Carthage

[pyrocryo]

the problem with carthage is you must take the offensive if you want to survive.

my armies are doing well so far, just my fleet is getting hammered by repeated assault of Brutii fleets. Lost many valuable golden chevron triremes because the they actually pursued my fleet till they died.

now with one army idle in spain because I'm allied with spain, have a truce with britons--which i need to keep the pressure on Julii while I assault Brutii's possession in Greece.

thought africa is secure with my alliance with egypt when suddenly i found i was assaulted in the sea by blue-sailed fleets and several full stack armies are emerging from the direction of Siwa. It seems while i'm busy in Greece and Spain, Pontus launched a grand assault. Now they have Anatolia proper AND Egypt, with Pharaoh hiding in Arabia.

imagined the hours i must played to properly annihilate Pontus? with the suitability of carthage units?

[_Aetius_]

The last Carthage game I was playing things did go well for awhile, Sicily was quickly conquered, Sardinia was briefly lost to the Julii but quickly recovered and peace lasted with Numidia whilst I held onto my Spanish territory. So even though the expense of being offensive was heavy atleast this could be maintained.

However I perhaps overextended myself, the Scipii only had Capua left so I took the army from Sicily only 5 Iberian infantry 4 Libyan spearmen 4 Round shields and 1 General for the invasion of italy. My goal was to seize Capua destroy the Scipii and then withdraw back to Sicily, however the Brutii confronted my army on its way to Capua and even though i gave them a serious mauling I recieved heavy casualties, plus the Scipii had a larger force than I expected. So I was forced to withdraw the army to Spain where I was currently invading the Iberians territory with some decent success having held onto my own territory in Spain.

For some reason then though Numidia declared war on me, the Gauls allied with the Iberians and declared war on me and suddenly my economy was collapsing and the inevitable frailties of having your capital so far away from Spain became more apparent as unrest rose. Meaning I couldnt raise substantial troops nor could I remove men from garrisons without risking rebellion, this is where I just get fed up with Carthage the same thing always happens. Everybody for absolutely no reason declares war on you and you go bankrupt. ~:joker:

[Aetius22]

I can tell that I am running against the clock on my Carthage game as well. Pontus has become quite scary and its challenging Egypt for suppremacy in the East. I have been able to conquer most of Spain except for the Gaul province, and one last Spanish province. My last action during the game was my first military defeat in quite some time to the Roman Senate army of two full stacks. I manage to inflict significant damage to them, but I was outnumbered and frankly outclassed by their Triarii and Principes.

My economy so far is sound, and even if Numidia decided to attack I am pretty sure I could handle it.

[Subedei]

i decided to team up with Spain, cos they do a good job on the Gauls (but i am holding Corduba, with it's rebellious inhabitants), hold the Maghreb, Sicily, Italy & right now im am invading the Green Romans (Juli?) & the Macedonians on the Balkans. Besides i have to keep the Britons from crossing the Alpes permanently.

By building up the cities economically, i don't have big trouble with money. I can afford a good enough fleet (about 3 fleets with 5 units each) to keep my trading routes clean & send some Golden Bands & Elephants on the Balkans to scare Macedonia & the Juli. Rome builds Onagers for the troops.

No contact to the Eastern Civilizations yet...but i am veryvery looking forward to new territories there...but 1st the Balkans.

[_Aetius_]

I hate fighting in the Balkans, its such a disputed territory bang smack in the middle of everything, the Romans to the west and the Seleucids and Ptolemies in the east and theres always the resistant Macedonians and Greeks to take care of.

I always seize Crete and Rhodes so I can observe the situation before launching a major invasion, I tend to back the weaker power in the Balkans which is usually the Greeks. And rarely go for total conquest, i'm usually quite happy with Sparta, Athens, Corinth and Byzantium otherwise you get dragged into a long expensive war and inherit from the Macedonians the troubles with Dacia and Thrace. Macedon provides an excellent buffer to these barbarians, as you dominate the south and control the entrance of the Black sea with Byzantium which has immense strategic value aside from plenty of trade dominance.

Aside from that the rest of the Balkans in my experience tends to be barely worth the expense and effort.

[Subedei]

@ Aetius: Did you team up with the Hispanic, or did you fight them?

Oh, besides: You have some good points there...maybe tonight i'll let some Macedonians get away...but none of the Julis...personal reasons there....i plan to control the Aegais and then pick out the filet pieces in the south-east: like you said Athens, Byzantium & da rest...if possible.

Crete and Rhodes are a good idea, as i read in a different threat it gives you some nice bonuses on trading or naval power...Sadly enough i forgot which they were...but i'll see. Those two islands will be the naval backbone for my invasion of the Sassanids...i like them a lot too, but i can't help it, it will be interesting to see Carthago and them
clash...

P.S. Sorry about the spelling, but English ain't my mother tounge as you may have noticed...but i like this forum a lot i can tell....

[_Aetius_]

Your English is fine :san_grin:

Crete is usually highly developed and often is in rebel hands so is easy to take, even if there is a big garrison you can hire plenty of mercenaries on Crete to help take the island over.

Rhodes gives you a 20% boost to all sea trade, so it is an amazing advantage, especially to a major trading power like Carthage its also highly developed.

Strangely I didnt fight the Iberians/Spanish/Hispanics whatever people call them for many many years, they were busy with the Gauls for so long that they allowed me to fortify my grip on my Spanish territory. We only went to war with each other when after I sent an army to invade Italy (which failed to make a major impact) I withdrew it and sent it to Spain, at the same time the army already in Spain declared war on the Iberians and captured some territory in the west just as my reinforcements from Italy arrived.

Up until then Spain had been perfectly peaceful, but since my economy was suffering I thought it was best to attack the Iberians whilst I still had the ability to win a war against them. Rather than wait until they attacked me, it went wrong though when the Gauls allied with the Iberians and both of them started attacking me.

After that everybody declared war on me so I got bored and quit the game, I'm sick to death of the AI suddenly hating you for absolutely no reason.

[gardibolt]

Thanks to the new patch I was able to continue my Carthage game I started back in 1.0 last night (even though the readme says it will allow games back to 1.2 to be played, the 1.0 game seems to run just fine too). Brutii are nearly gone (one besieged city with under 100 troops) and the Scipii are on the ropes. It helped when I caught and sank the Scipii fleet with half of its army aboard! :san_laugh: The main problem is the big stack of SPQR troops standing right outside Capua. But I just teched up to archers and the Romans haven't yet, so I hope to make short work of them and the Scipii in a couple of turns, and it's only 263 BC.

Hey, wait a minute. I thought Carthage wasn't supposed to be able to build archers. But there they are, in Tarentum, which I just seized from the Brutii. A bug? Or did something change somewhere along the line to allow Carthage to get archers?

[teja]

:san_shocked:
Jay! That will be good news. I once used the Cartagians back in V 1.0 too and lead them to a hard batteled victory, but I desperately missed archers! If they own archers now Cartagians will become more useful, because they start(ed?) in a very tricky situation with only a good light cavalry early on....

Will you please check out in what other cities you can produce archers?


PS: Will be great if the "fraction related units" become supported by specialists able to produce in some provinces as you could do in MTW. I like the merchs too, but producing rocks more:san_grin:

[Subedei]

@ Aetius: You were very right with the Balkans...Macedoniens are a pain...yesterday night they wiped out about 4 of my Generals during a deadlock battle...my army was trapped btw. two huge armies of theirs...welll, what can you do. But this makes it more thrilling....

I'll try another way: Build up some Goldens & Elephants in Carthage, some heavy Catapults in Rome...pick 'em up and invade from Athens, where there is only a view pikeman and cav...maybe i'll take Rhodes first...thanks for the info on that city....

[gardibolt]

Update: Looks like the archers in Carthage was a bug from using a save in 1.0 in a 1.5 game, because I tried it with a fresh 1.5 game and no archers to be found. :san_sad:

The AI is really being aggressive with diplomacy. I've lost two cities to the Julii through bribery (including the one that had the archery range and archers!), both of them the instant I got the stable to build elephants in Italy. :san_angry: So now I'm bribing all of the Julii diplomats to try to actually get some eles. And of course, I put stone walls up in those cities so they'd be hard to assault... :san_rolleyes:

[Craterus]

Just started playing the game again, and I'm playing as Carthage. I'm playing Mundus Magnus v2.0, so the Carthaginian Empire starts as being quite large.

On the same turn as "Espionage in Carthage", the Julii blocked one of my ports, without warning. They now refuse ceasefire, so I am sending the army which was set to take Sicily (it's 2/3 rebel at the start of the game and the Romans are confined to Italy, which is historically accurate). So, the Julii will receive retribution from an army made up of Elephants, Long Shields and Elephants. I hope they have fun.

In other news, Numidia's only town is on the last year of siege. They have an army made up of over 50% javcav. But if they are sallying, I'm hoping they'll be less effective. That's if they do sally.

I think I'll leave Africa after taking Cirta, because it is all rebel and Mundus Magnus gives rebel towns large, experienced (gold chevrons) garrisons. I don't think it'll be worth the hassle. However, I am almost bordering with Egypt and they have armies milling all over that area. I'm not looking forward to a long war with them, but I guess it's inevitable.

Here's the Mundus Magnus map: https://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y158/Craterus/MundusMagnusMap.gif

Egypt are at the bottom of the map (source of the Nile).

[Bonny]

almost a year ago i started a campaign with Carthargo with 1.2, on vh\vh.
i played not very often and tried to conquer more than 50 provinces (so no invasion of rome).....in september i had only 80 turns left to game end and almost half the map conquered.
My hardest enemy now are the greek city states, who crushed the makedons, the thrakians, germans and made the julii becoming their protectorate(!). The figthings against the greek in the german and gaul region are very hard, i lost many armies with good generals and many many good soldiers. My only hope to beat the greek armies is an masissive Invasion (with elephants ~D ) from turkey to the greece homeland and cut them from their supplies....i hope it works...

[Craterus]

My advice would be to hold their phalanxes with Sacred Band (infantry) whilst sending Sacred Band Cav/Elephants round the back and smash into the back of their phalanxes. Their cavalry should be no match for yours either.

[Bonny]

My advice would be to hold their phalanxes with Sacred Band (infantry) whilst sending Sacred Band Cav/Elephants round the back and smash into the back of their phalanxes. Their cavalry should be no match for yours either.

thats the plan, but no plan survives the contact with the enemy.:san_grin:

the problem is:

1. my armies are totally outnumbered, the greeks have more armies in this area than i, and they consist to an huge amount of
(expierienced) heavy hoplites, which were better than my sacred bands..:san_sad:

2. the support of my troops with new units is very time consuming (all the way from iberia) because my settlements in gaul are not extendet enough to produce anything more than libyan infantrie and longshild cavalry, so sacred bands and even poeni infantrie is rare in my armies in europe

3. i take heavy casualties in almost all battles (even if i win a battle, heavy hoplites and spartans are more dangerus to my kind of troops than roman legionaries), and i can't rebuild my units cause of the low level towns

4. i have not endless money to spend, cause of my war in the east (against the rest of pontos and many rebelling towns :san_undecided: ) and the huge amount of troops i stationed there, that will change when i have conquered the greek homeland


at the moment i'm pushing forward and win some battles, but im slowly runnig out of men in eastern europe so the game is still exciting...:san_cheesy:

[Craterus]

Just started playing the game again, and I'm playing as Carthage. I'm playing Mundus Magnus v2.0, so the Carthaginian Empire starts as being quite large.

On the same turn as "Espionage in Carthage", the Julii blocked one of my ports, without warning. They now refuse ceasefire, so I am sending the army which was set to take Sicily (it's 2/3 rebel at the start of the game and the Romans are confined to Italy, which is historically accurate). So, the Julii will receive retribution from an army made up of Elephants, Long Shields and Elephants. I hope they have fun.

In other news, Numidia's only town is on the last year of siege. They have an army made up of over 50% javcav. But if they are sallying, I'm hoping they'll be less effective. That's if they do sally.

I think I'll leave Africa after taking Cirta, because it is all rebel and Mundus Magnus gives rebel towns large, experienced (gold chevrons) garrisons. I don't think it'll be worth the hassle. However, I am almost bordering with Egypt and they have armies milling all over that area. I'm not looking forward to a long war with them, but I guess it's inevitable.

Here's the Mundus Magnus map: https://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y158/Craterus/MundusMagnusMap.gif

Egypt are at the bottom of the map (source of the Nile).

The Numidians sallied. Not a problem though, and the battle was a walkover. I left minimal troops as a garrison and then headed back towards Carthage.

The Scipii landed on Sicily and took Messana. Hanno's army (faction leader, took Numidian capital) was planned to go for the Julii, but there were now more pressing issues. I had a small army in Lilybaeum, but it was obvious that was their next target. You'd be mad to go after Syracuse. All of their units have 5 chevrons (2 silver chevrons), silver weapon upgrades and silver defence upgrade. They have 4 Hoplites, 2 Cretan Archers and some Peltasts.

I managed to get to Sicily in time, with the Cirta army + some reinforcements from Carthage (Long Shields and Elephants) and the Scipii were discouraged. They retreated to just north of Mt. Etna. I chased, with the intent of using this army to take Messana. I was still hoping that I could scare the Scipii into attacking Syracuse instead, this would soften them up for when I got round to attacking them. I killed an army waiting for ambush, and continued to go for the main army. Then came the stalemate. They wouldn't attack me, which was my plan, and I wouldn't attack them. They wouldn't come for Lilybauem 'cos I'm in the way. I wasn't going to go for the Julii when they have a powerful army, just poised to take Lilybaeum if I left. So I waited.

What should I do? Attacking would be quite difficult, because they have got lots of infantry. I could sit back and let missiles do their work, but I only have a few Balearic Slingers and some Elephant mercs (lucky enough to get them in Numidia on the fifth turn).

[cunobelinus]

Take your time attacking or let them attack you and flank with elephants.Also i would say that you should expand downwards and just hold your borders around were your because if you expand downwards you will have a good foothold and then should build up some decent cash to take on the romans.

[Craterus]

They won't attack me, as I said. IT'S A STALEMATE! I have to atack them for something to happen. They're only at war with me because of the Julii. So they may not even have intentions to attack. If I wait for them to attack, I am losing time. The key to winning with Carthage is to take Rome as soon as possible, before they can build up.

Expand south? Into Africa? Why? I have 4 cities in Africa, enough to lauch a counter-attack if need be.

I need an attacking formation, to attack 2 Scipii armies in one battle (they split and now one comes as reinforcements). Both armies have around 9 Hastati, 2 Velites and 2 Generals each. I have never played Carthage, so I'm not really sure of their strengths.

My army consists of: 2 Generals, 3 Libyan Spearmen, 1 Merc Hoplites, 3 Iberian Infantry, 2 Long Shield Cav, 2 Elephants, 1 Merc War Elephant.

[cunobelinus]

well there strengths are calvary mainly but they are good all round.I completed a short campaign with these in vanilla.But i fought the romans quite late and won alot of battles .If you build up a decent empire you can take the romans late on no matter what everyone else says.

[Craterus]

Believe me, it's less hassle to take the Romans on early. Because they ALWAYS become a SUPERPOWER. And SUPERPOWERS are harder to take on.

They're good all-round, obviously. The Sacred Band units are both good.

I think I'll go with the missile tactic for the first army. And hopefully have them approach my line and then my infantry should be able to defeat their depleted units. And then repeat for army 2.

[cunobelinus]

Your choice im just telling what i would do.

[Craterus]

The Scipii retreated to Messana. I sieged them with he intent to make them sally and attack me, or they could stupidly choose to rot inside the walls. 3 turns into the siege, Hanno, my faction leader, died. The next turn, they decided to sally. Bisaltes, the prodigal grandson took command of the battle ahead of his uncle and other relative (may have been another uncle, or a brother) and at age 17 won a heroic victory outside the walls of Messana.

I exterminated the populace and left a small garrison force, then boarded the ship that was waiting and sailed to southern Italy.

Next stop: Croton!

[professorspatula]

Strategically, the AI does nothing in 1.3, making Carthage much easier in my opinion. I was used to fighting the Julii, Scipii, and Brutii simultaneously in previous versions. Gaul, Spain, and Numidia also joined the fray. Greece I could knock out before they were an issue.

In 1.3 I end up at war with everyone again, but they are mostly passive. The Spanish put up a bit of a fight, but without the Scipii, Brutii, Julii, Numidia, and Gaul being a threat, it didn't take long to mop the Spanish up.

The AI has always been big on fire arrows vs. elephants. However, I don't use elephants much vs. the AI as it makes the battles too easy.

This post shows just how much the latest 1.5 patch has changed things. I just started a new Carthage campaign on VH and after kicking Scipii off Sciliy with little trouble, I was immediately besieged by a large Brutii army. I had to bring in a handful of units from Carthage to save my town, only for another large Brutii army to turn up 2 turns later. At the same time, Julii land on Corsica (or Sardinia I forget which one it is), but before they can attack my settlement there, the Scipii show up with a 2/3rds full army. Turning FOW off, I see the Spanish are making inroads towards my Spanish territory. I'm bewildered at the ease of which the Romans in particular are able to churn out their armies, although it is VH which might explain it. Unlike in 1.3, if one Roman family fails to seize a target, the other families go for it. I probably won't continue the campaign, but it suddenly seems an intense challenge as at least 2 of my settlements I'll lose within a few turns, and with the insane rate the Romans create their armies, more doom would be inbound. Holding Carthage and capturing the Spanish lands I assume are big priorities early on - but holding Sciliy seems an uphill challenge with 1.5.

[cunobelinus]

My campaign started well with me building trade and holding everywhere and building 4 strong armys.I moved 2 of them onto messana and syracuse because wanting to take over and because i didnt want brutti and scipii landing here so i took the attack to them and got a huge herioc victory as they both were strong armys.Next i released that sardinia was being attacked by the julli i hit them hard with a group of phalanxs and some desert infrantry beat them (clear victory).My trading went beserk i have 200,000 and it is raising alot every turn .I am now invading italy and have my armys have reached croton and the senate have sent an army of preotrian guard with genreals (i am playing on MM and greek expansion) and i am hoping that my phalanxs can hold there ground (probaly will) but i am most worried about there 5 genreals cav that will beat my 3 genreals cav and 1 desert cav but if i can out do them then hit there infrantry from behind.I will report soon for the rest.

[gardibolt]

Man, is Carthage a lot harder than it used to be or is it just me? My Carthage campaign was quite smooth in 1.0, but it's been disastrous in 1.5. I played for 6 hours this weekend and essentially ended up right where I started, with the map shifted somewhat.

I started off with 12 territories, at peace with Spain (though they keep sending spies into my cities to incite unrest), since I am at war with the Gauls and am not sure I can take both of them on at once, especially with the Gauls sending full stack after full stack at me (and leaving themselves wide open to the rapacious Julii). Scipii had Capua and Sardinia.

I blockaded the Scipii, all the western and southern Julii ports and Rome to cut down their $$$ some. But the Scipii got a boat from somewhere (thought I'd destroyed them all) and landed a half-stack on Palma and laid siege.

I built two substantial armies to hit the Scipii. The first, starting in Spain, very nearly didn't make it to Palma in time, thanks to some nasty pirates who knocked their ship about. But I killed that army, then went east and took Caralis without much trouble, then proceeded to feint towards Rome in order to draw off the stack of SPQR troops that was hovering over Capua. Meanwhile, another stack with cavalry, infantry, 3 elephants and 4 family members assaulted Capua.:idea2:

Alas, a ship of Julii landed on Sardinia, hurting my trade substantially, and they took the city before I could relieve it. My basic plan worked, kind of, as my first force, with my faction leader, was attacked only by the skeleton force in Rome. Alas, his troops' morale was worthless :juggle2: (his nine stars notwithstanding) and he was forced to flee from the field despite outnumbering SPQR nearly 2:1 at the outset.:help:

This feint did in any event successfully pull the SPQR stack away from Capua, leaving my attack force on that city free rein. I quickly hired some mercs to assault the walls and had at it. The hastati on the walls rained the pila on them and they dissolved quickly, though I did have enough men to take the gates and allow my cavalry and elephants in. While the fighting continued for a bit on the walls, the cavalry headed for the square for a knockout blow. Alas, it was not to be. The Romans slaughtered all four family members, and my elephants ran amok, routing the remnants of my cavalry. :wall: I got the Scipii down to 147 men, but they were impossible to wipe out. :furious3:

I had another force assembled nearby, however, and they landed south of Capua and besieged the city. Unfortunately, no longer having any family members nearby, I was unable to recruit any mercs and the 147 Scipii (back up to 160) killed this half stack too.:oops: All that, lost four family members, two and a half stacks, three units of elephants, and I'm down one to 11 territories and the Scipii are STILL alive. :oops: It would have been worth it, kind of, to knock them out, but as it is they can rebuild and there's not much I can do about it. :shame: It seems my only other alternative is to build two or three full stacks and hit the city simultaneously hoping for the best, but I'm not sure I can do that with only a couple family members left. Too many small children in the family right now.....and I don't think the Romans have even had the Marian Reforms yet! :sweatdrop:

One thing has changed: The Numidians, who stupidly declared war on me then decided that I was too scary to actually attack, have been wiped out--I killed their faction leader, who was fleeing from the Egyptians, just north of Lepcis Magna, and their 3 remaining territories went rebel, eliminating them from the game.

At least I control the seas---I've managed to kill several Scipii and Julii armies that way as I build ships like mad. If only the Greeks could be persuaded to do a ceasefire, but they won't even accept modest monetary gifts from me. On the positive side, now that my armies have been destroyed, I'm making money hand over fist. If only bribery worked in 1.5......but the last little diplomat I tried to bribe wanted 6800d, and I expect actual Roman armies and family members would want even more than that.

[x-dANGEr]

Well, I could bribe full stacks with maximum 35k denarii. (In 1.5).
And really, 4 family members and 3 eles isn't nearly an army. Put some phalanx and some of those slingers. They punish the enemy urbans. And remember, due to the fact that your infantry is no match to Roman ones in wall battles. Try entering from seperate areas, after all your goal is to get to the town square, and once you're their, you can have your open fields battle.

[gardibolt]

The 4 family members and the 3 eles were just part of the army that it hurt most to lose. There were also 8 cavalry, a couple Iberian infantry and a bunch of mercs, including a unit of hoplites, to finish up the full stack.

[Kickius Buttius]

It seems that 1.5 is indeed much more difficult. The AI seems much more aggresive and, dare I say, intelligent (for AI) than it was before. Carthage is accordingly much more difficult.

Sea power is obviously vital. I have every Roman port blockaded and have several roving "death fleets" to attack the small contigents of Roman ships that survive after each naval battle. Anytime a Roman faction builds a fleet, I immediately add a few of the death fleets to the area to be drawn in when they attac the blockade force and make sure other death fleets are around to chase down the survivors. With no ships, the Romans can't do much to me.

Taking Kydonia is also nice since I can hire and transport Cretian archers, plus it makes good money.

The biggest problem I have is that I just don't have much ability to raise good size armies since I have so much invested in my navy. Conquering is thus very slow. I have all my original provinces, plus the rest of Sicily, plus Kydonia and Lepcis Magna. Usually I am a "blitz" player so advancing so slowly is driving me nuts.

Pre-1.5 I was usually able to ally with Numidia all the way through the game, but in 1.5 they have been a constant thorn in my side. I have a few armies headed to take their two coastal cities, but I am at war with Spain and Spain hasa full stack roving about their lands as well. I can't build up enough troops in Spain to do much more than hold mr original city there.

Does anybody else feel that 1.5 has made this faction much more difficult? I am playing on H/H.

[gardibolt]

I made some good progress, finally, last night. I landed two half-stacks on opposite sides of Capua, thanks to my control of the seas. The SPQR full stack attacked one of them, but thanks to some micromanagement of the cavalry I obliterated them taking only minimal losses. I must have gotten cocky with big stacks full of family members, since I did much better with a smaller stack. Instead of going for the kill this time, running straight for the generals, I went for the infantry and carved off pieces; instead of killing routers, I just let them rout and went for the next unit that wasn't routing (and dodging the triarii, letting the slingers shoot at them, until I could maneuver behind them). As the routers began to cascade, the SPQR generals lost their nerve and routed with a single charge, and I think I killed 3 of the 4. A few units reformed, but they were isolated and quickly routed again when the cavalry charged them. That left me with a quarter stack approaching Capua from the west and a half stack from the east. Since my faction leader was in the west stack, I opted to have the AI control the east stack, and placed it in siege position. I then approached with my faction leader from the west and set in for a siege.

But then I saw that my Capuan spy had opened the gates! :idea2: Lest the Julii ride to the rescue, I opted to attack immediately. A stratagem occurred to me: I let the AI attack with the eastern army, headed by a mediocre family member, first, and held my own troops back. As expected, the Scipii general and a large chunk of his troops went after the AI and sent that half stack routing. Once that was in motion, I hurtled the west quarter stack straight to the square, where I was faced by a unit each of principes and hastati. Pulling them in different directions, the cavalry killed them and started the timer. The AI general, seeing too late that he had been drawn out of the city too far, raced back. I could see he had only one good path to the square, so I sent all my remaining infantry out to slow him down. The timer ran out for him as he ran into those infantry speed bumps, I took the city and exterminated it and eliminated the Scipii, FINALLY. Cheap? Yes. But I've been so frustrated by this campaign since I went to 1.5 that I couldn't help it. Had the AI controlling my eastern army been more reliable, I would have taken them head on :wall: but I was confident that they'd rout pretty quickly, so I figured I would take advantage of that. And if the AI hadn't taken the bait, but sent the Scipii general after me instead, I was probably toast, so it was a definite gamble that paid off.

Anyway, after I eliminated the Scipii the Greeks at last were impressed enough to agree to a ceasefire and trade rights, so I'm back in the money-making business. Next step is to send a boat over to Crete to take it from the rebels and acquire some Cretan Archers, not to mention that 20% sea trade bonus.

Rome is wide open right now, and losing money, so it's ripe for the picking as soon as I finish retraining, and I have another half stack on its way to help. The first of two Julii full stacks was smashed against the walls of Capua with ridiculously few losses on my part. The naval blockade seems to be finally hurting the Julii and SPQR forces, since they don't seem to be building at the frantic rate that they were. I've retaken Sardinia, and am patrolling the seas around it so I keep it.

Cordoba rebelled when the governor went to relieve Yet Another Siege of Numantia by the Gauls, who appear to have taken one of Spain's territories, so after relieving Numantia I ran down and exterminated those rebellious sots too. A few daughters have been married off and a man of the hour has blessedly appeared. The empire seems happy and we were all ready to take on the last stack of Julii and mop up Italy when I got the dreaded End of Winter 237 CTD. I tried five or six times and could not get to the next turn. Is there a workaround for this? I feel like I turned this campaign around through sheer persistence, so if I can't proceed so be it, but I would like to eliminate the Julii, who have caused me a LOT of grief. In particular, that second stack of Julii is headed by the treasonous Carthaginian family member who was bribed when I lost Tarentum. I want his head on a pike.

[gardibolt]

:inquisitive: Answering my own question, checking the BI Bug Repository over at the Shogun's, no, there's no workaround or fix yet for the 237BC/167BC bug. But it appears to be, like the Italian CTD issue, related to the historical events that are supposed to happen in those years (237BC Carthaginians invent clear glass, 167BC Philosophy is Foppish). Hopefully there will be a fix for this, like there was for the Italians. But until that comes, I'm done. :furious3: :skull: :skull: :skull: :skull:

I suppose I could try the Italian fix and ignore the fact my historical events are all in Italian.....:dizzy2:
Hm, an Italian player over at the Shogun reports that fix doesn't help the 237BC bug. I might try it anyway, since otherwise I'm done playing.

[x-dANGEr]

On VH/VH. Carthage is the hardest campaign in R: TW. You are attacked by all, Romans, Numidia, Spain, and everyone who can reach your lands.

I took a very different stand than everyone around here, I holded my lands till I could gather somewhat an army. Your Libyan Spearmen combined with Long Shield Cav are very deadly, never used Slingers really. Corduba is the greatest province in your hand, it will always get attacked by stacks of Spain, just charge flank and chase. Till I could build a nice army, I started moving into Numidia, after conquering it, I started going upwards into Spain. After gettting it all, I moved to the island where Messena is, got it on my side too and didn't continue after that. You have eles, a big advantage VS Numidia, as their cav can crush your early ones, so eles are critical, 1 unit of non armoured eles is enough, you only need them for flanking after all. (And morale bonus). Numidian infantry is bad, so an ele passing them would just rout them all. if you manage to get Sacred Band cav and Numidia is still alive, all you need to do is charge your cav on one tail and a chain rout will follow. Spain is an easy target, too. Their strong units are too expensive (Bull Warriors) and not that effective. Remember, they are swordsmen with low armor a.k.a. valnurable to cav.

[teja]

Cartage had always been a difficult fractions. If I read here, it seems it became even harder with newer upgrades.
Back in old versions I used to use armies based on some skirmishers backed by spear units and tons of cavalry led by elephants.
Because infantry sucks, I hired mercs in Spain (spanish infantry), Hoplites (Sizily and stuff) and Balearic Slingers as well as Krete archers (when possible). I really missed archers these days in my Cartage armies. Nubian cavalry is often very useful

Killing armies of my likely is easy for human generals:
Make wardogs to hunt the skirmishers, archers to flame the eles and use your heavy infantry to kill all the light cavalry. But if you use such an Cartage army flexible, I made lots of victories with it. Not sure if it still works in 1.5.
Cartage, Macedonians and Seleucids are my favorite fractions in standard RTW.

@gardibolt: Good luck with your campain. I hope the bug is fixed now.

[phred]

I just finished a short campaign for Carthage and I must say it was pretty annoying to be fighting Gaul, Spain, Numidia, and all the Roman factions at the same time. And to make matters worse, Bruttii was the only faction that was fighting another faction. Gaul, Spain, Numidia, Julii and Scipii were only fighting me.:dizzy2:
It was fun and challenging at first~:) , but it quickly became annoying.:wall:

I don't know how many full Gaul stacks I destroyed and still they wouldn't accept a ceasefire. They were like Egypt in that they were throwing full stacks at me every 2-3 turns.

I will say this for the patch - the AI seems to be better about putting armies together.

[Sand]

I don't know how many full Gaul stacks I destroyed and still they wouldn't accept a ceasefire. They were like Egypt in that they were throwing full stacks at me every 2-3 turns.

Theres no logic to the diplomacy AI. From my experience theres just a random, very slight chance theyll agree to anything and they are extremely unlikely to make peace, regardless of how the wars going. It happens of course - there *is* a small chance of course, but as Carthage you get used to the idea very fast that its you against the world, forever. Its how the AI balances for not being challenging in any other respect.


I will say this for the patch - the AI seems to be better about putting armies together.

Im half tempted to investigate - Ive started a RTR campaign, but Ive always been fond of the Carthaginians and their law temples/police state upgrades - along with the new academies and ancilliaries it might just be possible to remove corruption which would be vital for a maritime empire.

Im guessing the messana elephant rush opportunity hasnt been removed?

[Craterus]

I neglected my Carthage campaign for over a month, so it's kind of burnt out.

I'm going for a Pontus campaign now, anyone with me? Guide-wide campaigns can be fun. Honest. :2thumbsup:

[Sand]

Hmmm, yep 1.5 the Romans seem to have their stuff together. I nearly lost Thaspus, and Ive never, ever, ever lost a city to the AI. The concept of losing a city to a collection of build orders and scripts isnt on my list of acceptable options. I didnt bother walling Thaspus before putting together my trade roads/ports as everyone knows the Scipii sit on Sicilly until they take libyeum, and the Jullii send the occassional 2-3 unit stack to annoy you on Caralis. And the Brutii go to Greece. So no need to wall Thaspus from turn one. Or to build a navy early on other than for transport runs.

Everything panned out as expected - Scippi made an attack of Libyeum, annialated them. Sat back and waited to churn out my elites before marching on. Took Lepis Magna for the trade income with a small stack stripped from Thaspus and Carthage. Noticed something odd when a Scippi fleet showed up off Caralis with a decent looking stack. Shouldnt they be going to Libyeum? No matter, sent my Sicily army off after them and got there in time to slaughter them, drove off their fleet and moved to deal with the familiar 2 stack jullii jokers who landed the same turn.

Suddenly a Bruttii fleet show up off Thaspus coast with a stack of 2 4 star generals ( one the heir so 120 odd heavy cav in all), 3 hastattii, 2 velites and 1 equites - This has never happened in all my experience of playing Carthage, the Bruttii never invade Africa. All my armies are in Caralis, or in Lepis Magna but nothing but dregs near Thaspus! With my perfect record under serious threat I send everything in Lepis racing back, but they wont make it. I strip my 2 star governor (Bhurrus?) and his 35 cav from Carthage with a unit of roundshields and send him Thaspus, which he makes with 0 mp remaining. I pick up 1 libyan mercs (javelin skirmishers) and 1 numidian cav mercs. Theres 1 town militia in Thaspus and another qued. So Im outmanned in numbers, troop quality, command rating, and I dont have any walls. Odds are 1:2 according to the PC.

So far, all credit to assumptions, but the AI has surprised me and should get plaudits for that. The AI doesnt surprise me on the battlefield though. Its still rubbish. The heavy cav didnt escort the hastatti who I surrounded outside the town and routed with the gen and roundshields. When they did move, only the general advanced, the heir with his larger unit sat back. Again, general surrounded and slaughtered. Inside the first 5 minutes, they lose the gen, 40 heavy cav, 480 hastatti and about 120 velites. All through silly refusal to send in cavalry support. The heir and the equites remained, and there began a game of cat and mouse that ended with a bitter street fight in which my gen died, but routed the cav and won the battle, saved Thaspus and my perfect record.

Theyve done some work on the Roman factions priorities - the first realistic Jullii attempt Ive ever seen at an invasion force for Caralis is trying to get past my navy to land a serious looking 10-12 unit stack right now - but the AI is still so bad that the pre-battle odds are meaningless. Added to that you can only be surprised once by the change AI rules of engagement.

[Crian]

Hello, I haven't read all the posts and some of the stuff I'll put here will probably already have been discussed.

I've finished three campaigns as Carthage (Vanilla 1.0), one in VH/VH and the other two M/M. Has anyone else used "massed round shield cavalry" tactics? It may sound silly but they were effective in the early game, for me at least. :laugh4:

I've read about people using combinations of infantry and elephants in conjunction with a lot of cavalry, but I'm not sure if I've seen someone else do pure cavalry. I easily defeated Numidia, Spain, and the Romans using this (the Egyptians are another story). Since the Romans usually line their legions in blocky columns of 2-3 lines with the general usually at the rear center, what I aim to do was to end battles as quickly and decisively as possible (big words, I know ... :laugh4:).

I usually have 8+ units of round/long shield cavalry (mostly roundshields in the beginning) plus my general, and I make them form in double line formation. I don't use infantry, nor elephants (at least not in medium difficulty).

