newbie Punic tips?

[Hamata]

hey guy's so i've decided to start a punic campaign and would like some beginer's tips for battle tactics and stuff

[seleucid empire]

Disband some ships and the elephants, gather army to conquer all of the northern African coast, then the rest of sicily before you conquer the rest of Iberia. Go for Rome next

[EB rocks]

yes don't try to take on the the lussos and Rome at the same time as for tactics make really good use of your generals they will kick Iberian kats in the butt.

[Hamata]

thanks guy's for the tips right now i'm launching a campaign against pontos (naval invasion)

[EB rocks]

what as Carthage?

[Brennus]

what as Carthage?

lol, I can almost hear the tone of your voice raise in disbelief, along with your eyebrows.

[Hamata]

what as Carthage?

yes

[Lusitani]

LOL...

[huth]

screenshot or it didn't happen

[Ca Putt]

attacking pontos surely would not be on my list of carthage advices.

On my list of fun campaigns in EB it's rather high tho.

[EB rocks]

lol, I can almost hear the tone of your voice raise in disbelief, along with your eyebrows.

SILENCE EB rocks! has spoken.

[Hamata]

screenshot or it didn't happen

I would post one but right now my computer is a total crash fest

[moonburn]

thats almost as dumb as deciding to go and take kyrinaica or kyrineica or whatever that puts you with direct borders with the ptolemaioi

if you win against pontos you´re going into war against the seulekids hay and probably koinon hellenon and if you´re trully lucky also against one of the gaulish factions you need to try and keep rome under control (not to mention that depending on who wins in the balkans you might have to fight them too either epeiros or either makedonia both of wich you also need mainly epeiros if they hang on to tarentum since you need as many buffers as possible to criple rome )

as for the carthies everyone said it all north africa as mines and it´s easy to subdue and even easyer to defend since nobady will attack you there (except the ptolemaiois that if you use your spies properly will never be able to subdue kyrynaika )

one of my advices is take the rich coastal cities with the mines wich you have to raise to win anyway and then rush the lusi for the control of the iberia don´t take messana 1st just build a fort on the passage and garrison it with 1 army of depleted troops that way you can fairly well decide when you´re going to kick the roman asses (when you take messana)

most importantly build your economy based on mines in north africa that will enable you to mantain 2 standing armies 1 in iberia and 1 in italy you´ll need them both

[Shigawire]

what as Carthage?

lol

Pharaoh, why did you attack Pontos?

[EB rocks]

because he is wierd.

[Hamata]

why sophet pharaoh has decided to invade pontos? we did not wanna start another punic war with rome so we er thought it would be best to attack someone else :P

[Ca Putt]

Well that's a rather mediocre reason. Afterall attacking pontos has the following downsides:

They are not part of your Victory conditions, nor are their provinces needed for your reform.

They almost never a real threat to Carthage, so destroying them does not dispose of a potential enemy

You need to sail all the way to the Black sea (through the Bosporos), avoiding pirates and hostile navies.

You're practically cutt of from reinforcements.

Once you've defeated pontos you will end up at war with the Grey death and the KH, maybe also Ptolemies and macedonians, Hai, Getai and Epirotes(in that order).

The Pontic cities(lets consider they already conquered one or two) are certainly not the poorest but most cities on the medditerranean are more profitable, not to mention the mines in Iberia.


Also keep in mind that Fighting the romans is not too hard as carthage: you can land practically everywhere on their territory, You do not have a anti barcid Council nit giving you reinforcements.
Alternatively you could aswell attack Iberia:
+lot's O mines
+if you're quick you can conquer most provinces before Lusos get their thrid one.
+getting ridd of the lusos early(as in just after you conquered the rest of iberia) is a good thing as they are one of those factions that mutate and spawn Huge armies in lategame.

Sure you can attack pontos, and it's bound to diliver you an interesting campaign, however only if you like Endless fullstacks on all fronts ;)

[Shigawire]

Though the reasons for it may be mediocre, I applaud his sense of adventure and initiative!

[SoFarSoGood]

I am a noob too to EB but have an ongoing Kat campaign (my first Carthage campaign). I decided from the start that the Romans were evil and smelly and stuff and so while building infrastructure etc Rome had to be killed was prime objective. So I piled into Syracuse and won and then Messana, spy went to watch Taras and reinforcemts being prepared continualy in 'homeland'.

Maybe I was lucky but the Romans sent two lots of cheap armies at (those stone throwing types mostly) Taras first and got bashed. I had to clear the road to my town in the west and sent one lot of reinforcement that way then shipped them to Spain where they took the rebel town above mine on the east coast (can't remember all the town names - sry). Meanwhile having taken Sicily I went and took Rheggion at which point the Romans declared war, or it may have been after Messana.. I forget but war was on.

