Carthage

[tibilicus]

By line up of troops i mean what formations work best e.c.t would you be willing to help KATANK? I would even add your name at the top.

[RollingWave]

For vinilla RTW carthage troops basically..

Have at least 1 group of elephant with ur attacking army.
infantry: if u don't have a choice... bring some iberians. they aren't too bad as long as you don't send them in first. later on Poeni and Sacred band are as good as any other phalanx out there.

Cavlary: bring many and whatever you can build. round shields aren't that hot but with speed and number you can acomplish many things. long shields are one of the more price effective cavlary around early game... sacred band are a bit underwhelming for how much it takes to get.. but not bad... and of course.. u have ur elephants.

ranged: unfortunately carthage utterly suck in this department... early on bring some skrimishers later just build nothing but onager.

A good general work with whatever he gets though, of course you could set goals for ur favorit army but you should always be prepared to work without it.

[Craterus]

For range, try get some Balaeric slingers, in Spain. If you have a go for Crete, you could get Cretans too.

[katank]

For line up.

Early

Your infantry line is primarily Iberians and even town watch. Don't expect them to last long. Must flank quickly with your cav to save your caving line.

Cav is round shields which stink but are decent when operating in groups of 3+. Definitely throw in your general. The starting unit of elephants are nice as a mobile ram. Also follow up an ele charge quickly with cav can exploit formation disruption etc. and cause instarout. Be careful with that starting ele unit on higher difficulty levels as it's the key to your blitz and not so easily replaceable.

Missiles is skirmishers. Put them on stand ground right behind your lines for them to fire into the melee. Charge them in as a reserve or use them for flanking when ammo is depleted.

Mid and Late will follow soon.

[pezhetairoi]

The infantry'll hold just fine if you keep your general behind them, as I've found through a custom battle. If the flanks cave, all the better since moving infantry are even more susceptible to cavalry charges. Of course, round shields must get very busy for this gamble to work.

[DS_Legionary]

For Carthage I find that in the early game you will pribably be realying on Cavalry to save you. Have maybe three or four units of town watch/iberians, and set up a weak front line. Have at least 2 units of Cav, 6-8 is better, but I have won many a battle with only two cav units when nothing else is available. Early the regular elephants aren't all that great, but if you can crowd up the enemy they are great crowd control/instant routing, so they really aren't a neccessity, but are nice if you can come across them. Just let the enemy attack the front line and them ram him from the rear with your cav, and the battle will probably be over right then and there. After that point the enemy infantry usually routs, and you can chase fleeing units and/or enemy Generals.

[pezhetairoi]

But always remember, elephants are not first-line troops. They should be used as a masse de rupture, to borrow Napoleon's phrase. They are the hammer that breaks the already heavily loaded enemy back. Winning a battle with only two cav units... surely you don't mean round shields? I've already modded their charge bonus up 3 points and they still look pretty pathetic, to me.

[Mikeus Caesar]

I find that Elephants can be good if used correctly. You can either distract the enemy with your army, and smash your Elephants into the rear (really good) or you can use the War Elephants or Armoured Elephants as mobile missile platforms. Just keep them at the rear of your fighting troops, and it really makes up for Carthage's lack of missile troops.

[Holymoses]

I´d say Carthage´s one of the easiest factions I´ve played. Settings on med/med I´m now at a point where it´s not even amusing to play as I don´t have any natural enemies. It went like this:

I just started massproducing fleets. Having the advantage of starting off with a few ships, I figured this would be a sound strategy - just doing what you´re best at. And it proved to be.

Building fleets lets you blockade ports, which in turn drives your enemies to the edge of bankrupcy. So from turn 1 or 2 I went to the closest roman port and sealded it off. Then the next and third one and so on. Blockading Julii isn´t hard at all because you can easily have 6 ships before they have any port. Right - I lost a few triremes as there was some resistance further on from Scipii and Brutii, but with backup from my many ports I could easily overcome theese losses. Once controlling the high seas, neither the greeks nor any of the roman families have ever posed any greater threat to me. They did however waste about 40 turns trying to rebuild their naval power before the AI sensed it was just futile.

