to the attacking idiots who did not take away all those arrows although they had all the town for themselves )
@@sakesaurus1706 it was closer to 150 or 200, still an insane amount
imagine sending 1500 troops to take a town with 1 person in it only to return with 1500 troops in caskets
No caskets, then crows will grow fat off their corpses :D
More like you send 1500 troops, 100 caskets, 1400 families paying ransom to get their men back home.
Chuck Norris would still call that rookie-numbers.....
"Only a fool would face Galadriel in an open field!" "But Ser, she was defending a castle.." "And you idiots let her OUT!!!"
I am amazed you was able to play a 2h battle not only once, but twice without crashing. Mine would have crashed right at the end.
I had a fair amount of crashing this campaign actually, but luckily not this battle. Mostly during sieged
Seems taleworlds fixed a lot of crashing. Early in the beta/release, crashes on campaign map were often and battles too.
Respect to the horse, poor thing suffered so many falls and just kept riding
Lol the horse was the true MVP of the solo WC. He put up with so much abuse!
Monchug: you WHAT?! Messenger (mumbling): we lost, sir. Monchug: Fifteen hundred men against one woman, and you LOST?! Messenger: yes sir. Monchug: HOW? Messenger: she outmaneuvered us on horseback and pelted us with arrows for hours on end. Monchug: That's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard (weeps). ... The amount of patience to do this is ridiculous. And you're doing an entire campaign of this? Absurd. You're a maniac. This is amazing!
Lol he would be proud I think :)
@@Strat-Guides also horrified that not one of the 1500 soldiers thought to just close the gates and lock u out the first time u rode outside the walls
@@davidzoo2246 Monchug probably fell in love at that moment.
@@davidzoo2246 can enemies do that? Not meaning npcs just enemies in general?
@@anniew4105there's no reason they couldn't. I'm pretty sure sieging troops can open and close at least the inner gates if they make it behind the walls.
Imagine if the AI just shut the gate behind you as you left…
I've got over a dozen battles from the campaign where I solo'ed a fief on offense, so it wouldn't help them. Galadriel cannot be stopped :D
They would be like: We have what we came for, now go away pls
A little tip of dismount , your character will dismount from the oppisite side of where you current looking at.
Interesting, I wasn't aware of that, thanks for sharing! :D
When you were outside the town, taking shots at them up on the wall…Why don’t they just close the gate and claim the fief for themselves 😂 That was the goal after all, get you out and them in
Yes, and game should allow you to escape hopeless battles this way
They were too confined by rage and wanted to chase lol I did several offensive siege battles in this campaign and it's actually easier because the AI is more passive, so it would have been better for me if they took it and acted like defenders :) I'll have to pick an offensive siege to post from this campaign soon
I just thought about how there should be a capture point in the castle. It would make defenses less cheeseable and would prevent troops bugged behind walls from breaking Sieges. Of course then we would have players just sneaking in and back capping but maybe if you need 10 troops in the zone for like a minute?
@@henrikt.183 yes, like Total War. Or maybe multiple capture points, like a couple on the walls and one within the city/castle itself, to represent total control of the location
@@alexandere9368 that would be cool features, escort mission to get the hell out of there with your most elite troops.
"I refought the Battle again." My reaction: *Ahuuueh?!*
Lol sometimes you just gotta get it done, ya know?
I see the "run away and shoot their knees" strategy for killing 40 sea raiders alone from warband was not only not removed, but made even more broken lmfao
In fairness the last athletics perk grants +1 hp for every point past 250 and he has it at 330, so his unit has basically twice the normal hp of a normal unit plus some of the best armor in the game.
Some would say he's got a tempest in him.
Lol thanks for watching!
I wasn't sold on this campaign at first; it just felt like it was so slow to start. But man, once you started tearing the kingdoms up from the inside, I was hooked. Always looking forward to the next episode.
For sure, the start was brutal! Just needed to get that first streak of luck going and then it was (mostly) smooth sailing :)
This is just an insane demonstration of mastering a game, as if Strat read all lines of source code from Taleworlds.