So cue 3rd Roman attempt at Taras which AGAIN gets bashed! Unfortunetly for them the remnants of this Roman rabble fled toward Rheggion and although I had just taken it 'twas too good an opportunity to waste so I crushed the retreating rabble. By now I was wising up a tad so I made an alliance with Epirus and when a fourth Roman army of half descent troops went for my allies in Taras I had a force lurking to pounce on them from behind. They got crushed for minimal loss so it was decision times; Arpi etc were weakly garrisoned but reinforcement was getting harder. Recall the Spanish army to Italy was an option but once you've got mines it's not wise to leave them without a half decent army so I discounted that as it might end my income flow. So I decided after about 5 mins 'sod it', set another lot of fresh troops training in African homeland and auxillaries in Sicily (no second grade MIC in Lilybaeum yet) and onto Arpi and then Capua leaving bare mininum garrisons and blue faces behind. Rome was too appealing to let go so went for it and won and stopped for a bit. The Romans then sent a decent army against me in Rome but in the nick of time the reinforcements arrived and I won quite easily.

The situation is currently that the Romans have 4 cities left in the north (the two origional ones plus the one... let me look and get the names). Ahem... ok situation is in Spain the army taken Baikor recently and Arse was the one it took first. Mines are in Garder and the other one to the west. In Italy the Epis have half a stack outside of dross troops ouside Taras but probably enough to take Arpi and Capua. The Romans have Arretium, Ariminum, Bononaia and Segesta left. In military terms the Romans have 1/2 a stack of hastati/princs and another small lot of those decent yellow and blue allies with one lot of cav, rest are garrison types but don't know how many decent barracks they have left. I have war veterans full army but light on cav in Rome and 2 Greek skirmish types heading north through Italy (one to Arpi). Also have boat with most bashed up units from Rome in the dock there waiting to take them back for retraining. 46k in the bank, no mines in Sardinia or Rheggion yet or level 2 MIC for faster retraining in Lilybaeum.

Baikor in Spain back to the coast and then Italy needs roads for Baikor first and even then maybe 4-5 turns so not a goer. The decision is inevitable but have been abroad traveling for work stuff recently; bash on! Death to them horrid and smelly Romans! New round of recruitment in Africa for when the boat with injured gets back, absorb any attempts on Rome 'till reinforcement and then press on until they trouble the world no longer!

The moral being that if you wish it's a worth a go at 'blitzkreiking' the Romans, which has been my basic policy, when playing Carthage in EB.

I also have a Getai campaign on the go where I am currently beseiging both Athens and Pergammon. I started the Getai campaign a few times (unlike my Kat campaign) and found that the one to the north had to come first. You also get the rebel army on the way but best not to kill them as they will attack while you are beseiging and that saves you a turn for making seige machines if you kill enough in the ensuing battle. Then the city is yours double quick time. Leave one General there and dash as fast as poss to the coastal town (again names escape me). This one too must go asap and double quick time then straight onto Byzantium before the Epis get there. Then you can sit out the seige and dispatch 3 or 4 of your cheapest troops to make a pretence of laying seige to Tylis. If the Epis appear lay seige - they will back off then stop. Once I had Byzantium I went for Tylis and then started real infrastucture building with mines and lvl 2 MICS etc. When I went for the one on the left (south east) from my home city I noticed the Epis taking liberties as it were. It's all very well being my neighbour but having small armies around my towns with weak garrisons... I look on that somewhat dimly. Grrr lemme get the names again... Ok I was seiging Naissos when the Epirores became sneaky-like so having taken Naissos (I could afford to wait as I was training reserves) I divided my full stack as they had a force by Dalminion on the coast west and had one half (the weaker half) guard the bridge that crosses toward there and the other half attack Serdikes. The army they had outside my city to the north was demolished by reinforcements that I'd trained there (it has a lvl 2 MIC, better than your capital, when you capture the town). No sooner had I attacked Serdikes than an unspotted Epi army (and I use ALOT of spies) appeared but luckily the bridge above Naissos and Serdikes is not far away so was able to reunite my veteran troops and crush the Epis taking Serdikes.