Then I charge ... right at the enemy general, focusing all my force and momentum at the center, or wherever that general is placed. The cavalry usually break through the lines and converge at the general fast enough to actually kill him, as well as decimating the troops in front. Before the enemy troops at the flanks can converge to pin my cavalry down, a mass rout begins, and its cleanup time. Of course, for this to work, I have a large number of roundshields plus a general with fairly high command. It still worked for me in VH/VH, though less effectively and I got more casualties.

I never allied or declared peace with anyone in any of my Carthage campaigns, since this tactic ensured victory after victory. It was with the Egyptians that I had to be a little more creative but by the time I had to fight them ... Italy, Northwest Africa, and the Iberian peninsula were all under the command of Carthage and I was pretty close to the "steamrolling" phase. :2thumbsup:

Any thoughts? I haven't tried this at version 1.5 so maybe it won't be effective anymore ... :sweatdrop:

[PraetorFred]

Well Carthage is essentially my first campaign, and it's been rather interesting. I played a few turns of Brutii and Scipii campaigns on vh-m, but the battles seemed too easy and the game crashed once so I decided to try out an 'easier' faction (more starting provinces... right?) with less quality infantry.

(Long story follows, then the present situation and my strategy for resurrection).

BTW, thanks Frostbeastegg for your guide - after patching to 1.5 I found it very nice to get my minimalUI and whatnot done via your instructions.

Ironically, I'd decided to play Carthage in order to do a sit back and develop my economy faction - hey they have to have lots of money through trade 'cause that was historically true... I also switched to vh-h to make sure there was a challenge

Things started out fairly well. I allied with Numidia, got trade relations with Spain and Greece, sent a diplomat on a tour o' the east for map and trade fun. The Scipii obliged my interest in a minor First Punic war by declaring war... Not surprisingly, this all started with a blockade.

But things went well. Sure, the Juli took Carlalis and landed on the Balearics, but I defended in the field outside of Palma and soon retook Caralis. I was even fielding a few fleets, one blockading the Juli port on the west coast of Italy in an effort to keep transports down. In the meantime, a few bloody battles took place between me and the Scipii after I took out Messana (exterminate) but they still held Syracuse - I was fielding an army of mostly mercs and iberian infantry... but my general's calvary always seemed to save the day. Eventually, I took Syracuse (slavery).

With the cash crunch, I was trying to spend as much on buildings as possible, though it still didn't seem to be keeping up with growth. After I retook Caralis a second time (on the cheap with a few mercs and two family members), I was looking for peace. I knew it wasn't going to come cheap, so my plan was to offer Messana to the Senate and see if that would work towards getting a general Roman peace. Well, my diplomat never got over the alps (stupid Gauls). Then, the Scipii landed a decent army next to Messana (lightly garrisoned). I sold off the buildings and resoved to defend Syracuse and Lilybaum. In the meantime, the Numidians backstab me (after beating an expeditionary force to Leptis Magna by one turn... grrr...), but I become less worried after defeating two sets of 600+ javelinmen with a crappy general (not captain).

Then, a Very Bad Thing happened. The Brutii landed a major force with a good general just outside of Thapsus. Which still had wooden walls. And no defense. Thinking I could hold it, I rushed my faction leader, most of my infantry in the area (which had been on the way to Leptis Magna) and a new son in law to Thapsus to relieve the siege - in combination with the governor there, that should have been enough. The Brutii had two family members there, and the battle was brutal. I did win... at the expense of my faction heir, the son-in-law, several fully destroyed units, and a whole bunch of my generaling pride. The Roman army fought to the bitter end.

A turn later, the Juli surprised me in Caralis. A turn after that, my Thapsus governor died defeating another stack of javelinmen and an opposing general. I begin to realize family members don't have to lose almost their entire retinue to die like in M:TW. Just after that, the Juli land an army on the Balearics after I lose track of the sige on Caralis and loose the family member there. My family member in Palma dies losing to the Juli army, but it's so badly mauled the surviving mercs obliterate the few infantry too scared to besiege (I'm taking out as many members as I'm losing).

When the Brutii breeze into Thapsus and the Scipii have a new army in Sicily, I realize I've got some problems. My faction heir (some newly-wed from the Ilpna family, not even a Barca) is blasting Numidian armies right and left around Carthage - but being more careful. Hanno, the one great general I have left, takes my last major army out of Sicily (big mistake) and retakes Thapsus. Syracuse goes rebel with a large army, which doesn't delay the Scipii long, but they lose almost their entire stack taking the city, which is good...

I begin building up archery bulidings in Lilybaum (no, I hadn't looked through the tech tree fully yet). It was a little bit before this that I noticed how FREAKING EXPENSIVE my infantry was in terms of upkeep. Of course, I have virtually no cavalry buildings. It wasn't until Lilybaum fell that I figured out Carthaginian cavalry is not only better, it's CHEAPER.

Before Lilybaum falls, the Brutii land another large army (this time with more princeps) outside Thapsus. Again I rush in (largely infantry) reinforcements. They get there on time because my fleets disrupt optimum landing (I think). Thapsus falls. Barely. It was so close, the Roman general was dead and only 40 hastati were unrouted when the last Carthaginian fell. With Hanno dead, T. Ilpni (24 years of age, a two star general) was my faction leader. Thanks to one adoption a turn previously, I had three family members surviving.

It was a low point. I took stock of what I had left. Carthage, Cordoba, Palma, and Lilybaum. Carthage couild not fall. I was still role-playing a bit, and more importantly, didn't want the Scipii to have all of Sciliy and a large city right there trading with it to boot. Palma was making money in a small-time fasion, and disbanding troops to save money, I had one half-strength slinger unit looking mean. It would hold if no one attacked it. Lilybuam had to buy Carthage time. I had no illusions about it holding, but I hoped I could teach the Scipii a few lessons about siegecraft first. Cordoba would have to be my wild card - but it had grown too fast and was frequently rioting. Nevertheless, my largest and most capable army was in Cordoba. I shipped over my adoptee to be my general, and immediately left town to see what I could make of the Spanish. My other two family members were centered in Carthage, to provide support until my new cavalry-focused force could be built up. Maybe that would work...

Good things happened abroad. Map exchanges showed the Greeks dominating on mainland Greece. Maybe the Brutii held Apollonia, but they weren't making any other headway. And the Guals finally, FINALLY, went to war with the Juli. Three monkeys on my back (Numidia, Scipii, Brutii) and a fish on the line (Spaniards) would be enough. I secured a trade agreement with the Gauls and a Greek-Gaul-Carthaginian axis became a working theory when the Brutii allied with Macedon and the Juli allied with Spain.

Lilybaum fell when the Scipii put a big army next to it, but they lost most of their troops again. The Juli left Palma alone. My calvary army grew outside of Carthage and rapidly gained experience (and T. Ilpna became a capable general) smashing numidians and a few Roman forays. For a period of about twenty turns, Carthage was under siege at the beginning of my turn more often than not. But not soon after Lilybaum fell, I moved a medium stack of nearly all calvary to intercept a medium-large Brutii stack moving up from Thapsus. It was bigger than the other forces I'd faced so far, but a Scipii ship (I rightly guessed) was about to land an army next to Carthage and I had to prevent them linking. I hired two Numidian mercs (which I'm actually unimpressed with... not enough ammo). The cavalry training had paid off. This battle was my trial-by-fire in cavalry tactics. The enemy general was isolated and surrounded, the opposing equites mobbed. One by one I looked in amazement as unit after unit fell. Actually, I totally forgave myself for completely abusing the pause command in battle - the victory would never have been possible otherwise. I was even smart enough to pull all my men back halfway through the battle and rest before the rest of the killing.

Thapsus still had wooden walls. My cavalry had just enough movement to seige, and I took the city the turn later. The turn after that I destroyed a Brutii reinforcment army, and two turns after that the siege of Carthage was relieved yet again.

A cash infusion allowed me to start stone walls in Thapsus right away and the next phase of my African defense consisted of my cavalry retraining virtually every turn and running to fight a new battle the next. (Numidians were still sacrificing themselves... while the Romans served up piecemeal). One army was holding both Carthage and Thapsus.

Where did I get the cash infusion? When my last organized infantry army left Cordoba (a town watch, two spanish mercenaries, a merc peltasts, skirmishers, two Iberian inf, and two round sheild cav + general) - the town immediately rebelled. I almost got cold feet... but something had to come of Hispania. Had to. I pressed northwest to the nearest Spanish town and took it (exterminate). I retrained and added a round sheild cavalry the next turn, then sold off the buildings and headed north again. By the time I was on the east side of the Pyrenees, the only town the Spanish still held was Carthago Nova (yes, I even went after that stupid capitol) - all the rest were rebel and the crows were still feasting. My general had the butcher and the bloody traits, Africa was becoming more secure through attrition, and I was thinking about the future.

I took Cirta before I took Carthago Nova, with a new family member and a dollop of quality cavalry. Carthago Nova rebelled on me in favor of the Spanish when I tried to occupy it (after two historic battles in a row wading through Spanish stacks to get there), killing my bloody general. My army retreated towards the once-rebel now Spanish Cordoba. Meanwhile I sent my Cirta army west with two faction memebers.

Then the second Bad Thing happened. My cavalry force was worn down and defeated as I relieved yet another siege of Thapsus - another large Brutii stack, though both the Brutii and the Scipii had been battling in the area. I underestimated some well-led equites and took too many losses killing the Brutii cavalry and general. Combined with a couple of good pila tosses and some nasty gladiators I realized I'd gotten too cocky. I lost the Thapsus governor and T. Ilpna's son the turn later when a Scipii force counterattacked and I couldn't withdraw. T.Ilpna surivied with 6 members of his bodyguard. Thapsus fell the next turn.

However, Cordoba and Tingis fell simultaneously as both the Spaniards and the Numidians attempted relieve sieges and were defeated so utterly no one was left to defend the cities. A couple of exterminates later, and I had 20,000 to blow on my cities. I'm getting shipwrights in Palma, and Cirta, a variety of buildings in Tingis and Cordoba, and Epic walls in Carthage - I think they may be used very soon.

*****

So here's the situation. Tingis is safe, as I've killed (more or less piecemeal) four Numidian family members around Tingis before and after taking the city. Cordoba looks relatively safe, one Spanish king, one heir, and two stacks later. I have a small force defending and my main battle force from Tingis and Cordoba advancing on Carthago Nova. I think when I take the city the town or two the Spanish have left (they retook the Barcelona area) will be closer to the Gauls, who are also at war with them now.

Gaul still being at war with Rome, Palma seems safe still, though no real defense exists. Cirta is currently in a state of siege and relief, but I think I can get the upper hand with local cavalry production - although a few Roman forces look like they might be bypassing Carthage to increase the pressure there.

Carthage is currently under siege. I think I can sally and win (because my now 50-something leader is still there), but it will be close. If I win, my epic walls complete (one turn remaining on build).

****

Now I seek your advice. On Carthage in particular, risk relieving the siege or wait to ship forces from Tingis or Spain and hope the Romans don't also reinforce (via two factions in the area)?

Otherwise I see three avenues of expansion open, trying to defend all provinces.
1) Concentrate on West Med. Take Barcelona area, land forces on Sardinia and maybe even Massilia (held by Juli, but Gauls still keeping them busy in north Italy).
2) African empire. Continue probably easy conquest of inland Numidian provinces, plus much harder task of of taking Thapsus and Leptis Magna (both generally garrisoned well). Side benefit of making sure Carthage doesn't fall.
3) Direct assault on the Scipii. Once Carthago Nova is secure, load everything I can spare (plus some) in a fleet and take Sicily by storm, aiming to conquer the entire island before the big counterattacks hit and consistently hold two cities while bleeding the Romans dry.

The West Med route seems the most financially pragmatic, the African route is safter for Carthage and essentially takes out one of the factions still in the field (the Numidians are starting to bring desert infantry - spears), the Sicilian strategy is the most audacious and damaging to the enemies that can seriously threaten my entire campaign - and can snowball. Your advice?

[Valyr]

My second attempt at Carthage came after much thought about what the best strategy might be. I then found this website here and read through about a dozen startegies. None of which seemed to match what I had in mind.(I apologize if there is a similar strategy I did not read all 10 pages of strategies)

Dealing With the Greeks:
Made an alliance with them after they where besieged by Scipii. Let the Brutiis take syracuse and then take syracuse from them so you can maintain your alliance and still get the whole of Scicily. doesn't take too long.

Dealing with the Romans Scipii:

First turn I moved my Faction Leader amry towards Messana and made trade rights with the greeks. Second turn I took out the scipii army moving towards me and the one in Messana. Syracuse was now under seige by the scipii which I used to make an alliance with the Greeks that was preserved the rest of the game. (I did short campaign) I then hit the scipii army besieging Syracuse to relieve the greeks.

I then moved the bulk of that army towards Capua. I could have taken it but wanted to buy mercs and didn't have any money so I waited 1 turn. SPQR came in and pushed me off of Italy. So my first mistake in the campaign but I recovered well. I built up a Navy large enough to immediatly destroy all roman ships and blockade all roman ports west of Italy.

So now they are pinned in by Romans with their port blockaded. I kept a diplomat next to Capua to watch it. I never atacked again and eventually rebels overtook it. The would send out family members and armies on boats that I would either sink or fight when they landed. I did take one army to hit them outside the walls and wiped out a few family members.

Dealing with the Romans, Julii:

When the Julii moved their first "army" to take Carsalis I moved my army from Carthage over but didn't attack them. My garrison kept them at bay while my navy demolished their navy and blockaded their ports. Then I wiped the army on Carsalis out. With 1 extra fleet guarding east of scicily and 2 guarding west of Italy I was able to keep almost all the roman armys from reaching dry land once they stepped on board their ships. I really dislike that they can build ships while being blockaded. Every now and then one would sneak past and i would have to pull an small army from Africa to help out but for the most part Carsalis grew into a fine trading city with a governor and town watch.

Dealing with the Romans, Brutii:

I waited until they took syracuse then I besieged them and took syracuse from them. After that the greek and carthage navies kept them scattering. Never had to fight them on land again.

Roman Notes:
I eventually went up the east side of Italy and blocakde their ports there as well as the ports east of Italy belonging to the romans.

Dealing with Spanish and Gauls:

Initially made peace until they attacked, but by that time i had my navy built and could concentrate on building up forces for the spanish. It was a very slow process taking troops from Carthage and Thapsus over on fleets but I first took Cartha-Novga. This ended the alliance I had with the Gauls who also would send large armies to take attack me. I defended the Iberian Pennisula cities with ~4-6cav units, 2 inf, and an elephant unit. Send the elephants straight through the lines follwed by cav units hitting there broken formations. You have to keep your elephants moving and send cav units after any skirmishers. If you can buy a few Spanish Mercs to go into battle with you. They are a great light infantry to counter gauls and spanish. Have the iberian infantry there for support and some Sacred Band if you can. Baelaric slingers did well taking out units. After building up a fairly large force and wiping out several Gaul and Spanish Armies I moved took the left side of the pennisula Scaralis I think. Then took the center Gaul city. Then sent two armies to take the two remaining Spanish provinces. Also, after I blockade most of Rome I build fleets to blockade any Spanish and Gaul ports I could find.

Dealing with the Numerians:

I left them alone and they left me alone for a long time. I did trade with them and eventually they attacked me. What I think happened was I left all the Rebel provinces in Africa alone and left them conquer them. This gave me years of peace. Once they where done they either had to go through egypt or me so they attacked me. So I shifted one army to take Lepis Megna with a small force then Cirta then Tinga and Dimni? with a larger force, which was done fairly easy. But this took an army away from spain and slowed my conquest there. Their cities are great because there is no culture penalty from taking them. Could have finished them off but by then I had finished Spain off and game over, I may continue just to see Carthage rule the world but who knows.

Carthage Cities:

Build Cav units in Carthage and infantry in Thapsus. I didn't have time or money to build all in each. Palma and Carsalis were trade-cities only. Messana, Syracuse, and Lybeum each only built cav, infantry, and missile units respectivly.

Build blacksmiths and armouries in your ship building ports (Messana, Carsalis, Palma) and keep rotating your fleets through to keep them alive and blockading. I was constantly retraining Bireme's.

Send diplomats east to Egypt and then North for Trade and Map info as well as north of Spain through Europe.

I didn't have time to build up the Numeria cities much. Once I went on the offensive through Spain things went pretty quick.

The key is to fight all the battles yourself. I didn't lose any family members to battles and there can be some very good outcomes with elephant cav combos during a battle. Most battles I fought where cav rich with 2 inf units for show and one elephant unit to mess things up. Don't waste your elephants as they are expensive to train and key to turning overwhelming odds in your favor. I also would have one unit of skirmishers or slings in case they where needed.

One problem I had with my cities was the squalor is impossible to keep under control when the cities get huge.

Hope this helps. I am off to give the Germanians a try.

[Ludens]

Welcome to the Org, PraetorFred and Valyr. ~:wave: Very good first posts! I am afraid I cannot offer advice. The Romans are very numerous and get rich very quickly, so if you don't destroy them early on you are in trouble. I always try to take out the Scipii as soon as possibly, which includes razing Capua before they get the time to build stone walls.


Any thoughts? I haven't tried this at version 1.5 so maybe it won't be effective anymore ... :sweatdrop:
I am afraid it won't work anymore. Patch 1.3 nerfed the cavalry charge, which especially weakened light cavalry.

Welcome to the Org, BTW ~:wave: .

[Crian]

I am afraid it won't work anymore. Patch 1.3 nerfed the cavalry charge, which especially weakened light cavalry.

Hmm... I thought so. :laugh4:

Thanks, I'll play another Carthage campaign once I finish my BI:WRE Campaign to see in what ways I need to adjust my tactics. I've always enjoyed playing the Carthaginians. :2thumbsup:

[Crian]

I'd still recommend the "Lots of Rounshield Cavalry tactic" though, to anyone playing 1.0. In sieges, just wait for the enemy to sally. :laugh4:

[Garvanko]

Hmm... might start another Carthaginian campaign. Been too long.

[gardibolt]

The Romans aren't just aggressive in a military way in 1.5; in my Carthage campaign I lost two of my main troop-producing cities and three family members in them to bribery by the Julii. So you need to take them down before they get wealthy.

[Kickius Buttius]

In 1.5, the Romans are definitely aggressive. I built a large navy early on and have every Roman port under blockade. I also have "picket" fleets stationed by each of my cities. I immediately attack and destroy any Roman fleet that is built, and try to maintain at least three fleets around each Roman port.

By doing this, I have been able to slowly expand to have all of Sicily, all of Northern Africa (from the Atlantic out to Egypt), Corduba, Palma, and Kydonia. With the exception of the one-per-turn attacks from the Spanish in Corduba and the Egyptians at Cyrene, I completely control what battles occur when.

I can't emphasize enough the importance of a navy in playing Carthage. All I did in the early turns was hold Caralis and Lilybaeum long enough to build my navy. Once the navy was done, Sicily was just a matter of time since the Scipii couldn't reinforce (I had allied with the Greeks and they had lost Syracuse to the Scipii. I took it and kept it).

This is a much slower method than my usual "blitz 'em" plan, but highly satisfying.

[Garvanko]

Yes, a sound strategy. I'd have got an Alliance with Spain early on though - they will hold to it for many years. That gives you time and space to deal with Rome at your own pace. No need for a 'blitz.'

The Julii offer the most threat later on, though.

[gardibolt]

I was working on my now-fixed Carthage campaign altogether too many hours this weekend, and was in a position to knock out several family members of the Gauls who were annoying me in Spain when I ran across an annoying fluke (I hope it's a fluke). I was under siege in Numantia, where I had some cav, and I had reinforcements coming from Cordoba. I attacked with the forces from Cordoba, and the AI sent the cav from Numantia, fine.

Except the cav never showed up. I'd click on them and summon them, but they just stopped. I went to them and saw they were fenced in by boulders, right in the corner. WTF? My infantry without cav support was annihilated, and the cav sat there, useless. So I opted to withdraw them. They routed out of the corner across the red line, THEN RAN BACK ONTO THE MAP INTO THE WAITING SPEARS OF THE GAULS! :furious3: :furious3: :furious3: A ship with family members, elephants and fully upgraded cavalry is on its way to make the Gauls rue the day they fought me on a messed-up map.

That was my signal to hang it up for the night. It had been a productive day otherwise though, destroying the Julii and the SPQR, leaving just the Brutii for the Romans, and they're all over in Greece. I attacked Sparta, Corinth and Athens to improve my finances, seizing them but I immediately lost Athens to a Brutii bribery (and in the process lost my Cretan archers I had so painstakingly protected, too, the rats). Egypt has declared war on me but thus far it's just been a naval war for nearly five years. I'm building up Lepcis Magna as fast as I can, assuming the storm will hit there sooner or later. I need to get some watchtowers up in the desert pronto.

[Deus ret.]

if you're having troubles with bribes, consider employing spies. as long as they're present in any town or army, bribing them is (nigh) impossible....I can't remember it happen, in any case at least frontier cities should have a minimum of one spy, as should the important armies.

[gardibolt]

Aaaargh. :furious3: I just lost my Carthage campaign, since I had forgotten that I had it set on short campaign. I was kind of ignoring the Spanish since I was having such a good time brutalizing the Brutii and goring the Gauls, and in the meantime the Egyptians won! :wall: So I've converted that to an Imperial campaign, since I already hold Rome. Cheating? I guess so.

Do others consider Carthage spamming cavalry cheating? I don't think so, since it's the only decent unit the faction has. Everyone else just melts away when fighting.

I try to keep a spy in every city, though in hindsight I can't say with certainty that a spy might not have died/been assassinated in those cities and I didn't notice. When I lost Athens to the Brutii through bribery I had just conquered it and was about to build a spy so that may be part of the problem.

[_Aetius_]

^^^

Carthages biggest strength in reality was its cavalry, its infantry were almost always inferior to the Roman legions, so heavy use of cavalry is a wise move, cheating? no more so than how the AI cheats, infinite money, cities that never seem to rebel etc.

[Garvanko]

How it maintains public order in big cities with only 10% garrison and no governors in many cases is a serious BUG, which I absolutely hate.

Its also a completely unnecessary cheat.

[gardibolt]

Well, the Brutii are on the ropes and the Gaul have largely been defanged, so it's time to turn my Carthaginian eyes to the last megapower left on the board besides me: Egypt. From early pages of this guide forum I know that my usual cavalry-spam army isn't going to work with the chariots, so I'm guessing I'll have to go poeni/sacred band with an assortment of slingers as my primary force. Anyone have experience fighting Egypt with the unter-infantry of Carthage?

[Watchman]

EvenEastern Inf, who are the layer of dirt under the floor of the basement of the run-down hovel crappy infantry resides in (peasants are then the earthworms under *them*), seem to slaughter chariots in surprisingly short order as soon as the buggers stop moving (and dense masses of "set" spearmen are fairly good at stopping them). Those largely nominal melee defense stats hurt.

Eggy chariots themselves aren't all that problematic, partly because the AI is still an idiot. It's Eggy chariots accompanied by Pharaonics and Desert Inf that get problematic... The AI tends to be clever enough not to send its chariots directly into the pointy ends of phalanxes (at least without some goading - Disposable Javelineers, I think someone's calling you...) though, so so long as you keep in clever formation you probably won't have chariots totally messing up your lines right before the Pharaoh's Guards and Axemen charge in.

In my experience the biggest headache of the chariots is the way they prevent you from properly disposing of those nasty Pharaoh Bowmen with you cavalry and then totally rolling up the Eggy main line after it gets stuck on your infantry. And you really don't want those fancy-dud archers contributing to the phalanx clash, I know that much. I don't actually know how Carthaginian and Eggy phalanx inf measure against each other (probably about even), but the odds sure won't be even if your Sacred Bands have been turned into pincushions before the push.

Carthage gets elephants, though. And Armoured ones too. Chariots don't seem to deal with those big things too well, although I've gotten the impression the eles count as "cavalry" for the chariots as far as wounding goes - in other words, the pachyderms lose wounds pretty rapidly when there's chariots running around them. Still, elephant hordes on the flanks ought to be something the Eggies don't have any good counter for...

[GrandInquisitor]

lybian spearmen and poeni infantry are more than enough against egypt. two lybians on the flanks are good to hold chariots, and a poeni can quickly be used to reinforce as a phalanx thereafter. elephants are a no-no in my experience against chariots; but if they are taken care of, they can handily 'roll-up' egyptian lines with carthaginian cavalry. the key to taking out their bowmen is to try and get all of their chariots engaged first, then swing around and take them out with cavalry--the AI usually doesn't react quickly if at all to save the bowmen

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Assuming a mixed force of Late-era Eggies:

For Example:

1 Pharoah Guard, 3 Pharoah Bow, 1 Regular Bow, 2 Nile Spear, 5 Des Axe, 4 Chariot Archer, 2 Des Cav, 1 Heavy Chariot.


Chariot Archers....

Choice #1:

Send a skirmisher after each Charcher personally -- they'll lose, but the Charcher is busy and out of the fight.

Choice #2:

As #1, but use generic slingers (cheap) or balearics (spendy).

The Eggies like to go wide with Charchers, so your units will be a ways off. Sometimes the Des cav then attacks the skirmishers, so I often follow up with a little lt/md cav to hammer them back.


Battle Line with Chariots...

They will not charge your spears with their heavies, and usually not your sacrificial jav unit either, but will go directly for your light infantry/sword infantry to demolish them (just like you'll use your hefalumps on their axes). Can't really stop it, so be ready to counter attack with infantry during the moment the chariots stop. They fall apart quick if hit while still.


Taking out their archers...

Option #1:

Have a lot of cavalry, then assign one to each des cav, one to each line flank, and use the rest to loop around and kill bowmen.

Option #2:

Use hefalumps to punch a hole through axemen, use follow up cav to kill the axemen, then use a md/hvy cav unit or three to exploit the breach and hunt bowmen. Two hefalumps are often needed, since you'll see a lot of fire arrows....


Approaching their line...

Eggy stacks often have ridiculous firepower -- 4 bow units put at as many needles as 6 of yours -- so do not get fancy at medium ranges. Whatever tactics you employ should rely on going from slow to full out speed the moment you are just out of bow range. Giving them the time for an extra volley or two is simply ruinous.


"Cheaping" their leader...

If they do not have Pharoah Bows, and you have Cretans, you can often take shameful advantage of the fact that chariot generals DIE LIKE FLIES when facing archers. Something about the generals chariot sending out an EM pulse that pulls arrows to it first.....

[gardibolt]

Thanks, those look like excellent tips. i'll try them out this weekend. :charge:

Edit: Didn't get a lot of playing time in, but I did have my first run-in with the Egyptians. They only had a small scouting force near Lepcis Magna, but I made pretty short work of them using Poeni, slingers, cav and elephants. I sent a ship over to Crete to pick up some archers so the invasion of the Nile should begin in earnest in a couple turns. Building watchtowers along the coast for an early warning system should they be tempted to try again.

Brutii are now down to their capital, which is under siege, and Byzantium, which is woefully understaffed with a piece of an hastati unit, some velites and most of an equite unit. They should be gone in 3 turns if not sooner. After all the grief Gaul gave me in Iberia, their homeland defense is rather pathetic. Gaul's massive stacks just melt before a force of six round shield cavalry--they seem to have forgotten how to build Foresters (maybe I took their only cities that could), so they're in a world of hurt. But the Britons are a major power having mostly wiped out the Germans, so I may be getting more practice fighting chariots before long. Only 11 more territories to go, but I'd like to put a dent in the Egyptians. Who knows, I may keep on playing just to see how I do against the Pharaoh. I must be expanding rapidly--I keep getting Men of the Hour (and some nice ones too--just got one with FIVE Command Stars).

[gardibolt]

As it turned out, the Brutii had a couple more cities north of Thrace tucked away (I play with FOW on) so they're still not quite dead, but very much on the ropes. Murdered the faction heir and besieged the next to last city (I think--though I saw them sending a stack into Dacia so there may be another one soon).

Over in Gaul, I lost a nice army (and a herd of elephants) when I tried to attack a small stack of Gauls. My first mistake was that they were in the woods, and Carthage loses a lot of its cavalry advantage that way. The second was disregarding the fact that the stack was mostly Chosen Swordsmen, who basically ground my army into mincemeat (the elephants running amok didn't help any). So I'm going to call Gaul good and not attack up there any more, and just defend when I need to, concentrating on the Eggies for my last few battles.

After fighting a few smaller stacks and taking an underguarded city (phalanxes taking a city that is guarded only by chariots=high hilarity), I fought my first pitched battle against one of the pharaohs out on the sands. I was outnumbered by about a hundred troops, with chariots aplenty and two units of pharaoh's bowmen. They got the high ground and things looked bad, but my trusty onager got lucky and disrupted their line. I sent four cav+elephants into the bowmen and they quickly routed, starting a chain rout. My right wing of cav went after the chariots and knocked them out pretty quickly too, so I ended up elimination about 800 Eggies (didn't kill the pharaoh though) to about 150 losses. Not bad for a first try. But I expect there will be more stacks to come. Let them do so; this army is really just a feint to draw the stacks away from Alexandria: my real army is coming there via quinquiremes, but anything that kills the Egyptian troops is OK with me. I think I have 8 more territories to go, so with 2 or 3 Brutii cities, I only need to take the Egyptian heartland, harass their holdings in Anatolia for a lark, and I'm at 50. I don't think I'm going to bother trying to take the whole map again, and once the Nile Valley is gone the rest of Egypt shouldn't be too difficult.

[perun]

I am playing my second campaign as Carthage on H/M and it seems to me that the Carthagenians have no other choice but to attack Italy. I didn't even wait for Scipii to attack me first - as soon as Syracuse fell I stormed Messana and before the Romans knew what hit them was besieging Syracuse. After loosing Sicily the Scipii and the Julii kept trying to land on Sardinia. As I lost Cordoba to Gaul/Iberian aliance and Egypt is simply to powerful for me to even think of having a border with them (I keep 2 Macedonian provinces as a buffer zone) the only viable road for expansion is Italy.

So, the question is - is it common for Carthage to expand in other directions or it has to go "punic-warish"?
And, is it possible to have an alliance (or at least an enduring ceasefire) with the Romans, so that I can concentrate the armies on other fronts?

My diplomacy is lousy, though - my only ally in the present game are the Greeks. The most I could get from the others were the trade rights and a ceasefire with Gauls AFTER Cordoba was taken by them. Is this normal?

[GrandInquisitor]

secure sicily, storm spain, and produce a huge navy to hold the line against rome. if you can effectively cover the coast of sardinia, you will never lose the island because their invasions shouldn't even set foot on it. taking out numidia west of you isn't difficult, nor a bad idea (a general and roundshields do well here). that's how i've gone early on. later, after i've developed A LOT more, i go on the offensive against italy. in my experience, securing those borders and weathering the storm for a stronger homeland is paramount to trying to rush rome--i've never had much luck against their production

[perun]

secure sicily, storm spain, and produce a huge navy to hold the line against rome. if you can effectively cover the coast of sardinia, you will never lose the island because their invasions shouldn't even set foot on it. taking out numidia west of you isn't difficult, nor a bad idea (a general and roundshields do well here).

Thanks GrandInquisitor. I secured Sicily and Sardinia but instead of Spain I stormed Italy. Strong navy is a must, methinks - to guard the ports and sink enemy desant - otherwise Carthage gets burnt. The Scipii and the Julii lost a lot of soldiers trying to capture Sardinia so the Scipii just were not able to defend their only province when I landed on the "Boot". So the Rome is Roman no more :laugh4:

I wondered if anyone has tested Carthagenian infantry agains Roman pre- and postmarian infantry. How does it compare? I rely heavily on my cavalry to win battles against Romans and the only battle where my light cavalry got beaten by Roman general bodyguards became a bloodbath. I won it but there were around 20 foot soldiers left alive on a field with sth like 1500 corpses :no:

[GrandInquisitor]

not a problem. :bow:

when it comes to iberian infantry, two are a match for one hastati, beyond that you should have lybian spearmen and poeni to hold principes--at that point, it's alexandrian tactics (hammer and anvil).

[Avicenna]

Watchmen: Elephants, and camels as well are their own special breed, but chariots do frighten them (most things do, such as dogs, burning pigs and burning arrows).

[Goalie]

When I play with Carthage I don't use elephants that much. They are too messy and can kill your own troops. I will use them only if I am in a dire situation. They do make good archers though. I like the old phalanx with Peoni and Sacred Bands. Libyan spearmen are a nice touch. Not to mention sacred band calvary who are a great at flanking the enemy while they are engaged in the phalanx. In Campaign the Cathigians arent as good right away because they are spread all across the Southwest. After you take over most Africa it gets fun. Right when you get elephants and the Romans havent gotten Marius is the best. The Carthigians are a solid faction and one of the few that can hang with Rome in the later stages of the game.

[Braden]

All this talk of an increased difficulty level with Carthage in 1.5, sent me back for a play-test last night – 20 year stint.

I have to say I was disappointed. Was playing on Hard/Medium as I’m testing the difficulty level for a PBeM and experienced little difficulty, and nothing on the scale others have reported here.

I started off very passive and sent out diplomats for trade agreements etc. I got agreements with the Greeks and Scipii on Sicily. The Scipii attacked the Greeks so I allied with the Scipii, I maintained a 2-third stack on the island as I was expecting a large Romano backlash. The Brutii landed a full army right next to Lilybaeum but my army was parked (and had been for a good while) in the forest region to the West of the mountain in the region – I got the Brutii in an ambush! One dead Brutii army and family member. Elephants can be useful – for crashing through a long marching formation! He, he…

In Sardinia the Brutii also landed but, again, I had a small army there waiting in the woods next to the town – Ambush time AGAIN! Although Carthage was outnumbered its amazing what can be done with an ambush and Carthage round shield cavalry. Another Brutii army gone and another Brutii family member dead.

I’ve never had an ambush against the AI in any other game I’ve played in Rome or BI but TWO within the first 20 years? Nice.

I had no problems from Scipii. They took Syracuse and didn’t bother me at all.

I made alliances with Numidia, Spain, Gaul (had to break with Gaul when Spain attacked them). These have held. I’ve not had any problems with Spain or Numidia yet.

I took Lepcis Magna from the rebels. I thought I’d missed out as a Numidian army walked past it but my diplomat was present – perhaps they thought I was bribing them (which I was – without success though). I even shipped a small army and faction member over to Crete and took that without issue.

Current state is that I’m quite secure with the regions I have, although I’m still building up a proper army of Carthage and am making use of Merc units in the main. My economy is quite poor still (2k turn over), but I hope to address this by contacting Egypt and the Seleucids in the next few turns. Once the economy is looking much better the plan is to exchange Lepcis Magna to the Numidians in exchange for Military access.

I have also taken Syracuse from the Scipii – felt sorry for that but due to the unwanted attentions of the Brutii, I was “at war” with the Scipii even though they’d never raised a finger against me. Fact was, Syracuse was looking large and tempting, I wanted money, it had it.

Within the last 6 turns I’ve been producing Lybian spearmen in Carthage itself so I’m working with only Iberians, City Guard and Round shield cavalry previously plus some merc units.

[Avicenna]

Well, on VH it's almost impossible to not be at war with any of your neighbours, apart from perhaps the Greek Cities.

