Discussion and Announcements

[DimeBagHo]

I've made some changes to the way that Carthage recruits units. They should have mercenary heavy armies, but there seems to be no good way to make that happen just by adding in more mercenaries for hire. So I figured I might as well just let them train a variety of mercenary units. I made a few other changes as well.

Carthage now has three areas of recruitment: Carthage, Africa, and Spain. Sacred Band, and Sacred Band Cavalry, are only recruitable in Carthage and New Carthage. Iberian Infantry, Iberian Cavalary, and Iberian Mercenaries are only recruitable in Spain. Desert Peltasts, Desert Infantry, Libyan Infantry, Numidian Cavalry, Desert Cavalry, Desert Camel Warriors, and Desert Camel Archers, are only recruitable in Africa. Carthaginian Spearmen are only recruitable outside of Africa (these are low quality auxilaries). Also Poeni infantry can now be recruited, in two turns, with a City Barracks, while Sacred Band can be recruited in two turns with an Army Barracks.

[Zarax]

I think that's a bit too complex for the AI to manage...

If you import the changes I made in the add-on pack some posts ago you might want to build the resources this way:

Carthage: Sacred Band units

Africa: Lybian spears and numidian mercenaries

Spain: Iberian infantry and spanish mercenaries

Everywhere: Phoeni infantry (can use 2 turns if you mod them with +1 to 2nd attack and short pikes but still in phalanx so they can use both weapons effectively), round and long shield cavalry plus the usual auxiliaries.

I would also add to their roster the following units, as their equivalents were used historically:

- Phalanx pikes (at the same barracks level as phoeni), the seleucid skin fits nicely there (and actually the seleucid helped carthage in the 2nd punic war, there are second hand sources that states they even sent some manpower but it is certain they gave "military advisors" plus they gave shelter to hannibal after Zama... too bad they didn't trust him enough to command the army at magnesia)

- Light lancers were also used (though they were most likely gauls or spaniards) though that would take a bit more work on the model as there is no fitting skin for them...

Also, here's a couple things you may want to evaluate ask permission for:

http://www.twcenter.net/downloads/db/?mod=546 - This is a set of carthaginian and mercenary skins plus a few extra units

http://www.twcenter.net/downloads/db/?mod=363 - This small mod enables the hidden distinctive walls for each culture

I hope this will be helpful...

[Ilsamir Lord]

I'll need to get this one again I think, I had a previous version and I always liked playing as the Greeks.

[Zarax]

I'd absolutely recommend it, this mod is coming up pretty nicely...

[DimeBagHo]

Zarax: The AI seems to be handling the new system OK. As far as infantry goes the line-up in each region is pretty simple. The cavalry line-up in Africa is complicated, but I don't think it matters as much if cavalry units wind up being quite diverse.

I have been playing around with ways to include Macedonian style phalanxes. It's hard to get the balance right though.

(1) AI vs Human. Having two or three phalanx units in a stack is nearly useless. You need to persuade the AI to make stacks where about half the units are phalanax so that it has a decent line. But the relatively low attack and defense values for phalanx units makes them look unattractive to the AI when they have other options available.
(2) AI vs AI. Phalanx units get screwed in autocalc. Again, they have relatively low attack and defence values, and autocalc doesn't seem to weigh the phalanx ability high enough.
(3) Human vs AI. If you fix (1) and (2) then human players find it too easy to play the faction. Macedonian style phlanxes in general make life too easy for human players because they are so unbreakable from the front.

Of ccourse these are already problems for other Macedonian style factions - I just don't want to add them to the Carthaginians as well, especially when they have so much trouble holding up against the Romans as it is.

I suppose one solution would be to drop long pikes enitirely and use the shorter pike to represent the Macedonian style phalanx.

[DimeBagHo]

I suppose one solution would be to drop long pikes enitirely and use the shorter pike to represent the Macedonian style phalanx.

The more I think about it the more I like this idea. The different pike lengths are totally ahistorical - everyone was using longer pikes by the time of the game period. But there were other significant differences in the way that phalangites were equiped. Some used relatively small shields and light armour, others appear to have used relatively large shields and heavy armour. So it would still make sense to differentiate along the lines of smaller heavier units vs larger lighter units.

Balancing would also be *much* easier without the long pikes.

[Zarax]

Well, there's a few things to consider:

1) having few phalanx units per carthaginian stack isn't a bad thing on the historical side, as the phalangites never took more than one quarter of a typical carthaginian army (at least in the 2d punic war)... The problem is more on how to make the AI employ other heavy infantry to cover the flanks...