Some time then passed as I pondered and started building troops in the Black Sea coastal town (Kallis) and waiting for mines in Byzantium and Tylis etc. I also wanted lvl 3 MIC in Capital for the half decent phalanx troops and elite skirmishers. I did think about peace with the Epis as the Macedonians were getting the better of the KHs (Athens) so if I finish Epis off then I MUST also deal with Macedonians to stop a threat from the south... But it's not in Getai victory conditions etc etc.... Sod victory conditions! They's a threat! If I head north (where the Romans were already sniffing) with 'unfinished business' in Hellas it's the dreaded 'war on two fronts'. So Epis had to go. I started first by holding and building up in Serdikes (north of Pella) and and transferring the bulk of the army to bridge force which then advanced west and defeated the smallish Epi army which was by this time beseiging Dalminion. They got killed and the northern Epi city fell (the remainder of their decent army was guarding Pella). The Macs, with whom I was now allied, advanced a large but useless army toward Pella but didn't seem upto much, though when the reamining Epi force went away to guard Ambrakia after my threats from the north I had a few worries that the Macs might grab Pella before me so went for it and grabbed Pella in front of the Macs noses. They then went south.

Meanwhile in the Black Sea coast town... Kallis, I had trained a few troops and in the northern town (one I took first) a few more were being put together. I decided that the small Kallis force had better grab Nicea (or however it's spelt) opposite Byzantium to provide a buffer and also for easy cash as it was still rebel held. So that got done.

With the Epis we had some fencing; me advancing and retreating and again before the western army had sufficient reinforcement (including mercanaries) to take on the remaining Epirote main army which was alot of elites. They were defeated in the open field after about 5 seasons and fled back to Ambrakia where some of the army of Pella came to help in the demise of the Epis. Having finished the Epis the western force went first south for Thermon then north to take Dalminion (the Romans now having the town north of there) and retrain/reinforce. That done with the new recruits of now lvl 3 MIC they took the rebel town close to Naissos but north west. They are now heading north.

In the east the half army that had taken Nicea was heading to Pella for a push south into Hellas propper when the stupid Seleukids (with whom both the Macedonians and I were allied) decided to seige Nicea with such a paltry force it was hardly better than my 1 hellenic spear thrower. So Eastern force reversed direction and relieved Nicea. The Macs however sided with Seleukids in this spat so I was not longer allied to Macedonia! Whoop and yum! So advance on Demetrias and big battle which I was probably lucky to win. Demetrias fell and more troop retraining etc. The Seleukids made peace and have the Hai and Ptolemies blocking their route east with the rest of their empire (if any remains) so Eastern army with reinforcements has pressed on to Pergammon and later Mytilane while the main anti-Macedonian force is now on season 2 of Athens seige. I forget how many before they come out and fight but I can wait as I am making more money than them and can therefore train more reinforcements.

I suppose on the Getai campaign I regarded grabbing Byzantium BEFORE the Epis as paramount. All battles were aimed at minimal damage to my army until I got outside the walls of 'Constantinople'. It cuts off whoever has Pella, be it Epis or Macs and unless you cut them off they will become too powerful for you handle no matter how fast you may conquer in the north. That unfortunately got me mixed up with the Epis who were evidently planning on attacking me anyway and the result of that victorious war similar when the Macedonians decided to side with a cut off part of the Seleukid Empire. I cannot leave a full stack army of Macs in the south and go all out north. As it is I plan now to take ALL Hellas and western Anatolia to fund my ousting of Romans in the north.

There are 'victory conditions' and then there's being safe going for them! I was not safe with Epis and Macs lurking in the south.

[Kralizec]

In my last Carthaginian campaign I decided to invade Ireland. The only reason being that I never set foot on the British isles in any other campaign except when playing as Casse. Takes ages to actually reach the isles though; and because you have to wade through lots of pirate ships the navy was pretty darn expensive. Still haven't actually reached the island, and since I'm on a gaming hiatus that will have to wait even longer.

I've actually played as Carthage before; that time I wiped out the Romans just after they had reached the Polybian reforms. This time I intend to spare them until they reach the Marian reforms for fun's sake.

[w0lf]

What i did with Karth'Hadast was keep all my ships and use them to launch raiding parties on rome since i figured roma had heavier troops than i did and i might end up with casualities i'd need a while to replace. Left Rhegion alone so that i wouldn't have a border with them. After a while my military was enough to take over Italy so i did. Was a very fun campaign getting to that point while avoiding large battles and raiding unprotected cities.

Afterwards i conquered North africa, espania, rhodos, krete, and kyprus in what i thought was a somewhat historical way for Carthage to expand. At this point i wanted to retake pheonicia but realized that that kind of war would be costly so i did as the carthaginians would do and decided to conquer the tin isles and that small island accessible by land in the sea north of sweboz. Thus i made a true maritime power ready to finally make a move on the phalanx heavy successor factions. Most entertaining campaign i ever played. So much RP and i'm not even the roleplaying kind of guy.

Going for pontos seems like a fun campaign but unnecessarily difficult.

[SoFarSoGood]

That sounds a great strategy... will have to give it go.