[Braden]

Great - VH it is then. I'm shocked that just a transition from H to VH would make such a large difference.....never mind.

[phred]

All this talk of an increased difficulty level with Carthage in 1.5, sent me back for a play-test last night – 20 year stint.

I have to say I was disappointed. Was playing on Hard/Medium as I’m testing the difficulty level for a PBeM and experienced little difficulty, and nothing on the scale others have reported here.

When I last played Carthage (M/M), I attacked Scipii on turn 2. Shortly thereafter, I was at war with everyone except Greece (i.e. Numidia, Spain, Gaul & all the Romans).
Maybe when the AIs see that I'm at war with 4 factions (all the Roman factions), they think I'm weak, stretched thin and ripe for a hostile takeover.

[gardibolt]

When I last played Carthage (M/M), I attacked Scipii on turn 2. Shortly thereafter, I was at war with everyone except Greece (i.e. Numidia, Spain, Gaul & all the Romans).
Maybe when the AIs see that I'm at war with 4 factions (all the Roman factions), they think I'm weak, stretched thin and ripe for a hostile takeover.

That was pretty much my experience in M/M, except I was at war with Greece too. The worst part was the constant stack after stack from Gaul.

[phred]

That was pretty much my experience in M/M, except I was at war with Greece too. The worst part was the constant stack after stack from Gaul.

In my game the Brutii took Syracuse, so I didn't share any borders with Greece. I think that was the only reason I wasn't at war with them.
The Gauls did the same with me. I annihilated stack after stack, and still they kept on coming.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Hello everyone, I'm new to the Org and a semi-veteran to RTW so I figure I'd introduce myself by sharing my experiences with my favorite faction.

I started out by doing a slight modification to the traditional Carthaginian blitz by heading straight for Capua after I took Messana. However, there were some drawbacks to this method seeing as I was being attacked from the south as well the north. Luckily it took a couple of turns for the Brutii to dislodge from Greece to attack me, which allowed me to Punic-ize Capua, take (rebel) Syracuse, and bring in reinforcements from Carthage, including another unit of elephants.

After repulsing what was to be a long series of Roman attacks (including at this time my navy turning away what was surely a Julii strike force headed for Caralis) I sent my general Burrhus, who had replaced the dead Hanno, to kill the Senate army. Long story short, the extra elephant unit made the difference and Rome was mine. :elephant:

Cue an almost Egyptian-like procession of Roman armies trying to reclaim their city. Now I know what Hannibal felt like. Luckily for me, they didn't have that many cities and since they had lost two trading partners, there wasn't full stack after full stack. Burrhus the Conqueror went on the offensive again, taking out Julii Italy. I began to create a new army in Sicily and Capua. Meanwhile, in Iberia I was basically holed up in Corduba, fighting tooth and nail to keep my city from the Spaniards.

My new Sicilian/Capuan army proceeded to strike the two Brutii territories in Southern Italia. I had a nice little empire at this point and decided to send a brand spankin' new general, Himilcar, to take the rest of West Africa. Meanwhile, Burrhus the Mighty's army was resting in Masilla, having conquered the Julii. Three Roman factions down. :laugh4: And I was finally able to make an offensive in Iberia, claiming Carthago Nova for its rightful owner.

Several years pass. At this point I realized a frightening revelation: Egypt was knocking on my door. I had to stop them before they got too powerful. Because I pursued an aggressive military build policy, it was rather easy for me to build up an army to head east to stop the Egyptian advance. I retook Lepcis Magna, and went for Alexandria. Meanwhile, my diplomat made contact with the Seleucids (down to only Damascus) and we aligned. Our bargain was simple: I would provide them with money, they would provide warriors on the eastern front.

A couple years pass. Let's review the situation for each army.

Iberian army: Making progress. Took down Osca/Scallabis and heading for Asturica.
Burrhus's old army: The man is dead, but I supplied it with another general. Mopping up barbarian rebel cities in Southern France.
Brutii-killing army: Mission just about accomplished. Only Salona left.
Anti-Egyptian army: In Alexandria. I didn't exterminate, so we're having some public order problems.
Himilcar's army: Killed the Numidians in a massive battle near Cirta. Is now taking that rebel city far into the Sahara.

Meanwhile I was preparing an uber-army to help relieve the Seleucids in the east, seeing as how my diplomat was getting old and can't bribe too many more Egyptian armies before the desert claims him.

I will post the second half of this campaign later, sorry if this post went so long!

[Ludens]

Interesting campaign, GeneralHankerchief. Welcome to the Org ~:wave: .

[GeneralHankerchief]

Thanks for the welcome, Ludens, appreciate it.:bow:

Anyway, where were we? So my uber-army is ready for shipment to Damascus, after picking up its Sacred Band infantry from Lilybaeum. However, I wasn't sure if I would make it in time since the Seleucids had a pitifully small garrison and the Eggies seemed more intent on destroying them than retaking Alexandria (they seemed to leave me alone after I onagered their heir in the one attempt to recapture it ~:thumb: ). My diplomat would be of no use either, being dead and all. I sent another one from Alexandria, but he would arrive at about the same time as the army.

My fleet arrived at about the same time me and my Gallic allies destroyed the last remnants of Spain. At this time, I had Himilcar (fresh from taking the Saharan territory) go on a long march through the desert (no roads) to sneak up and take Siwa. It would occupy him for years. Finally, the last of the Roman factions, the Brutii, were destroyed. It was kind of a sentimental moment. Until I did my standard execution of the last city. :laugh4:

Anyway, back to the relief army. I took Sidon, Antioch, and Tarsus, giving them all to the Seleucids. It would be enough to keep the Eggies occupied. I sailed the victorious army to the Nile, where they would assist the garrison still stuck in Alexandria. :wall:

Around this time, my lone Iberian general from the start, Theophanes the Mighty, became the fifth faction leader. I decided to give the man some well-deserved reinforcements, in order to fight back the rapidly-expanding Britons, who had whittled down my Gallic allies to one city (gee, sound familiar?).

Instead of making a time-consuming uber-army for Britannia, I created three smaller armies (about a 1/2 stack each) consisting of the remnants of Theophanes' army, Burrhus' famous old army, and reinforcements from Carthage. They were extremely effective, sweeping through France in record time.

The Nile was now mine, but I knew eventually I was going to have to retake Alexandria. I didn't know where to go for my final provinces until my Macedonian allies betrayed me and besieged Appolonia. Problem solved.

The campaign ended with some pretty awesome battles, which is rare in endgames. That cavalry the Macedonians spam gave me headaches. However, many of my armies converged on the Balkans, including the army that wasn't in Alexandria, Himilcar's army emerging from the Sahara victorious (the Eggies didn't see it coming at all), one of the three armies in barbarian territory, a new army from Italy, and an uber-army from Carthage with my new FL commanding. The 50th province taken was the Macedonian capital, Thessalonica. All my armies swarmed on the traitors, making them defending a ridiculous amount of wall as well as severly lowering my framerate. Needless to say, superior numbers and forces prevailed, and I had my 50.

Lessons learned:
Don't walk through a roadless Sahara. You might have the benefit of surprise but it takes WAY too much time.
While taking Capua instead of Tarentum/Croton first is different, it's a headache.
Elephants make excellent barbarian wall breakers. And barbarian killers.
The never-ending tide of Egyptian armies are a lot easier to deal with when they're fighting on multiple fronts and you've bribed a significant amount of them away.~:cheers:
When taking Alexandria, EXECUTE. I don't care how small the population is, it will get bigger fast.
A full stack of low-level Macedonian cavalry is tougher to deal with than the pre-Marian Senate army.

Again, sorry for another long post. I am thinking of trying this excellent faction again with a no-blitz rule after I finish up my Parthian campaign.

[x-dANGEr]

Very exciting campaign. You acutally keept me anxious that I checked it the first today, well done on your post, too ;)

And, welcome to the ORG!

[The Spartan (Returns)]

create two town millitia or 3 in Sardina. create four millitia in Corduba so you can crush Spain.wait for the Scipii to take Sracuse then take Messena with the army hiding in the forest. now you may think Carthage stinks cause of early weak inf. but if you use elephants and light cavalry you can be unstoppable. just use Iberian inf. to hold the line, while light cav and elehants flank. or you can use them to attack the general. back to campaign. dont take Africa from Numidia now. now in spain take over the Spanish province. in Sicily take Syracuse. in Cathage keep trying to upgrade the barrcacks and an Awsome Temp. of Baal. lets you build Sacred band. take over Croton, in Spain, take over the Spainish capital. the brutii are away in Greece so dont wory. take over Capua (capital of Scipii) it should have a large garrison so be careful. dont be suprised if the Senate come and help. once you take Capua. March on Rome. In Spain take over the rest of the Spanish provinces (on the coast) and maybe take the Gallic province in the middle. in italy try to fight the Senate out of Rome. if you have to assault rome, be careful. dont be suprised if the Julii come and help. you take over Rome.take the rest of Italy. Some Roman provinces will be in Gaul. if egypt is knocking on your door; before they come attack the capital of Numidia. if egypt atacks you (at africa) do your best to stop them. your faction should be qiute advanced now so it shouldnt be so hard fightin egypt. once they attack counter attack them. if you destroy Egypt, the world is your playground!

[Seamus Fermanagh]

General Hanky:

When having a go at Egypt, Memphis (with it's culture-penalty removal pyramids) is the real key.

All & Sundry:

The fun part about Carthage is not having elephants -- the fun part is having elephants and having no "natural" opponents (Rome, Spain, Gaul, Numidia) ho normally field phalanx units.

Warhounds in particular -- or at least so I am told -- make a splendid sight when being tusked off into a river somewhere...:balloon2:

[GeneralHankerchief]

Actually Seamus, I did take Memphis eventually. I'd say it put off the rebellion for about 10-15 turns. But the squalor and distance to capital eventually overcame me.

And I know that this wasn't addressed to me, but I will have to try the elephant/wardog thing next time. I usually send my cavalry after the doggies' handlers. It's funny to see 34 handlerless dogs heading right for your Libyan Spearman with the status "dead" when you mouse over them. :inquisitive:

And I'm glad you enjoyed it, x-danger.:2thumbsup:

[gardibolt]

I'm in the endgame of my long-running Carthage campaign, and it's still quite fun since I've been determined that my last opponent will be Egypt. I actually am besieging a rebel city that once was the last city of Gaul until I was attacked by the French and I killed the faction leader, but I'm going to drop the siege so I don't take it; I only have 2 cities to go and I want them to be Siwa and Thebes. I sent an army east from Lepcis Magna and took Cyrene without a problem, which brought four stacks of Eggies to attack me. I quickly sent a second army by boat and killed all but one of them, which fled back to Siwa.

In the meantime, I sent another boat to Alexandria with two family members. I had a full stack but there were a bunch of good mercs to hire, so I split off one of them to start his own little stack while the full stack besieged Alexandria. I noted Memphis was ill-defended, so the little stack went there to besiege it. The Pharaoh sallied from Memphis and was quickly obliterated, making the pyramids mine all mine. Alexandria followed suit, but unfortunately developed the plague.

My Cyrene army next intends to head down to Siwa, and after I've rebuilt Alexandria and Memphis, they'll head for Thebes For the Win. I'm getting some better at fighting the Eggies, but I still lose 1 out of 3. The Nile spearmen are a real problem, though the Nubians fold pretty fast. The main problem is keeping the rest of the Empire happy while I wrap up the game.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Hello gardibolt, it sounds like you've got an interesting endgame on your hands. I purposely took out Egypt semi-early to avoid the situation you're in now. However, your way would have saved me lots of headaches in Alexandria (although you seem to have headaches of your own, don't you love owning that city? :furious3: ).

My main strategy for dealing with the Eggie armies was to show them the money, however my trusty diplomats did miss a few of them so I did get the chance to develop a sound strategy against them.

First of all, I would advise leaving your elephants home. In one battle I had a combination of flaming onagers/flaming arrows have my elephants go nuts and plow through a good amount of my army before I finally gave the order to suicide.

While I usually lean cavalry-heavy with Carthage (and a lot of other factions) I'd instead opt for a balanced force when fighting the Ptolemies. My slingers were particularly effective against their chariots, while hammer-and-anvil tactics allowed me to take out their infantry, which left my cavalry free to destroy those annoying foot archers.

Good luck and may the Nile soon be covered in white.:charge:

[Goalie]

I helped myself out a little bit in a campaign with Carthage. I edited the slingers and made them into Sacred Band Archers. I kicked butt. I currentely have control of Spain, some of Gaul, and am pushing into Eygpt. I havent bothered Rome since I took contol of Sicily, I want to save them for the end so I have a good challenge in the end.

[gardibolt]

Well, I finally finished my Carthage campaign. I was never able to bribe any Egyptians, no matter how small the stack and no matter how much money I had, so it was fight to the death every single time.

My troop composition that seemed to work best in Egypt was: 2 Sacred Band phalanx, 4 slings (or Cretans), 4 Libyan mercs, 5-7 Long Shield cav (or Bedouin archers, if those were available), 2 Armored eles and 1-3 generals. Sacred band up front to protect the missiles, the cav split into two groups on each side, the eles way back unless there happened to be no archers. Move the sacred band and missiles forward and swoop the cav around the flanks as the missiles started to fire, ready to pull back should the chariots head for the missile troops. Head for the bowmen, kill them, then send the elephants in to raise mayhem along with the cav. It took a while to get it working properly, but by the end of the campaign a single stack of these guys was able to take out three stacks of Eggies in a battle. The main problem was with the unruly cavalry that had a tendency to wander into the Nile spearmen's waiting pointy sticks.

A very fun, if difficult, campaign. But I do think my next one will be with a faction that uses archers. :juggle2:

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Usually with Carthage, I find it easy enough to fight on both the Iberian and Syracuse fronts. You HAVE to make the awsome temple of Baal though for your Sacred Band, or else you're pretty much screwed in my opinion. Sacred Band backed up by some Poeni Infantry, Libyan Spearman, Sacred Band cavalry and elephants make for quite the army.

:2thumbsup:

[McDoogle]

I have found nothing stands up agasint 500 cavalry. I have destroyed an entire roman force of 2000 men, cavalry, archers and heavey infantry in less then 30 seconds with a well aimed cavalry charge of 600 round shield.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I have found nothing stands up agasint 500 cavalry. I have destroyed an entire roman force of 2000 men, cavalry, archers and heavey infantry in less then 30 seconds with a well aimed cavalry charge of 600 round shield.

You thus sum up my single biggest disappointment with the game.

[_Aetius_]

You thus sum up my single biggest disappointment with the game.

But one example of what makes Rome Total war such a car crash of a game.

Also keeping in with the Carthage theme, is the AI's habit of all for absolutely no reason whatsoever hating Carthage to the point where they all declare war on you at the same time.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Well, why I find it appallingly a-historical.....

The cavalry wave and resulting flying infantry are fun to watch.:2thumbsup:

[GeneralHankerchief]

Starting a new Carthage campaign on H/M.

I don't want to blitz, but I don't want the Romans trying to invade three of my cities every turn. So what I'm going to do is try to really muck up the Scipii on Sicily, abandon it, and then conquer Africa. That way there can be a major Punic War to end the game. :charge:

I'll keep everyone posted with updates.

[Pontifex Rex]

:viking:
Also keeping in with the Carthage theme, is the AI's habit of all for absolutely no reason whatsoever hating Carthage to the point where they all declare war on you at the same time.

Now coreect me if I'm wrong, but do not all Roman factions declare war when one faction goes to war with a non-Roman faction controlled by human players. I seem to recall that it does not matter if you are Cartaginian, Britons, Egyptians,whoever,... if you attack a Roman faction, the other will declare war on you.

It only makes sense,...and makes no difference, the AI is hopelessly outclassed by human players.:viking:

[_Aetius_]

:viking:

Now coreect me if I'm wrong, but do not all Roman factions declare war when one faction goes to war with a non-Roman faction controlled by human players. I seem to recall that it does not matter if you are Cartaginian, Britons, Egyptians,whoever,... if you attack a Roman faction, the other will declare war on you.

It only makes sense,...and makes no difference, the AI is hopelessly outclassed by human players.:viking:

Well I didnt actually refer to the Romans in that quote specifically, I was referring to the Spanish, Gauls, Egyptians, Greek AND Romans all suddenly declaring war upon Carthage for often no reason at the same time.

I recall being in perfect harmony with the Spanish, Gauls and Egyptians only for the next turn all 3 to attack me, followed by my allies the Greeks the turn after and the Romans soon after that. No provocation or reason for this sudden hostility.

Even with RTW's shoddy AI and lack of understanding of diplomacy this number of factions suddenly turning against you is something I have only really experienced with Carthage, perhaps its location on the map contributes to it, being bordered by so many aggressive nations.

[Patriarch of Constantinople]

ok ive been playing Carthage for a while and I'm going to put my tips in:

1. start building Baal temples in every settlement you capture/have sacred band will help you out later
2. after hiring mercs on sicily take your faction leaders army and attack either Messana/Syracuse. honestly i take Messana as it is poorly defended.
3. build up an army in Carthage and take Numidian provinces in Africa. this will get you more areas to recruit elephants.
4. recruit more troops in your newly captured Messana and take Syracuse. Dont worry about war with Greece they probably give you a ceasfire after.
5. (this is an option) build an army in Corduba and take Spanish provinces.
6. with sicily under your control i would make armies in your sicily provinces and launch invasions on Capua, Tarentum, Croton. this will A.) defeat Scipii and Brutii if they didnt gain any other provinces or B.) severely cripple both factions
7. retrain and recruit for the big battle against the SPQR. if your african provinces have elephants then ship them over. do this also if you have sacred band.
8. march onto Rome defeat/bribe the big army guarding. the city should be ill defended with the army out of the way.
9. when Rome is yours take some time to retrain and hold your ground the Julii are going to probably be on your elephant riding rear.
10. the armies in Croton and Tarentum should A.) take Apollonia if Brutii have it and can also give you a Greek "beachead" or B.) take the Julii provinces to the north.
11. at the same time i would take some armies to egypt and asia to gain new provinces and money.
12. if you hold your ground in Italy then you should eventually have your 50 from the provinces in Asia

Well have fun

[pianonator]

I'm about 1/2 way through my second game in RTW. I was a light veteran of Medieval, but I made a fairly complete switch to Rome. After playing a Medium Difficulty campaign as the Scipii, I decided to check out the Carthaginians. Please note - I am on Hard/Hard, not VH/VH like all you ninjas. Don't judge me. Please tell me if these strategies won't work on VH.

Combat Strategies (agains Hard AI):
Against Romans in the early game, I lured them into their infantry into brief combat with my Iberians, then flanked them with cav. (That's for defence). In attack, I tried the old stupid idea - charge with Iberians. I know, it doesn't work. That's not the point. I follow with a charge by Round Shields, let by elephants. The Iberians break after about 10% casualties, and the Romans break up their formation enough for the Round Shields to do some minimal damage. If I'm lucky, the elephant charge will break the central unit, and the Round Shields will stick around long enough to finish breaking the moral and cause the line to turn and run. Then, the Round Shields can mop them up. Of course, I only used this on them once, because I only really attacked the Romans once in the early game - since then I defended.

Late game:
Poeni Infantry and Merc Hoplites can form a battle line, Slingers (preferably Merc Slingers) in front, Armoured Elephants and Long Shields in flanks. Lure Romans into engaging Poenis. (Take it as a given that they'll try to flank you with cav, and break them with a quick elephant punch.) By this time, the Romans will have no usable cav, and your infantry line will be pushed moderately back, while your elephants are forward. Cross the line horizontally and go through the entire Roman Line, and follow with Long Shields. When one flanking Elephant group has finished crossing, do the same with your other flank. Now that the entire Roman force is fleeing, use your Cav.

Barbarians:
Give them something to charge at. A Line of Poenis will do. Pepper them with slingers, and bring them into a charge. Engage their infantry, then mow them down with Cav and Elephants. Chase away. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

Seige Defense:
Iberians are the best thing ever if you have any form of stone wall. People usually climb walls with Swordsmen, so Poenis and Libyans are no good. (Poenis have swords, but they don't seem to do jack). Iberians don't have much staying power, but they're cheap. Also, if you overlap units, they won't take too many casualties per unit, so you can easily retrain them in between seiges. Slingers on the walls, of course. Don't ask me how to defend against Sappers - I haven't had to. I'd probably stack up some Poenis and back them up with flanking Cav or Skirmishers. Guard gates with Phalanxes, too.

Elephant Use:
I'm a little less conservative with my Elephants than some. I like short battles. However, I do have some restraint:
1) Never send an Elephant unit without somebody following it.
2) Never let an Elephant unit stop charging.
3) Never attack light infantry with Elephants
4) When possible, take a column Horizontally and scatter the enemy like so many ninepins.
5) Never recieve a Cav charge. Never recieve any charge. In classical warfare, nobody charged elephants. In RTW AI, they do. When it looks like anybody - light inf, cav, heavy inf, missile, anybody - is charging you, charge back, and follow through.
6) The best use for Elephants is against columns of Heavy Inf or Heavy Cav. Light units are trouble. Heavy units can be bowled over.
7) Don't be afraid to use them.

Campaign:
Early Game:

I read some of these forums, so I decided to boot the Scipii out of Sicily and ally with the Greeks. The Scipii pounded the Greeks, and I pounded their weakened army and took Messana. The Greeks were left too weak to double cross me as yet. I found my Eastern front (against the Romans) to be a little crowded, with the Julii coming at me in Corsica and the Scipii angering me in Sicily, so I took the fight to them and pulled an elephant-blitz on Capua.
NOTE: The best thing about Elephants in the early game is their ability to do a one-turn seige, so your enemy cannot respond. I knocked down the gate and destroyed them. I quickly built a Stone Wall in Capua, and easily defended it against jealous Brutii. However, at about this time, the Numidians attacked me. Fortunately, a Numidian attack is easily bounced off with stone walls, because Iberians can eventually overwhelm Desert Ninjas (Numidian infantry - don't they look like Desert Ninjas?) In the open, even camel riders can be quickly dealt with through a swift Long Shield charge.

The Julii, meanwhile, constantly send army after army to Corsica. For this, I built a second unit of Elephants and sailed them to the isle. To defend Corsica, I used the Elephants' strength against compressed units. If the Romans breached my wooden wall, I let them fight Iberians or Libyans and push them back a little bit. If I'm doing well, Light Cav can push them out. If not, a flank with Elephants can quickly force them out of a breach. It's tough, I needed to ferry lots of units from Carthage to Corsica, and dispand lots of Peasants there until I could build a Stone Wall.

Since I was causing the Julii so much trouble in Corsica, they were unable to focus on the Gauls. The Gauls became a superpower, and took over Spain before Spain even noticed me. So Corduba was safe, while I frantically built it up. By keeping my islands, I developed a steady income through trade, especially with my Roman province. After a while, I built up enough strength to push the Brutii out of Italy. The Julii then ignored Corsica and focused on my Roman provinces.

Mid Game: By this time, the Spaniards had been owned by the Gauls, and I had beaten one of the last of the Numidians standing armies. I was also becoming rather rich - the Greeks at Syracuse double crossed me finally, so I took Syracuse. I didn't hear any more from them - they were probably distracted by the Brutii, who had been recently kicked out of Italy and forced to solidify their control of Greece. I bribed the Gauls to stay away until Corbuda was ready with a large stone wall. After that, most Gauls ran away after a few ladder charges had been repulsed and their rams had been burnt.
I assaulted Tingi from Corbuda, and the other Numidians from Carthage. Once I solidified West Africa, I moved East, bribing Rebel settlements and taking Numidian ones until I met the Egyptian border after taking Siwa. Numidia out.

The Julii in North Italy were starting to irk me, so I swept through them with Armoured Elephants I imported from a fabulously rich Carthage. (I wasn't always rich - in the early game, I survived with luck and ninja tactics :) ) I surrounded Rome with Carthaginian provinces, and destroyed most of SPQR's standing armies using my Anti-Rome tactic with the Armoured Elephants. Then, I seiged Rome with a numerically superior force of Poenis, Long Shields, and Armoured Elephants. They starved. Julii was dead, now only Brutii remains.

My mastery of Italy gave me more money, which I spent on improvements, garrisons, conquering Spain from Gaul, and bribing Egypt to stay away. I have handy tactics to beat Rome and Gaul and Greece and Numidia, but the Egyptians stump me. The chariots and the Axemen are two anomalies. I can't use Iberians to stop Axemen - I can't use any infantry. I can only use Cav or missile. Since I don't have archers, I don't have much of a way to deal with Chariots, either. As the Romans, I took the British chariots with Auxila and flaming archers, but I never got enough Libyan Spearmen there, and you can't ignite a slingstone. The best thing I could do was recruit some Libyan Skirmishers and hope to pick them off. Basically, I couldn't really defeat Egypt in the field with my frontier units, so I used my wealth to bribe armies to stay away while Siwa grew big enough to take care of itself. Siwa is critical, otherwise my weak African states are forfeit. (I took for granted their isolation - command of Mediterranian islands presented a buffer, so they mostly sent armies to a far-away front and built economic buildings. - except Carthage, which built Poenis, Sacred Band Cav, and Armoured Elephants)

Late Game:
After conquering NorthWest and Central Africa, Spain, Italy, Sicily, and other keeping my islands, here I am. I snuck an army of Long shields and Skirmishes into a siege around Thebes, and bribed all armies within striking distance. The aggressive Egyptians left a small garrison. I sapped the walls, then charged in with Long Shields, eliminating Wall resistance of Chariots and Axemen with brute force. Then, I worked my way into the town. Now, I have Thebes, with its Epic Stone Walls, so I can probably finally stop worring about Siwa.

I'm open to suggestions on dealing with Egypt. Here's my new idea - haven't tried it out yet:

6-7 units of Long Shield Cav + 2 Generals, 6 Units Skirmishers, and the rest of Spearmen and slingers. Axemen tend to run when they've taken a Cav Charge or a lot of missiles, and Skirmishers are the best defense against Chariots. If they stick together, a massive charge of Long Shields can rout most units if used properly.

I've conquered Rome and 28 provinces, so momentum is on my side. If I gave the impression that the game was a cakewalk - don't believe it. There is a period in most stategy games of "solidifying borders" - a period usually consisting of the first 20 or 30 turns in which you establish a base before building up assault forces. During this period, one fights battles that are tough, close, and frequent. Not so for Carthage. It is 167 BC, and nearly every year has seen some sort of attack. My borders are secure enough now to build big armies, but the frontier is never solid. The best way to secure a frontier is to consistantly push it back, until the foe is gone.

Feel free to tell me what you think - especially if you can tell me whether these strategies will work in VH/VH.

[Goalie]

that was pretty good first post pianonator. It looks pretty in depth, i dont feel like reading your post/essay but it looked like you had it down pretty well. Most of your strategies will work well in VH. Although it will get pretty tough in VH if you dont knock Rome down a few notches early on.

[Ludens]

It seems you are doing pretty well, pianonator. Egypt's main strengths are the Pharao's archers, chariots but above all huge quantities of decent to good quality troops. Do not get into a war of attrition with them, as they can win that relativily easily. You have to take their ecomic and population bases quickly. I like to do a naval invasion near Alexandria, but it is most important to take Memphis as you need the pyramids to keep the population in check. Don't be afraid of the exterminate button either: you will have plenty of trouble to keep their population in check anyway. On the battlefield, I suggest an cavalry-heavy army backed up with elephants and good long-range skirmishers. A flank cavalry attack led by elephants will usually be sufficient to scatter their cavalry, chariots or no. Then you can envelop the center together with some well-protected heavy infantry (Poeni for preference, but Libyans will do as well). Beware of Pharao's archers though, as they are not only deadly at long range but also do decently in a melee as well.

Also, do not use flaming arrows chariots other than scythed ones. Flaming arrows create a big morale penalty, but are less deadly than normal ones. They are useful against units that can run amok (elephants and scythed chariots) or are wavering, but other chariot types won't run amok and tend to heavy good morale so normal arrows are to be prefered.

Welcome to the Org, BTW ~:wave: .

[limitedwhole]

Take Egypts money and they can do nothing but have revolts or disband troops. Take Sidon, Jerusaleum, and Salamis and their population centers become unbearable burdens. They might even have to start disbanding troops and stop recruiting which will lead to the inevitable. When I hit Salamis, Sidon, and Jerusaleum over the course of turns, they had just begun an economic downturn. When it was over they had zero, yes zero, production. They might have gotten bigger though in your game.

[pianonator]

Thanks folks! I feel welcomed.

I've started building heavy inf again in Egypt - they do work better than I thought they would. I guess I was scared away from using them after an unfortunate battle in which they got owned, but Chariots do have trouble with Poenis.

The main purpose of this post is to make note of a cheap shot (which you probably already know about) which is very possible, at least in H mode or lower.
I pulled the cheap shot on Memphis.

I sieged it with 4 separate armies, so it only sallied against 1 army per turn (Which I retreated with), so it remained under seige until I felt it weak enough to fall. (I didn't want to just let it fall of starvation - that felt a little wrong - a little too much like taking advantage of a game bug) I exterminated that populace after an annoyingly long battle - at this point, I still hadn't started building Peoni infantry again, so my confrontations with Axemen consisted of surrounding them with several units of long shields and charging. But yeah - Memphis is nice, with its Pyramids. I didn't know about that affect.

I pulled an Onager-blitz on Alexandria, so I now have control of the big 3 Egyptian cities. I still avoid land superiority battles by continuing to bribe Egyptians, expecially family members.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I'd add only a couple of things for you Piano-man:

Build Milquart temples in a goodly proportion of cities. Yes, you'll want the child-eating Baal for the key troop centers, but pumping up the economy is important.

Once you are far enough East to be thinking about a strike on Siwa, you should consider a recruiting expedition to Rhodes/Kydonia/Halicarnassus. These are lucrative provinces and can either be snapped up if the situation warrants or raided and razed if defending them is untenable, and either way you'll use the opportunity to recruit Cretans -- the only real weak component of a Cartha force is its lack of longer ranged missiles. Picking up 5-6 units of Cretans can give your two primary strike armies a little more punch.

[pianonator]

Yeah, my Quest for More Money has already had me building lots of Milquart temples, but thanks!
I'll also be sure to stop in at Crete, too.

Problem:
I know this is a little off topic, but I didn't know where to stick it. I just downloaded and installed patch 1.3 (I don't have BI), and I can't load up any of my old Carthage games. :oops: Is that normal, or is there anything I can do? Should I just reinstall RTW and finish Carthage with my old save files?

[Avicenna]

Bettkicker: if you didn't read it how did you know that it was the same strategy as yours? :confused:

Anyone done a more historical expansion? Take Italy, Spain and Gaul, then go take Asia Minor, where the original Phoenican founders of Carthage were from.

Welcome, pianonator! You should uninstall 1.3. If this isn't possible, don't just reinstall, as you'll lose the .sav files. Copy your save files and put them somewhere safe if you choose to reinstall.

limitedwhole: Shouldn't Alexandria be a major target to take out Egypt's economy? Their overall money earnt per city is deceptive, as the large cities seem to lose masses of cash. If you take the large cities, you'll find that the remaining cities will lose masses of cash instead. It's just that the money the city has to dish out for the military is proporitonal to its size, which grows faster than its economy, hence the reason for the large cities appearing to lose lots of money. A quick check of the actual money earnings and spendings will show you this.

[pianonator]

1.3 issue update:

Like a resourceful fellow, I went to Activision for help in my 1.3 problem. They told me to talk to Sega, so I went to their support site. They pointed me to their 1.5 patch, which I didn't even know about. Apparently, after RTW Gold Edition, any new updates are Sega's department, and they don't feel like telling TotalWar.com about them...

Nice fixes in 1.5 that I noticed immediately:

-1.2 and below save files work
-Egypt's Axemen finally have realistic armour!*

Bugs/gripes

-I don't know if it's like this if you start a 1.5 game, but now my Carthaginian Faction Updates look like Roman ones - with Roman pictures of guys in togas giving each other scrolls. I miss my turbans already.
-Ugh - now people are like 4x harder to bribe - so now that I can finally beat an Axeman army, I can't bribe them. I guess it balances out.
-I am now getting advice on breathing from Victoria and Marcus. Make them stop!

*I wondered how the heck shirtless guys with hatchets were surviving concerted charges of medium to heavy cav - they were doing better than some Hoplites I've seen! Now they are like normal shirtless infantry. *yay*

[pianonator]

Sorry - this isn't just postspamming.


Anyone done a more historical expansion? Take Italy, Spain and Gaul, then go take Asia Minor, where the original Phoenican founders of Carthage were from. - Tiberius

Historical expansion?
From what I understand, RTW starts you off at the territorial height of the Carthaginian Empire, ignoring Punic War II. They never really held any more than what they have. But yeah, I'll be sure to take Tyre as soon as I get there.

But yeah, if you're talking Hannibal-style, I skipped that by winning in Sicily. It's a lot easy to boat the elephants into Capua and take out the Scipians than fighting all the way through Iberia and Gaul to get to Northern Italy by crossing the Alps with them. :2thumbsup:

But maybe I'll try the Hannibal approach on my next Carthage Run on VH/VH.
As aformentioned, my approach was Sicily, Central Italy, Numidia, Southern Italy, North Africa, Iberia, Egypt, Gaul.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Piano- First, a belated welcome to the Org! ~:wave: I must agree with Seamus on the fact that Crete is a very good place to pick up long-range units. You go from stinky Slingers to the (possibly) deadliest archers in the game and the effect is amazing.

Also, if you're interested, there is a current Play-by-Email Carthage campaign in the Throne Room (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=38) right now that is trying to duplicate the Carthaginian achievements of expanding into Spain/Gaul before they hit Rome. I'm also going the semi-historical route myself in the campaign that I am putting off in favor of Macedon. I'm sure it'll be much more interesting than just destroying Rome before they can do anything.

[limitedwhole]

While Alexandria is bigger and makes more money, these three smaller cities are easier to take and you can take them faster and with less troops. The Egyptians are forced to march armies up to meet you and you can defeat them one by one. What really hurts them is that these are the cities that trade resources with Alexandria. They are easier to keep out of revolt meaning you can move on to the next one right away without say landing 3 full legions. I didn't look at the numbers by the cities, I looked at the chart of production. they completely bottomed out once I took ther trade. Where else are they going to trade? They are left with tax revenue and Alexandria/Memphis trade which isn't spectacular. They will be forced to field armies full of weak units you can mow down. I cut down 3000 Egyptians with 1000 men because they were being forced to stuff their armies with the weakest units. Also they will have good governors at these lucrative trade centers and they are much easier to kill than the faction leader at Alexandria, because they have less guard. This is with the brutii though, I could make Jerusaleum, Sidon, and Salamis profitable with me considering a trdaing alliance with the Seleucids. If you just want to exterminate them, by all means hit there population centers and wack away.