2) Have you tried modding phoeni infantry to be classified as heavy infantry, give them the short pike (not the hoplite one) and raising their sword attack to 6 or 7? In my tests the carthaginian tends to build them in decent amounts, and they quite capable of holding the line against roman infantry and cavalry...

3) What I found quite unbalancing is actually the land bridges on Sicily, especially that between Carthage and lilybaeum... The punics can afford loosing sicily (which is even easier now that there are no GCS there) but they absolutely gets crippled by often having a scipii stack knocking on carthage in 30 turns... That gives the romans a really easier start, which isn't something they quite need... If it was for me i'd give messana to the mamertines (strong rebels) and Syracuse back to GCS as sicily wasn't quite the roman playground for a long time.

3) Finally, even though carthage used a macedonian-like combined army approach they usually didn't have more than 1/3 of their army based on heavy units, usually divided between some phalangites and other, more flexible heavies to hold the center with the rest being a mix of light spaniards, medium spearmen like the lybians and a mix of light cavalry composed mostly by numidians and barbarian lancers with few heavier cav composed by the richer punics, all of course with some elephants to give the initial shock...

[DimeBagHo]

(2) I've tried using short_pike a little and I didn't like the results much. They have such a short reach in phalanx formation that the troops switch to swords almost immediately on contact with the enemy. I'll try some more experiments though. I am planing to make a new model for German spearmen so that they can use short-pike phalanx / long-spear non-phalanx rather than the current pike / sword setup.

(3) I would rather beef up the Carthaginians to slow down the Scipii than take away the land bridge. Giving Messana to the rebels might be worth a try though (as long as it doesn't fatally weaken the Scipii or prevent them from expanding at all).

For the cavalry, one possiblility is to make Iberian Cavalry into quite good light lancers, and to make Round Shield cavalry into low quality auxilaries.

[Pompei the Great]

The Carthaginians usually lose their cities quickly and make oodles of small armies, so they become sword fodder for the Scipii. My custom mod gives them good units, but they won't create a large army. What should I do?

[WhiteProphecy]

wdf

i tryied downloading the greek mod, i did, i also installed it, but right when i turn the greek mod on from my desktop, the RTW screen comes up, than it exits, what do i do?

[WhiteProphecy]

do i have to have the greek campaign unlocked? i had it unlocked than i had to reinstall RTW, now i lost all the campaigns i unlocked, is that why it wont work?

[WhiteProphecy]

ok, i got it where i can go on to the menu, now it says when i click on Imperial Campaign, it says

Pick somthing from the list





where is teh list?

[DimeBagHo]

Pompei the Great: Try giving them more money and larger populations in some of their smaller cities from the start. Part of the problem they have in vanilla RTW is that as soon as the fighting starts they lose all their trade and have no money. They can't even trade with their own colonies because most of them are not developed enough.

WhiteProphecy: Have you installed the 1.3 patch? Did you start the game with the "Extended Greek Mod" icon on your desktop? When the game started did you see a big picture of Athens with "Extended Greek Mod" in large gold writing at the top?

[Zarax]

(2) I've tried using short_pike a little and I didn't like the results much. They have such a short reach in phalanx formation that the troops switch to swords almost immediately on contact with the enemy. I'll try some more experiments though. I am planing to make a new model for German spearmen so that they can use short-pike phalanx / long-spear non-phalanx rather than the current pike / sword setup.

(3) I would rather beef up the Carthaginians to slow down the Scipii than take away the land bridge. Giving Messana to the rebels might be worth a try though (as long as it doesn't fatally weaken the Scipii or prevent them from expanding at all).

For the cavalry, one possiblility is to make Iberian Cavalry into quite good light lancers, and to make Round Shield cavalry into low quality auxilaries.

1) Short_pike is exactly what can make carthaginian heavies follow the historical unit... They will use the spear against cavalry and sword against infantry, making them a very good unit although somewhat weaker than principes and triarii... While not exactly a perfect setting that's what the carthaginian interpretation of hypaspists was.

2) I fear the problem is a bit complex here... Despite Hannibal running wild in Italy the 2nd punic war was mostly fought in Spain, the carthaginian economical and recruiting base.

3) I'd say change the round shields into something akin to light lancers or remove them fully... Aside from the sacred band and some other heavy cavalry corps the carthaginian totally relied on mercenaries like numidians and some barbarian cav...