Right. With the romans just waiting for my invading force, I could turn my attention westward. The numidians were off course beaten since long. Now breaking an early alliance with Spain (got it through by offering to fight off the gauls), the iberian peninsula was under my control in a couple of years. Then waited the lands along the Nile an its wonders. Egyptian chariots proved to be good combatants but still not too much of a problem for my new armoured elephants. Only one mistake - I left my work with pharao without the ultimate punish to his people, and that gave me some headache later on as they gathered a force to re-take Alexandria. Still - my power was now so great that my armies solely consisted of armoured elephants, sacred band, some archers and heavy onagers.

Remarkable is also that this roman guy who´s supposed to boost up the roman military still hasn´t emerged. The romans are still using Hastatii, Principes and Auxillary cavalry! Probably this event doesn´t come if their kingdom doesn´t evolve (?).

Under theese conditions the roman homelands was quickly smacked down and the population exterminated. Rome itself did however take two turns to conquer because even for an army of elephants such a vast city can be something of a challange - and the senate do have the Triari.


Now I just need 14 more provinces. That is Gaul and and a small piece of Germania. But as said above I don´t have any natural enemies along any more so due to the lack of amusement I don´t think I´ll finish it up. At least not for now..

[pezhetairoi]

Well, you pretty much starved the Romans out, so it's not likely they have enough money or population to build imperial palaces, since they're frantically building troops to await your invasion and bankrupting themselves in upkeep... good one man! I've never used blockades that well before.

[The Stranger]

blockades are pretty bugged (atleast in 1.2) the ships can just leave the blocked port without fighting.

[DS_Legionary]

Winning a battle with only two cav units... surely you don't mean round shields? I've already modded their charge bonus up 3 points and they still look pretty pathetic, to me.

That's right only two units of Round Sheilds have won many a battle for me. The trick is to take the defensive, let the enemy tire himself coming to you. As soon as the enemy hits the frontline have your Round Sheilds hit them in the back, and it's over. The enemy is usually tired and when they hit your frontline they are usually demoralized, so they are prime for routing, and usually rout soon as the Cavalry hit the back. (This is the stretegy I used against Rome, as they almost never have any cavalry).

[Craterus]

Thanks, you've just given me another simple strategy against the Romans. Deploy as far back as possible and let them tire as they come to me. So Simple.

Thanks.

[DS_Legionary]

Yes, it's a great strategy, but if you have a way bigger army, they won't come to you. It's great against all other factions as well, but best against Infantry heavy factions, like Rome and Greece.

[Craterus]

Well, when I first went up against Romans, I let them come to me but because the distance was so short they weren't worn out and they broke through my lines. I won the battle, but with many casualties.

[katank]

One of my best battles was as the Gauls against the Julii. They had a far superior army. (4:1 strength ratio) However, I deployed very far back and hid two units of barb cav in forests.

Good timing managed to tangle the entire Roman line for an instant while my cav smashed their rear.

@DS_Legionary, how do you have a frontline if you only have two roundshields? Or do you mean your entire cav force consists of two round shields?

beating an actual army with only 2 round shields is nigh impossible while with only 2 roundshields as a cav forces, it's doable.

[DS_Legionary]

My cav force usually consists of only two Round Shields early on, I try to have some Town Watch or Iberian Infantry to hold a weak front line to give me cav time to hit the back of the Roman scum. I usually don't have more then 3 or 4 units of them, as they never do anything except stand there and take casualties, while my cav do all the work.

[katank]

That sound much like my early carthie armies. Too bad a hastati unit can beat an iberian inf and a roundshield even when sandwiched.