Lol I wish I could read code... it probably would save me a TON of time :P Thanks AN!
Nah, not this guy again, I swear you are literally everywhere mr Roman helmet guy.
@@theannoyinghistorian1812 My Apologies, but we seem to share the same high level of quality content taste.
he just abuses dumb ai XD how are you this impressed
@@sakesaurus1706 i am a simple man
The enemy only surrenders all their troops after a siege assault if the party leader of those troops is wounded/killed. So if they are still alive when they retreat, then they can continue the siege if they feel strong enough to do so
Which would make sense IF they have the player a chance to finish the fight even while wounded. But as it stands, it makes no sense. I drove them off, killed everyone else and then they get to capture for free? Sounds like an oversight in their spaghetti code :)
well its taleworlds, i also kinda feel that they more or less stopped or at least slowed down the working/improvment of bannerlord, like this game is published since 1,2 years? dunno exactly but there are so many bugs even some mildly "game-breaking" like this one here, because i claim to lose siege and therefore a castle/city and get yourself in captivity can you absolutely lose the war...@@Strat-Guides
"How is Strat Gaming so good?!" *Proceeds to watch him get thousands of practice shots in a single video*
There should be an increasing morale penalty for each kill a unit (including the player) does. So the first kill doesn't do much, the 10th one costs some morale for the enemy, the 100th kill makes half the army retreat and if Strat is playing the enemies just kill themselfes by default.
Yeah that's a really good idea. It does seem linear and is offset by enemy deaths, so it doesn't really do anything until the battle starts to snowball - the point where morale is irrelevant anyways lol
Doesn't need to be increasing, just make it inherently unstable. It should be: You gain morale equal to the tier of each unit your side kills. You lose morale equal to twice the tier of each unit you lose. And lastly, army morale should not increase with it's size. That way, if both sides were killing roughly equal amount of unit tiers, a large battle would turn into a rout before either side lost majority of troops, while a small skirmish might be to the last man.
@@frantisekvrana3902 Elite troops should never rout, their whole premise is that those are the real full time warriors. Morale hit decreases based on unit tier, I mean, try to prevent farmers from retreating after a few dozens of them fall. but again, for that to be implemented there also should've a retreat mechanic for the AI, because retreating is not the same as routing.
The sheer amount of editing to get every archer shot in there cut up so perfectly. Probably took twice as long editing this video than the entire battle took.
Yeah editing these battles takes a really long time, but it's much easier to watch than the full 2.5 hours lol I appreciate you noticing!
First few minutes of this were just ASMR gold 👌
Especially the fire pots, those are my favorite!
And I thought I was incredible when I destroyed 250 bandits using a spear. You rock
Thanks! 250 bandits is pretty hard to do with a spear, don't downplay that. Melee is orders of magnitude harder than kiting idiot AI around with a bow :)
You get so much experience in engineering from killing enemies with siege equipment. On my current playthrough I found that out when I went in (assaulting) sent my troops to the rear and started picking people off with ballista. After 5 minutes I leveled up and noticed in my combat log engineering skill has reached level 70 (it was like 1 or 2 to start the battle). So I retreated, put my focus point into engineering went back out and by the end of the battle my engineering skill was higher than my engineer. So now I'm my own engineer and my old engineer is governing the town I took.
battle of gondor be like
This is when you know someone is too good at a game my guy is insane
I've got way too many hours in this game lol
I'm more impressed you did it twice
Yeah it was a grind for sure. I was pretty flat into the campaign at this point too, like 50 hours or so
Crazy vid... you have an insane amount of dedication and patience my friend. Ty for the vid!
Thanks for watching!
I have 2 questions: 1. How are you making so huge damage with a bow? 2. How long did this battle take?
I'm using a noble longbow which has the highest damage in the game, have bow skill up to 330 (max) and have all the perks that increase damage. This is the highest possible damage with a bow :)
@@Strat-Guides Do you have a video on that too? (Just discovered you by chance)
"Against all the evil that hell can conjure...all the sin that mankind can produce...we send only you.... Rip and tear...until it is done..."