[WhiteProphecy]

ok, i'll install the 1.3 patch

i hope this works!! lol

[WhiteProphecy]

alright, i got the greek mod to work, so far its awsome lookin, but i didnt play yet becuase everything is in GREEK!! lol but i think that is my fault, i downloaded the Greek Localization Mod 1.3, i think that puts the game in greek, than i downloaded the regular 1.3, and now the Greek Mod works, but it is still in Greek! how do i change it so its just in english?

[Zarax]

I fear you messed up your RTW and need to reinstall it... XGM doesn't use greek fonts...

[WhiteProphecy]

ya, i just reinstalled it, now i'm going to install virsion 1.3 regular

[WhiteProphecy]

yay, it worked

nice job on the mod man, the new skins kick ass!!!

[Zarax]

Here's some stuff that might be helpful for Carthage:

During the 6th and 5th centuries, most military commands were held by kings, but later the generalship was apparently dissociated from civil office. Even in the time of the kings, military authority appears to have been conferred upon the kings only for specific campaigns or in emergencies. The generals are said to have been regarded as potential overthrowers of the legal government, but in fact there is no record of any army commander's having attempted a coup d'état. Thus, unlike a Roman consul, the Suffetes did not take part in military affairs and the Carthaginians appointed professional generals, who were separate from the civil government.

The Phoenician populations were always small, and since these communities depended on trade to survive, it was decided to exempt citizens from military service under normal circumstances, and to use the wealth of the community to hire mercenary armies. For this they were criticized by 19th and early 20th century scholars, who valued the military service of the modern nation state (conscript armies of citizens loyal to the state), and for this reason compared the Carthaginian army unfavorably with the native army of the Romans. In fact, the Carthaginian military seems to have been no worse than the Roman, and proved disloyal only at the end of the First Punic War, when the Carthaginians could not pay rewards they had promised.

Up to the 6th century, the armies of Carthage were apparently citizen levies similar to those of all city-states of the early classical period. But Carthage was too small to provide for the defense of widely scattered settlements, and it turned increasingly to mercenaries, officered by Carthaginians, with citizen contingents appearing only occasionally.By the 3rd century BC, citizens were exempt from military service (to manage Punic trading interests and industries). Given the limited Carthaginian population (even though the city probably did eventually have a population in the low 100,000s), the decision seems to have made sense. If they had fought the Romans with their own population, they probably would have succumbed earlier than they did, and their mercenary military came close to defeating the Romans. Carthage was served quite well by its officer corp despite very exacting Punic standards. They usually crucified generals who lost and were reluctant reinforce winning generals, lest too many troops feed tyrannical ambitions.

Being traders, the Carthaginians naturally were skilled seamen and had a particularly potent navy of about 200 ships. This was of course necessary to maintain contact with their overseas settlements.

Since the Carthaginians needed money for their armies and navy, they were apparently severe in their exactions of money from the native populations they controlled, especially among the Libyans (the Berber natives of North Africa). As merchants, they had a bad reputation among the Greeks. There are numerous references to them in the Odyssey, uniformly hostile.

Libyans were considered particularly suitable for light infantry, the inhabitants of the later Numidia and Mauretania for light cavalry; Iberians and Celtiberians from Spain were used in both capacities. In the 4th century the Carthaginians also hired Gauls, Campanians, and even Greeks. The disadvantages of mercenary armies were more than outweighed by the fact that Carthage could never have stood the losses incurred in a whole series of wars in Sicily and elsewhere. Very little is known about the manning of the Carthaginian fleet; technically, it was not overwhelmingly superior to those of the Greeks, but it was larger and had the benefit of experienced sailors from Carthage's maritime settlements.

The Carthaginian Army during the First Punic War

The Carthaginian army was composed primarily of mercenary troops. Africa, Spain and Gaul were their recruiting grounds, an inexhaustible treasury of warriors as long as the money lasted which they received as pay.

The Berbers were a splendid cavalry; they rode without saddle or bridle, a weapon in each hand; on foot they were merely a horde or savages with elephant-hide shields, long spears, and bear-skins floating from their shoulders. The troops of Spain were the best infantry that the Carthaginians possessed; they wore a white uniform with purple facings; they fought with pointed swords. The Gauls were brave troops but were badly armed; they were naked to the waist; their cutlasses were made of soft iron and had to be straightened after every blow. The Balearic Islands supplied a regiment of slingers whose balls of hardened clay whizzed through the air like bullets, broke armour, and shot men dead.