[gardibolt]

I use a two-pronged attack on Egypt to good effect. Send a full stack headed by a general east from via land, while sending a full stack (or more) via well-guarded boats with 2 generals by boat from Carthage to Alexandria. Try to time it so they hit Egypt about the same time. This prevents the pharaoh from reinforcing properly against your attacks. Attack and besiege Alexandria after you split off one general. Have that secondv general hire all the mercs in the area (there will usually be a ton thanks to Egypt's ridiculous growth rates). Use that new merc army to besiege Memphis. Attack as soon as you can, and exterminate both cities (watch out for plague, though---these are filthy cities). That nets you the pyramids and then it's just a matter of time before the Ptolemies collapse of their own weight.

[Empirate]

Currently playing my second game with Carthage (VH/M), and I must say, it gave me some of my most memorable battles.
One occurred when I was out with only a mediocre general (tower building duty) and ran into an ambush of gauls: Three warbands, one skirmisher warband and one band of elite swordsmen. Timeout, taking stock: the whole battlefield without trees, and basically composed of a long, gentle slope. While I play 1.5 now, and understand cavalry is supposed to be weaker than it was, I still wanted to give those chalkheads some bang for their buck. So I deployed at the top of the slope. Luckily, the enemy captain was with the skirmishers, so I charged them first and finished them off. After that it was basically running around the battlefield, tiring out the enemy and charging once in a while, only to withdraw as quickly. End result: close to five hundred enemy dead or fled, while my general still had eight bodyguards able to fight. Simply unbeatable by infantry, that general's cav, if you know what you're doing.
Another one: Defending Sardinia - again - against a Julii army that had just landed. I had a four-star general, eight standard elephants (that's eight animals, not eight regiments of them!) and five units of roundshields. The enemy had a six-star heir, his younger brother, five hastati, two velites, one equites, one archers, six principes, two triarii. I attacked anyway. I wanted to perform a surgical strike, so to say: My plan was to destroy the roman cavalry and possibly skirmishers and archers, while holding my force together and withdrawing once my troops were tiring and losses were adding up. I hoped to be able to win against the reduced enemy force later, after restocking my horsemen in Caralis. Well, what can I say: I ended up destroying the whole roman army, 1500 strong, with my 280-man-force! Heroic victory, of course. The AI actually tried to keep it's forces together (except for the usual suicide charge of the enemy general, who was eaten alive by my eles). But my roundshields were fast enough to charge a flank, kill half a regiment and get out again before the enemy could turn around to fight, and the early death of their general combined with my elephants spreading uneasiness was giving them a hard time morale-wise. Often, two or three units of roundshields impacting from the front or the side would break a regiment so it would rout instantly. I lost half my stout-hearted riders, and, due to some mismanagement at one point, all eight elephants. Damn fire arrows! :furious3: Still, they did a lot of damage rampaging through three units of hastati before finally dying! :laugh4:
My main army, which has taken Rome and most of northern Italy all on it's own, consists of the general (started out a one-star with no traits, is now a seven-star attacker with Conqueror, Bloodlust and Reckless traits), four war elephants, three Numidian JavCav, six longshields and six roundshields. These guys just rock: You can easily retrain round- and longshields in most conquered settlements, and neither elephants nor Numidians usually take any damage. I am fighting the Gauls now, and with them, I don't even use tactics. I just form up the eles in front, longshields and general behind them, and roundshields behind these. The Numidians fan out and disrupt some enemy formations, killing only few of them, but tiring them and drawing them apart. My Elephants march up in good order, shooting lightly armored barbarians left and right, then stomp, stomp, stomp into the heart of the enemy formation. My general and longshields rush into the gap and give the enemy army it's killing thrust. The enemy wings usually crumble and rout in a matter of moments after the center is shattered. The roundshields then spread out, chasing routers on the wings, while Elephants and longshields complete the carnage in the center. You might think my army would face the danger of becoming surrounded this way; but nothing can stand in front of an elephant charge followed up by cavalry. Nothing the Gauls have, that is... I'm planning on fighting some Greeks next, so I'll have to use some tactics again. But against barbarians, especially Gauls and Spanish, this works like a charm. I just fought a battle in which I killed 2315 enemy (a three quarter stack reinforced by a full stack army), and I didn't lose a single man!!! The elephant regiments alone killed 200 Gauls each. Warbands... :laugh4:

[_Maximus_]

That might Carthage! "Hanibal ante portas"

[Patriarch of Constantinople]

Now im playing Carthage again and im thinking: is Poeni Inf. good to have to hold the line? ive never spent alot of time with them.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Peonis are about your average hoplite/phalanx formation. Nothing to write home about, however, they can hold the line just as well as any phalanx if used properly.

However, once you get the Awesome Temples of Baal, replace them with Sacred Band, who do the job much better.

[pianonator]

Well, that patch has done some strange things to my strategies -
It's now almost impossible to bribe anybody. Fortunately, Desert Axemen are now possible to beat. Anyway, after remaining quiet for 100 turns, the Brutii landed from Greece into Southern Italy, which I foisted from them a while ago.

They, of course, are post Marius now, and have a military ranking off the charts (I'm second, but by half). Was it a mistake to let them live once I had mastery of Italy?

Anyway, I don't usually like attacking an enemy army in the field, but they were laying seige to loosely defended cities. I was putting together an army to march north against the gauls, and raising a few assassins to take out any General which came my way, so I just diverted them south.

My army consisted of 10 or 11 (I kid you not) Poeni Infantry, 2 Slingers, 2 Long Shields, 2 Round Shields, and Sacred Band Cavalry. The Romans had no cav, since I assassinated their generals. Do the Brutii normally show up on the field w/o cav? Anyway, they had a load of huge Legionary Cohorts and stuff.

I deployed a straight line of all of my Poeni Phalanxes and just charged. Wow - Never charged with phalanxes before. 2 poeni units on my right flank eventually routed, but I pushed the Brutii back with a charge of Sacred Band Cav. Best thing about Phalanxes - if they're confident, they can hold keep a unit busy for a long time (one of the biggest quandries is how the Maniple EVER replaced the phalanx.) So they held the ENTIRE brutii infantry line (I was slightly outnumbered, and all I had to do was do a simple flank with a double cav line - Charge headed by 2 Long Shields and backed up 2 Round Shileds - I routed the entire 1300 man Brutii line. This has increased my confidence slightly, because the Brutii suddenly attacking has just about ruined me financially.

[Avicenna]

Ah, but you forget that in the "real world", the armies are not controlled by the rubbish AI which will actually attempt to fight a phalanx head-on. If people still did that now, phalanxes would still be in use.

[Ludens]

Ah, but you forget that in the "real world", the armies are not controlled by the rubbish AI which will actually attempt to fight a phalanx head-on. If people still did that now, phalanxes would still be in use.
True. Added to this the phalanx is very vulnerable in broken terrain, as the Romans found out when fighting the Gauls and Samnites in central Italy. That is why they replaced the fairly clumsy phalanx with the more flexible maniple system.

[Avicenna]

Much of Greece is also broken terrain though. Did the Greeks mainly arrange fights on flat terrain, or actually fight on the rough terrain, using it to their advantage? I know they did so at Thermopylae, but what about when fighting other city-states?

[Empirate]

Actually, Greek city states DID arrange for fights to be on flat terrain. Usually, the time and place of a battle was arranged beforehand through emissaries. Lucky you don't have to follow honorable "rules of engagement" like this in R:TW!

[Ludens]

Much of Greece is also broken terrain though. Did the Greeks mainly arrange fights on flat terrain, or actually fight on the rough terrain, using it to their advantage? I know they did so at Thermopylae, but what about when fighting other city-states?
I always wondered about that too, but the Greeks seemed to have restricted their mainly to flat terrain. Whether this was by arrangement or out of necessity I am not sure (in some cases it was by arrangement, but was it in all?). Anyway, since the Greeks were farmers I suppose the bits worth fighting for were flat anyway.

[KhaderKhan]

Just curious but I wonder whether Parthian tactics (e.g. 'Hit & Run' using mostly cavalry troops) might work for the Carthaginians? I mentioned this because in many ways they are similiar.

(Though Carthage's infantry at least is durable unlike Parthia's)

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Hit and run is always a valid approach with cavalry. Just remember that you do not have HA -- so LS, RS, etc. really do have to "hit" the opponent. Numidian Cav hirelings are great at hit-and-run; high speed and endurance, though no great range.

[GeneralHankerchief]

The one weakness of normal HAs is that they can usually be hit by normal archers. Now think of the Numidian Cavalry- the range is quite reduced. They'd be torn apart by any faction with archers, and I'd hate to see them against the Egyptian ranged units.

Carthage's strength is its troop variety. Construct armies based on the makeup of the enemy.

[cunobelinus]

I like using a mix of phalanxs (sacred band) ,Then some spanish mecenries and then some numdian and sacred band cavalry then some baleraic slingers and cretan archers when im in the greek area.

[Empirate]

The composition of Carthaginian armies can luckily be adapted to what your enemy has, as has been mentioned. I have been very successful using cavalry backed up by elephants against the Romans, Gauls and Iberians, always heavily employing Numidian Mercenary Cavalry to disrupt formations. Against the Greeks and Macedonians I field armies that match their makeup: Sacred Band Infantry, supported by Poeni Infantry. These can hold against Phalanx armies while cavalry rolls up the flanks and back, and they will not take excessive casualties against archers. Against Egypt (I'm looking forward to that war!) I will be relying much more on Armored War Elephants, with cavalry mainly in a support role. The Britons look very powerful, and I will avoid getting into a war with them if I can (too many fronts!), but if necessary, they will be getting a share of Phalanx units, combined with Elephants to take out their chariots.
The versatility of Carthaginian cavalry units (plus Numidian Javcav, of course), the option of recruiting Phalanx units, and on top of these your pachyderm joker, mean you can fight almost any kind of army the various R:TW factions can field. Slingers and Skirmishers have no place in my armies (not powerful enough against anything with armor or shields), and Iberian Infantry and Libyan Spearmen simply die too fast to be of any use. But even without these, you can have a strong infantry backbone if you want it, as long as you remember to get yourself some of the right mercenaries.
Of course, having access to the almighty elephant is key to Carthaginian survivability: I feel like nothing can really stand in my path whenever I lead elephants into battle. Without these, Carthaginian options would be much poorer. Elephants rule against any kind of enemy! Even if they have (fire-arrow-equipped...) archers, careful maneuvering of your main battle tanks means the enemy can't shoot them, but in trying, will forget to employ his archers against your other troops. Besides, Carthaginian cavalry can usually clear the field of archers before you engage with eles.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The trouble with Carthage is surviving against the remorseless Romans long enough to build a steady cash flow and get developed cities to the level where you can get reasonable infantry.

You are at war almost immediately, you have the Scips in your face on Sicily and Thapsus, Bruti coming after Syracuse or Thapsus if the Scips are checked and Julii grabbing Caralis and posing a long-term threat to Spain.

Numidians and Spaniards may work for you readily, but their nations usually decide that you are going down so they jump in to get a slice of the pie. Gaul may jump in too, though that is less certain. Result: nobody to trade with and a poor cash-flow.

Without good cash flow, you end up trying to do too much with Iberians and Round Shields and one very busy dozen of elephants. Mercs might get you the anvil you need and some good shooters, but they're costly and you have money troubles quickly.

It is a tough balancing act. You have to fight romans without losing lots of troops -- but atritting an enemy in all encounters is the roman forte. <y advice, build stone walls quickly and put good slingers on them. Good sally work can reverse the attrition scale and buy you time.

If you can juggle things long enough, and manage not to lose both Caralis and Lillybaum, squeezing out a couple of acquisitions -- LepMag, Syracuse or Messana if you can, CarthNov if available -- you might turn the money corner and start getting real barracks and stables. THEN the advantage turns. Elephants are useful but not all-conquering, but if you put them into a mix of cavalry, spears, flankers, and shooters they add a devastating punch to the combined arms team.

Like the Selkies, the key is juggling things long enough to turn the corner.

[pianonator]

Haha - OK, I retract my previous comment on the phalanx's power over the maniple. The trick with phalanxes is to creat a formation that can't be flanked. That is - use the mighty elephants with Cav support on the flanks like anybody would, and deploy a long line of Poenis/Sacred Band with some reserves behind.

2 ways to deploy a good phalanx line if you have Poenis and a limited amount of Sacred- both theretical - haven't tried them much yet.

1) Put the Sacred Band in the center - this seems rather obvious.
2) Variate on the Hannibals' Crescent idea. Guard a weaker Poeni (Or even Libyan) center with sacred band on either side. The center will be pushed back, and then you can swallow them. Only do this if there is no danger of being flanked by enemy cav, or more enemy infantry, because this could/probably will break up your formation.

Had another mop-up battle with the Romans again. Same big army of 8 or so Poenis, with a SBCav, 2 RSCav, and 2 LSCav. And 2 units of Armoured Elephants. Same deal - charge downhill with a long line of phalanxes (because I don't really have any range and their archers were irking me). Took out the cav with LS and Elephants (Wow, Roman Cav really sucks when used by AI), and then just bowled them over with 2 charges laterally through the enemy line with Elephants and Long Shields. Unfortunately, my elephants ran amok after the work was done. I'm going to have to reevaluate my strategy. Probably, I should wait to charge w/ elephants until the entire line is engaged. That's OK - I have a reinforcing army of 4 AElephants from Carthage sailing for Brutii Greece. Mwahahaha.

[pianonator]

:wall: :wall: :wall:

Can anybody tell me why my Onagers don't fire at anything when I'm under seige? They don't shoot at seige towers, battering rams, people - anything. The computer says they're in range, and that they are firing (there's a little bow-and-arrow icon on them) but they aren't actually shooting. Help?

:wall: :wall: :wall:

[GeneralHankerchief]

There are a couple of explanations for this.

First off, what kind of walls are you behind? If it's Large Stone or Epic Stone, onagers don't have the height to clear the walls, which is probably why they're not firing.

If this isn't the case, it's probably a bug.

[pianonator]

They are Epic Stone Walls, but I'm pretty sure I've pulled off Seige tower destruction before with epic walls. They're heavy Onagers - should that make a difference?

[Empirate]

Right now, Onagers are posing a totally different problem for me: The Greeks have some. And they're not afraid to use them.
I was in several battles now in which my god-like, unbeatable, weapons of mass destruction, yes, I'm talking about elephants, were totally freaked out by Greek Onagers. Whenever the AI controls artillery, it seems to be a thousand percent more effective than when I'm using it. In three battles, the very first Onager shot ignited some Elephants and sent the remainder on a stampede! Granted, Elephants are big, hard-to-miss targets. But usually firepots are so inaccurate I only manage to hit anything one out of ten times using level-three-Onagers. But not so for the Greeks! They're deadly accurate. I lost more Elephants to Greek Onagers than in all of the campaign up to this point. I'm training more War Elephants in Cirta nonstop, as well as Armored Elephants in Carthage and Thapsus. But still, it hurts to see your 2700-denarii-investment go up in flames, the remainder rampaging through your Sacred Band cavalry (which doesn't come exactly cheap either!). Still, I found out that when you order your elephant riders to kill their mounts, you can expect more than half of the beasts to regenerate after the battle.
I've now taken to destroying enemy artillery first and foremost, no matter the cost. Against the slow-moving, inflexibly Greek Phalanges, this is not much of a problem. I just send two or three cavalry units around the flanks to slaughter the operating crews, and for the rest of the battle the Onagers just stand there. Even better, the AI tries to respond to this surgical strike and prevent it, throwing it's Phalanx formation into disarray. The only cavalry the Greeks usually have is their crap javelin cavalry (with defense ratings almost in the negatives) and generals, which I am happy to see attacking my three fresh units of sacred band cavalry. Usually, my slaughter of Onager crews is only put off by twenty seconds and a dead general. After this, my elephants can reign supreme on the battlefield! :elephant:

[Severous]

Using cavalry to attack artillery in the enemy rear is a favourite tactic of mine also. Then kill any enemy mobile forces that intercept....or lead them on a merry chase to where you can kill them...into a spear unit for instance.

Ive played two sucession games now..when the game passes from player to player. Both were Carthage. In both occasions I took over mature games with advanced units and big cities.

Its the Carthage cavalry that made the impression on me. This was from last nights battle at 1:2 odds against Numidian forces. Cavalry in action taking out more skirmishers and missile troops. (keeping away from spear units)

https://img397.imageshack.us/img397/5048/ahorn776mz.th.jpg (https://img397.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ahorn776mz.jpg)

https://img397.imageshack.us/img397/5736/ahorn806nt.th.jpg (https://img397.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ahorn806nt.jpg)

In neither campaign did I use elephants as decisive force in battle...but did exploit their ability to knock down wooden walls. Dont need to stop to build seige equipment.

The two carthage campaigns that involved several players:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=47904

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=63206

[Grand Duke Vytautas]

So Mighty Carthage :knight: , I just love this faction (1 of my fav in RTW). I thought you may find useful my Carthage guide (my experience playing this awesome faction) http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=50146

Note: it was intended for Darth Mod futhermost, so units and other stuff are different, but still you may find it informative

Cheers and enjoy!:bow: ~:wave:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Against opposition onagers, deploy relatively far back in your deployment box.

If you are defending, this will inevitably seperate the onagers from the faster troops and you can take them in detail.

If you are attacking, you can still -- often -- draw out forces from the opposition's formation and hammer them (mostly using the cavalry HK approach you describe, but with few or none of your other forces in range.

[gardibolt]

Sending a disposable unit (Iberian Infantry, which are otherwise utterly useless are good for this) ahead of your main forces will often cause the bulk of the opposition to break ranks and attack them.

In the meantime, swoop cavalry around the surging foes (stay far away since Carthaginian cav are unruly and will attack if they're anywhere near a foe) and destroy the artillery. Then hit the back of the foe for even more comedy. Time it right and some of your Iberians might even survive.

[pianonator]

I used to, when defending, move all my units back considerably to make the enemy march a long way before attacking. Now, however, with my phalanx-core army, I think keeping a defending army close to the attackers is better, at least with H to VH AI. Reason being: The longer they have to march, the more room they have to work around my formation. Of course, the less time they have to react, the less time I have...hmmm...I shall test this theory.

I have also lost elephants to the strangely accurate flaming Onagers of Doom. In Onager Battles, I do the same as has been recommended - send the cav to the Onagers quickly, and keep the mumaks moving around. If I'm lucky, my movement of cavalry will disrupt the enemy ranks enough to set up for a lateral elephant run, a full infantry advance, or both.

Question - are Libyan Spearmen good for anything???

[Avicenna]

Gardibolt: is that exploitation of the AI that I'm hearing? :shocked:

Pianonator: Libyan Spearmen could be used as an anvil, or perhaps as a battering ram or sapper unit. They can also absorb the enemy firepower.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Back when I was a moron and didn't know how to use phalangites correctly I used LS as my main body of infantry. All I asked was for them to hold for 2 seconds while my Sacred Band cavalry obliterated the flanks.

If you are proficient with phalangites (as I am now), think of LS as an Iberian Infantry unit that can actually hurt the enemy a little bit while dying. You can also set them up in the center if you plan to do a Cannae-like operation, since they won't rout instantly.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Have been reading with interest this string of posts from you all, about Carthage. I happen to like taking Carthage myself. I'm in the middle of a normal/normal game (still learning the ropes). I found that it's best to knock out the Scipii early. I took Capua, put the city to the sword, destroyed all the destroyable buildings, and then walked away. The Brutii eventually picked over the carcass. But what I wanted to mention in this post was - I did a little "offline" experimenting with the custom battles option. I tried some one-on-one combat - one Hastatii vs. one Iberian infantry unit just to see what I was facing as Carthage in the early going. Hastatii will consistently ravage Iberian infantry. I did find that Iberian infantry are able to hold their own if they have upgraded weaponry (bronze sword) and two experience chevrons. That was the first time the Iberians won in a one-on-one encounter. Peonii and the higher Carthaginian phalanx units completely outclass Hastatii. In a one-on-one heads-up smash mouth, they suffered one casualty at most in any encounter eventually routing the Hastatii. I've thought about trying some of the other units in a one-on-one just to see what happens - legionary cohorts, Praetorian cohorts, etc. I know that you don't really need to go through this kind of exercise as the attack/defense/charge/armour points are all listed when you click on the units in play. But it was interesting for me to see what actually happened in a medium level combat under controlled circumstances. I tried round shield cav vs. equites in a one-on-one, the round shield bested the equites in a heads-up. In campaign combat, of course, things aren't one-on-one simple like in this controlled environment. Field tactics are everything.
In order to get the best infantry and phalanx units from Carthage, however, you have to get your cities built up and the proper training facilities going. I've five regions and Spain yet to conquer in my current game, and I think the game is going to end before I get to that advanced military tech. All this to say, the custom battle option is a fun way to experiment to see how individual units measure up in combat simply based on their individual merits when all other things are equal. You can stage battles in city streets, open plains, in various combinations, experience, etc. It has been a very helpful tool for me from time to time, especially to improve my confidence level in controlling units in the combat phase of the game. The game does have some peculiar little quirks, especially when there are obstacles that your army has to move around before it can engage the enemy. I've been messed up more than once by the way the game "moves" your army around an obstacle, eventually getting my guys all screwed up just as the enemy is closing on me.
But I do love Carthage, especially the voice characterizations: "Mighty General!" "To hear is to obey." I love it!! :2thumbsup:

[pianonator]

Thanks folks. As the Romans, my main tactic for dealing with chariots was using Auxilia (Mostly because I fought the British on the frontier, and could only really train Auxilia and Roman Cav up there.) I was thinking of using Libyans against Egyptian chariots, but since I have phalanxes, they are like 500% better against chariots.

Guyus: In future campaigns, consider the benifits of keeping Capua as a bullet sponge for Rome. It's so much better to fight the Romans with Capua at stake then to fight them with Lilybaem or Carthage at stake.

Elephant Bug:
You all probably already know this, but there is a wonderful bug I found in v1.5 (and probably others):

Sometimes, when you take casualties with an elephant unit (and probably Chariots too - wouldn't know), the computer seems to be a little confused as to how many elephants died. Example:

I fought the Brutii at 2/1 odds, so I had to use elephants. I lost all but 4, so there were 12 people left in my unit. It was during the AI turn, and the Brutii attacked me twice consecutively. In between battles, I saved. After botching the second battle, I loaded. Instead of having 4 elephants with 3 men on each, I now had 12 elephants with 1 driver each. I suppose that is reasonable: I suppose all of elephants were only marginally hurt, and the men on them died in the fall, or something. Weird.

Guyus: That's a great idea you have with multiplayer. Maybe I'm just dumb for not trying it sooner. I have some matchups to try.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Pianonator,
I have some minor regrets walking away from Capua, and probably won't do it in the future; but instead, go after the Brutii before tangling directly with Roma. It's just that early seizure of Capua left me between Rome's army with its triarii and principes, and the Brutii, who in short campaigns don't seem to venture beyond southern Italy and so have huge stacks walking around their home Italian turf. All I had was Iberian infantry and a superiority in cavalry to face the challenge. I needed more time to develop my military tech. At least, that's what my insecurities told me. :) Capua would have been a good money maker had I had time to develop it better. As it is, I'm tangling with the Spanish now, and they should go down soon. I have all the Roman ports blockaded but Patavium. And I'm still a ways away from developing the real powerful military units. Onagers are on their way to the Spanish front and I have two elephant units on the board. I've been campaigning in Spain with mostly mercenaries supplemented by round shield and a few Iberian infantry.
I tried a one-on-one custom game with sacred band Carthaginian cavalry versus Roman Legionary cavalry last night. And to my surprise, (should I have been?) the Sacred band kicked butt. :skull: I'm beginning to like Carthage more and more. :) I even tried a couple different tactics in the one-on-one with the legioanries. Sacred band are tough cavalry. The legionaries couldn't win.
I want to try fighting with elephants and test their archery feature which Mr. Centurion mentioned in a battle I fought early in the game but I didn't use it.
I, too, have done a pre-save prior to battles (just in case I botch them.) Glad to hear I'm not the only one who "hates" to lose the battles. :)
best wishes, Pianonator.
Guyus

[Empirate]

As pertaining to the Capua situation: The Senate's army usually will not come after you, if you don't venture north of Capua itself. The Brutii and eventually the Julii will, though, so you got that part right. Still, cavalry superiority is really all it takes against early roman armies! Hastati and Principes stand absolutely no chance against Roundshields if used rightly. I once destroyed a full stack Julii army using an already depleted basic elephant unit, one general and five Roundshields. Just use speed and maneuverability to your advantage, hit one regiment at a time, and hit it hard and from two or three sides, most Hastati cohorts will rout instantly. Withdraw, rinse and repeat. Keep an eye out for the higher fatigue levels, coz your cav will have to run around a lot. If your cav becomes fatigued, run them to the other side of the battlefield and rest them on some hilltop. Some Romans will usually come after them, sometimes all. Wait till they are close and your cav is rested, then charge them. The added fatigue from chasing your cav around should be giving the enemy high morale penalties, causing him to rout even easier when charged by cavalry.
I never feared any Roman army apart from the Senate's: They had lots of Triarii, I had to be careful where and when to charge. My first two units of War Elephants took care of that, though! The Brutii can and should be destroyed quickly after taking Capua.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Thanks for the encouraging word, Empirate. I've actually played one game before where I went immediately after the Brutii after taking Messana. Instead of going directly to Capua, I landed an army at Croton, zapped Croton and Tarentum. Then went after Capua. I never finished that game though as I got distracted by something else (can't remember what it was) and started a new Julii game.
Speaking of roving cavalry and it's effectiveness. I played a quick battle game just for grins last night. A strange match-up. I was given the Macedonians and AI had a huge German army. The setting was in the desert. (Ah, the wonders of randomness.) I played the game twice. The Germans had some heavy cavalry but loads of heavy infantry. We were evenly matched in spearmen. And, I had three onagers. The game was set on medium level, and while I out numbered the Germans in total numbers, their army outclassed mine as I had lots of peasants. First time, I got routed. Second time, it looked as if it was going to be a repeat of the first. With the large number of units on both sides, I had trouble controlling the battle and it degenerated quickly as it did the first time, into chaos. But all this to say, two of my heavy cavalry units survived the rout. The Germans had three heavy infantry units left, three speaman units, one archer unit, and two bedraggled heavy cavalry remnants. I had two units of heavy cav, about forty men. I WON the battle. I wiped the bedraggled German cav first, then exhausted the infantry units one by one on merry chases, (they chasing me) turned on them, and wiped them out. I couldn't believe I won the battle at the end. So there's definitely something to your counsel about resting cavalry and using them judiciously to hit a predominately infantry army.
Finished my Carthage game last night taking the last Spanish city Asturica (sp). Interesting Carthaginian closing victory video, with the Carth general sitting on a luxurious bed, sword in hand, contemplating his victory. I found Seamus's early remarks in this thread to be true. I never did get very far in my military tech development in the game. And I did have some cash flow problems. My army in Spain was merc heavy. The Roman factions never compromised with me - no cease fires, no surrender. After I took Capua and eliminated the Scipii, I kept all the Roman ports blockaded for the whole game. They NEVER asked for a peace. I guess the AI got their character right as it has to do with Carthage. I think the game ended right around 250 BC, or thereabouts, which is roughly 40 turns, normal/normal. A surviving Numidian army in Siwa. Cyrene was still in rebel hands at the end with my army closing on them.

[pianonator]

Sum-up of the Capua affair: As Carthage, you never choose whether to fight. You only have a marginal amount of control where to fight. Sometimes, you don't even control who you fight. Everybody hates you. Allies last about 10-20 turns if they border you, and then they turn on you. The only reason I've managed to stay allied with the Greeks for 100 turns is because after they backstabbed me and forced me to take Syracuse, I haven't seen them since. Right now, I'm fighting the Gauls, the Eyptians, and the Brutii. The list is short only because the Brutii are the only Romans left, and the Gauls became a superpower in central Europe, so I never met the Britons or the Germanics yet. The best defense is blitzkrieg.

Yeah, be wise. In my H/H Carthage game (current game, 15 provinces to go), I kept Capua. Then I took Tarentum and Croton, and then pushed north, killed Julii, and then took Rome. Biggest mistake: I decided not to pursue the Brutii into Greece. Oh, wow, that was a big mistake. I destroyed SPQR and Julii at around the time of the Marius reforms. Then, the Brutii ignored me and I ignored them as they proceeded to own from the Balkans to Turkey. Their military is off the charts (about twice as big as mine), and they started attacking Tarentum again about 10 turns ago. I pulled a couple elephant victories against massive Brutish armies, and then built up armies of phalanxes, Long Shields, Onagers, and Elephants and blitzed Apollos from Tarentum.

This is a repeat of my Capua doctrine: The Romans will fight them, so fight them on their land, not yours. I would much rather have the Roman armies atrit Apollos than risk an invasion of Carthaginian Italy.

Problem of my own, now:
I took Sidon (incidently, near or on Tyre, where the fathers of Carthage came from) from the Egyptians, and their military is beginning to crumble. Damascus is in my sights, which is a very good thing: finally, after a long campaign, I will be able to train elephants and put them right into the war, instead of marching/sailing them from Carthage or Thapsus. Unfortunately, Damascus is still a large city, with about 4000 more population until it becomes Huge, and I can build Armoured Elephants there. If I take it, I will have to enslave or exterminate the populace to avoid a riot. One idea is to wait until it becomes Huge, and then take it. Another idea is to take it, and disband massive amounts of troops there, leave, then take it again once it becomes huge. The last idea is just to take it, but with an army so huge that it won't revolt. Advice?

Sorry about this huge post again, fellows.

[gardibolt]

I would suggest enslaving Damascus, so you don't lose as many taxpayers and population base. Exterminating is too much loss. Wait a couple turns for order to stabilize, then tear down the temples and build ones that you can improve. Build all the order buildings you can manage---execution squares and secret police are always handy. Once that's accomplished, you might even consider a farm upgrade or two to build the pop faster---but you need those order buildings in place to be able to deal with the squalor that results.

Or you could just occupy it, expect rioting and hope it doesn't actually revolt; if it does, then retake it and enslave it. I wouldn't wait for it to get huge on its own---Egypt will be mauling you long before then. You can always create troops of peasants in Sidon and march them to Damascus and disband to artificially boost the population once you've established order.

[Guyus Germanicus]

P -
I have to agree with your sentiments about fighting Rome on their turf rather than Sicily. I don't feel I can offer you any advice on your current campaign. I haven't played at hard/hard yet, and I've noticed that there are definite differences in the way the AI handles things between the different levels. In my own recent game, I allied myself to Greece AFTER the Scips took Syracuse. I never encountered the Greeks for the rest of the game, so the alliance stood to the end. I'm sure if my little kingdom had become proximate to them, things would have been different. I was able to stay allied to Gaul for quite some time until I had the Numidians pretty much polished off. (The Numidians aren't a tough opponent, they're just spread out all over the place.) Then just as I was about to go after Spain, Gaul cancelled its alliance with me. It was strange, because Spain was their enemy too, along with the Julii, who were also surging late in the game.
I wish I could see how some of you more experienced players handle the governance of remote cities. Damascus would have to be a huge challenge for Carthage to manage given the distance penalty. That the Brutii could build up huge armies given the territory they control in your game, isn't too surprising to me. The cities with the wonders bestow huge benefits in public order, trade and other things - Corinth, Sardis, Rhodes, etc. The wonders can take a huge amount of stress off your tax and governance situation. You can make more money from your cities, hike up the taxes, reap greater trade benefits, thereby financing bigger and better armies.
Armored elephants are high upkeep. You could use a few cities with ancient wonders yourself. Alexandria perhaps would be a good stop before Damascus, if you haven't already taken it. :)
Post as huge as you want. I love reading about other people's experiences in the game.
Good hunting,
Guyus

[Empirate]

GG-
Definitely good advice, I can only second taking all the wonders you can. There are two must haves on your list: Corinth for the Statue of Zeus (plus 10% public order through happiness in ALL cities) and Rhodes for the Colossus (plus 30% sea trade income). These are the ones that matter; the other ones are just for show, mainly. Relieving the Brutii of Corinth and Rhodes should be done first and foremost. These provinces are easily held, too: Rhodes is an island and Corinth blocks the Peloponnesian Isthmus. Greece is actually wonderful terrain for fighting a defensive war of attrition. Usually the enemy can come to you only from one or two directions, and you can lock up all the parts you control by placing one powerful field army just right.
Considering the Damascus problem: Definitely take it now and occupy. The size it is at now shouldn't be posing too many unhappiness problems a huge garrison can't counter. Garrisons get less and less effective the bigger a city gets, so it's just as well Damascus isn't huge yet. You can and should insta-grow it using the patented peasant method: Build large armies of peasants elsewhere, disband in Damascus. Lower culture penalties as far as possible by destroying everything you don't need, especially the temple. Keep the governor's building, as you're about to upgrade that soon anyway. And think about moving your capital! Those distance penalties to happiness can really wear you out.

[pianonator]

Corinth, Sardis, Rhodes, you say? Thanks - I'll be sure to take those first. I found out (in accordance with everything people told me) that once Thebes, Memphis, Alexandria, and Jerusalem are taken, Egypt can't produce anything. Add Petra and Antioch, and their production went from the highest of all civs to absolutely nothing in 3 turns. Maybe the same will hold true for the Brutii.

Damascus problem almost solved - instead of taking Damascus immediately for my elephant needs, I looked north at Antioch - a large city with Elephants nearby. A former Seleucid stronghold, I think. Damascus' population is actually falling 1%, so the waiting won't help. I'm just going to take it and see what's up, maybe move some unhappy peasants from Memphis, Thebes, and Alexandria. Thanks, Empirate. The only place I've ever done that before was Corsica in the early game - trying to build a stone wall against the Julii. And Siwa against the Egyptians later. I'll work on it.

In the meantime, atriting the Brutii is becoming annoying. I think instead of holding at Apollos and atriting them there, I'll create new targets in the Epic Stone Wall cities like Athens, Corinth, Sardis, Thermon, etc. The trouble with the Brutii is I can never seem to get enough soldiers in one place, because 1 turn later they have 4500 men where I have 1000. My navy is growing, though, and I'll soon remedy that.

I only have 14 more provinces to get - not enough to finish Egypt and the Brutii. I think I'll just try to ruin the Brutii the way I ruined Egypt, and destroy Egypt. Another idea is to just quickly take as many Gaulish settlements as I can. They're really easy, but they suck armies away from where I need them.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Pianonator,
I think you will find building your navy to be a real key. You can really inhibit the military operations of your enemies. Blockading their ports puts a serious dent in their commerce. The Brutii are vulnerable there. Personally, I can't imagine winning the long campaign without naval supremacy. I'm sure some have done it, but I can't envision it myself.
If you're producing real quality units, the Gauls should be a pushover. If the Brutii are showing some real quality troops, you have a nice healthy challenge on your hands. I'm playing a long Julii game at the moment, but would like to do a long Carthage game so I can try out the elite units. I've been setting up some custom games at normal level and hard level. I tried out Carthaginan sacred band vs. Spartan hoplites. The Carths won, but the Greeks are weak in cavalry. I think the hoplites would have fared better had they had some force on their flanks that they could depend on. I want to try Gaul royal swordsmen on Praetorian cohorts next. The Roman factions' wide variety of cavalry makes them an extremely formidable enemy if you take any of the other factions against them in campaign. And their infantry are tough hombres too. Such a variety.
Keep us posted.
Guyus :knight:

[pianonator]

Yeah, I've never really had an easy time with navies. In my first game, Scipii long on N/N, I won without really using much of a navy. Basically, I only made short hops, and killed big naval civs on land. As the Scipii, I sailed to various Greek cities and took them, took Carthage, and then I was pretty much done sailing. I mostly just land-roamed around. From Carthage through Spain to Gaul to England one way, and from Thermon to Athens to all of Macedonia the other way. Then, from Italy everywhere to finish off Rome and the campaign. That was on N/N, though, so I really didn't have much of a problem. The other Romans did cause problems for me with their navies and almost ruined my economy, but I just blitzkrieged the Julii and killed their navies from the land, so to speak. The Brutii were pretty much landlocked, by some freak of nature.