[Marquis of Roland]

Yes, I just started a Carthage campaign and Iberians aren't not impressing me right now....I sandwiched a Gaul swordsmen warband three-way (no generals) and I STILL lost....now that was pathetic. They broke through my center rusher and my flanking Iberians ran too....pathetic.

I miss the ubiqitous hastati, hahaha.

Libyan spearmen in early campaign is quite good, but not as good as principes. They form the backbone of my armies, with Iberians on the flanks.

I agree that round shield cav is useful in numbers. I use 3+1 general as my standard cav for my early field armies. Long shield not bad as well. One complaint about round shields: they don't know what a charge is. They run full speed at the enemy rear and then trot out the last couple yards, and hit the enemy at walking speed.

Vanilla elephants are way too susceptible to "run amok". Too many Romans with javelins. Had to put them to the chisel two or three times. War elephants FAR better.

I made the big mistake of not building a naval power early in the game. Now I'm screwed, there are full flag Roman (all 4 factions), Spanish, Gallic, numidian, and Greek navies roaming around my trade routes. Holding Caralis from hordes of Julii at this time is hard (just a couple Iberians facing about 6-8 hastati plus support troops every year).

Just built my first sacred band, so I guess I'm in mid-game now. These are my early observations.

[Garvanko]

Carthage is very difficult, even though they have a lot of money. Too close to Rome, and too many enemies too early.

[katank]

The Carthaginian blitz is probably the easiest way out of the hole. This makes it overpowered though as you have the combined wealth of Italy, Carthage, and Sicily very quickly.

Otherwise, it is difficult to stay in control due to weakness of early units.

Libyans are actually roughly equal to hastati in pure melee.

[DS_Legionary]

I have done the blitz with Carthage, and while fun it made taking over the rest of the world too easy. Instead I took Sicily and then consolidated in that area, and built up some economy there. After taking care of Siciliy I launched simultaneous invasions of North Africa and Spain. This made the later game more fun, as the Romans were much stronger (except Scipii), and gave me some of the greatest battles I've ever had.

[katank]

If you'd like to do the extreme, you can even gift cities to Rome.

I've even tried a Carthaginian game in which I gifted Carthage to the Romans and changed my base of operations to Spain.

[Atreides]

If you'd like to do the extreme, you can even gift cities to Rome.

I've even tried a Carthaginian game in which I gifted Carthage to the Romans and changed my base of operations to Spain.

That IS sich!

Anyway. After reading a lot of your post I have the impression you mastered this game!

[pezhetairoi]

Carthage is tough. Like Spain, the best way to survive Julii full stacks is to go for the Julii jugular first thing. Otherwise Caralis is not worth holding. Me, I prefer surrendering Caralis to the Julii while I consolidate in Sicily and make alliance with the Gauls. Not that I've played Carthage, of course, I'm still a relative newbie in terms of campaign experience, but my style is to surrender ground I can't hold in exchange for a firmer grip on the ones I have.

Carthage had a strong Spanish empire in history. You can duplicate that, as katank did. Spain is infinitely more defensible than the scattered Carthaginian empire. Although, arguably, if you manage to survive the multiple threats like I did with the equally scattered Greek empire, then it's a breeze with three-four campaigns raging at ones. A blitz.

And bribe! bribe! Carthage was made for money, so bribe!

[Franconicus]

That IS sich!

Anyway. After reading a lot of your post I have the impression you mastered this game!

Yes! While we have to fight according the rules, katank defines them

[pezhetairoi]

But always remember, rules are meant to be broken :-)

Franc! Haven't seen you around these parts for quite some time, or have you been hiding in ambush?

[Franconicus]

But always remember, rules are meant to be broken :-)

Franc! Haven't seen you around these parts for quite some time, or have you been hiding in ambush?

I am always here.
But it looks like there is not much going on these days. I tried it with my Brit campaign but failed. Seems like everyone is waiting for the expansion.

[pezhetairoi]

...or simply waiting for EB. look at all the threads about why no one wants to buy the expansion ;-)

[Franconicus]

I bet everybody will