We read much of the Sacred Legion in the Sicilian wars. It was composed of young nobles, who wore dazzling white shields and breast-plates which were works of art; who even in the camp never drank except from goblets of silver and of gold. But this corps had apparently become extinct, and the Carthaginians only officered their troops, who they looked upon as ammunition, and to whom their orders were delivered through interpreters. The various regiments of the Carthaginian army had therefore nothing in common with one another or with those by whom they were led. They rushed to battle in confusion, "with sounds, discordant as their various tribes," and with no higher feeling than the hope of plunder or the excitement which the act of fighting arouses in the brave soldier.

The Carthaginian Army in Spain
The Carthaginian armies in Spain, though hardly uniform in composition, shared certain common features. They were generally composed of both African and Spanish contingents. The African professional troops were considered far more valuable than the Iberian tribal levies.

The heavy infantry spearmen of Libya formed the backbone. They were armed with pikes or long spears, and probably fought in a formation similar to the Macedonian phalanx. The Libyan infantry proved to be a match for Rome's legionaries throughout the Second Punic War. These spearmen were augmented by Balearic slingers, renowned as the finest missile troops in the world at the time, along with Numidian archers and javelinmen.

It was, however, the mounted arm of the Carthaginian army that was decidedly superior to its Roman counterpart. The javelin-armed Numidians were far and away the finest light cavalry in the western world. Those superb horsemen provided Carthage the margin of victory time and again. Heavy cavalry, in the form of Libyan-Phoenician horsemen, though few in numbers, provided shock action to complement the fire of the Numidians.

A key element of the Carthaginian army was its elephants. Hannibal took elephants across the Alps, but most died on the journey or after the battle of the Trebbia.

[DimeBagHo]

WhiteProphecy: I'm glad you got it working .

Zarax: Here are a few possibilities I'am trying out at the moment.

(1) Libyans as heavy non-phalanx spear (better than Thorakitai, not as good as Triarii), Poeni equivalent to Armoured Hoplites, Sacred Band equivalent to hypaspists (either regular and recruitable anywhere, or Corinthian and recruitable in Carthage/New Carthage only).

(2) Libyans equivalent to phalanx pike (and recruitable anywhere), Poeni equivalent to Triarii, Sacred Band equivalent to hypaspists.

(3) Libyans equivalent to phalanx pike (and recruitable anywhere), Poeni equivalent to Silver Shield pike, Sacred Band equivalent to hypaspists.

I'm going to test out your short-pike/sword combination some more. If I like the results I might make Sacred Band use that set-up. If I like the results a lot I might switch all of the hypaspists to that set-up .

[Zarax]

Well, I would avoid to change the carthaginians into another greek style faction...

I've spent some extra hours reading everything I could find about the Carthaginian army, and that's what I found:

- Their phalanx was pretty much composed of levies, so that it wasn't expected to move on the battlefield but only to absorb the brunt of the enemy charge while other units were the real killer. Levt pikemen might cover that.

- The core of most armies was composed of north african/celtiberian veteran heavy infantry, composed by the most loyal and reliable mercenary troops available.
Their task was to protect the phalanx flanks and they seemed to be armed pretty much like the classical hoplites, with a shorter spear and sword.
Those were the only infantry capable of going toe to toe with the romans, often taking the fight to the bitter end. Phoeni infantry with the short pike phalanx and a raised sword attack pretty much cover that role.

- A mix of celt warbands, composed mostly by gauls and ligurians were on the left of the phalanx, these were also mercenaries but considered not as good or reliable as the north africans. Making the sword warband mercenary in the gaulish regions would cover that, scutarii are already available.

- A mix of medium infantry from lybia and other places, armed with helmes, shield, a short spear and little else... not very reliable guys, they usually melted before the roman infantry. Libyan spears without phalanx may cover that, but either them or the phoeni needs a reskin as the look pretty much the same unit in battle....

- In Spain there was a lot (almost half of most armies there) of low quality light iberian infantry, mostly good for bulk and little else...

- Cavalry was composed mostly by numidians (they should get extra ammo to represent their ability to divert the enemy for most of the battle, it seems their hand to hand capability was ext to none) as we all know, plus some barbaric light lancers (modified round shields?) and a few heavier ones (Long shields should do the trick).

