Carthage - Early Strategic Dilemma

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Hi,

Role-playing question!

Would be interested in hearing thoughts from other people on my Carthaginian campaign, playing M/M on BI exe.

The Carthaginian Senate is divided.

It's 268 BCE. Carthage has not conquered any territory yet since 272, just fought a couple of battles against Numidian and Iberian Eleutheroi. Meanwhile, Rome has conquered Taras, Rhegium and Bononia all within five years, but they haven't yet shown any interest in Sicily.

Our strategic objective is to remain at peace with Rome for as long as possible, giving Carthage time to expand in North Africa and Spain.

However, Rome has just demanded that we cede Corsica to them. When we refused, they declared war and landed a small army on Corsica, besieging our town there. The main Carthaginian army is in Spain. We are watching with concern as our allies the Lusotanns are about to take Arse, a town which we wanted for ourselves, but the Lusotanns got there first.

We have a difficult decision to make.

Option One:
We could transport our army to Corsica and easily defeat the Romans. Our fleet is somewhat depleted after fighting the Epirote navy and Eleutheroi pirates, but still far superior to the converted merchant ships the Romans are using. Even if they've taken the town, we can take it back. Also, a victory in Corsica would be a show of strength to the Romans, reminding them that Carthage is not to be trifled with. But there are two drawbacks. a, it means leaving our defences in southern Spain temporarily weak, vulnerable to Lusotann betrayal. b, defeating the Romans only seems to make them angrier, as Pyrrhus discovered to his cost. The Romans might just come back with a larger army later!

Option Two:
Corsica is a distant and poor province and not really worth fighting a long war with Rome over, in the view of many Carthaginian merchants. The Romans are notoriously difficult to make peace with until they've got what they want. War is bad for business as Rome is a major trading partner. So, we could try and limit this to a short, local conflict by allowing Rome to take Corsica without retaliation, and then make peace with them afterward, hopefully restoring normal trading relations with a token tribute of 800 mnai per year, which we could easily afford. After all, Corsica is much closer to Rome than to Carthage, on territorial proximity the Roman claim to Corsica has some validity. The drawback is, letting the Romans take Corsica might simply encourage them to take an aggressive interest in Sardinia and Sicily.

What should Carthage do? Destroy the Roman invaders, or let them have Corsica in the hope of preventing or at least delaying a major conflict?

[Ca Putt]

Hmmm, seems like a typical Carthage Dilemma ^^ Personally I'd take back Corsica as "The Romans are a People of soldiers, they only respect strengh, if we let thier little excursions unpunished they will only become bolder and may attack our less remote Trading partners, If we can't protect them our Allies may forsake us"
But as this is carthage there also is a very strong party that opposes war so what I'd do is to check all my FMs for traits that hint towards their opinion on the matter. The Party that is in the majority wins and get's it's plan executed.
This is a method I often use for various decisions with factions which FL is somewhat just a Primus inter pares. For example KH: every 4 years I count my FMs(exept for the FL as he supervises the election) of and compare the strengh of each ethnicity, the one with the most supporters(generally there is a Sparta and an Athens Party which have the support of the other Poleis) can choose the most Competent (Spartans preffer Command, Athenians and rhodians management, all others influence) from their ranks as Faction heir.

[Tanit]

Remember the first war began over the question of who would take Messana, which Carthage had only recently acquired. Corsica they have had a lot longer. It was only after the whole first war, and the difficulties of the Mercenary war, that Carthage ceded Sardinia to Rome without a fight. But even then there was a great deal of resentment there and Carthage did try to take Sardinia back during the second war.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Remember the first war began over the question of who would take Messana, which Carthage had only recently acquired. Corsica they have had a lot longer. It was only after the whole first war, and the difficulties of the Mercenary war, that Carthage ceded Sardinia to Rome without a fight. But even then there was a great deal of resentment there and Carthage did try to take Sardinia back during the second war.

Good points.

(From what I've read, Carthage actually would have been satisfied with not having Messana itself, provided the Romans didn't have it either, and withdrew their forces from Sicily. The most important issue was preventing the Romans from getting Messana. So peace would have been possible if both sides had agreed to withdraw - but for the Romans, that wasn't acceptable, having deployed an army to Sicily, it couldn't return home without a victory.)