That is mind blowing. Bloody well done!
Thanks for watching!
Yeah, I think you had too low health to redeploy at the end of the siege, and with one of their units making it out alive, they technically had an army left to capture the city from you. That's the only explanation I can think of. Still one hell of a fight!
Yeah I think that's what happened - pretty broken of a mechanic to win via being a coward and fleeing lol
It was a tactical retreat.@@Strat-Guides
@@korayyy440 Time to conquer Calradia by only retreating
@@Strat-Guides skill issue, just don't get hit :-D
@@Strat-Guides Since you can retreat and redeploy as many times as you want, so long as you are not too wounded, it's only fair the AI gets to do it too. And they even have to make it to the edge of the map, unlike you.
That's like an equivalent to Guts against demons and his enemies.
alpharius did nothing wrong
I didn't expect this to turn into a horror video halfway through, but I definitely got jumpscared once or twice during those reloads.
Lol seriously, they scared the crap out of me too
This was amazing, I usually only watch your guides and tactics because as console player I find it extremly hard to fight enemies myself and command so I just hang back and use troop tactics with minimal success. I still suck after 1000 hurs lol, but this video was a great treat in showcasing how to tango with the AI. So i'm def going to check more of this campaign as it gives me hope that when my armies get massacared I can still fight on
I've found after all these hours - the true skill is understanding the habits and patterns of the AI. Once you figure that, you don't need a ton of mechanical skill to beat them :) I'm definitely not the best at the mechanics of the game (watch me play online, I get crushed badly lol) but I can figure out the AI's patterns pretty quickly
@@Strat-Guides Thanks for the reply Strat, I have only really figured out the horse archer AI, I might need to play on the easier difficulty to give myself more time to watch the AI more as my pride gets in the way on campaigns keeping it on bannerlord difficulty LOL
That's some maneuvers that I can't perform. I love the siege defense, especially ambush mission because I have "family planning". Perhaps it's dev oversight your companions and family have unlimited arrow outside the wall and melee units won't engage you outside of destroyed siege machine range. I used this to max level up their athletic & bow skill.
Thanks for watching!
The way he just calmly keeps shooting at the horde of soldiers chasing him is hilarious. I wouldnt be surprised if he does this often
This was from a solo-person world conquest campaign that took close to 100 hours to complete. The whole thing was pretty much this with maybe 20% melee combat as well, but mostly kiting massive hordes with bow and arrow lol
You are a madlad with editing of that video, it really shows how much time and effort is required to do it
Thanks! Yeah editing is the biggest time-sink (probably even more than recording)
You are one of the best Bannerlord youtubers I love your channel man
you never cease to amaze. this isn't gaming, this is art
Man, these enemies are just terrible. I know AI has certain limitations, but the fact that they couldn't do shit to you as you just kited them and shot them endlessly in the face is really unimpressive on their end.
This was such a great stream, and so was your last one. I learned a lot, reinstalled the game and have been playing successfully and having fun. I'm still a noob but some of the late game stuff is making much more sense, and your videos really help fill in the gaps.
Nice, I'm happy to hear that! If you ever get stuck on anything, leave a comment and I will try to answer (I don't get 100% but I do get to a lot of them)
Wow that was a master class on bannerlord siege defense. Well played!
I think that if any of their lords had the perk that gives them back 30 - 40% hp after a battle (don't quote me on this) and if you don't have enough hp or units to either attack or send in the units to fight, you automatically lose. I could be very wrong but it's just an idea.
reminds me of how i cheesed sieges back in warband with the long 3m pollaxe i had an elite guard of like 25 swadian knights and i just kept overhead swinging the pollaxe. The hitbox was so far that i swung past two ranks of people, more if i timed my jump
I love the noise of the rocks. Such a cartoony, but sickening crunch.