Unfortunately, now I'm on H/H, and I do need a bigger navy than I have. Luckily, now that I really control the entire mediterranian rim from Egypt around North Africa and all the way around to Italy, I don't tend to have that much trouble. I now have enough modest fleets to defend from blockades, but not enough yet to ruin the Brutii financially. I think I'll buid up my fleets in Sicily or Corsica and sail them around to Greece.

I figure if I keep Apolos on small stone walls and keep onagers inside, I could wither away many a Brutii army. Basically, I am dead sick of fighting the Romans with 2.5- to 3-on-1 odds. Sometimes I can win with Elephants and Phalanxes, but they always have more men. I figure I'll just take their big cities and force them into costly sieges. Note to self - next time, don't let the Brutii survive.

Question - if you kill the last family member, what happens to a faction? Is it like Medieval, and they all turn into easily mopped up rebels? Do the armies and navies just disappear, leaving only garrisons? I think I've almost gotten rid of the whole Egyptian family, and I'd like to keep them a complete faction so that they can fight the Brutii on their Eastern Front for a while.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Answer to your last question - yes. ... If you eliminate the last family member, the remnants become rebels. If the faction was holding a city when you killed their last family member, the city becomes rebel. Conversely, if you take a faction's last city, the surviving faction members simply become rebels. AND, whatever armies they had disappear. They simply survive as small rebel groups containing the faction member(s) only. In a short Julii game I played at normal/normal, I took the last Gallic city Numantia. The faction leader had posted himself near Numantia's port with a full stack of units in ambush posture. When the city fell, his stack disappeared, but he remained along with another faction member that was in the stack. I didn't understand why the AI allowed me to just walk right in to the last Gallic city, lightly defended, when this huge army was just sitting there near the port doing nothing. When I reach victory condition I always press "continue" so I can, in essence, save the game from a victory position, and then I clean up the newly captured city with repairs and replacements, THEN I exit to main menu. Just a quirk of mine, and just in case I want to go back and play the short game to a long finish.

I don't know exactly what happens to the navies when a faction is eliminated. I have assumed that they become rebel too, but I don't have any personal experience to tell of that. I do appreciate your desire to keep the Egyptians alive to annoy the Brutii. In my current game, the Macedonians sent three armies (one of them huge) into my Yugoslavian province. They made out as if they wanted me to attack them and start a fight. I brought two formidable stacks and brought them nose-to-nose with the Macedonian huge stack. They flinched, and moved back to their home turf without attacking and just in time to take on the Brutii. I didn't declare war on the Macs until the Brutii had captured Larissa, and had three Mac cities under siege - Appolonia, Thessalonica, and Athens. Then I went after Bylazora. Currently, I'm trying to sneak an army to Corinth to take that from the Greeks before the Brutii get a shot at it. I want that wonder at Corinth to counter the Brutii's temple advantages and captured Greek cities for when the civil war approaches.

I occasionally have some geopolitically weird developments occur in my games. Current game - Scipii make an alliance with Carthage. Senate commands me to take Caralis. I take Caralis. Scipii break alliance with me and Rome. They eventually end up joining us in a declaration of war against Carthage. But I have to send my diplomats to Capua to mend fences. They usually rejoin me in alliance, but getting military accesses re-established is a different issue. I've had Roma break allliance with me because they were allied with the Germans, and the Germans attacked me, not vice versa. They eventually join with me in the war, but I have to send a diplomat to Rome to re-establish the alliance. Then I usually gift them military access. Roma has always accepted the gift. But the Brutii and the Scipii never seem to want to re-establish military accesses even when I try to gift it to them one-sidedly. Interesting.

[pianonator]

I've gotten to the unfortunate stage of the long game.

I'm having a hard time repairing my economy - Before I entered into open war with the Brutii about 20 or so turns ago (I've been at war with them for about 230 years, but haven't crossed paths since I kicked them out of Italy), my economy was huge and amazing. Now, the money just seems to disappear. There are a couple of reasons for this.
#1: The 1.5 patch, (maybe the 1.3 patch - I don't know) makes diplomacy way harder, as well as running cities.
#2: The Brutii are really good at ruining economies.

Essentially, I've gotten to the same stage of the game as I was at the end of my Scipii campaign - I must sack a huge city of a weak enemy to pay for my war with the Brutii. Last time, it was the Macedonians - every time my economy was in trouble, I'd exterminate a Macedonian huge city. Now, the Egyptians are the weak but fat enemies - every time I get in trouble, I just sack me a huge city. Exterminating the Egyptians to pay for a war with the Brutii. I am a bad man. :shame:

How the heck to those cities grow so fast??? I exterminated every Egyptian city I've come across (haven't taken Damascus yet), but now Thebes, Alexandria, and Memphis are in the 30,000 range! Holy proverbial cows, batman. I'm at the point where I'm just pumping peasants out of Egypt and moving them to tiny towns - I think I'll move them to that tiny town in the Sahara.

Talking of which - I didn't even know that place existed until I checked the map that came in the box today. That little town in the Sahara? Yeah - been independant since I killed the Nubs 100-150 years ago. Probably since before then. My screen is a little skewed, so I couldn't see it on the minimap.

[pianonator]

Sorry for the double-post

Something must be broken in my game. The pyramids are broken. For about 10 turns or so they worked, but now the Egyptians are rioting like crazy! I swear I slaughtered Sidon like 4 turns ago, but now it has almost 50,000 people in it!!! What the heck happened? Why are my pyramids not making them happy? I checked the settlement scrolls for all my egyptian settlements, and none of them even take into consideration the pyramids! I'm panicking for a couple reasons. #1, the Egyptians are revolting, and #2 I can't figure out where all my money is going! In one turn I went from 20000 gold to -3000. Help!!

[Phoenix]

The Pyramids should be working, they only eliminate the cultural penalty of Egytian buildings, they don't make them happy beyond that.

As for the rioting, focus on building and upgrading only the buildings that improve public order until they're happy like Secret Police HQ and Public Baths. If the towns you're dealing with don't have Seth or Horus Temples, tear them down and build the Baal Temples. Moving the Capital closer to Egypt, like Cyrene, might help as well. Also, if those towns aren't fully garrisoned use the peasants you're making to garrison them.

Hope this helps.

[pianonator]

Hey, welcome Phoenix! I feel honored that you used your first post to help me out!

Thanks for the advice - The trouble is, if I move my capital, there's not much I can do to keep Spain from revolting. I strike a delicate balance, and Carthage is pretty much in the exact center of my map.

That peasant idea might work - considering the ungodly rate of Egyptian population growth, I won't really need them to help out Damascus, and I don't really need a big Saharan town. It'll be nice to have a "town" again that I can keep 2 town watches in to keep loyal.

I thought about the temple thing - haven't tried it yet. Trouble is, if I tear down those temples, they WILL revolt NOW. I suppose I could load to an older game, when the Sidons and the Hebrews weren't screaming for my blood.

My final thought is to abandon the towns and either seige them or use their garrisons to hunt down the remaining Egyptian family members, and end my threat in the East. Then, I'll be dealing with easy-picking rebels without a cause. Plus, I'll get to exterminate the ingrateful sons-of-guns.

[Phoenix]

Thanks for the welcome.

If your Public Order doesn't drop to 60% then tearing down those Temples should still work. Rioting doesn't occur at 70% and at 65% you get 2 or 3 turns of rioting before they revolt. I think you also get a turn of rioting before they revolt at 60% but I'm not sure. Aside from using peasants the only other thing I can think of is moving any high-influence family members you have to those towns as each influence point increases Public Order by 5%. If you don't have any around you might try building and upgrading academies so that whoever you send there might get traits that improve influence though that will depend a bit on luck.

Personally, I'd just exterminate the troublemakers.:charge:

[Empirate]

Building for public order might work for a while, but it is mostly a short-term solution. Let them rebel. If you can orchestrate it so only one city rebels at a time, so much the better. But rebel they will sooner or later, so just let them. Then enjoy killing 2400 double-gold-chevroned peasants in one glorious day of revenge. After which, you are going to even more enjoy exterminating populations in your 50,000-population-cities, making them all the more manageable and giving your treasury a huge windfall.
Keep a powerful, siege-equipped army near your rioting cities so you can initiate plan "exterminate and rebuild" quickly. And do not get a bad conscience - it's only virtual people you are massacring... :skull: :skull: :skull:

[pianonator]

Just a historical question:
I've done a little research, and my sources are conflicting as to whether or not the Carthaginians ever used the giant African Plains elephants necessary to carry a howda or wear armor. Some sources say they only used the African Bush Elephant, which is smaller than the Asian elephant, and would only produce a basic elephant unit in RTW. Does anybody have definite information? I'd like to think they did have Savanna elephants and did the whole armoring thing. I don't like being too terribly ahistorical.

Another question - why am I unable to post in a forum other than these guides? I always get the 'not allowed to post here' or something message.

Oh well.

[Drusus Magnus]

Just a historical question:
I've done a little research, and my sources are conflicting as to whether or not the Carthaginians ever used the giant African Plains elephants necessary to carry a howda or wear armor. Some sources say they only used the African Bush Elephant, which is smaller than the Asian elephant, and would only produce a basic elephant unit in RTW. Does anybody have definite information? I'd like to think they did have Savanna elephants and did the whole armoring thing. I don't like being too terribly ahistorical.

Another question - why am I unable to post in a forum other than these guides? I always get the 'not allowed to post here' or something message.

Oh well.


RTW has a lot of historical inaccuracies, the makers of the game implemented them on purpose to give the mob what the mob wants. Same reason why the Egyptians don't look Greek. They look like they would have looked in 3000 BC, to go along with the stereotype.

[pianonator]

Yeah, I kind of figured about the Egyptians. I'd really like to find out about the elephants of carthage, though, because I'm really confused. Some primary sources reported seeing men on elephant houdas, and lots of classical artwork pictures Hannibal's elephants as being big savanna types, but other sources quote those as being exaggerated.

Similarly, I am curious about the historical accuracy of the arcani (aka Latin Ninjas). Seriously - were those guys real? Also - cataphract camels - holy cow. It would be so cool if they were, and some of them probably are - I'd just like to know which ones, ya know?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Just a historical question:
I've done a little research, and my sources are conflicting as to whether or not the Carthaginians ever used the giant African Plains elephants necessary to carry a howda or wear armor. Some sources say they only used the African Bush Elephant, which is smaller than the Asian elephant, and would only produce a basic elephant unit in RTW. Does anybody have definite information? I'd like to think they did have Savanna elephants and did the whole armoring thing. I don't like being too terribly ahistorical.

RTW Vanilla is gleefully a-historical. The number of silly anachronisms and out-right fictions is shocking. I still love the game, but if you want something that's really true-to-life (at least to the fullest extent possible within the engine) try EB. I'm waiting until they're off beta and into full version, but it looks superb.


Another question - why am I unable to post in a forum other than these guides? I always get the 'not allowed to post here' or something message.

Oh well.

Junior member status limits you a good bit. You upgrade to member after a set number of posts (barring bad behavior) and then you'll have access to all of them:2thumbsup: -- including the dreaded backroom.:wreck:

[Ludens]

Yeah, I kind of figured about the Egyptians. I'd really like to find out about the elephants of carthage, though, because I'm really confused. Some primary sources reported seeing men on elephant houdas, and lots of classical artwork pictures Hannibal's elephants as being big savanna types, but other sources quote those as being exaggerated.
African bush elephants (the big ones) were used for warfare, but only occasionally. Generally, the more relaible Indian or African forrest elephants (smallest elephant species, now extinct) were used. I am not sure which one Carthage used, though. IIRC they didn't have direct access to bush elephants, but they were allied to Egypt, who had.


Similarly, I am curious about the historical accuracy of the arcani (aka Latin Ninjas). Seriously - were those guys real? Also - cataphract camels - holy cow. It would be so cool if they were, and some of them probably are - I'd just like to know which ones, ya know?
As far as I know, there is only one reference to the Arcani in history. This is when the Emperor disbands them for having failed to predict the Saxon invasion of England. Bribery was suspected. Apart from being beyond R:TW's timeframe and into BI's, there is also nothing to suggest that they were some sort of Ninja.

Cataphract camels were an experimental unit of the Parthians, I think. They did not continue the experiment, so it probably wasn't a success.


Junior member status limits you a good bit. You upgrade to member after a set number of posts (barring bad behavior) and then you'll have access to all of them:2thumbsup: -- including the dreaded backroom.:wreck:
Actually, promotion is not dependent on post count, but on participation. Off course, you have to post a little so the moderators can get to know you, but just posting a lot won't get you promoted.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Pianonator,

Concerning the kind of elephants the Carthaginians used, I have a book in my library entitled Daily Life in Carthage by Gilbert and Colette Charles-Picard, Macmillan press, 1961. To quote from their book, "These animals still lived in Barbary in Punic times. They were part of the tropical fauna stranded by the drying up of the Sahara, and as there was not enough vegetation for them to feed on, they were smaller and not so strong as their relatives in Central Africa. They were even less powerful than the Indian elephants. But, like the latter, they could be trained. Fantastic legends praised their sagacity and even their moral and religious sense. They were said to be able to put out forest fires with branches, and to assemble in the Moroccan forest for a solemn purification ceremony by the light of the new moon. They were therefore regarded as 'celestial' animals." They go on to suggest that the idea for using them in warfare was borrowed from the Greeks.
Thought you'd be interested in that passage.
The book goes on to say that Scipio's tactics for combatting the elephants was to provide lanes between his units that the elephants would naturally flow into. Then he would surround them and destroy them.

[pianonator]

Huh...it appears I am a member - perhaps 20 was a magic number. Anyway, thanks, Guild!

I abandoned Sidon at 5% loyalty, and it gave the Egyptians a 1200 man army in a settlement surrounded by Carthage. In one save-game instance, I managed to assassinate the last Egyptian family member, but .... the faction didn't die. I didn't keep going on that save-game, because I had lost a settlement to the Brutii because of logistical stupidity with my save-Apollonia army but it almost seems as though the Egyptians pulled a MTW - HRE and just created for themselves a new leader. They still had 4 huge cities - Hadra, Palmyra, Satt-something, and Sidon - is there a high-population override for the dead-family thing?

[GeneralHankerchief]

If cities are still belonging to Egypt then there's at least one guy alive carrying on the Egyptian tradition. Re-check your cities to see if there are any in there. If there are, you're lucky. If not, you have to comb that huge Arabian deset to find the last Egyptian.

(Or you could just turn on Fog of War and just mouse around until you find him, it's much easier that way :grin:)

[pianonator]

Well, I used the ol' process of elimination method to find the guy. He wasn't in any cities, and he sure as anything wouldn't be hanging out in neighboring provinces on some campaign, because he'd get his butt kicked. I decided to look in the only place he could be - those 3 crazy crazy crazy huge navies that the Egyptians like to stick in that body of water (Lake? Red Sea? Part of the Nile?) - like 25 triremes in each fleet. I always had it in my mind to beat them up, but then I figured I'd just wait for them to disapear once I took out the faction. Well, aparently there was some big battle near Petra, and a family member retreated with a few units of chariots into one of those navies.
:wall:
I have an assassin in Egypt who can kill you with his brain, and an assassin in Apollonia who get's 95% chances of killing high-profile Brutii family member, but I don't have a 25 ship fleet in the red sea capable of taking the guy down. Can I assassinate the ship-bound cheapskate? I don't think he's going to disembark anytime soon. Is there a way I can convince him to disembark? I've known the Brutii to keep a full stacked army on a ship for 15 years before moving it anywhere, and near as I can tell the guy's been there for 20+ years.
:wall:
Suggestions? These Egyptian revolters are really causing me grief, and I can't say enough how much I'd rather have rabble than full-stacked Egyptian armies.
Choice 1) Assassination (my favourite, but can you DO that?
Choice 2) Pull a Trafalger on the guy
Choice 3) He's 43 years old - just wait for him to die.:wall:

[rotorgun]

Hello all, I'm Rotorgun and new to the Carthage threads. I just began my first Carthaginian campaign last weekend, and am already having a ton of fun. I've been following the latest posts and it seems that everyone has some great games going on. @ pianonator, I'd say you have quite a problem on your hands. Pulling a Trafalgar on these fleets will be time consuming and costly I think. As to waiting for him to die, that could also take as many as twenty turns if he is long lived. There is one way you might help him along towards an early sarcophogus-send a suicide fleet at his with a plague ridden crew on board. That's assuming you can summon a plague infected spy or family member to participate in such a venture. All you have to do is embark him on the ships, send him at the enemy fleet with the family member you want to infect, and then engage the fleet. It should introduce the plague into the their crews and presto, lifespan shortened. At least it might be worth a try. :laugh4:

As for my campaign, I decided to adopt the Sicilia first approach. I'm playing on hard/medium settings, as I want to have a challenging strategic game with normal battles to overcome my inexperience with the Carthaginians in battle. Having taken such a tack, it required going on the defensive on all other fronts for now, until I've secured my control over the island. I have made a tenuous alliance with Greece, Spain, Numidia, and Egypt, all which took some time to attain with the exception of Greece. It seems that they really desired an alliance as Syracuse came under almost immediate attack from the Scipii. After shipping some reiforcements to Lilybaeum, I formed an army there with my best general, elephants included. As the Scipii were heavily commited to taking Syracuse, I was able to take Messana in one turn with the help of my elephants to break down the Gates and walls. It was really no contest as it was only guarded by a few Velite, a Town Watch, a Hastati, and one Equite. After taking a turn to consolidate, I sent the army on to Syracuse, which had fallen quickly to the Romans.

Syracuse was defended by a sizable force of troops- about 6 Hastati, 1 Roman Archer, 2 Velite, and 1 horse mounted Scipii family member and his Bodyguard. I was really surprised that they sallied out to meet me after only one turn of the siege. It was a little dicey for awhile, as I only had 2 Iberian Infantry, supported by 2 skirmishers and 1 Bealeric Slinger unit. My saving grace were the 2 Round Shield Cavalry, 2 Numidian Cavalry, my General, and of course the Elephants. I was able to back off a little from the city walls and form a line before the enemy struck. When they did, it was in the typical Roman fashion. By streching my infantry out a bit, I was able to hold the line just long enough for my Cavalry and Elephants to go to work. I can now see why everyone likes playing this faction so much, for it wasn't long before I had the legionaries streaming back in confusion toward the gates. Those Elephants are terrific for breaking up their cohesion! The only Scipii unit I had trouble dealing with were the Archers. I had to take their attacks until I could destroy and route enough of his infantry to leave them vulnerable to my horse. Once the enemy General was killed by my General, it was all downhill for the brave Romans. Syracuse fell to me by defaut, and I didn't have to go to war with Greeks as a result. It was a satisactory engagement indeed!

My next task will be to take the war to the Scipii at Capua. I plan to take them out of the game as soon as possible, then assault the Brutii cities in southern Italy. If I find I can't hold them, I will destroy every building in them and then give them over to the Rebels. It should slow the Brutii down quite awhile, as they are almost always heavily involved in Greece. As for the Julii, I have been forced to give up Sardinia. I did defend it for a turn or two when they sent a small force of two Hastati to take Caralis. I drove them off, but they were only a covering force for a much bigger army that landed on the next turn. It was just too difficult to support it while taking Sicilia. The pesky Julii then tried to assault Palma as well with the same two Hastati (now reduced in strength) that I had driven back to the boats. It was laughable, but I admired their pluck. After a few turns of retreat to the boats every time I engaged them, I finally cornered them and....well, you can imagine. I keep expecting another landing, but I think that the Julii are rather busy in the north with the Guals. Speaking of them, they did try to assault Corduba with a rather decent force of Warband, Skirmishers, and one Noble Cavalry. I lay a trap for them in the streets of Corduba with my 2 Iberian Infantry, 1 Skirmisher and Slingers. I kept my Cavalry back behind some buildings on both flanks in hiding. As the Gual infantry began to get bottlenecked in the streets I sprung my trap. As their general had hung back a bit, I was able to isolate and destroy him with 2 Roundshield Cavalry, and used my own General and 1 remaining Roundshield to take his infantry in the rear. It was a slaughter, with only one unit of wardogs able to rout of the map. I did lose a lot of infantry, but they did hold off the attacks of the Warband, which had no way of flanking them in the narrow streets. I expect them to be back, but I will await them at the bridge north of the city next time.

Well, as usual I've gone on far too long. I hope some of my post was interesting to someone. Thanks for listening in any case. Good luck to all and I look forward to reading more of your tales of sucess or woe in the near future.

[Phoenix]

You can't assassinate a family member that's in a ship but if you take all settlements that belong to the Egyptians then their remaining units will either disband (if they're medium or high-quality units and I think this includes Triremes) or turn Rebel (lower-quality units and family members).

[pianonator]

Thanks, everybody. If a plague breaks out in the Egypt area, I may try rotorgun's idea, but I think I'm just going to take the rest of the Egyptian cities. They only have 3 left, and one of them I'd like to trust the Greeks or the Romans to take. All their cities are now separated - they have Sardis, Hadra, and Sidon. Hadra has a 3/4 stack army, and Sidon has a full stack, but far away Sardis has only one unit. Leaving it to the AI may be a lost cause, so I'm building up a hit-and-run army Tarsis to take the town and probably leave.

Rotorgun - For the love of all things tastey - hold Italy! I don't know how much you have read of other posts, but for goodness sakes hold Italy. Never ever stop chasing the Brutii! The Julii can be distracted by the Gauls - they tend to get nowhere. In my game, I kicked the Brutii out of Italy, but left them alone in Greece - big mistake. I took out the Scipii, the Julii, and Rome fairly swiftly, but was too distracted by the Numidians to pursue those Brutii. Do not make my mistake - now they consistantly give me grief with their Marius-reformed armies. I only have 6 more provinces to nab, so I'm probably just going to take a few Brutish towns, some Gaulish towns, and the rest of Egypt.

I'll repeat my doctrine: You never choose whether you fight the Romans,or when you fight them, only where you fight them. Keep Capua. Keep Croton. Keep every Italian province you can get. Don't let the Brutii escape to where they can dominate while you're busy elsewhere. Until the Marius reforms, you can trust the Gauls to hold the Julii.

Anyway - wow...either you're really good at diplomacy, or you have an unpatched version of RTW.

[rotorgun]

Thanks, everybody. If a plague breaks out in the Egypt area, I may try rotorgun's idea, but I think I'm just going to take the rest of the Egyptian cities. They only have 3 left, and one of them I'd like to trust the Greeks or the Romans to take. All their cities are now separated - they have Sardis, Hadra, and Sidon. Hadra has a 3/4 stack army, and Sidon has a full stack, but far away Sardis has only one unit. Leaving it to the AI may be a lost cause, so I'm building up a hit-and-run army Tarsis to take the town and probably leave.
I tend to agree. This is probably the best way to eliminate the problem and also has the advavtage of giving you the initiative. It may even draw his royal highness off the ships, wher you can then deal with him in the open.


Rotorgun - For the love of all things tastey - hold Italy! I don't know how much you have read of other posts, but for goodness sakes hold Italy. Never ever stop chasing the Brutii! The Julii can be distracted by the Gauls - they tend to get nowhere. In my game, I kicked the Brutii out of Italy, but left them alone in Greece - big mistake. I took out the Scipii, the Julii, and Rome fairly swiftly, but was too distracted by the Numidians to pursue those Brutii. Do not make my mistake - now they consistantly give me grief with their Marius-reformed armies. I only have 6 more provinces to nab, so I'm probably just going to take a few Brutish towns, some Gaulish towns, and the rest of Egypt.

I'll repeat my doctrine: You never choose whether you fight the Romans,or when you fight them, only where you fight them. Keep Capua. Keep Croton. Keep every Italian province you can get. Don't let the Brutii escape to where they can dominate while you're busy elsewhere. Until the Marius reforms, you can trust the Gauls to hold the Julii.
Upon reflection, it seems that this may be the way to proceed. If I can hold off hostilities with the Spanish ans Numidians with continued diplomacy for awhile, then what you suggest has some merit. I like to keep the Romans off guard as well. It is the best way to deal with them IMHO.


Anyway - wow...either you're really good at diplomacy, or you have an unpatched version of RTW.
Thanks, but I am just lucky I guess, but I do have the latest update because I have installed BI. I don't think the peace will hold for long, so I'm trying to build up my forces in the west to prepare for the coming attack. The AI is probably waiting to see which way direction I will go.
Thanks for the input,
Rotor

[GeneralHankerchief]

Piano: I'd say that you have a long way to go from completely destroying Egypt, no matter what you do. It'll take some time to destroy the cities, and you have no idea how long it will be before Ptolemy here kicks the bucket. Unless you strike gold with a plague, I'd say take the cities. Keep 'em too, the Eastern Mediterranean is pretty wealthy.

Rotor: Eventually you're going to have to go to war with probably both Numidia and Spain. Depending on how things go, Spain might have to deal with a Gallic threat and leave you alone (especially if you keep the Julii busy in Italy). Numidia however... eventually you're going to have to fight them. Same tactics apply taking them down as you did when you were Scipii. Take lots of cavalry, some Libyan Spearmen, and possibly skirmishers/slingers (I despise slingers for everything except taking out chariots).

I actually left the Brutii alone in one of my Carthaginian campaigns and those green meanies came back to bit me a number of times. I'd recommend going for them after Capua is yours. That way you have a strong structure when going for Rome.

In the meantime, I'd recommend upgrading the military buildings in your core cities (Carthage, Thapsus, Corduba). Any cities that can build elephants, upgrade the stables. Also, Libyan Spearmen are incredibly useful when fighting Numidians or barbarians.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Regarding the "attack Rome" theme of advice above:

From a gamiing perspective, this is absolutely the best strategy. Conquering Rome is a specific requirement for the win, and the 4 Romani factions are annoyingly well funded and painfully persistent -- implacable -- as foes. Thus, once war with them arrives, the most logical choice is to repulse the initial Roman attack, fleet over, and conquer all of Italy. This is vital to complete before the Marian reforms, in order to crush them while they cannot field useful cavalry, long-range archers, or legionary infantry.

This is true not only for Carthage, but for most of the other factions as well. Britain should build a fleet, equip it with a powerful full-stack of its best forces and sail directly for Rome at about 250B.C. The same is true for Scythia. If you can eradicate most of the Roman factions and take Italy, you will win.

This is also: ahistorical, grossly imbalanced, and capable of defeating your own entertainment goals. Of course you know Rome is the biggest threat -- you have 2 millenia of history evaluations to tell you that -- but where is the fun of winning that way? I could modify my peasants up to 20 attack, 20 armor, and 3 HP each and increase my archer's range to that of a heavy onager, but where's the success?

The AI already has enough problems keeping up -- don't force it to fight 20th century strategic deep strike doctrine along with the rest of it.

[pianonator]

I admit - it may be a tiny bit boring now if I had not let the Brutii live. But by ahistorical do you mean it 'wouldn't' or 'couldn't' happen? Carthage starts off the game fighting a 4+ front war - even historically, if they could have they would have crushed Rome right out.

Anyway, I wasn't able to read these forums since my last post, but I did finish the 50-city long campaign as Carthage (is it a function of the patch that I have the option to continue? That wasn't there before.)

I assassinated 2 Gaulish faction leaders, took 2 more Gaulish provinces, and fought 2 family-lead Gaulish armies, which finially destroyed the faction. The Brutii immediately came up to snatch an abandoned city, as did I. The next turn, I fought a pitched 2.5-on-1 battle against the Egyptians, but I won with the good-ol phalanx and elephants. A recently came-of-age Egyptian died there. I also retook Sidon, and exterminated the rebellious sons-of-guns, along with another family member. That was a few turns earlier. I also took a quick-strike army up to take Sardis, which housed another family member and a wonder. The wonder stopped my rebellion problems. I could have just taken Hadra, but I had been building 3 gold/gold ships per turn, and by this time I was able surround and Trafalgar'd the blighter. :laugh4:

Thus, in 2 or so turns, a 3 front war turned into a 1 front war - the first time in my whole campaign I was only fighting one person - the Brutii. If I continue, I'd probably just keep on taking Brutish cities, because I have momentum now. I keep on crushing their armies which are sieging Apollonia with an army of Sacred Band, 3 armoured Elephants, and 5 Onagers. I also took Thermon by assassinating the lonely family member there. The Brutii have the rest of the Wonders, so I could keep those Egyptians loyal by periodically capturing one. However, I have the feeling that "Balance of Power" will kick in - the Greek cities, Parthia, Germania, and Britain will all declare war on me. Hmm...I shall see.

I'll probably play as Carthage again later, on VH/VH (this time was H/H), and I'll do a few things differently.
1) Pursue the Brutii - fighting the Brutii and the Egyptians at the same time steals my joy.
2) Build a better navy. (I am so bad at that)
3) Build up my African provinces more. By the end of the game, only 2 provinces could build Armoured Els - Carthage and Antioch. Thapsus was on its way, though.

Peasants - the Poor Man's police force
Assassin - the Poor Man's vendetta army
Diplomat - the Poor Man's Rich Man

By transitivity, the best defense is Blitzkrieg.

[ezrider]

I have to admit that a lot of people are getting flustered with this whole carthage with 4 fronts thing.
I have complete a julii long campaign as my first RTW experience and now playing H/H Carthage. I'm a few years in and I have pinned the Scipii back in capua, captured all of sicily, lepsis magna and that other rebel town further along the coast. I have a diplomat on the way to crete and ony come under pressure from the Spanish. Each time they send an army its skirmishers and light cavalry which I usually trounce without any hastle.

I have thought that since a navy is important that I would build loads of ships. Unfortuately, under the strain of supporting said ships, Carthage is losing money but at least the Senate & Scipii are blockaded and so will the julii. I'm a bit worried about greece since they refused an alliance but hey, they preoccupied at the mo. I think that I've been a bit lucky so far and I want to know:
How do I check the difficulty settings after I started the game?

other questions include:
What does carthage have to combat the Phalanx?
Is it true they can't recruit archers?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

What does carthage have to combat the Phalanx?
Is it true they can't recruit archers?

Phalanx: Depends on support.

If phalanx is supported by long range archers and/or cavalry, you'll need to take on their cavalry with elephants & your own cavalry, while saving a good cav unit or two to flank and go after the archers. Win the cav battle, take out the archers then the old reliable: hammer the phalanx from flank after pinning front.

If phalanx is supported by sword infantry but not long range archers and cavalry, then you can cheap them using slingers for low casualties.

In general, you can't rely on bows to soften them up the way you do with other armies -- Carthage is about using your so-so infantry to pin them long enough for your cavalry (including heffalumps) to wreck them. Slingers snipe, annoy, distract, and hammer anybody who is dumb enough to stand still and let them -- just don't use your slingers from the second row:laugh4:.

Archers: Can buy Cretans like everyone else -- no home-growns (at least in vanilla).

[Phoenix]

Depending on how many ships you built you might want to disband a few. The AI doesn't concentrate its naval power so AI fleets generally have 1-3 ships while pirate fleets tend to have 3-6.

Carthage's situation improves by alot once you conquer Spain and Numidia. Numidia can be taken out by a half-stack of Libyans or Poeni Infantry and Long Shields plus some mercenaries, but Spain is more rewarding.
How do I check the difficulty settings after I started the game?I don't think there is one but I'll try to find out if there is one later today.
What does carthage have to combat the Phalanx?My two favorite ways depending on the stage of the game:

1. I use a stack that has a lot of Iberians with some Long Shields, then I divide the Iberians into several groups so that the phalanx breaks up into smaller groups while the Long Shields try to distract a few more as well as hopefully getting rid of any non-phalanxes and the general if there is one. When the phalanxes are divided enough I have the Iberians attack by having one or, if needed, two units pin the front of each group while having the rest attack the flanks and rear. If I have any skirmishers/peltasts I turn off Fire-at-Will and have them shoot the phalanxes only in the back. Then, when ready, I have the Long Shields make rear-attacks on the phalanx groups one or two at a time concentrating on the most troublesome groups first. The reason I like to use Iberians is that they have more attack than Libyans and are cheaper though I suppose you can do the same with Libyans. I beat several Greek armies of Hoplites/Armored Hoplites on Sicily this way.

2. My own phalanxes. Poeni Infantry are one of the most cost effective phalanx units in the game with 9 Attack, 7 Armor, 6 Defense, and 5 Shield...same as Armored Hoplites except for 4 less Armor points and capable of beating even Pharoah's Guards and Phalanx Pikemen on Medium. On Hard they'll need cavalry support though, but I always use mixed armies anyway. Sacred Bands are even better when you can afford them.
Is it true they can't recruit archers?Yeah, but you have easy access to Balaeric Slingers with the ones at Palma available with 2 EXP points and I find that unlike with regular slingers, Balaeric/Rhodian Slingers can shoot over the heads of your troops as long as your army is deployed on roughly level ground and I deploy them behind my lines all the time.

[pianonator]

Well, my favorite way to fight a phalanx is to let the Romans do it for you, and then just beat the Romans.:2thumbsup:

Phoenix has a good idea. I haven't fought a phalanx army in a long while as Carthage - mostly I had to deal with some Nile Spearmen and Pharoahs Guards. The Greeks' favorite way to deal with phalanxes was to have a better phalanx. The wonderful thing about Phalanxes is that if you attack them on more than one face, their formation starts to break. A solid line of phalanx units? Flank them with light infantry, hold them with Poenis or Sacred Band, and bring up some Long Shields in the rear. Of course, if you can run sideways through them with Elephants, so much the better.

I went through most of my campaign without being anywhere near Crete, but I never really missed having archers, except on seige defense. Putting slingers on the walls helps a bit. I think the no-archers thing is just another way CA punished Carthage for being awesome. Along with the 4-front war from turn 2 thing.