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

But as this is carthage there also is a very strong party that opposes war so what I'd do is to check all my FMs for traits that hint towards their opinion on the matter. The Party that is in the majority wins and get's it's plan executed.
This is a method I often use for various decisions with factions which FL is somewhat just a Primus inter pares. For example KH: every 4 years I count my FMs(exept for the FL as he supervises the election) of and compare the strengh of each ethnicity, the one with the most supporters(generally there is a Sparta and an Athens Party which have the support of the other Poleis) can choose the most Competent (Spartans preffer Command, Athenians and rhodians management, all others influence) from their ranks as Faction heir.

That's a good way of role-playing strategic decisions, thank you for the feedback!

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Well, war was the chosen option in my Carthage campaign.

My garrison (one unit of Poeni Militia) in Corsica surrendered to the Romans without a fight after a year's siege. But the Carthaginian fleet soon destroyed the Roman navy and landed an general and one unit of Caetrati. The general then hired four units of mercenary Balearic slingers. And that was enough to put the small Roman garrison (6 units, some depleted) under seige for a year, and then massacre them once they sallied out.

The interesting bit is that during the two years this took, the Epirote general Pyrrhus landed in southern Italy, quickly retook Taras from the Romans, then immediately took Rhegion as well! And, two turns after I'd retaken Corsica, a Roman diplomat showed up at Lilibeo and asked for a ceasefire! Very smart move by the AI, I thought - Rome now has a serious problem with Epirus and doesn't need a war with Carthage as well. I granted the Roman request.

I roleplayed this outcome by noting that the Roman army which invaded Corsica was actually the remnants of an army which had just suffered a serious defeat at the hands of the Ligurians outside Segesta. So I decided it had to be led by a Roman praetor (Cotta) desperate to compensate for his defeat and restore his reputation by launching an unauthorised invasion of Corsica without Senate approval. Once Cotta had been defeated and killed, Rome could naturally condemn the man as a rebel traitor and disown his actions without losing face, which would explain Rome's willingness to make peace so readily afterwards (especially given the renewed threat to Rome from Pyrrhus.)

[Ca Putt]

The general then hired four units of mercenary Balearic slingers. THIS IS CARTHAGE!!!!
^^

Very nice outcome Indeed, hows the iberian front doing?

mmmmhh, this has got me thinking, I think I'll start a Karthastim campaign right now.

[moonburn]

dude i would have forçed the romans to pay me a miserly tribute for the next 25 years just to make sure they won´t try anything like that again

weakness is what got carthage screwed back then you just accepted to be biatchslaped by a bunch of weakling romans dogs and when they told you to wipe their asses with a peaçe proposal you accepted

YOU SIR ARE WEAK AND UNWORTHY OF BAAL go cut your veins open for having smeared the great kart hadast honour by your actions

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

weakness is what got carthage screwed back then you just accepted to be biatchslaped by a bunch of weakling romans dogs and when they told you to wipe their asses with a peaçe proposal you accepted

YOU SIR ARE WEAK AND UNWORTHY OF BAAL go cut your veins open for having smeared the great kart hadast honour by your actions

That's a bit harsh....would have been justified had I decided to let Rome have Corsica and then make peace, though! I did annihilate their army on Corsica (no Italian survivors!) and completely destroy their navy, that's punishment enough for now.

I decided not to push my luck by demanding regular tribute - that would have only angered the Roman Senate, and made them more likely to attack Carthaginian territory again later once they defeat Pyrrhus.

I'm assuming that they will eventually defeat Pyrrhus again, and after what Pyrrhus did in Sicily before 272 BC, i.e. nearly kicked us Carthaginians out of Sicily altogether, I'm damned if I'm going to ally with the Epirotes and help them conquer Italy. I still hate the Epirotes worse than the Romans. Once Pyrrhus is dead, that might change, but not until then.

[Tanit]

Good on ya. Loving my current ongoing Qarthadastim campaign which I've had going for quite a while now. Its 193BC and I own Iberia, Britain, Italy, Greece, Africa and Egypt. The Seleukids, who have destroyed the Pahlava and Baktria recently made war on me so i invaded Anatolia with 9 armies of 20 units each including warriors from all of my territories. Assuming a ratio of 1:3 for changing numbers into real number of men on huge size, I have about 81.000 soldiers in my invasion force. Its not the 300.000 of Xerxes, but the similarities still amuse me.