Lol yeah, it's ASMR. Long time no see, hope all is well with you!
i use to be able to do battles like this in the previous game but i haven't played it in a really long time and don't have the patience for it now XD good fight.
"We have come to capture you under order of Manchub, open the gates and your imprisonment shall be peaceful." "You and what army?"
Man I remember watching this in the campaign. It's amazing!
I think 500 renown and influence would be way too low. Imagine hearing of a warrior single-handedly taking out 1500 trained soldiers by themself.and they'd be considered as impressive as some leader winning 5 scale battles with a numbers advantage.
Great job! That glitched guy was funny 😂
No joke what you did was really impressive, hope after that you made a long pause :)
Thanks! Nope lol I was pushing hard to finish the solo WC so I could move onto a new project lol It was a huge grind
This is awesome
Damn... the patience you must have to do this! Congrats!
Nicely done as usual strat.
Thanks!
Imagine in real life, an entire army of elite soldiers gets murked by a single dude with a horse and a bow.
That's just how Galadriel would roll IRL (if Rings of Power is to be believed, anyhow lol)
Dang, this is so satisfying.
You're an absolute legend
This is the most satisfying thing I have ever seen.
Wow, the more things change, the more they stay the same huh? I did a similar challenge back in Warband with a Companions only run - no regular troops allowed - and my tactics were pretty similar: horse archery all the way, with extra cheese on restocking arrows mid-fight. Admittedly, I never got to the heights of my inspiration, Tujdjy's "Soviet Scientist Challenge" LP... but I can still *personally* confirm that you can pull off absolutely unbelievable stuff if you go full Mongol and learn how to kite everyone to death - turns out you can beat any number of enemies as long as you never get hit (and use cheese to never run out of arrows). So in other words, a good video! I can sympathesize with the catching on random rocks, jump scares from random infantry, sudden frustrating transitions of the enemy remembering they can shoot at you, abuse of the "Tactical Retreat" function, crawling out of battles by just the skin of your teeth with only like 1 hitpoint left... man, it's all coming back.
The game prolly should add capture points kinda like total war to sieges. The only defender left the settlement and everyone's like LETS GO GET HIM!
Lol Let's go get him indeed :) Capture points would have made this a tough one to deal with
I once had to solo a 300 man army in an open field battle by shooting all my arrows and then retreating, rinse and repeat. Targetted archers first. Took over an hour but I won.
Wow! Congrats. A worthy feat
Insane video strat, I admire the patience and diligence output into this video. I think the fief was given to the khuzaits because of their single troop who had retreated though which is stupid for being implemented into the game.
Yeah I think you're right. It's a poor game mechanic (or a bug) that they can still win the battle after losing the battle lol
wow just wow goodjob man
I love how you get TW'd at the end. Just wow
Haha yeah, it has to end that way. Good thing I had a save for that battle so it wasn't too much lost time
3:19 the sped up "Die you bastard!" 😂
For Achilles, it was his heel. For the Khuzaits, it was their shins. For Strat, it was his mouse wrist.
Lol this is accurate
If this wasn't on youtube I would never believe it 😂 well done that's insane
Thanks! I'm working on editing the full campaign - it was a solo-person world conquest lol
all the advancements in equality... and the girl still shoots the shins.
I was going to skip through but ended up watching all of it, epic fight!
Thanks for watching! I did my best to edit it, but it's hard to make 2.5 hours of the same thing interesting lol
The sheer will of strat gaming is 😮
For this reason, in Brutenwald's mod for Warband, almost every infantryman carries at least one stack of javelins that they don't shoot immediately. You would have been turned into a hedgehog in a sec
Imagine what these guys are telling themselves to keep running after him when they just saw him drop 300 people one arrow at a time.
That highlight of bannerlord epic AI right on the spot ;)
Insanely good archery and maneuvering.
Thanks for watching!
sad that you had to do the siege again. Thanks taleworlds.
Lol TW maths
Now it is clear where so many guards with a shot in the knee come from
"And so I fought them all again" Dude. i want you on my team.