I tend to agree that poeni infantry are awesome. They are cheap, and in a nice small unit. Going from Roman Auxilia as the only spearmen to Poeni Infantry was a nice jump. Of course, if you can afford and wait for Sacred Band, go for it, but a big army of 8 Poenis, 4 Long Shields, 2 Elephants, and some Onagers can be quickly put together, and makes short work of just about anybody. Don't be afraid to be cheap as carthage - you don't have archers, so it's OK. ;)

[ezrider]

After a lot more hours the situation is improving. woo hoo. but I did make the worst tactical blunder ever just today. :oops:

I was on my way to brutiicity Tarantula[sic] and got attacked by an army of equites, dogs and skirmishers. I had 3 RSC, 2IbI 3LibS half an elephant and a small unit of rhodian slingers. (map- coastal with roman villa)
What happened was that I routed 4 equites very easily but as I went back up the hill to flank the rest I got into a fight with one unit of equites and was myself flanked by dogs and other equites. The RSC routed immediately and then my slingers got massacred. as for the infantry - pah they couldn't hold a meeting! I tried to be smart and use the villa to protect one flank and slow any cavalry charge but that didn't work so well and I ended up getting routed all over the gaff.

I've never seen such a promising start turn so badly so quickly.
what is the story with libyan spears, they fight so badly and get killed really easily - I can't believe that they're higher up the tech tree than Iberians(I love them)

-side note, I also saw a 25 man unit of Spanish Gen HCav routed by balearic slingers(2 bronze chevrons) in melee combat.cool or what.

Things definately looking bright. my beatiful navy has now twice sank scipii ships containing top generals and a half stack O' troops. arr matey!:2thumbsup:

[Phoenix]

Libyans suck because like all spear units they have a small attack penalty against sword units while sword units have a small attack bonus against spear units...a feature of RTW that has always irritated me. If they're getting killed easy then I'm guessing that's an effect of playing on Hard since they have the same Armor and Shield as Poeni. On my last campaign as Carthage I used Libyans alot in Spain to pin the Barbarian infantry while my Long Shields and War Elephants took out the enemy cavalry and Chosen Swordsmen.

To answer one of your earlier questions there isn't a way to check the difficulty settings after the game starts, I've heard of a mod that lets you do that but I don't know much about it.

[ezrider]

But against cavalry they should fair better! They got creamed by equites for Baal's sake. 3 full units! pathetic. I've seen rebel TM cut them down easily as well. Sticking to my Iberians, with their lovely helmets. Looking formard to getting Poenis/sacred Band. I tired of letting infantry do anything useful. Cheers for the feedback Phoenix.

[Phoenix]

Well, since playing on Hard Battle difficulty gives the AI units a +4 attack bonus plus a morale bonus, I guess the Libyans lost because of that. I can't imagine them losing to Town Militias for any other reason.

Just a tip but keep an eye on Egypt as well. I found out the hard way that after they get Cyrene and Siwa, they might go after Lepcis Magna if they don't get into a war with one of their eastern neighbors soon after the Seleucids get taken out.

[ezrider]

Yesterday I took Carthago Nova and Osca off the Spanish. Great fun + needed cash injection. Osca was then sieged by Gauls, I sallied out because I had three units of RS cav and only 4 small units of iberians and two reduced units of BalSlingers. It was 1100+ vs 500, I whupped them and lost only 160 men to their 1018, most of my casualties coming from cav being attacked by dogs.

How do I fight dogs? they tear my cavalry apart! second time dogs have brought me pain. arrh I like cats my self

[Ludens]

How do I fight dogs?
By making them unrecruitable. If you are not willing to mod, however, I find that charging the handlers with a light cavalry unit works. They will usually push through the dogs and then hit the handlers. For the rest of the battle, the dogs will be focused on the cavalry, so you can clobber the rest of their army in peace. Remember, you only need to rout the handlers to win the battle. Which is good since you cannot target the dogs anyway.

[ezrider]

For the rest of the battle, the dogs will be focused on the cavalry

Thats the problem, I need my Cavalry to flank the enemy units. My 4 diminished iberians aren't fit to take on 8 full Gaulish warbands + skirmishers. I need cav support, but my cav get tired running away from dogs and if they get caught, I take heavy casualties. I tried running through my own lines to get the infantry to take the fight but that didn't work.
Luckily the AI is stupid and sent 1 or 2 units at a time which was manageable. That won't happen every battle.

Its just a thorn in my side as I have weak infantry and need focused cav support. Can't do it with my horses evading dogs for most of the battle.

[Phoenix]

If you can afford them, War Elephants will trample the dogs easily and Long Shields have good enough defense to afford ignoring them especially if they can keep moving. Another way is to provoke them into attacking heavy infantry such as Spanish Mercenaries or any type of phalanx unit...the dogs won't be able to get past the spear points and will get butchered. The last thing I can think of is to try to rout the Wardog units with missile fire from Balaeric Slingers, Numidian Mercenaries, or your own slingers before they release the dogs.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Can doggies run amok like elephants and scythed chariots? If they can I suggest lighting up the battlefield using... er... nevermind, Carthage doesn't have true archers. :shame:

I'd target them with a throwaway unit like skirmishers. Or as phoenix stated, go after them with heavy infantry or just run 'em over with your elephants.

[Ludens]

Can doggies run amok like elephants and scythed chariots?
Unfortunatly, they don't run amok. They don't even rout (although their handlers do). That is the blasted thing about them: they just keep on going until they are all dead. That, and the fact that you cannot target them, only their handlers. So you have to expend a unit or two to either keep them occupied or destroy them. I guess the only solution for ezrider is to get more troops.


I'd target them with a throwaway unit like skirmishers. Or as phoenix stated, go after them with heavy infantry or just run 'em over with your elephants.
Skirmishers will just end up as (yes) dogmeat. Wardogs are made to take care of light troops. Balearic slingers might work, though, provided the dogs don't go after them. That is going to be expensive. Make sure that another unit is target by the dogs first before moving in the slingers.

[pianonator]

Call me extremely lucky, but I completed the Carthage H/H campaign (I'm still going, though - lots of fun), and I NEVER saw a single unit of War Dogs. Which is weird, because the Gauls and the Brutii survived until the last few turns. In fact, on my continuation, I'm still fighting the Brutii, and they STILL don't use Dogs. I started the campaign with v1.2 (I think - it may have even been 1.0), and finished with v1.5. Your AI is tricky, ezrider.

Oh yes, Iberians are nice. They are your very best friends. Guard your stone walls with them, and overlap the units. They'll take casualties, but if you overlap your units right, you can fully recharge all your units the next turn. The enemy loses an army on your walls, but you just lose about 400 gold. They hold back hordes of Numidians, Warbands, and other general 120 man spear groups. They can even handle non-Marius Romans on the walls.

Oh yes, keep an eye out for Egypt. I conquered out to Siwa when I took out the Numidians, and the Egyptians gave me constant grief. Before I patched it, Desert Axemen were unbeatable. The Shirtless Wonders were turning back full cavalry charges from the REAR. So I generally bribed the armies to stay away. After the patch (and I've said this before, forgive me), the Desert Axemen armor bug was fixed, but bribing became impossible.

When the Egyptians come, use your Phalanxes against their chariots. Ride down their Bowmen, but be careful. Pharoah's Bowmen are nasty in melee. Probably one of the best non-Roman wallguarders around. That's one of the reasons I don't use siege towers - I just knock down the walls. Course, after the patch, Seige towers have repeating ballistas in them, so it may be worthwhile. What stops a fella from just letting a seige tower sit close to the wall and decimate ALL defenders, though?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Unfortunatly, they don't run amok. They don't even rout (although their handlers do). That is the blasted thing about them: they just keep on going until they are all dead. That, and the fact that you cannot target them, only their handlers. So you have to expend a unit or two to either keep them occupied or destroy them. I guess the only solution for ezrider is to get more troops.

Skirmishers will just end up as (yes) dogmeat. Wardogs are made to take care of light troops. Balearic slingers might work, though, provided the dogs don't go after them. That is going to be expensive. Make sure that another unit is target by the dogs first before moving in the slingers.

Stopping Dogs: Actually pretty tough.

1. Long-ranged archers, preferably from behind armored infantry, at handlers.

2. Regular archers/slingers at the handlers -- but the reduced range means the dogs might counter punch.

Once the dogs deploy, targeting the handlers only help reduce the number of dogs for the next battle, so you'll probably be busy.

3. Heavily armored infantry or cavalry can absorb the dog strikes and kill the dogs without heavy losses -- but remember that the unit killing the dogs will go NOWHERE for quite a while.

4. Get them to chase a light cav unit for a long time, and then route the cav when finally cornered on the "home" edge of the map. Keep the dogs busy long enough and they'll be the only ones left when the victory sign flashes -- but hit "end battle" or you will have to absorb pointless casualties for the privilege of killing the last few routers.


Using Dogs:

A-historical, but fun. Think of them not as an exotic but as a slinger unit with fire-and-forget pila. Use them in groups of 2-4 for the mobbing effect. If you target bowmen, you can chomp them. Others may kill the dogs, but they won't go anywhere and are very vulnerable to other attacks -- and who cares if you shoot the dogs too, you get them all back if you move the handlers to your home edge as soon as the Fidos deploy. Pups are ideal to be the first ones through a breach -- since you don't care if they all get killed, you just want them to gain some space for the real troops following.

[Ludens]

A single note I would like to add to Seamus Fermanagh excellent summary: once the dogs reach their target, the handlers will go into combat mode and approach the target as well. This bug applies to the player as well as the A.I. and explains why the handlers sometimes stay on the field even if you order them to retreat. Ordering them to retreat after the dogs have hit will send them off the field, though.

[Severous]

Hi

This would have worked better if my cavalry had been Carthage rather than mercenaries. But it worked will enough. The Julii army had 7 dog units.

1) Attack the enemy rear with light cavalry. Take out artillery and as many dog handlers as you can. But dont get involved in a drawn out fight near so many enemies.

https://img367.imageshack.us/img367/2509/brutii250w180co.th.jpg (https://img367.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brutii250w180co.jpg)

2) Some dogs died with their handers. Many were released. Packs of dogs chasing me. I am leading them somewhere.

https://img367.imageshack.us/img367/9113/brutii250w205dc.th.jpg (https://img367.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brutii250w205dc.jpg)

3) Cavalry swerve behind a powerful fresh unit. Merc Hoplites in phalanx on a hill will do nicely. Dogs run into the phalanx.

https://img149.imageshack.us/img149/3054/brutii250w226xq.th.jpg (https://img149.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brutii250w226xq.jpg)

4) Gain local superiority in numbers.

https://img137.imageshack.us/img137/6446/brutii250w244cw.th.jpg (https://img137.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brutii250w244cw.jpg)

[rotorgun]

I hope this is a little helpful, even if a bit off topic, but I've noticed that dogs, the ancient natural enemies of the horse, will generally come out on the worse end of the stick in a one on one confrontation with a horse. My experiences riding them have shown me that while they will barely tolerate a strange dog, and only just put up with one they know well, they absolutely cannot abide a wild dog. Indeed, they will do anything they must to defend themselves if they cannot flee. While the teeth and claws of the canine critters are deadly too a horse when applied to an exposed equine belly, it is very difficult for a single dog to attain the target without recieving a swift and powerful hind leg kick. This is why I think that cavalry are the best anti-dog units to use. If you can avoid getting tied up in a melee with any accomanying infantry, then the dogs will get kicked to death.

[ezrider]

Thanks for all the input. I reckon I won't see too many dogs in the future and If I do at least I'' have the high end units to deal with it. I'm really doing quite well against the Spanish and the Romans with my Iberian/Round shield combo. I've taken all of southern Italy and killed some high ranking brutii. Next is Capua to destroy the Scipii. Don't fancy taking on the Senate tho, the julii are weak at home I think. Finally got some longShields but no peonis or Elephants. Will take spain easy enough then take out the Numidians. I'll have conquered a nice solid corner of the map then. I can only really see the Egytians being a problem but they too are weak at home. I really don't understand why the Ai never guards its rear?

[Guyus Germanicus]

:2thumbsup:
Good show on the naval success, ezrider! I have noticed myself that the AI doesn't stack much on the opponent faction navies, but does somewhat on the rebel pirate navies. So, I usually stack my own navies from 4-6 ships deep. I can usually outclass my opponents in fire power without a problem. I love capturing Syracuse and then building corvus quinquiremes. I've found that with a temple of Neptune there, I can build the corvus with just a shipwright in place. The dockyard, once built, will then allow you to build the regular quinquireme. I had a tactical disaster
On phalanxes, depending on the support troops the enemy has available, your tactics will vary slightly. Nile spearmen, nubian spearmen, same same. They are all slow moving when they advance on you to attack. Shower them with missiles, circle round back, and hit them in a charge. Get them to break their lines up. I have very seldom used the phalanx units of my own armies in direct combat. They add ballast to my army, but are slow. I usually have most of the fighting done with cav, velites, and pilae carrying infantry before the phalanx is engaged. Hastatii and pricipes I always set on "fire at will" against the phalanx so that when they get in range, they shower it with their pilae. I prefer hastatii and principes to take stone walls because if there are phalanx waiting below, the Roman infantry will shower them with pilae. Phalanx have to close on their opponents to engage. They are vulnerable until they make contact.
Even in ancient warfare, mobility was important. Crassus got his butt kicked by the Parthians because he let his main cavalry force get too far out in front of his main body. They got ambushed and ruined early, leaving his infantry (top notch legionaries) nearly helpless against the horse archers. I love buying horse archers as mercenaries when I'm in the east. They're even better than the regular javelin cavalry units for picking off infantry and making your enemy's army miserable. But, they aren't good for running down routing enemy units as well as the other missile cavalry.
When I first started playing RTW, I almost never used Cavalry Auxilia in my legions, because I didn't "get it." Now, when I'm a Roman, I love using Cavalry Auxilia against phalanx armies. I try to get one city with cav stables built. Then I export cav auxilia to every active front I can. They can really take a toll against the phalanx before they run out of javelins. When they're out of missiles, you can still use them to hit the phalanx in the flank or rear. As Seleucids, the javelin throwing cav is the only cav available early on. I'm usually desperate to produce them for the Seleucia and Sardis fronts. Sardis needs them to support it's phalanx heavy armies. And Seleucia will need them because Parthia sometimes likes to challenge early, and they have at least a couple units of Cataphracts to annoy you with.
Even in ancient warfare, mobility and variety of weapons of your army is important. In narrow defiles and city streets, the phalanx works well for pinning the enemy while your cav circles around another way to hit the enemy in the rear. If your opponent's army is heavy with missile infantry, and all you have are phalanx units, you're not going to do well.
Against warbands, I love the dogs. Warbands unsupported by any other units are mincemeat for the dogs.
I'm still trying to learn how to use elephants more effectively. They are great one-on-one against most cav. But they need a screening force of some sort to get close enough to infantry so that they aren't facing infantry head-on.
Interesting thread.

[ezrider]

When I first posed the qusetion "What does Carthage have against the Phalanx?" I was not looking for a general tactic but more a carthage specific one because, I had been a little surprised by the lack of infantry and a reliance on cav. Cav and Phalanxes don't generally mix. However, as the romans (julii) in my only other campaign I had much joy trouncing Egyptian armies with a combination of cav Auxilia, Heavy Cav and bows. Usually the infantry didn't lift a finger(I was almost always up a hill).

As Carthage there aren't any home grown Bows, but merc slingers and such can do that job. Iberians are able to outmanuever[sic??] phalanxes to allow cav to hit from behind but only in certain situations. Against Egypt I know I'll run into trouble. I can fight chariots with my own spears, pharohs guards with LS cav and iberians but against, Axemen and Pharohs bows I have nowt.(Ok I can take out the Bows with cav as well just like I did with the Julii) I just hate the thought of marauding axemen flanking my cav while they get bogged down in bowmen, which they definitely will.

The dogs were a problem again but, interestingly my skirmishers butchered them
after they eat half a unit of iberians,
they[skirmishers] had silver weapons and 1 bronze chevron tho. Only Gaulish Numantia and Spanish Asturia left. Will conquer soon. Still ok with the Numidians and have done deals in the east. Better nail the Eygtians after I take Capua. I don't want them strong. Having said that raising an army to fight Egypt will take ages and the Gaul are gonna start produncing Hardcore infantry soon. Caught in two minds. What to do????? :juggle2:

Advice is welcome.:help:

[Agamemmnon]

Finally read the whole thread lol. You will have to indulge me if my reply is quite long too.

Anyway my carthage story to date and tactics used.

I built up for the first couple of turns and reinforced sicily, putting an army in the field ready to strike. Also gained trade agreement/alliance with the numidians and spanish early on to secure my borders while i worried about the romans. I also began building a stronger navy and the city upgrades neccesaary for that so i would be able to compete with the inevitable roman fleets carrying troops to my homelands.

The romans in sicily moved on the greek city first and i let them finish their siege before i offered the greeks an alliance and trade rights and struck straight at the former greek city, knocking their gates down right away with my elephant and massacring the already damaged Roman Army inside.
I also massacred the population for the cash and made merry with the greek women folk all without upsetting the greek faction ;)

The following turn-reinforced by a second unit of elephants just arrived via ship i moved my army out of the former greek city and attacked the roman city in sicily. Having taken care of the majority of their forces on the island in the previous battle, their city fell without much trouble and i got another cash boost as i pillaged the place.


This is where i probably made my first mistake as i decided to 'dig in' from here rather than take the fight into Italy which i realise now was a winnable campaign. Instead i reinforced Sicily heavily; worked on upgrading all my ports and roads and enlarged my fleet with the long term goal of controlling the mediteranian via my navy.

Then began about 30 years of strife...
I met the initial rush of romans trying to take back Sicily fairly comfortably but then the julii landed a full stack in sardindia and laid siege before i could get my agressive naval policy into action. I desperately ferried what troops i had in carthage just offshore of sardinia while i waited the 2 turns it took to relocate my sicilian force to sardinia for a nice big battle. :laugh4:

Siege broken i left some of my army in sardinia while the rest hopped back on their ships and headed straight back to sicily to face the expected next wave of roman landing parties. With the aid of a greek fleet my ships were intercepting at least some of the scipii armies so I wasnt fighting constantly in Sicily.

Newly built ships reinforced my fleets and moved into a position between sardinia and the julii ports to attempt to sink any armies before they could land with some success. I also deplyed a network of spies across Italy to give me some advance warning of Roman fleets coming my way.

In the meantime the battles in sicily became quite tough as i struggled to replace combat casulaties quick enough. Nevertheless i felt i was now in a stable position which would improve as my navy expanded to stop ANY armies landing on my shores.

I sent out an expeditionary force against the gauls in Iberia but found their numbers to be to great, but with the spanish as my allies they were to busy with each other to bother Corduba.

Then with my armies stretched thin but holiding the romans ,the Numidians backstabbed me laying siege to one of my mainland cities, then taking it and threatening to march on mighty carthage within 4 or 5 turns.

I was forced to strip sardinia of much of its forces, relying on my navy to do the business, brought back some ellies from sicily and used my faction leader in carthage to hire what ragtag mercenaries he could. In 2/3 turns i had a fullstack of my own on the mainland and soon took back my city.
So began the ruthless persecution of the treachourous numidians. :skull: With their armies seemingly composed mostly of skirmishers they simply didnt stand in battle, or stand a chance! Troops from Iberia were dispatched across the straights of gibraltar to begin an invasion of north west africa, aided by spanish troops ;) My main force first took the Numidan costal cities before leaving the poorer interior cites to fresh troops from carthage. I was careful however to leave the numidians two provinces in between me and the egyptians as i had no desire to come into conflict with them. Also hoped to reestablish peace and trade agreement with the numidians later but this was never to be and they remained a (neccessary) thorn in my side.

So with my incessant naval and field battles with 3 of the roman factions going fine but costing me money and the numidians neutered it was time to start building an invasion force for the italian mainland... Wrong, just then unruly Corduba in Iberia decided it was time to kick me out as they rebelled (probably about swimming in their own sewage to be fair) I had to reinforce my garrison with some proper combat troops from west africa before i could retake corduba and 'cull' the population. Unfortunately the spanish had already despatched a full stack against this 'rebel' town i think because once i retook it they showed up, broke their alliance and laid siege.

This hurt my economy quite a lot to be honest as i lost another trading partner but still had to maintain a large fleet and army to combat the romans. I was barely making 2k a turn.
This was where my crack army still under construction in carthage designed to invade Italy was given a new purpose. The Spanish would be treated as the Numidans had! It did take some time for me to assemble a decent force in Iberia as the spanish had quite a large army by then and several battles were fought in and around corduba before i gained the upper hand simply because i was so outnumbered. Once done though both sides of Iberia quickly fell to my superior troops.

The iberian war proved quite profitable as i continued to slash and burn their land and helped provide the funding to continue my invasion plans for italy.
Before The iberian campaign was finished i had landed a force aginst the remaining Brutii city in Italy, brutally sacked it and withdrawn back to sea. ( allowing it to turn rebel)
One roman faction down i then sailed this same army down to the boot of Italy and took out my first scipii city. I was fully prepared to sell off all the improvements and withdraw if met with a large counter attack at this stage, but none arrived so it was time to march again.

By this stage My fleets truely had superiorty in the mediternean, not simply sinking invading armies and keeping my ports clear but blockading the Roman ports as well. This was neccessary for my italian campaign as the scippii were the only Roman factrion that had really expanded, taking out most of the greek and macedonian cities and had substantial armies in these regions. My fleets ensured there were no boats for them to ferry these forces back to Italy :laugh4:

Once the Scipii were kicked out of Italy we were already in the roman Marius era so the senate army looked pretty tough as well as large.
Despite my Italian army being very skilled troops the senate force outnumbered me so i knew i didnt want to face two of their stacks in a single battle. I assembled my strongest forces into one stack, backed up by a second half stack of infantry which i was prepared to let the AI control as re-inforcements. Trap set i then sent a mercenary force of hoplites under a family member to draw out the main Senate stack which was in the field. The senate first sent its smaller stack however, but I withdrew from battle, they followed up but unfortunately were only in range of my hoplite bait and my smaller army. Nevertheless i gave battle, and it was a very bloody one. My general and my reinforcing Poenia Infantry did the job in the end though and i was very satisified. Once the battle ended and the senate made its next move though i wasnt. The main Senate stack advanced and met what remained of my two smaller forces in a very unequal battle which i lost crushingly.

Now in my turn though the main senate force was where i wanted it-isolated, but id lost my supporting armies. My main stack attacked and they didnt withdraw and so began one of my longer battles in RTW (though nowhere near as long as some of my MTW ones sigh) I used two heavy Onagers courtesy of the scipii cities to bombard the heavier Senate Infantry with fire whilst my round shield cavalry worked on luring individual units of senate skirmishers into range of my war elephants bowfire. Slowing i evened the odds until my Onagers ran out of ammo. Then my Center Phalanxes formed from Poeni and sacred band advanced on their center with war ellies and long shield cavalry on my flanks. I Biased by flanks on the right side intending on using my extra width there to sweep round their rear and take out their general. Needless to say it all went as planned and the already thinned out roman force wilted under the pressure, sadly their general escaped though.

Rome was sacked the next turn due to my Onagers breaching, although my losses were higher than i would of liked due to Gladiators...

Now at the present day in my campaign i am regrouping/retraining my forces in Italy ready for the Julii stacks.
I have a second more difficult front though in Iberia. The spanish faction is dead, its last city in Gaul territory went rebel and i have just removed the last Gaul city in Iberia who i had made preace with during my spanish crusade.
However the Britains empire is massive streatching from britannia and Gaul all the way into macedonia and the far eastern end of the map. They hold more land and wealth than either me or the egyptians.

I hold the pyranees using 3 forts, one at each of the ways into my territory, but only have one full stack to defend all 3 routes with and unable to build good troops anywhere locally for the time being.

I 'hope' to hold stack after stack of chosen swordsman with this elephant and round shield cavalry force until my Italian crack troops can smash the julii and open up a second front against the Britains.
The biggest battles are yet to come it seems.


Anyway im enjoying carthage far more than my julii campaign. Athough i suspect it could of been very easy if i had smashed the Romans early, i reckon this way is probably going to be more fun/challenge.

[ezrider]

Great story, sounds like you had a rough time tho. I think every Carthaginian does. At least I haven't been attacked by the numidians, yet. I think I'll learn from your example and focus on taking out the romans first then worry about the Gauls.

[Empirate]

A Carthage-specific counter to Phalanges? Nothing easier than that! I like using armies consisting of cavalry only, with three to six War Elephants thrown in for good measure. These are fast-moving on the campaign map, and in battle against Phalanx type units provide you with the benefits of superior maneuverability. Divide your forces: One third up front, one third left, one third right. All elephants are divided up between the flanks; keep none in the center. Take two to four cav units round the enemy starting formation, take out the enemy general and all cavalry, archers and siege weapons. Bring your middle (cav-only!) up in front of the enemy main body of Phalanx troops, but do NOT engage. Rather, fall back, wait, fall back a little more, wait a little more... the Phalanx units must begin to chase these bait units, but must never reach them. Keep them close to the enemy, but not too close, and slowly withdraw in a straight line. Meanwhile, bring up War Elephants, or smaller, if War Eles are too expensive. The bottom line is: Have at least one Ele unit on each flank. These are mainly for scaring the most exposed enemy units. Your flank cavalry forces ride up close to the enemy flanks, but do not attack yet. Two things will happen: 1. The enemy will try to deflect your cavalry threat on all sides at the same time, thus breaking formation, forming holes, finally exposing flanks and rear sides; 2. The enemy troops, marching under constant threat to their flanks and frightened by your elephants, furthermore constantly marching to catch up with your quicker units, will quickly accumulate heavy morale penalties. When you finally attack with cavalry and elephants, make sure to have overwhelming local superiority - make sure to produce an instant rout. ONLY ever attack the flank or rear of a Phalanx unit, and only if you are sure you can break it very, very quickly. Don't try all-out attacks. You may win, but casualties will be higher than necessary. Exploit unprotected flanks, destroy one unit at a time, keep most of your army on the move all the time, but always within striking distance. Destroy undersized, light and exposed units first, thus furthering morale loss with the remaining enemy troops.
I am fighting a very powerful Greece right now, and I had a lot of interesting battles with mostly Phalanx armies. You have to be careful using cav-only armies against Phalanges, but it really pays off. I had a battle that lasted more than half an hour, often using Pause, in which I destroyed 1500 Greeks, half of them Armored Hoplites or Spartans, losing only two elephants and 13 horses. I kept destroying exposed Militia Hoplites on the flanks until all were gone, then killed regular Hoplites, until finally moving in for the kill against the Spartans. Somebody described Spartans as gods. I couldn't disagree more: When I finally charged the remaining three Armored Hoplites and three Spartans, they routed before I ever made contact. They were worn out from constant marching, constant threat and a little arrow fire from my War Elephants. None escaped the field alive.
Lesson learned: Take your time. Time is really all it takes, even without missile units. Take your time and use that superior mobility!

[Agamemmnon]

If you manage to get any Advanced Roman cities then building a few Onagers will seriously but a cramp in the densley packed formations of Phalanxes before you drive a charge home.

Failing that (or better still as well as) i would use carthages own decent phalanx troops (poeni and sacred band) to engage the enemy phalanx while your cavalry/ellies manouver around the back and sides. I suspect the casualty rate would be pretty low in such an engagement and require less effort than destroying them piecemeal using cavalry as per Empirates suggestion.

That said i havn't fought against a proper army containing phalanxes using carthage much (mostly rebels) and having an army of ellies and cavalry will enable you to take on pretty much anyone as carthage as you can usually just charge and mow people down with them or micromanage like empirate suggest to pick apart tougher foes.

[Phoenix]

As Carthage there aren't any home grown Bows, but merc slingers and such can do that job. Iberians are able to outmanuever[sic??] phalanxes to allow cav to hit from behind but only in certain situations. Against Egypt I know I'll run into trouble. I can fight chariots with my own spears, pharohs guards with LS cav and iberians but against, Axemen and Pharohs bows I have nowt.(Ok I can take out the Bows with cav as well just like I did with the Julii) I just hate the thought of marauding axemen flanking my cav while they get bogged down in bowmen, which they definitely will.You can also use Skirmishers or Numidian Cavalry against the chariots since javelins get a bonus against them...that would free up some of your phalanxes. As for the Axemen, try keeping a couple Armored or War Elephants in reserve and once your cavalry hits the Pharoah's Bowmen, have your elephants attack them. BTW, like someone else said, Pharoah's Bowmen are nasty melee fighters so have your cavalry start their charges a good distance away so that they get the full charge bonus and if you're still using Long Shields use 2 or more units of them against each one.
Only Gaulish Numantia and Spanish Asturia left. Will conquer soon. Still ok with the Numidians and have done deals in the east. Better nail the Eygtians after I take Capua. I don't want them strong. Having said that raising an army to fight Egypt will take ages and the Gaul are gonna start produncing Hardcore infantry soon. Caught in two minds. What to do????? :juggle2:

Advice is welcome.:help:I invaded Greece after taking Italy while staying on the defensive against Gaul. Taking Greece will give you enough money to build more elite armies which will make handling Egypt easier while Gaul is rather poor in comparison.

As for their military, their Chosen Swordsmen can be taken care of by Poeni and Long Shields and while their Noble Cavalry are tough, they don't produce many, so you can easily gang up on them with your own cavalry if they try to flank your phalanxes. Foresters are the biggest nuisance because they carry spears as secondary weapons, I'd charge them with cavalry from several different directions and if they don't rout either have the cavalry break off and charge again until they do or have War Elephants join in while the Foresters are busy fighting. Unless Britain decided to expand eastwards you probably won't have to worry about Gaul for long though, Gaul never seems to last long against them.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Sorry about the tangent, ez. You're observation about Carthage infantry and cav options being a bit "short" when facing the phalanx is true. When I have Carth, I miss the pilae throwing infantry.

Empirate's advice is good for the Carthage vs. phalanx challenge. Carthage does have mercenary slingers and cheap libyan javelin throwers available as mercs as someone mentioned, I believe. But they also can produce their own homegrown slingers and, of course, javelin throwers. (I try to move the balearics from Palma to Corduba early on to reinforce the west since Corduba is weak in some units and distant from the cav producing capital - Carthage.) Numidian merc cav are good to have against phalanx. Of course, Romans produce their own version of jav-cav, but when I'm Roman and short on jav-cav and I'm fighting in N. Africa, I try to "rent" some Numidians, especially when facing the Egyptians. (Would love to take the Egyptians for a campaign, but have an aesthetic problem with their get-ups and culture in RTW.)
My problem with elephants is that they are slow. If you can move them in on the flank or rear of a phalanx, you'll have the success Empirate talks about. Besides being slow, they take two turns to build and you usually have to transport them distances to make them plentifully available to your theatre of active operations. If they panic in combat, you either have to let them run amuck until the end of the battle (hopefully not ruining your own units) or you have to kill them with a stake through the head, which means you just wasted a huge investment. As in all things, there are tradeoffs. I confess I need more practice in the use of elephants. They seem to work best for me against cavalry and weaker skirmishers. Avoiding head on encounters with spearmen of any kind, is a good general rule.
Other than that, Carthage produces very fine Phalanx units itself, so you can go nose to nose with the Greeks and Macedonians and fare well, I think. I make it a general rule, whichever faction I'm taking, to hire Cretan archers. An excellent unit against phalanx!! I protect them them like gold and hire them whenever I have a chance. Even if the need is not immediate. I'm probably obsessed, but they just have impressed me in every performance.
Because of the way I have prioritized my building as Carthage, I've found that I tend to capture cities that can build better units for Carthage than what my own cities are capable of producing. That's probably indicative of poor building strategy on my part. I tend to tax high early on which can really slow city growth down. And you need to get your cities' populations up and the building projects advanced before certain sophisticated units are available.
If I'm researching a battle strategy, I like to test drive it in a custom battle game. You may want to test some phalanx tactics in a custom game setting. I've played some custom games taking Spartan phalanx armies against Carthaginian elite units. I think it's a good learning tool as well as being a fun game feature in itself. (The Spartans would do better against Carthage chosen band if they had better flank supporters.)
I love having the doggies available when I'm fighting the Egyptians. I miss them when I'm taking Carthage as my faction.
You have a greater appreciation for Iberian infantry than I do. I tend to think of them as better than town watch, but a notch below hastatii. But I think it all depends on how you use them. And . . ., I've read very few positive comments in The Guild about Libyan Spearmen. I tend to hire merc hoplites in the early game when I'm using Carthage. I'm also fond of mercenary peltasts. Do not underestimate Balearic slingers. They can be very very effective against enemy units, even phalanx. I think of my Libyans and Iberians as ballast for the army while I depend heavily on cav. And the sooner I can build longshields the better.
You seem to have a good grasp on things, ez.
best wishes,
guyus

[ezrider]

Thanks again for teh support. Not to sound too braggy but I just kicked the senate army and won quite convincingly. It was looking rough for a bit but my cav saved the day(again).

I tempted the Senate(Donkey) into attacking a small force(Carrot) and drew them closer to capua with each attack. Now my Carrot got caught on the beach with nowhere to go so I took the battle and decided to make it an adv. With 3 cav units I rounded the whole Donkey line and ended up drawing out one of the generals. Killed him but, while drawing out out infantry I got caught by the other gen. Defeated, i routed and ended up outside Capua. Arrogant Donkey attacked again but the fool was close enough that the 1000 odd troops in Capua were reinforcements(no sallying - straight to battle).

Once again Carrot(25LS cav, 60iber, 40 Lspears) was plonked in front of the clanking Donkey. Basically I used cav to hit the flanks as they marched toward my line. Took a lot of casualties but lured the general to the front line. Chased him with my own general and BalSlingers, killed him. My inf was holding up against the priceps/Hastatii/trarii ok for a bit but I needed my cav to stop routing and be the Hammer. That done Donkey was completely slaughtered and left the way clear to rome(120 troops inside). Mincemeat.:2thumbsup:

Lost Osca to Gauls - Terrible strategic blunder. I took a huge army from Osca west to Numantia which I conquered but left the pyrannees unguarded and a pathetic garrison in the city + general:no: Got sieged, tried to get as many troops there as pos but no dice. There was a full stack of gauls between numantia and Osca so it kinda didn't help. Will crush the invaders as all intended reinforcements are seigers.
One Spanish city remains but I killed faction heir.
Question: if i kill faction leader and there are no other generals then the faction is destroyed, correct?
Question: I sallied out at osca with reinforcements. I then ran the reinforcements in the back door of city. Why then, when on campaign map were they not part of the garrison???

[Guyus Germanicus]

ez, to answer your last questions,

Yes, if you kill the last faction member and there are no other faction members on the board, the remaining faction cities become rebel.

You can kill a faction heir, but if another faction member exists anywhere on the board and that faction still controls one city, you haven't destroyed the faction yet. If you take all of a faction's cities, but there are still faction members living, they become rebels. And, . . they lose the armies they were commanding. That's what happened for me when I had the Julii in one game and I was fighting the Gauls. Two faction members were a part of a full-sized stack sitting in ambush posture at Numantia's port. I moved my army "by them" and took Numantia, the last Gallic city. When I took their last city, the stack disappeared all accept for the two faction members. They became rebels. Gaul was destroyed as a faction.