- The Sacred Band never fought outside african home defence, so that they should be available only in Carthage imho... Aside from their cavalry arm that looks like the usual companion copy there is little info about the infantry, but CA's interpretation looks acceptable to me...

- And of course elephants, though the cataphracted ones shouldn't be there and even the war elephants are a big stretch (they should be availabe only as mercenaries imho)

How to balance all this stuff on the player side?

Well, with the exception of the elite heavies, most Carthaginian army was composed of what they could scrape from the local warbands or hastily raised levies... Their combat capability ranges from shamefl to capable but they got one thing in common: as soon as thing started going bad, they would look for the nearest bus out of town... In other words, most units should have pretty low morale, so that only under a good general they got any hope to be an effective fighting force.
This is quite historical, as almost every carthaginian army that wasn't lucky enough to have hannibal as general was soundly beaten, with only the north african troops putting a real fight (baecula, ilipa, metaurus)...

That said, could you script to have a general appear with a custom bodyguard after the game starts? If yes, it would be interesting to spawn a guy called Hannibal Barca with a war elephant bodyguard (a bit of stretch but he actually rode a war elephant in battle, the legendary surus who survived the war until Zama)... I'm sure it would quite turn the tide of the campaign for a while in autocalc...

[Zarax]

BTW, spotted another little bug... Hypaspist are still classified as spearmen, this is likely to give the AI some pain...

[DimeBagHo]

XGM version 3.4 is available for download.

You can get it here.

The main changes are:
-All pike formations now use the same pike length
-Revised Carthaginian recruiting, added mercenaries and levy pike
-Added Levy Pikemen to Thrace
-Hypaspists and Sacred Band now use spears/swords
-Added Forest and War Elephants to Numidia
-Changed Cathaginian starting position
-Changed Britons starting position.

Zarax: Thanks for the research. I deceided to give the Carthaginians a levy pike unit, recruitable anywhere, but otherwise no pike units. Libyans and Poeni are quite similar Triarii style units. Poeni are just as good as Triarii but more expensive. Libyans are not quite as good, but much cheaper. They do look a little different now, with Poeni having better looking armour. Sacred band are now short pike/swords.

[Zarax]

Great! I will give it a run ASAP...

BTW, after some further research I'm almost tempted to add javelins to the lowly iberian infantry... They seemed to use a javelin/light spear combination but I fear that would be quite unbalancing ingame...

Also: I'm not too sure about giving greeks and carthaginian too many similarities about their elite infantry, consider that carthaginian armies were considered nimbler than romans, who in turn were more flexible than greeks/macedonians...

Confusing? I know...

[Zarax]

Just ran a quick test... Excellent stuff!
Now, i've just got a question...? How did you made those great looking carthaginian phalangites and how did you change the hypaspist weapons? Are you a modeler?

[DimeBagHo]

I can do some fairly rudimentry modeling, like swapping weapons, shields, that sort of thing. The Carthaginian levy pikemen are just Iberian Infantry with a sword added as a secondary weapon, and shields relinked and repositioned. The Gastrapehetes are my most ambitious effort sor far. I made their crossbows out of the ones in BI.

In fact the hypaspists didn't require any change to the model. If you give a unit the phalanx attribute then their primary weapon will become a pike no matter what weapon the model has.

[Zarax]

Cool stuff... BTW: The phoeni needs to use short pike phalanx (like the sacred band one) if they still have a secondary weapon, so does the hypaspists, otherwise they will just stick to their spears with obvious effects against infantry, especially romans...

[DimeBagHo]

Hypaspists are short pike/sword now. I have changed the kill rate for spearmen so they are all more effective against infantry than they used to be. Sword infantry still have an advantage, but it is not quite as decisive. Poeni have the same stats as Triarii so they can handle anything the Romans have pre-Marius. Libyans will do quite well against Principes, although they will lose an otherwise even fight.

[WhiteProphecy]

I was goffing around looking at all the campaigns and stuff, dude, you dont have any iberian infantry for the Spanish!!!!! and i'm sorry, but what is with the greek cities not having that city in Scily. Also, dude i'm sorry, but you connect the Iberian Pinunsula with Northern Africa, that defeats the purpose of having a navy their, also by Rhodes, Scily to Rome, you connected all the good islands and stuff so you dont need a Navy. I know it is just autocalculate with the navy and you dont see anything, but still if i have all of Scily,i would like to move some armies out of Scily, and have a navy guarding it to not let Cartharge or Rome to try and take it over, come on, please make an edited virsion of all this, btw the new units are nice though.