I was committed to making this campaign work :) This was from a solo-person world conquest campaign I ran a few moths ago.
for the archers, you want to cut line of sight so that they don't shoot because archers don't do friendly fire. I think there is a certain range where archers won't shoot and if they're all grouped up it makes it easier to block line of sight but you have to be careful about making sharp turns like how you were doing because it opens up a field of fire
I fought the battle twice and I couldn't see any logic to why they shot and other times they didn't. I understand what you're saying and it's accurate on a normal battle field, but for a siege defense when you exit the siege, they are not programmed to handle it the same way I think. TW spaghetti code :D
The skill and stamina are insane. RESPECT!
Thanks!
Everyone knows in all games ANY female unit is massively OP. Even though history shows us the opposite holds true, developers are crazy.
Hey Strat, hope you remember me. I know you're still out there, and I know it's been rough since Bannerlord 2 hype has definitely slowed down a bit, but I'm just reminding you that you're still one of my favorite methodical and informational content creators of all time. Nobody approaches the game as extensively and thoroughly as you. Been here since the beginning and, even though I don't comment on every video, I still watch every one through like during my work and whatnot. No pressure. Make what you can when you can, and I'll still be here. I'm not going anywhere ♥
I use the no cap mod and honestly 5% is so minimal you barely if ever increase but it is wonderful for situations like this so there is actually still progression not just "Well, sucks we don't get exp from this anymore."
Yeah exactly! I used it for a companion only RBM run and I had some people in the 400s by the end lol it was glorious
average player "wow 2 V 1 is hard. skilled players "while my army was keeping them busy I flanked and killed like 50 then theres Strat... Strat just casually obliterating over a thousand single-handedly
oracle: to defend the castle you must let it go. me: that doesnt make sense at all. you: ^
The MVP of this battle is not you, but that one guy who decided to retreat and won thanks to that.
You can HEAR the invaders’ frustration when they attack you! Well defended; you’ve proven that hero units do exist!
YOU sir, win the Legend of Total War, Max Cheese Award ! Congrats ! :D
Legendary stuff
Thanks for watching!
So this is the Galadriel Amazon talks so much about
Lol exactly!
I just watched your joker playthrough video again a year later. Those were the days man. I hope you have a great day/night, take it easy.
Yeah that's where this campaign idea came from actually! Thanks, you as well :D
GG wp , in the end one escaped , that one last guy must be like "yes , you killed 1,5K of our soldiers but I take you as prisoner anyway" - said the looter who joined the enemy (just guess)
You got captured in the end because your character had a very low amount of health left, which makes it count as wounded at the end of the battle. And you still had to storm the keep after the battle (the routed enemy units go there plus maybe some backups). Since your only available troop (your character) was wounded at that point, you lost the second battle before it even began. You did get the influence, renown, and the morale boost from the first battle however.
Beautiful
Thanks!
I really suggest taking the time to adjusting to RBM's realistic arrow arc. It is an absolute must for any archer build, and if youre any good than its ajust some time spent in the arena to get zero'd in. You and ur units can literally curve the arrows over your units. Its so satisfying aiming at them and seeing it perfect whiz over and come down on the enemy.
It took me awhile to get used to horse archery with it though and ide say I was relatively okay at battlefield 4 sniping
Not to be rude, but that's not realistic. Arcing is a film thing. Archers in real life picked and shot at targets.
Awesome, gg's 🙂 , from your stile of play i bet u play a lot FI3 😁
That's a nice battle.
I haven't been able to catch up to the campaign so I apreciate how you sometimes post these battles on the main channel. how long do you think the campaign is going to take?
Yeah I've been blasting hour long episodes almost daily, I'm surprised people are watching it too begin with lol I'll be going back to 30 minute episodes next. The campaign is done, I just need to finish editing. We probably have another 3-5 episodes left if I had to guess?
Maximum I did was winning 200+ siege as the attacking team with 43 soldiers. I was giving up the save but after that, with around 13 survivors I did played some days more.