The Senate army can be very intimidating. Congratulations on that victory, too! They usually are loaded with Triarii and principes far ahead of the other Roman factions. Libyan spearmen are no match for Triarii. If you don't deftly move your cavalry around the field to hit the triarii from behind they'll really do damage. And, if the Senate has a lot of equites in support, you're in real trouble because equites seem to be slightly better cavalry man-for-man than round shields. When I'm Carthage, I feel more comfortable if I have longshields as my main cavalry stock unit when facing the Senate. Any way that one can take Rome is a sweet victory as far as I'm concerned. Many times, I've had to have my general ride up to stop routing units and rally them back to the fight, especially roundshields.

Cavalry, if they get "snagged" by an intervening enemy unit en route to attacking another unit, will turn and roll into attack mode on the unit that "snagged" them. (That's actually the behavior of any RTW combat unit, it just seems to happen to me more often when directing cavalry attacks.) Woe betide the cavalry if they get snagged by speamen. They suffer heavy casualties and I usually end up having to send the general in their direction to rally them 'cause they're routing after getting a thorough "burn."

My favorite victory over the Senate occurred in a Julii game. It seems if you move your army near or just over the border of SPQR, the Senate army will come at you. My army was sitting just on the other side of a river when they attacked me. I had onagers, and the Senate lined up in a straight line behind the bridge making an easy target for my onagers. Everytime they moved a unit over the bridge, I punched their lights out while the units behind them were getting onagerized. I had a similar experience last night against Pontus, me with Seleucids. I didn't have onagers this time, but the Pontids came over the bridge all lined up and a mass of confusion and I showered them in missiles - Cretan archers (one of my favorite units), slingers, jav-cav, and merc horse-archers. Greek cavalry and spearless jav-cav mopped up. The Greek cav is inferior to equites. Before I hit Rome, I'm going to have to be producing companion cavalry to make a game of it.

It's definitely best to hit Rome before Marius. Their units after Marius are much more formidable. I love taking Carthage, but I'm enjoying the Selecids this round.

The Spanish are so treacherous. They've stabbed me in the back on several occasions breaking alliances, even after I've given them money to sweeten the relationship. When they do that, I take their cities and put them to the sword just on general principles. I punish treachery severely and reward loyalty, but the AI in RTW is set so that eventually no faction is forever a good long term ally. I guess that's true to life, eh?

One of the longest alliances I've had in RTW was with the Greeks. I had Carthage at the time, believe it or not. The Scipii made their usual early move and took Syracuse. I allied with the Greeks and retook Syracuse and stayed allied to the Greeks for a long time afterward. (Probably because we no longer had proximate interests - the Greeks were all in the Peloponese and I owned all of Sicily and was busy in Italy.)

Fun stuff. Have at those Spaniards! :skull:

[Guyus Germanicus]

oops, forgot your last question, ez.

I think RTW returns all units to their original positions at the start of the combat regardless of where they sallied to, that is, if you're the victor of the combat. If you're the loser, the units go wherever the AI directed them to retreat to, if they weren't wiped out in the combat.

[Ludens]

You can kill a faction heir, but if another faction member exists anywhere on the board and that faction still controls one city, you haven't destroyed the faction yet.
Also, if a faction has less than two family members it will adopt a new one in the next turn, so you cannot wipe out a faction with one assassin.

[Avicenna]

What's wrong with dogs and pigs? Historically they were used, and also featured in artwork such as pottery, but just not quite as often as some people do in the campaign.

[ezrider]

A quick reason against pigs: I was fighing big Julii army containing dogs and pigs.
To my surprise, as they advanced, the pigs were ignited. They ran straight into their own lines causing havoc. In the Same battle, Roman dogs got massacred cos stupid handlers ran in after them and got creamed by cav.
I have also read that pigs have little or no effect on elephants, ditto for dogs. Pigs are, apparently, "Hard to aim". Take from that what you will.

I conquered Rome, and got Osca back. I also got a heroic victory against the Gaul full stack. approx 1400 gauls for 40 Carthaginians. Not bad - I had 2 units of cavalry(two!) and a general with about 20 bodyguard. I used a few infantry units to charge but by that time the whole army was running away. This just goes to show you that barbarians make useless enemies.

[Guyus Germanicus]

I have to correct myself where I said units return to their starting position after a victorious combat. Actually, that's true of those units that sally forth from a city. But it appears that units that engage and win at a combat outside of a city tend to advance to the position that their adversary held on the board prior to the combat.

Interesting factoid from Ludens on the reproductive capacities of adversary faction members. The AI does seem to behave strangely to me at times about reproducing faction members. There have been times where I have been almost desperate for new faction members for my own faction, and I'm wondering, "why doesn't the AI give me a "man of the hour promotion" or an "adoption?" Then there are times when I seem to get inundated with them. I've noticed too that while I may kill a couple adversary faction members in a combat, for a faction that has one city left (Scipii - Capua), that Roman faction seems to acquire new ones to replace them even though the faction has only one city to govern. Does anyone know about the rate at which faction members are replaced? (Just curious.)

I had an interesting combat this weekend, ez, that your 'heroic victory' story reminded of. I was test driving Parthia - they get off to a slow start being financially handicapped. I had just taken Bostica (sp), that little burg east of Jerusalem, from the barbarians. I had two faction members in my stack of mostly horse archers, Arab mercenaries and two Cataphracts. I sent one of my faction members to build a watchtower in Moab, close to the border of Palestine near Jerusalem. He was out of moves at the end. This huge Egyptian stack attacked him (1100-1200) in the intervening turn. He couldn't withdraw so I had to fight the battle with his measly 24 general's javelin horsemen. The Egyptians had two large units of archer chariots, about 4-6 units of spearmen, 2-3 units of peasants and 2-3 units of bowmen. I couldn't believe what my little guy pulled off. He slaughtered about 550 Egyptians before he finally went down. I got revenge in the next turn. My horse archers and cataphracts made mince meat of the remaining 600+ Egyptians in a much more evenly matched odds contest.

One more comment - about dog handlers and the frustrations thereof. That is one irritating habit the handlers have! I have found on more than one occasion after I have released my war dogs, the handlers then drift into the combat EVEN AFTER I HAVE ORDERED THEM TO WITHDRAW WITH HASTE!! Very irritating. They get mauled in the combat, and then you have fewer dogs afterward for the next battle. I have to keep an eye on my handlers at all times after they release. I have tried a couple precautionary or preemptive techniques to try to forestall this useless wasteage of handlers. I try to close more with the enemy so that the dogs can be released from behind a protective screen of infantry or cavalry without being so exposed to the enemies first units. But I still have to monitor them on the battlefield. They will drift toward the fight constantly.

[Ludens]

Interesting factoid from Ludens on the reproductive capacities of adversary faction members. The AI does seem to behave strangely to me at times about reproducing faction members. There have been times where I have been almost desperate for new faction members for my own faction, and I'm wondering, "why doesn't the AI give me a "man of the hour promotion" or an "adoption?" Then there are times when I seem to get inundated with them. I've noticed too that while I may kill a couple adversary faction members in a combat, for a faction that has one city left (Scipii - Capua), that Roman faction seems to acquire new ones to replace them even though the faction has only one city to govern. Does anyone know about the rate at which faction members are replaced? (Just curious.)
Basically the game aims to give you one male, adult family member for every two or three cities. This includes adoptees and suitors. However, if you have only one or two cities the A.I. allows more family members.

Dog handlers will halt their actions and start drifting towards the fighting the moment the dogs hit their targets. Just give them another order (preferably to retreat as they aren't usefull anymore anyway) should solve this.

[Guyus Germanicus]

I'm playing my own little game with Carthage. Polished off Rome, and knocked off the Julii yesterday. The Brutii survived only because they had a huge stack occupied on Appolonia while I was taking Croton and Tarentum from them on the Italian peninsula. The Gauls are down to three provinces all north of Narbo. Nobody likes Carthage - Macedonia, Numidia, Spain, Gaul and all of Rome were/are all at war w/me. Spain and Numidia are now gone along w/Julii, Scipii, and SPQR. I'm allied to the Greeks once again like in a past game. I allied with them just after Rome attacked Syracuse and have stayed allied with them, and its around 240 BC now. So that's about as long an alliance as I have experienced in this game. Have been feeding the Seleucids with money to keep them alive against the Egyptians and have been doing the same for Parthia even though I have no alliances with either of them. But what has really amazed me in this game is the effectiveness of two particular assassins. I think they've killed around seven family members of varying factions including one five star Macedonian general as well as a couple Gallic spies. Sabotaging enemy buildings is child's play with these guys. I've noticed too that when diplomats start getting whacked, the area clears out of diplomats fairly quickly. I love the little quirks in the spy figures on the campaign map. Sometimes they'll sneeze. If an army moves by them, it picks them up and puts them down in another space. It's funny to watch. When they're standing by themselves watching something in some remote forgotten backwater area they look so forelorn, like they've been forgotten. Then when you move them they get over animated.
Am hoping to start producing Chosen Band Cavalry in a few turns - just in time, hopefully, for an inevitable confrontation with Egypt, which has been delayed only because two rebel provinces have been acting as a buffer between us, Siwa and Cyrene. Chosen band infantry are very effective against warrior bands and doggies, it seems, regardless of the circumstances of the combat. Since I don't have doggies to send through the breach on a siege, I've been using chosen band and hoplites. Chosen band can handle the cavalry better than hoplites in the breach. Elephants have performed very well for me especially if I give them a cavalry screen or cav support. Fun stuff.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Basically the game aims to give you one male, adult family member for every two or three cities. This includes adoptees and suitors. However, if you have only one or two cities the A.I. allows more family members.

Dog handlers will halt their actions and start drifting towards the fighting the moment the dogs hit their targets. Just give them another order (preferably to retreat as they aren't usefull anymore anyway) should solve this.

Thanks for the followup, kind sir. I've usually just selected the dog handlers and right clicked them away from the combat w/haste to get them out of harm's way. But even when I've done that, upon occasion they will still drift back to the fighting. But I will try a "retreat" and see what that does.

The feel of the game and the way it handles faction member numbers fits with your description above. I lost a young faction member in a poorly handled combat last night, but he was replaced by a couple new adoptions and, thankfully, one marriageable daughter. Also, my faction is wealthy enough to bribe some rebels into my group. I just purchased a Greek rebel general for whom I had an army all prepared - peoni and loads of long shields - to lead against the Brutii. I wonder sometimes about the timing of the appearance of certain "desireable" rebel generals on the board and whether the AI is offering up subjects for bribing.

Am hoping to capture Corinth soon for the public order benefit. I've found that capturing Corinth needs to be a keystone in your global campaign strategy since it helps counteract the distance penalty when your empire starts getting big. That, and Rhodes to goose the trade profits a bit. (There's nothing more annoying than having your best city unable to produce the top notch units because you're preoccupied by public order problems.)

[Ludens]

Thanks for the followup, kind sir. I've usually just selected the dog handlers and right clicked them away from the combat w/haste to get them out of harm's way. But even when I've done that, upon occasion they will still drift back to the fighting. But I will try a "retreat" and see what that does.
The point is not that you have to click retreat, the point is that you have to reissue your order when the released dogs have reached a target. Sorry for not being clear. I always use retreat since I don't want my precious dog handlers to stay in combat longer than necessary.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Ahhh . . . it's a timing thing. :stupido2:

I miss my dogs the most when I'm dealing with skirmishers (in general) and Gauls (in particular.) Somehow using elephants on the warrior bands doesn't have the same aesthetic appeal as unleashing the doggies.

Brutii succumbed last night in my Carthage long campaign. Macedonians are next, with Corinth in the crosshairs. I'm now producing Sacred Band cav and quinquiremes.

The other thing I miss when I take Carthage is not having some archers. At least in campaigning in Macedonia I can buy some Cretan archers. The slingers are an excellent substitute. In one combat last night they really butchered some Gallic swordsmen closing on my line, so much so that the swordsmen started to rout. Then it was elephant time. :bow:

While polishing off Numidia, I had my general buying up every Numidian mercenary band that became available, sending them off to Thapsis to rendezvous with my army-work-in-progress. With Numidians and Sacred band cav, I figure I can keep the Egyptians under control when the confrontation comes.

Thanks, Ludens.
~:cheers:

[ezrider]

Its been a while but I finally got to play yesterday. Campaign has taken some definite down turns but a few ups as well. I remember how I started posting on this forum; posing the question "how to deal with phalanxes as Carthage".
After having to fight the Greeks and Egyptians I am none the wiser and taking bad casualties.
I lost a town to Egypt cos I had only Iberians and skirmishers but lots of them. Didn't matter. I had a half stack of Greeks standin outside kydonia for ages but not laying seige, so I built as many iberians and bought all the mercs I could. when I outnumbered them 2:1, I attacked. The army power ration was still 50:50 but after a long micro managed battle I managed to beat them. It was a massive pain.
In other news I am continuing to slaughter the Julii with my peoni and cav combo, the gauls are suffering as well
with three regions and their only standing army about to get beat + the fact that I spy in one of those towns got the plague! I sent him on a little trip round the district to basically infect the whole of northern Europe, irrespective of faction. Putting the Brutii under pressure and will take their capital very shortly. The Greeks are gonna pay for their betrayal and the numidians already have(one city left), which leaves the Gen.McArthur style amphibious assault on Alexandria(a la the assault on Seoul). That'll shake things up nicely.

[Guyus Germanicus]

I remember how I started posting on this forum; posing the question "how to deal with phalanxes as Carthage".
After having to fight the Greeks and Egyptians I am none the wiser and taking bad casualties.

I lost a town to Egypt cos I had only Iberians and skirmishers but lots of them. Didn't matter. I had a half stack of Greeks standin outside kydonia for ages but not laying seige, so I built as many iberians and bought all the mercs I could. when I outnumbered them 2:1, I attacked. The army power ration was still 50:50 but after a long micro managed battle I managed to beat them. It was a massive pain.

The Greeks are gonna pay for their betrayal and the numidians already have(one city left), which leaves the Gen.McArthur style amphibious assault on Alexandria(a la the assault on Seoul). That'll shake things up nicely.

ez -

I can relate to Greek betrayal. I've usually had very good relations with them, relatively speaking, in other games. But I'm playing Seleucids and was heavily engaged against Pontus, Egypt, Armenia and Parthia while allied to Greeks. They stabbed me in the BACK!! ~:pissed: Pergamum is going to be toast!! And Rhodes will be my next priority thanks to their treachery.

A clue for your Egyptian campaign strategy, just in case you're unaware of this. :idea2: Go for Memphis first. If you take Memphis with the great pyramids, the wonder bonus will insure public order benefits for all the Egyptian cities you conquer afterwards. In one of my first RTW games, I took Alexandria with the Julii and never could get the locals under control. :wall: Big mistake. I was ignorant back then, not knowing what the Pyramid Wonder bestowed on Egyptian public order. The Egyptians give loyalty to any faction that controls Memphis. So try to take Memphis first before Alexandria. In some past games since then, I didn't even have to demolish the Egyptian temples in the other Egyptian cities after I took Memphis. The Egyptians stayed loyal.

When using Seleucids and fighting the Egyptian spearmen/phalanx I use lots of javelin cavalry. In Egypt, you should be able to buy Arabian horse archers. As Carth, buy lots of Numidian jav-cav. I try to have a Carth family member riding around Numidia buying jav-cav as soon as they renew their availability on the merc "menu." You'd be amazed at the numbers of Numidians you can accummulate over time doing this. I had a steady stream of one or two Numidian jav-cav moving east to my Egyptian theatre of operations. Also, get some archery ranges built in your Carth cities and start producing slingers. Very effective on lines of spearmen. Get your longshields behind the Egyptian line of spearmen and you'll break them. War elephants have two men in the basket uptop. They are archers! You can fire arrows before the elephants storm the flanks. [War elephants scared the be-hayzeus out of the Gaul warrior bands when I was in France with Carth armies.] You should be producing sacred band infantry in your larger Carth cities sooner or later. They will hold up better in a nose-to-nose against phalanx. If you hold kydonia now, have a family member stop off at Crete and buy up the slingers and Cretan archers. Sometimes there are two Cretan archer units available on the merc menu in Crete. Cretans are better than your average archers. Again, between my Cretan archers, jav-cav and Rhodian slingers, my Seleucids can handle phalanx quite well. Once the jav-cav have expended their javelins, I move them around the rear of phalanx and send the Greeks to Hades. For Pontic spearmen, I serve up the same dish. One more clue on mercs [just in case you were unaware of this]: Cilian pirates and Scuteri (Spanish mercs) can be used just like Hastati. They have a pilae/javelin capability. Set your units on "fire at will" when you're facing off on the enemy line. They will throw their spears before they charge.

Once you capture Memphis, Thebes, and Alexandria you should find yourself enjoying a real good cash flow improvement for your faction. They are a powerful cash threesome!

Sic'em big guy! I enjoy your posts.
best wishes,
Guyus

PS - you have given me a greater appreciation for my Iberians, when I take Carth. I like to have a few on hand even when my line is made up mostly of Sacred Band infantry.

[ezrider]

If you get caught in a battle by a bigger/ better army and then get badly beaten, does it annoy you that much or do you just accept it and continue.

I this case my army can't actually get away, there are no possible reinforcements and I have no cavalry. I must have played the battle about 3 or 4 times at the two locations(head on and when I retreated) each time I try to make the best use of terrain, tactics and luck but I still lose every time.
I know why I can't get over it. I keep thinking that I may actually win, or at least inflict a pyrric victory.

I have routed princps, early legionnary cohorts and their equites and dogs, but either their faction leader single handedly kills everyone or the sheer amount of javelin and pila fire decimates my tight lines.

I think I need to forget it and then come back with a bigger army and kill them all.

[rotorgun]

If you get caught in a battle by a bigger/ better army and then get badly beaten, does it annoy you that much or do you just accept it and continue.
I this case my army can't actually get away, there are no possible reinforcements and I have no cavalry. I must have played the battle about 3 or 4 times at the two locations(head on and when I retreated) each time I try to make the best use of terrain, tactics and luck but I still lose every time.
I know why I can't get over it. I keep thinking that I may actually win, or at least inflict a pyrric victory.
I have routed princps, early legionnary cohorts and their equites and dogs, but either their faction leader single handedly kills everyone or the sheer amount of javelin and pila fire decimates my tight lines.
I think I need to forget it and then come back with a bigger army and kill them all.

This happened to me when playing the Brutii once, and while playing the Greeks too. In the first case, my Brutii army, which I thought was a decent force which included mostly legionary cohorts and good Roman cavalry, was continually beat by this one British army. I thought it was my tactics until I noticed the amount of experience and weapons upgrades the enemy force had for most of his units. We're talking silver shields and cheverons out the ying-yang, being led by a five star faction leader. I had to regroup, and create the right temples in order to upgrade my units' abilities. Once this was complete, then I went after them with two armies and worked to trap them between these. Only then was I able to destroy this force, and it was still a costly battle.

In the second case, my greek armies were assaulted by a succession of superior Egyptian armies in Anatolia. Again, many experience, armor, and weapons markings, especially on the dreaded Pharoh's Archers, which were causing me dreadful casualties. I had to patiently build up two strike armies and keep them operating within mutual supporting distance of each other. When an Egyptian force approached, I would lure them into an ambush whenever I could. I was once able to entice two of their armies into an engagement with two of mine, one of which was ambushing them. I was finally able to find the right balance in order to move into Egyptian territory.

One other tactic that works well is to get them to attack your force across a river. Be sure to have plenty of ranged weapons in your order of battle, such as archers, ballistas, and onagers. These can pound a superior enemy force to mincemeat on a bridge or at a fording point.

Good Luck.

[Phoenix]

I this case my army can't actually get away, there are no possible reinforcements and I have no cavalry. I must have played the battle about 3 or 4 times at the two locations(head on and when I retreated) each time I try to make the best use of terrain, tactics and luck but I still lose every time. I know why I can't get over it. I keep thinking that I may actually win, or at least inflict a pyrric victory.

I have routed princps, early legionnary cohorts and their equites and dogs, but either their faction leader single handedly kills everyone or the sheer amount of javelin and pila fire decimates my tight lines.I don't know what your army is like but if you can charge a couple Iberian or Libyan units into the Faction Leader's rear while still keeping him occupied in the front you might be able to win as long as you can handle the rest of the enemy army. Cavalry also don't fight as well in the forest so try fighting him in that if any forested terrain is available.

[ezrider]

I don't know what your army is like but if you can charge a couple Iberian or Libyan units into the Faction Leader's rear while still keeping him occupied in the front you might be able to win as long as you can handle the rest of the enemy army

Thats the problem, I don't think I can handle the rest of the army. If I killed the Faction leader that would be a bonus but he's got a bodyguard of 57 armoured guys and They charge a whole line of peonis and I still lose. To get round the rear is tough because the AI holds off committing its units until it can flank me, so anything I send around will be routed almost immediately. The iberians just can't handle most of the fighting and tend to get slaughtered be the equites who come in from the side. I have successfully used my general and a unit of ibearians to rout the first two units of cav but then when the battle really gets going I need all the guys I can get to hold the line and I end up get flanked by the regrouped cav.

It's not possible to win, so I'll just wait. I mean with 3 cav units of my own, I would crush that army, but with only 9 units of inf: 4 peonis and 5 iberians and a general, I'm really asking a lot. Especially since I'm outnumbered and the army strenght ratio is 9:20 against me.

I'll just go on and save under a different file so as I can come back to it.

[ezrider]

It's not possible to win, so I'll just wait. I mean with 3 cav units of my own, I would crush that army, but with only 9 units of inf: 4 peonis and 5 iberians and a general, I'm really asking a lot. Especially since I'm outnumbered and the army strenght ratio is 9:20 against me.
it.

forget all that, its BS. I actually did go back and the on the first attempt I nailed it. unbelieveable. I had only 3 units of peonis left at the end of the battle, approx 90 men. I didn't get a heroic victory for it even though it was almost impossible :no: - the secret of success? "The line just held" simple.

Unfortuately an even bigger army came after that and I got beat. Again.

Kicking ass and taking names against the julii, two heroic victories back2back. I was attacked by 1100+gen, killed over 1000 for 60. Next came a 5* gen + 900.
I was on the same hill as the previous battle and I have 2 onagers. Turned on fire at will. The romans come marching down the other side of the valley and towards me. A few rocks go flying, hit nothing. turned on the fireballs and my first shot smacks the enemy general right in the face. :skull: . You know that close up when he dies - all I see is a guy on his horse on fire. I proceeded to kick his army's ass and lost another 70 men. almost all cav. I now have this campaign by the balls.
BTW - amphibious assult underway, thebes' garrison is a general with 25 bodyguards! Alexandria's the same! Fools will pay for earlier humiliation.

[Guyus Germanicus]

If you get caught in a battle by a bigger/ better army and then get badly beaten, does it annoy you that much or do you just accept it and continue.



I just now got back to this thread and read your comments. Yes, I certainly get annoyed especially if it was my fault for positioning the army badly or pressing an attack in unfavorable terrain. If it was my fault, I have sometimes just let the bad result stand. That has happened to me at least twice in memorable circumstances when I took the Julii. In one case, I had my best general posted just west of Narbo in France. I was allied to the Spaniards but they had brought up two large armies to the pass at the Pyrenees. They stabbed me in the back and attacked my general who was short on cavalry and compelled to take on an Iberian stack that had four generals. I fought the best I could and my general went down fighting. I got revenge shortly afterward. I bribed a Gallic four star faction member to my side, stocked his army with mercs and a few Roman units and had him lay waste to Spain, no prisoners.

In the other incident I had a young up and comer general sitting at the ford just west of Marseille. A large Gallic stack was forming in the woods across the river. I pre-emptively attacked the stack and the battle was literally in a forest. I hate that setting because you have to bring the combat camera to eye level and it's very difficult to see the action unfold so as to deploy properly. I lost the battle. I let the battle stand because it was my fault. I recovered from the mistake fairly quickly, but because it was my choice to attack, I let the result stand. I figured "these things happen" in history. But I have fought poorly on other occasions and just played the combat over out of frustration.

Fighting the big SPQR is one big challenge for an undeveloped Carthaginian army. I've fought a few of those combats over because I handled the combat poorly and didn't do my general credit. All those triarii and Roman generals make a formidable combination. Samnites get chewed up badly. My Iberians get overmatched without support. Getting the cav behind the SPQR line is not always easy. I try to get the Roman generals out of the fight as quickly and with as few casualties as I can, and that's a challenge too. I would not try taking them on myself without longshields in my lineup, at least. So your Peoni's pulled off a remarkable achievement against the Julii. One thing about the Roman factions - they're relentless.

[ezrider]

After an absence here due to a heavy workload, I'm ready to report on my progress.
I now hold 45 provinces and have disposed of the Brutii and Julii in a satisfactory manner. The Brutii were down to one province, but had two standing armies. One being commanded by an 8* gen. As is typical of the AI, they tend to leave their important settlements fairly weak. Guarding Corith was the Faction Leader(the most hardcore unit I've ever seen) 2 gold chevrons,bronze armour and weapons, (62 unit size) and a unit of Hastati. I was being sieged in Athens at the time by the eight star gen but had a large force of low tech units in Thermon. Luckinly, one of my admirals was blockading the port at Corinth and I used his boats to skip my 800 strong army across the bay. More luck in the fact that I had a low skill spy in the area and sent him in to open the gates for me. It worked and then managed to run inside and set up a kind of trap for the FL. using 2 small merc Hoplites I formed a spearwall in one street leading to the main square, behind that was a unit of lybians and a unit of merc peltasts. In the street perpendicular I had 5 units of Iberians and another peltast unit.
Its easy to temp defenders out of the main square. Either you shower them with missles or set foot in the sqaure itself. I used a 12 man units of slingers as bait and the FL went for it. He hit the spear wall and I then sent the Ibearians in on the flank and behind. Surrounded and being hit with javelins, I killed him of cynically but effectively. A short battle against the Hastati and the Brutii were finished. That 8* turned rebel and lost all his legionnaires, I tried bribing him but he refused so I killed him. Same story with the Julii more or less except that I gave battle to their last army while storming their last settlement(a barbarian back water) still the gen got away and turned rebel. My boot is firmly on the Egyptians face. Got their major settlements and their armies are to far north to do anything about it.

Tactical note
Peoni infantry will beat anything the Egytians can throw at you(inf, cav and chariots obv!). with 3 units I beat off a whole army(I sallied and stood literally on my own door step, watching them skewer themselves pointlessly. that incl Pharoes Guard)
They can handle early cohorts with a little support from ibearians on the flank
but I'd reckon they'd struggle against anything heavier. Its really a matter or positioning. If they are set to take the charge then its ok, but if moving forward in attack, things get a little messy.

Only 5 more to go and the Thracians have attacked. Since I took out the Brutii they got big and strong and advanced. Their pikemen look tough and there 120 of them. This will be a challenge.

[Phoenix]

Don't worry about the pikemen, Poeni Infantry can beat them without much trouble, it's the Falxmen and Bastarnae that need to be dealt with. They can cause a lot of trouble if they get on your flanks or if you leave any gaps in your phalanx line, fortunately they die easily to missile fire and cavalry charges and Thrace has no good cavalry of its own.

[ezrider]

Don't worry about the pikemen, Poeni Infantry can beat them without much trouble
I think it was the sight of all those spears in a big prickly square that made me cautious

[Roman_Man#3]

Hey every body!!!
i think im gonna start my own carthage game. Using the field army provided in sicily, does anyone have any advice onto which city i should take first? Messana or Syracuse.:dizzy2: Im not sure which one to take...

[ezrider]

I recommend you move your army into the central highground(easier defense) and then see what the other two do. Scipii probably attack the greeks so then take the scipii city and then take Syracuse after the other two weaken eachother. Tip: build a navy and blockade the Scipii. Make peace with greece and Numidia. Focus on protecting Corduba and Sicily. Take lepcis magna as quick as possible(only a few rebels). Have the craic.

[Roman_Man#3]

I recommend you move your army into the central highground(easier defense) and then see what the other two do. Scipii probably attack the greeks so then take the scipii city and then take Syracuse after the other two weaken eachother. Tip: build a navy and blockade the Scipii. Make peace with greece and Numidia. Focus on protecting Corduba and Sicily. Take lepcis magna as quick as possible(only a few rebels). Have the craic.

cool cool, thanks, sounds good:2thumbsup:

[Guyus Germanicus]

Welcome aboard, rm3! From your membership date I take it you are a newbie. I've found the Guild to a be a friendly bunch and most helpful on a variety of issues. It's a good fellowship.

Which to take first? Syracusa or Messana? I usually end up taking Messana first. But it's not the city so much as the faction that I choose to attack first. In several games with Carthage I usually let the Scipii go after Syracuse first. Then I either ally myself with Greece and attack the Roman besieging army, or I attack them without an alliance. In the long run, the Romans are the more dangerous enemy.

Both the Greek and Roman armies on Sicily are vulnerable at the start - no cavalry usually, and the Greeks often divide their Syracuse garrison leaving only a token force with the governor inside the city (in my experience) while four of their units wander around Etna. You can attack the Roman's after they've taken Syracuse or before. But once the Scipii "expeditionary" force is dead, their garrison in Messana is extreEEEEmly vulnerable and weak. You can use your modest naval force to keep reinforcements from getting to Sicily and then take Messana. Messana, in my games, seems to have fewer public order problems and better early profits than Syracuse. If I ally myself to Greece and attack the Roman besieging army, I end up taking Messana first and then Syracuse when the Greeks eventually betray your alliance. (Does any alliance in RTW stay permanent?!?! Rhetorical question.) Or you can wait until the Roman's take Syracuse, then take it from them. Messana can be taken in a walk afterwards because you've crushed the larger Roman army at Syracuse. In my experience, the earlier you deal with the Romans the better, before they get a chance to build stables and start producing Equites and wardogs. Equites are probably the best early cavalry unit in RTW. Carthaginian longshields are comparable. But the quickest you can get longshields is four turns, I believe, from the start of the game if you build them at Carthage as the first building project. The Scipii can have stables built in three turns from the start of the game, if the AI chooses that.

Once the Scipii are gone from Sicily, they have only one city to produce revenue and soldiers. They are crippled and not likely to recover. You can put off dealing them a coup de grace later.

It's good to remember that regardless of who you choose to attack, in three turns your adversary can get stables built and start producing cavalry. The Greeks early cavalry option is the javelin cavalry. Carthage has the headstart on cavalry. They produce roundshields in Carthage (the city) and you can buy Numidian jav-cav mercs. There's one unit of Numidians in Carthage's Sicily army to start with along with a unit of roundshields. The Greeks and Romans don't have cavalry at the start other than their general's heavy cav bodyguard. Also, your faction leader, Hanno, starts out as an old man. I've had him die on me in the very first turn of a game which means you may not get to use him and his large heavy cav body guard for very long. Best get in the fight quickly if you want his experience and his heavy cav unit to be of any use at all.

Messana is probably the easier city to take, up front. It's wooden walls require no siege engines other than rams which can usually be contructed in one turn. Syracuse will have stone walls requiring a couple turns wait to build siege engines. Also, the smaller the garrison inside Syracuse, the less you have to fight on the walls. If the Romans take Syracuse early, you may have a garrison of four Hastati, archers, and velites to deal with - some of them will be on the walls to contest your siege engines in attack. Can mean lots of casualties.

Hope this wasn't too windy a response to your question. Enjoy! I love this game.

[Roman_Man#3]

Welcome aboard, rm3! From your membership date I take it you are a newbie. I've found the Guild to a be a friendly bunch and most helpful on a variety of issues. It's a good fellowship.

Which to take first? Syracusa or Messana? I usually end up taking Messana first. But it's not the city so much as the faction that I choose to attack first. In several games with Carthage I usually let the Scipii go after Syracuse first. Then I either ally myself with Greece and attack the Roman besieging army, or I attack them without an alliance. In the long run, the Romans are the more dangerous enemy.

Both the Greek and Roman armies on Sicily are vulnerable at the start - no cavalry usually, and the Greeks often divide their Syracuse garrison leaving only a token force with the governor inside the city (in my experience) while four of their units wander around Etna. You can attack the Roman's after they've taken Syracuse or before. But once the Scipii "expeditionary" force is dead, their garrison in Messana is extreEEEEmly vulnerable and weak. You can use your modest naval force to keep reinforcements from getting to Sicily and then take Messana. Messana, in my games, seems to have fewer public order problems and better early profits than Syracuse. If I ally myself to Greece and attack the Roman besieging army, I end up taking Messana first and then Syracuse when the Greeks eventually betray your alliance. (Does any alliance in RTW stay permanent?!?! Rhetorical question.) Or you can wait until the Roman's take Syracuse, then take it from them. Messana can be taken in a walk afterwards because you've crushed the larger Roman army at Syracuse. In my experience, the earlier you deal with the Romans the better, before they get a chance to build stables and start producing Equites and wardogs. Equites are probably the best early cavalry unit in RTW. Carthaginian longshields are comparable. But the quickest you can get longshields is four turns, I believe, from the start of the game if you build them at Carthage as the first building project. The Scipii can have stables built in three turns from the start of the game, if the AI chooses that.

Once the Scipii are gone from Sicily, they have only one city to produce revenue and soldiers. They are crippled and not likely to recover. You can put off dealing them a coup de grace later.

It's good to remember that regardless of who you choose to attack, in three turns your adversary can get stables built and start producing cavalry. The Greeks early cavalry option is the javelin cavalry. Carthage has the headstart on cavalry. They produce roundshields in Carthage (the city) and you can buy Numidian jav-cav mercs. There's one unit of Numidians in Carthage's Sicily army to start with along with a unit of roundshields. The Greeks and Romans don't have cavalry at the start other than their general's heavy cav bodyguard. Also, your faction leader, Hanno, starts out as an old man. I've had him die on me in the very first turn of a game which means you may not get to use him and his large heavy cav body guard for very long. Best get in the fight quickly if you want his experience and his heavy cav unit to be of any use at all.

Messana is probably the easier city to take, up front. It's wooden walls require no siege engines other than rams which can usually be contructed in one turn. Syracuse will have stone walls requiring a couple turns wait to build siege engines. Also, the smaller the garrison inside Syracuse, the less you have to fight on the walls. If the Romans take Syracuse early, you may have a garrison of four Hastati, archers, and velites to deal with - some of them will be on the walls to contest your siege engines in attack. Can mean lots of casualties.

Hope this wasn't too windy a response to your question. Enjoy! I love this game.

thanks, it should help alot. but when taking Messana, why not just skip the ram and use the elephants provided to you?
just wondering

[Guyus Germanicus]

I've never tried using elephants to batter wooden walls. Let me know if that works for you.

[Roman_Man#3]

well, guyus, i did a kind of elephant test(used Carthaginian elephants), using them to bash through a gate and the wall(wooden) on vh custom battle. The wall types were roman. here are my results...
vs. gate vs. wall
# of hit 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ...

elephants 4,3,3,4,3,3,4 etc. 4 2 2 2 2 2 2 etc.
w. elephants 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 etc. 4 3 2 2 3 2 3 2 2 3 2 etc.*
a.elphants 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 etc. 4 3 2 2 3 2 3 2 2 3 2 etc.*

*i noticed that war elphants and armoured elephants hit the same agains walls and gates. when an elephant, of any kind, hits the wall or the gates, it hits a 4 first always.
sry if its a little confusing, but i hope it helps:2thumbsup:

[Guyus Germanicus]

Interesting results in your experiment, though I'm not sure I followed your accounting. I take it that it takes the elephants a few more hits against the wooden walls to break through than it takes the battering ram. Perhaps I can try my own custom battle test. The custom battle option is a wonderful tool for test driving a strategy, or staging matches of strength between different units, is it not?

I tried an elephant test recently on a pure cavalry attack. Three equites vs. war elephants. The war elephants won - no casualties. Equites got beat up severely - no wipe out, but severely mauled. They skeedaddled when it got too rough for them. Elephants are very vulnerable to Hastati, so beware when you tangle with the Roman infantry with your elephants. Use them in flanking attacks, but nothing head on.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Interesting results in your experiment, though I'm not sure I followed your accounting. I take it that it takes the elephants a few more hits against the wooden walls to break through than it takes the battering ram. Perhaps I can try my own custom battle test. The custom battle option is a wonderful tool for test driving a strategy, or staging matches of strength between different units, is it not?

Just a quick followup - I tried a custom battle myself with the elephants busting through a wooden wall. They did OK, though they average about 4% damage to the wall or gate with each hit (which is what I think you were trying to tell me in your accounting) whereas the ram usually does about 7% damage with each hit. So, for a quick assault on a wooden wall or palisade, elephants can definitely do the job without the lag time of building siege equipment.

Postscript: If you attack Messana while the Romans are trying to take out Syracuse, they may break off the siege and come back at you to rescue their faction leader. Don't be surprised either if they supplement their army with some mercenaries at the hard/very hard level game. The AI plays a smarter campaign at those levels.

PSS - I wish the Greeks had the depth in their schedule of units that Carthage has. You can get the depth if you download the Extended Greek Mod, but the game in the mod is different. Seleucids have very nice depth and variety in their units and greater variety in cav than Carthage. When you've finished with Carthage you might want to try the Seleucids next. Their location is challenging and they have few friends in the early game. But they make good money once you get stabilized in your four front war (sometimes a five front war). Their location gives them a shot at capturing all the ancient wonders. War/armored elephants, silver shield pikemen, legionarie cohorts, cataphracts, jav-cav, scythed chariots and companion cavalry, they can produce it all, just about. What they can't produce, you can buy in mercs - horse archers, Sarmation cav, bedouins and arab cav, Cretan archers, Rhodian slingers. :2thumbsup:

Best wishes,
Guyus

[Roman_Man#3]

Just a quick followup - I tried a custom battle myself with the elephants busting through a wooden wall. They did OK, though they average about 4% damage to the wall or gate with each hit (which is what I think you were trying to tell me in your accounting) whereas the ram usually does about 7% damage with each hit. So, for a quick assault on a wooden wall or palisade, elephants can definitely do the job without the lag time of building siege equipment.:2thumbsup:

yes, basically the same results as mine, im sry if it looked confusing, i tried to make a table and to line everything up, but when i posted, it all moved to the left.

PSS -
I wish the Greeks had the depth in their schedule of units that Carthage has. You can get the depth if you download the Extended Greek Mod, but the game in the mod is different.

Ya, interestingly enough, i downloaded the extended greek mod, but it doesnt work. It says there is an error in line 147 or something. In response to knowing it didnt work for me, i added a legionaire to the greeks, for faster seiges :P, it is the same as the seleucids. It works pretty well. It is my first change or mod or what ever i did by my self, so im pretty happy...:2thumbsup:

roman man

[Guyus Germanicus]

Wow! I'm impressed that you wrote your own mod. I'm a programmer myself, but my expertise is in the IBM mainframe world, not the world of PCs and games, though the principles are often very similar. That makes me a professional dinosaur.

If your mod is working without a hitch, you might want to consider posting it for the community. I've downloaded a few skins for triarii and Sacred Band, but have hesitated loading them into the code 'cause I didn't want to risk having to reload RTW, yet again. Personally, I would love to have a legionaire option for the Greeks. In my current game with the Greeks the only units I cannot produce yet are Incendiary Pigs, Spartan hoplites, and ballistae/onagers. You max out your cavalry options early. And your best phalanx unit comes early as well - the Armored hoplite.

As for your bug on the Extended Greek Mod, I had a bug when I tried to install XGM the first time as well. In my case, I have RTW/Barbarian Invasion, the Gold Edition. Some of the Gold Edition versions of BI that were released to North America did not contain the v1.6 patch for BI. You have to have RTW updated to release 1.5 and BI updated to release 1.6 for the latest XGM version to install and work corrrectly. Once I downloaded and installed the 1.6 patch for BI, I was able to load XGM without a hitch. Perhaps you face a similar problem. Just a thought.

best of luck in all your moding endeavors,

gg

[gardibolt]

The point is that using elephants as rams gives you the best blitz in the early game. No need to wait a turn to build rams. Just walk up, beat the door down, seize the city. That's why it's best to not use those initial elephants in combat until you can replace them easily. Just bash in the doors and move quickly, giving you an economy basis to control the seas and strangle the Romans.

[Roman_Man#3]

Wow! I'm impressed that you wrote your own mod.

thanks!!:2thumbsup:


If your mod is working without a hitch, you might want to consider posting it for the community. I've downloaded a few skins for triarii and Sacred Band, but have hesitated loading them into the code 'cause I didn't want to risk having to reload RTW, yet again. Personally, I would love to have a legionaire option for the Greeks. In my current game with the Greeks the only units I cannot produce yet are Incendiary Pigs, Spartan hoplites, and ballistae/onagers. You max out your cavalry options early. And your best phalanx unit comes early as well - the Armored hoplite.

Sure, i could do that, but i would rather put it up when it is completed. I would really appreciate it if some one could make unit card and skins for it, im not sure how to!! sorry:2thumbsup:


As for your bug on the Extended Greek Mod, I had a bug when I tried to install XGM the first time as well. In my case, I have RTW/Barbarian Invasion, the Gold Edition. Some of the Gold Edition versions of BI that were released to North America did not contain the v1.6 patch for BI. You have to have RTW updated to release 1.5 and BI updated to release 1.6 for the latest XGM version to install and work corrrectly. Once I downloaded and installed the 1.6 patch for BI, I was able to load XGM without a hitch. Perhaps you face a similar problem. Just a thought.
cool, ill try it


best of luck in all your moding endeavors,

gg

thanks

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Don't worry about the pikemen, Poeni Infantry can beat them without much trouble, it's the Falxmen and Bastarnae that need to be dealt with. They can cause a lot of trouble if they get on your flanks or if you leave any gaps in your phalanx line, fortunately they die easily to missile fire and cavalry charges and Thrace has no good cavalry of its own.

Depends on the setting. At VH/VH, I've had Bastarnae run from one corner of the map to the other -- where I was defending -- and arrive only "winded." They are fast light infantry, armor piercing, and 2 HP -- do not take them lightly.

[ezrider]

Its not bad now against Thrace. I am beating large armies quite easily now. I got a couple of heroics against them, but I have to admit theat I had about 90 cretan archers, 12 rSlinger and two units of merc peltasts. The Thracians are horrifically exposed to missile fire as prev. stated and I have taken advantage of that.
note I beat a 1200 strong army of Bastarnae, pikemen & Falxmen + missile support with the above mercenary missile support, casualty riven cav and equally understrength inf.(5 units, merc hoplites/iberians- approx 200 men). I was on a really big hill on the opposite side of the map and when thos guys got to me they were winded, going on tired. After I killed their cav general they were a little easier but I was completely outnumbered and understrength. diff(H/H)

Given what Seamus has said I think that strategic advs such as terrain are less important the harder you play, but bonuses like incr stamina are a bit of a falsehood considering that anybody, including; Sparticus,Ceasar or Achillies would be knackered running up a big hill on a hot day.

[Guyus Germanicus]

" . . . and Thrace has no good cavalry of it's own."

Thank God!! What an annoying little faction to have to fend off!

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Usually "little" in most games.

Though, while playing a vanilla game with the numidians wherein I hadmigrated to Crete, Rhodes and Halicarnassus the Thracians owned 12 provinces and had multiple full stack armes ranging around the Balkans.

They even amphibbed and attacked me in the Crimea:dizzy2:

I won, of course, but its sort of amazing to run out of arrows/sling bullets and still seem them coming at you despite the losses.

[ezrider]

I finished my Carthage game :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup:
took 3 settlements off the Britons in one go and my last settlement was a heroic
victory against some rebels who'd thrown me out of Carthago Nova.

enjoyable campaign. Just wish that I had got to use my war elephants and sacred band cavalry. I had built a Royal stable in thapsus but by that time I had almost won and the fighting was very far from there. And so it goes.

Things I have learned :

lots of cavalry is good. You can beat pretty much anything with enough cav. Even heavy chariots, I recommend taking out chariots ASAP cos you can't charge their archers until these wheeled destroyers are out of the way. Watching them charge into a plalanx is one the funniest things in the game.

Barbarian infantry and Lybians are good against chariots, although so are Iberians - generally you can skip building lybians(personally i dispise them) unless bored at the end or want something a little better than TM.

Against the romans, you need phalanx troops or else you will lose(*disputable). Badly. You also need plenty of cav support(against a biggish roman army you need at least 4 - I recommend ALWAYS having at the very least 3 in a small army and you want 4 to 8 for a solid field army). Cavalry charges from behind rout the romans really easily. Theres nothing more satisfying than seeing their banners flashing white.

Don't underestimate the usefullness of Iberian infantry. They are the business. Fairly mobile and ok at fighting. they will get routed easy enough if attacked from behind but they are generally dependable. Handy for keeping the ememy from flanking your phalanx, filling gaps and such, can handle light cavalry easily in numbers, sometimes heavy cav. Not great in a siege however.

Kill the romans early with navel superiority. In the early game a navy is vital, After you conquer most of the mediterranian ports, you can disband a lot of it.

Hold onto Caralais, Corduba and especially Sciliy. Anyone who tells you otherwise, is a coward.

[Empirate]

On the contrary, ezrider, you don't need Phalanx against the Romans. When I took Italy I only used a token force of Libyan Spearmen and some hired mercs from southern Italy. These were accompanied by massive wings of roundshield and longshield cav and some few War Elephants (three regiments in the whole war, I believe it was... couldn't afford more). In the vanguard I sent three or more Numidian Cavalry to annoy, tire and disrupt the Romans, as well as to chase routers.
You won't believe the slaughter concentrated cav charges can produce. Charge isolated units, and units on the flanks, and always engage with at least two cav regiments from opposite sides. This, combined with morale penalties for the proximity of War Elephants, caused at least Hastati to rout instantly. Don't expect the battle to come off easily: I used a lot of Pause to micro my cavalry, so the Romans would be tired out after chasing them for a while, and also to make sure I could have two cav units impacting one Roman inf unit at the same time from different sides. It takes a while to reach this point, but when the time is right, and you order the final charge, the enemy's defeat is absolute. I had many battles in which not a single Roman soldier escaped the field alive. This approach makes for a lot of fun, memorable battles, with no need for Phalanx whatsoever.
I must admit though, once I had to face the by then very powerful Greeks (half stacks of Spartans and full stacks of Armored Hoplites were wandering the Balkans freely...), I reverted to a good anvil against which to smash my cavalry hammer. In that war, Sacred Band Infantry really came into their own!

[ezrider]

When I took Italy I only used a token force of Libyan Spearmen and some hired mercs from southern Italy. These were accompanied by massive wings of roundshield and longshield cav
Da du hast recht Empirate. Although you had massive wings of cav. When you face the Senate army, I dont think that its so easy. If you surround a unit of trarii with cav and you tend to rout. Although thinking back I remember having merc hoplites, samnite mercs, iberians and possibly one unit of peonis.
I have fought advanced brutii armies with hardcore armoured generals and early cohorts, there was no way that light infantry and cavalry could win.

*I just realised I received Member status, hooray!!!

[Guyus Germanicus]

:2thumbsup: Congratulations on membership status, ez!

I just wanted to affirm some of your observations. Yes, I try to field between 4-6 cav units in my field armies. Absolutely right on on that point, I feel! Mobility is important and cav can outmaneuver. (That's why taking the Gauls or the Germans or Brits in an RTW game has not appealed to me.) Elephants are good too, but slower and you have to manuever them judiciously when facing infantry. Long shields, I've found are best (I, too, have not been able to use Chosen band cav yet as my games always seem to end before I can get them to a frontline army. I've used cataphracts a plenty with Seleucids, but not Chosen band.) I like to have plenty of round shields going to the front early as the Roman armies (Scipii) have a lag time issue waiting for stables to be built.

What makes the Senate army so tough is its shear size and length, plus the number of generals accompanying it to the field. You, naturally, want to get your cav behind the Senate line so you have a good shot at the triarii and principes. But the Senate line is long and the generals are usually posted on the flanks. So, you have to fight off the generals and then get around the long line. Perhaps I should test a theory of mine in custom battle - spread the Senate line and distract the generals with flank cavalry, but keep a cav reserve with my general. Then when gaps open in the front of the line, (and they do invariably in these battles with the Senate), charge the reserve through the gaps and start routing the infantry. THEN, go after the generals.

Aside - I often keep an undersize cav unit posted right behind my slingers who I place on the frontline for skirmishing. Slingers can really take a toll on approaching enemy lines especially unsupported phalanx. If an enemy cav unit gets tempted to charge the slingers, I use the cav unit as a shield.

I don't mind Libyans. But if I can produce peoni's and Sacred Band, what's the point save for fodder or line ballast? Iberians can suffice to be my swordsmen and flank supporters with my longshields.

Naval superiority is a must, and easily attained against Scipii if you take Messana early. Once Scipii are off Sicily, the Brutii are vulnerable. Carthage is positioned nicely for grabbing naval superiority, espcially over time. So I concur with you there as well.

I agree with you about the cities too. I don't like surrendering any real estate, especially to the Julii at Caralis or the Spanish a la Cordoba. I hate Cordoba, because it has always been a public order pain in the neck with every faction that I've ever had who possessed it. But for Carthage, it is the frontier outpost and gateway to Spain and southern France. It guards your western frontier in North Africa too. There's absolutely no reason, I feel, for ever surrendering Sicily. Naval units can ferry cavalry from Carthage across and back to Lilybaeum in one turn. Just hit the Romans first and the Greeks second. The Greek supply line is longer than the Roman and the Scipii are the more immediate threat.

Congratulations on your win and your membership status! Try the Seleucids sometime soon and give us your feedback on them. :balloon2: :balloon2:

[Empirate]

Unfortunately, that point about the Triarii in the Senate army is very much right on... The battle against the Senate army was one of the hardest in my entire Carthage campaign. I went about the Triarii really carefully, distracted and decimated them with Numidians and generally tried to stay the hell out of their way. Only after I had routed most of the enemy army using the detailed above strategy (draw apart, surround single inf unit with at least two, better three cav units, charge home, draw back and repeat) I dared attack the Triarii. They proved quited deadly to roundshield cav due to their low defense, but I quickly managed to polish them off coz their morale was so low by now (enemy general dead, more than half their troops running). Still, I lost about one third of my army in that battle, and perhaps 60% of my roundshield cav. The longshields fared way better.

I'd recommend taking out the Senate's general as early as possible. I usually send out skirmisher cav like Numidians on the flanks, accompanied by heavier cav (longshields or general) a bit further back. The Numidians' job is to draw the enemy flanks apart, but also to draw out the enemy general/other heavy cav units. Once they fire their javelins at some exposed, out-on-the-flank unit, generals will come out to chase them. The Numidians fall back and run away from the general, while two units of heavier cav (the escort of the Numidians) charge into the general's flank and rear. This will mostly get rid of him. Often, the enemy first sends lighter cav, but when those are gone, the general will fairly regularly see to protecting his army's flanks himself. This works so well because Numidians are faster than generals or other heavy cav, and also because you can afford to have them turn round and fight it out, so the enemy general is stopped for the heavier cav to get a shot at his backside. Sacrificing a unit like Numidians for slaughtering the enemy general is well worth it in my opinion.

[ezrider]

Sacrificing a unit like Numidians for slaughtering the enemy general is well worth it in my opinion.
Its the only job they are good for. Sacrifice.

[Augustus Lucifer]

Well seeing as how this is a Carthage strategy guide place thing stuff whatchaamajig....I'll add my 2 cents(or 3, but not 4 cuz' I'm cheap, don't hate):

First off I'd like to say thanks to CA for making Carthage it's own culture, because playing all the different cultures makes the game exciting longer. Also, this strategy is based on VH/VH in a campaign I'm currently playing. I play lots of campaigns simultaneously, because I usually get bored at late game and start a new one, no challenge, but that shouldn't stop anyone else from finishing. Ok on to business.

NOTE: This strategy will be divided by region and go by relative time it takes. So before ending turns if you choose to follow this even remotely, than make sure you read all the different regions in that section.

NOTE: If you're good with elephants than they'll greatly help you in this campaign as they can start a siege and crush enemies in small spaces or break the enemy line in a field battle. If you suck with them, you'll find out the hard way that they are just big gold-plated pincushions. Me personally I suck with them but will once in a while use them if I'm rich later on.

NOTE: I'm not going to tell you what types of armies to make, I'm sure you know what you're good with, so make that. On any given day I'd take units I like at low level over units I can't use for crud on higher levels.

NOTE: Also another thing that comes up alot is field battles with city reinforcements. If you have spare cavalry and are winning, pursue the reinforcements to a man as this will leave the city empty.

NOTE: Lastly, individualize your campaign for god's sake. Don't follow every strategy in this post by the letter, or in any other post for that matter. Mix and match or use your thinker to make your own, I know it's annoying but it makes it more fun and allows for a greater feeling of accomplishment.

Carthage starts out with six cities, all on very nice scenic seaside locations. Corduba in southern spain, Carthage and Thapsus on the tip of Africa near Sicily, Lilybaeum on the left of Sicily, and Caralis and Palma the two islands between Spanish Penninsula and Sicily. All of your fronts will eventually be in battle if you don't take your future in your hands first.

I.
Sicily: First, take that big army on Sicily and move it towards Messana(northeast Sicily) and knock those pesky Scipii off the island. For me the Scipii had moved out of the city, so I attacked them in the field and defeated them and their city reinforcements, then took Messana. Now ASAP continue on to Syracuse, refit if you have to but this needs to be quick. Take it, shouldn't be too hard, and try and negotiate ceasefire/alliance/trade rights with the Greeks ASAP, they should have a stranded diplomat on Sicily and be rather open to this if you're nice and catch them when they're attacked elsewhere. Now start two of the cities on Sicily(probably Messana and Lilybaeum) making an army for you, and the other one building a big navy. The navy is key in this campaign so keep it churning if it's all you can do. Keep building these cities up in order raising buildings as well as their main focus military path. Don't bother building all three military buildings in each settlement as they're so close. One for each and ports/shipwright/etc. in all. Now, while you're waiting for you're army keep patroling you're navy and killing Roman vessels as they'll try to land on Sicily, but make sure your navy is big enough to win(normally the Romans don't group more than 2 ships in the same unit).

Spain: I personally found that with all my energy in Sicily and Africa, I couldn't put enough money into Corduba to keep it alive, but I did put enough in to make the loss of it to the Gauls annoying as heck. So I suggest you decide from the getgo whether you want to manage three fronts. If you say yes than good luck with that, this strategy doesn't cover that, I'll just say you need some battle skill and good diplomacy. If not, probably better for now. So pull all your men out, destroy all the buildings you can, and build peasants until you no longer can and ship them to your other settlements, probably Palma and Caralis, and disband them them for population gain. Not only does this help your cities grow and give you some cash, it also makes the city virtually useless to whoever conquers it. Then take that army you pulled out and take over Tingi from the Numidians(below Corduba in africa). That ends this front for the time being.

Palma/Caralis/other small islands: Economy and navy, try not to build military buildings here as it wastes money, unless you are rich and want to waste money. That's it for islands, just follow those guidelines for any other islands you capture(Kydonia/Rhodes/Salamis).

Africa: Carthage is your capital and a fast growing city. If you're working on the Sicilian front there shouldn't be any Roman troubles on mainland Africa. You'll want Carthage to be a military city and just about every other province in Africa when you get them to be economical, because it's no help when your reinforcements take 10 turns to get to you. First off start Thapsus economically(whichever way you do this) and get Carthage building a military. When you're satisfied with your army send it over to take Cirta from Numidia(between Carthage and Tingi), and then continue on to Dimmidi, Nepte, and Lepcis Magna refitting if you need to, but you really shouldn't need to. Also make sure you leave garrisons of around four units of whatever you think you could defend best with in an emergency(no elephants!). Don't take Siwa as it is a good way to hold off Egypt, and when you see Numidia get destroyed, you have fair warning that you're next. While this army is campaigning build another one in Carthage of your best units. The campaigning army will not be done doing all I've just said before you should continue to section II, so just keep it moving as you go on.

II.
Sicily: When you're army is finished building, start on a new one. It's now time to attack the Italian Penninsula. What? you say, it's not as hard as it sounds, even this early and with inferior units. The Scipii will be bent on destroying you and if you've moved fast enough then the Brutii will not yet have expanded. Your navy is key in this endeavor. You should almost have a full stack or at least a half stack of navy by now, but if not you can make due. Take it up to the west side of Italy where you'll find Capua, the only Scipii settlement, and destroy their navy. Make sure you bring your army along. If you time it right you can destroy their army as well by kicking out the boats from under it. Now land on the penninsula and take Capua. This isn't really very hard, especially if you have a full stack of units that you are good with. Now you're going to be on the defensive, as being the loyal romans they are, the Brutii will try and take this back from you. Hold out until you can muster that army in Carthage or Sicily. For faster results merge the two armies you've been building. You'll need a full stack for this next part. Start on two more armies after you take this one, constant military production is key. Take the newly made army by navy to the southern end of Italy and position the navy outside Croton. Don't unload it yet if you can avoid it, wait until the Brutii siege Capua, and then unleash your army on Croton. This should be a rather wasy battle. They won't be deterred yet however. Refit if you must and garrison a couple guys then continue up and siege Tarentum(try to siege from the lowest red area). Leave one cavalry unit halfway between cities just in case you lose the overall battle. This should draw the Brutii's attention and they'll lift the siege and attack you at Tarentum, with reinforcements from the city. Win the battle if you can, but if not at least make sure you destroy every last man of the city reinforcements. Next turn if you won you'll get the city, or if you lost and you managed to kill all the city people and left a cavalry back like I said then move it around the Brutii army and into the city. Bye bye Brutii. Kind of cheap, I know, but Rome having first round units to match your third round units is rather cheap as well, and I have no grievances for the dead. Garrison and build up the Italian cities economically, and make sure to keep a loyal general or lots of units in Capua because SPQR is rich and while they don't attack they'll try and bribe it just about every turn.

Everywhere: Build up those two new armies from Carthage and Sicily, and everywhere else beef it up economically and make sure to gain trade rights and alliances with as many factions as you can, since you can always break them. Keep on building up until you have all of Africa up to Siwa under control. You may have to defend in Italy against the Julii, but it shouldn't be too hard. Also, take over Kydonia from the rebels if nowone else owns it.

III.
Now you have most of Africa, southern Italy, Sicily, and a few islands. You can pretty much do whatever you want. There's a few ways to conquest from here. One way is to conquer the Spanish Penninsula and continue up into France. This way is pretty easy as barbarians can't match up with your Sacred Bands and elephants. You could also take over all of Greece and work your way up, this is slightly harder but still just some easy conquest as none of those civilizations will attack you at any of your main bases. Another option is to go up through Italy and kill of SPQR and the Julii early. Depending on how big the Julii are this can be anywhere from fairly easy to pretty annoying medium/hard. Lastly, you can go over and take on Egypt. This is by far the hardest method, so if you like challenges and are bored, do this. Egypt will have established dominance in Asia Minor and will be probably to their best units, which in some way's are better than Romans in AI hands. Also, if you start losing they may even decide to strike back, making this the riskiest expansion. This will take longer than other ways, but in the end you'll prevail one way or another. Now simply keep conquering to or past 50 provinces until you're satisfied or bored, and then simply take Rome. Good job, my son, you are now the Carthaginian master of the world. Hail Hannibal Jr.!

Hope this helps.

-CrW

[teja]

Spain: I personally found that with all my energy in Sicily and Africa, I couldn't put enough money into Corduba to keep it alive

A lot of fine points man.
Just a tip for Corduba when your only goal is to keep it alive in earlier turns: Never ever build roads there! A lot of Gaul or Spanish armies touched my territory, but never attacked me for real over tons of turns this way. It looks that AI prefers good connections to its targets and if the time to hit the target is long enought they might aim for "closer" targets. I tested this playing Cartage and used the same strategy at different places with other fractions as well. I forgot the name of the guy that found out this principe first.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Africa: Also make sure you leave garrisons of around four units of whatever you think you could defend best with in an emergency(no elephants!). Don't take Siwa as it is a good way to hold off Egypt, and when you see Numidia get destroyed, you have fair warning that you're next. While this army is campaigning build another one in Carthage of your best units. The campaigning army will not be done doing all I've just said before you should continue to section II, so just keep it moving as you go on.


As for the garrisons: this means archers and no walls. If you stick to those good old wooden palissade then you can defeat most armies with a handfull of archers. All this thanks to the flaming ammunition, which is something a battering ram can't cope with.

As for expanding in Africa, never forget to take Cyrene: it's a good way to bolster your economy, and this way you can make some profit out of trade rights with Egypt.

And these were my :2cents: .

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Carthage Campaign; RTW 1.0, vh/vh

Usual problems at outset. Gaul and Spain decide not to fight one another so that both can send armies after Corduba. The Julii come for Sardinia right after waxing Segesta. The Scipii go for Syracuse, but then turn toward Lily.
I never attacked Rome, but tried for trade rights. I then bribed rebels near Messana and ran them back to my territory. This was cited as a transgression -- of course -- even though the Julii attacking me in Sardinia was acceptable.:furious3:

This time I focused on elephants. Even the garden variety elephants are quite useful against Rome. You can't leave them exposed, you must follow up with light cavalry/Iberians to help them out, you can't use them for beans in stone-walled cities -- but they shatter formations, allow you to hit walls on turn one, and do really evil things to velites as long as they're not tired. Rome, by not fielding archers, is prone to hefalump damage. Never let eles fight solo and don't let them fight past "tired" -- but don't treat them like porcelain dolls either. The generics cost the same as a batch of Sarmatians -- but generate a lot more value.

I snuck the army back and forth from Caralis to Sicily (no navy, couldn't afford it), smashing up Romans as I built my garrisons. Once Caralis could hold on its own, those troops defeated a Scip field army and then took Syracuse. A short while later, Messana fell, and then 4 Scip family men lost their lives in an attempt to reconquer. The Scipii died out from lack of heirs.

To forestall the Romans, I did, eventually, go over to the boot and hack my way up. Took the better part of 16 years or so -- I'm a turtle -- but all of Julian and Brutian Italy are mine, as is Rome, and Capua. All were conquered just prior to 230bc, so no post-Marian problems for me. A powerful Gaul (Pyrenees to the Carpathians save for N Germany/Batavia) faces my forces across the mostly fortified Padus.

Spain was never in danger, though some hard fights were had before the walls of Corduba, and with Spanish forces committed to the deserts Southeast of Spanish-held Tingi I walked an army -- with elephants -- through Numidian territory (game-long allies actually, a first for me) to take Tingi behind them, fortify it, and then reinforce the forces in Iberia. With 2 units of elephants and some hoplites to add to the cavalry and Spanish mercs, my forces were able to beat the Spanish and Gallic forces in a series of battles and siege assaults.

I now own all of Spain and Italy, all of Sicily, Tingi, and the original provinces. The borders are fortified at the Padus and the Pyrenees, and I am building a navy, upgrading cities, feeding in Armor eles, sacred band (both) and increasing the formerly low percentage of Poenis in the ranks. Not sure whether I'll go after Brutii owned Greece, take apart Gaul, or take Egypt. All forces are building their better units now, so I'll take time to re-equip, establish standard garrisons, and build up a navy that can end the scourge of Gallic mini fleets in the med. Don't have a lot of money yet, need to keep building infrastructure and secure more trade.

[Rex_Pelasgorum]

When i played vannila, i ussualy quickly grabed any mercenaryes i found in Spain and put them into the forts to protect me from the Gauls and Iberians. I evacuated Caralis, moved the troops to Sicily, and made alliance whith the Greeks.

When the Scipii attacked Syracuse, i sent my army to help the Greeks, easily defeated the romans. Then, whith all what i had, attacked Messana... population enslaved, built temple to Baal for loyalty.

Whith Messana taken, the Scipii are 50% dead... , go hunt them and take Capua... curiously, the Brutti and the Senate will stay silent in the land as long as you dont attack Rome... theyr navy, howewer, will harm you alot, so block theyr ports. Do not attack Rome now, better take some Brutii cityes before. Build up for a couple of turns, then go for Rome, after that go for the Julii... always kill the roman factions first, dont give them time to evolve. They are programed to be your enemyes ! In vannila RTW, cavalry is the ultimate anti-roman weapon, use it alot. In your anti-roman armyes, use little melee infantry !

Numidians should be the next to be attacked - they are weaklings, and will collapse quickly to the might of Carthage.... howewer, do not attack Siwa. Siwa will be a buffer against the Egyptians. Cyrene, howewer, should be taken.

From here, all turns out to be very easy... and boring ~:)

[Seamus Fermanagh]

When i played vannila, i ussualy quickly grabed any mercenaryes i found in Spain and put them into the forts to protect me from the Gauls and Iberians.
Agreed. Worked for me too.

I evacuated Caralis, moved the troops to Sicily, and made alliance whith the Greeks.
Hmmm. I only did trade with the Greeks as I figured they'd be off the island soon. I kept Caralis because: a) I like islands, b) I hoped it would become a fixated point of attritrion for the Julii -- it did, c) I hate surrendering start territory, and d) I like islands.

When the Scipii attacked Syracuse, i sent my army to help the Greeks, easily defeated the romans. Then, whith all what i had, attacked Messana... population enslaved, built temple to Baal for loyalty.

Whith Messana taken, the Scipii are 50% dead... , go hunt them and take Capua... curiously, the Brutti and the Senate will stay silent in the land as long as you dont attack Rome... theyr navy, howewer, will harm you alot, so block theyr ports. Do not attack Rome now, better take some Brutii cityes before. Build up for a couple of turns, then go for Rome, after that go for the Julii... always kill the roman factions first, dont give them time to evolve. They are programed to be your enemyes ! In vannila RTW, cavalry is the ultimate anti-roman weapon, use it alot. In your anti-roman armyes, use little melee infantry !
More or less in line with what I did, though I let Syracuse fall and then took it so that I was the only one on Sicily. Greeks will eventually come at you, at least when they have enough Spartans.

Numidians should be the next to be attacked - they are weaklings, and will collapse quickly to the might of Carthage.... howewer, do not attack Siwa. Siwa will be a buffer against the Egyptians. Cyrene, howewer, should be taken.
This game I have left them alone. They lost Tingi to Spain very early (its now mine), took Lep-Mag by 250bc, but lost Siwa to the Eggies around 230bc. They really don't pose a threat, and I could absorb them despite distance issues in 10 years or so, but right now they're a part of my trade network and I am reluctant to cut off the monies for the 10 years it would take -- I am only a few k into surplus each turn despite a very restricted building program (now that I can no longer fund it with the crushed cities of my opponents).

From here, all turns out to be very easy... and boring ~:)
I think that's one reason I did not ignore Spain to gut the Bruti entirely. I have a very strong Gaul with lots of forresters, the Bruti, and the Eggies sitting astride my spheres for expansion. Should at least get me some interesting fights.

[Empirate]

The Gauls should be easy pickings for Carthage, no matter what size their army is at. Their units simply don't measure up to massed cavalry. I had an army of roundshields, longshields, Numidians and a few War Elephants wreak havoc on, I don't know, was it ten thousand? Gauls over the course of a few turns. I lost about 200 men in the whole process.
Of course, Foresters can be a pain if you want to employ Elephants. But cavalry is not put off by them and can quickly reach and decimate them.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Interesting and instructive exchange, Seamus and Rex.

I usually have to go after the Brutii cities Croton and Tarentum once I've subdued Sicily, and before I go for Capua. My concern is my flanks. Tarentum and Croton, once sacked, become very lucrative as well. And, the few extra turns they require to be subdued before I go for Rome are helpful in building up extra forces and bases of production for longshields, spearmen and Iberians.

I appreciate the Gauls more than I used to, now that I've been playing them some. But when I play as Carthage, I find Empirate exactly right - they are no real match for my Carthaginian legions. Elephants trample them underfoot, longshields outduel the barbarian cav, and a well-disciplined Carthagian phalanx is not going to have too much trouble with the massed infantry attacks that are the Gauls modus operandi. (I find that I play Gaul with more cav than the AI does when its managing them.)

When I'm Gaul, I like to have 4-5 foresters in my army. I can really reduce and soften my enemies under their hail of flaming arrows. Then Noble swordsmen, war dogs, and Noble cav drop like a hammer and hornets on what's left. But again, against a well-rounded Carthaginian phalanx army with solid cav support, Gaul is still marching uphill to its doom. The fight might be tough if you face the Gauls' best - Noble swordsmen and cav, but you should still be able to prevail.

Interesting posts, guys.

PS - The scuteri are excellent, excellent mercs for your Spanish campaigns.

[vusalgustav]

Can anybody say me why always Carthage and Thapsus have several points of unrest? They suppose not to revolt because they are core lands of Carthage. Because of this annoying feature I have to keep them fully garrisoned.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Can anybody say me why always Carthage and Thapsus have several points of unrest? They suppose not to revolt because they are core lands of Carthage. Because of this annoying feature I have to keep them fully garrisoned.

It's just part of their charm. Of course, the AI gets to garrison Carthage with a solo faction leader and sail through with no problems, but hey, the AI has lots of other "issues" impairing its success.

Most of the barely-constrained neo-barbs on this site prefer the following recipe:

1. Build no sanitation and only the lower echelons of the law&order buildings.
2. Let it build rapidly to 24k people.
3. Take your powerful full stack garrison -- no peasants -- and withdraw it, triggering a rebellion.
4. Re-take the town and then slaughter your own citizens by the cartload for money.
5. Repeat steps 3-4 a second time if needed to drop population to roughly 6-8k.
6. Build sanitation and other necessary improvements in your now quiescent city.

[vusalgustav]

2. Let it build rapidly to 24k people.
3. Take your powerful full stack garrison -- no peasants -- and withdraw it, triggering a rebellion.
4. Re-take the town and then slaughter your own citizens by the cartload for money.
5. Repeat steps 3-4 a second time if needed to drop population to roughly 6-8k.
city.

No offence, but this is stupidity to kill your own citizens because of money. Is this situation bug or it was deliberatly made so.
PS. By the way Cordoba is also pain in the neck. It doesn't give me any chance to operate. What is the amazing thing that Nova Carthage with its 650 people make nearly the same profit as 20000 Cordoba. And I captured Nova Carthage recently and its economical development is not match to Cordoba. How is it possible?