Carthage

[Empirate]

Very likely you have been misled - like many before you, myself included - by the number given below the city icon in the campaign map. This figure only gives an overview what the city earns in comparison to the upkeep each citizen living there has to pay for your troops. It lets you know whether the city is pulling it's weight, so to speak. Actually, the bigger city is probably making tons of money and the little hamlet is making only a paltry few hundred bucks every turn. But if you compare city size to military upkeep, is the big one really supporting all it should be?
To answer that question, proceed as follows: Add up the population of all your cities. Divide Cordoba's population by this number. Now multiply the result (should be a fraction of between 0 and 1) with the total military upkeep you have to face each turn. Subtract the result from the actual income of the city of Cordoba, and you have a figure that tells you if the Cordobans are actually doing enough money-earning for the city to be worthwhile - on a purely efficiency-based premise! :dizzy2:
That's what the figure on the campaign map does for you. It's a strange design decision by CA to make it so, but hey! It's their game. It goes without saying that it would be much more interesting for you to learn how much the city makes as a gross total, right? Your military is the size it needs to be, and being in possession or not of Cordoba doesn't make much of a difference for that. But having the city makes money for you, period. So you'd definitely be less well-off without it, regardless of it's perceived efficiency.
If you wanna know what Cordoba actually earns you per turn, open up the city screen, click on the button on the lower left saying city details or some such. Another window pops up, filling the left half of the screen, and this window has some more buttons on the lower left. Click on income&trade or whatsitcalled. Glance at the figure right at the bottom. That's, literally, the bottom line - this is what the city earns you per turn.

Do I need to say that user interface could be much, MUCH improved (and probably won't, in M2:TW) ?

:no:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

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?

Can't offend me as I consider that strategy to be distasteful as well. Discussion on the various fora here, however, make it clear this it is either A) popular or B) the preferred choice of most.

I'm one of those "immersive" types who tries to improve the lot of my citizens and consider a town revolt in a core province something of a failure. Silly me.

Empirate is correct as to the economics. The number printed on the strat map is the sum of (economic value - apportioned cost). So, your large core city of 20k people may be generating scads more cash in trade and farming, but it's buildings cost a bit more to maintain and its proportional cost of fielding your armies -- deducted by the AI in generating the strat map denarii number -- is VASTLY higher.

Hypo e.g. (setting aside other costs for clarity)

Let us suppose an army with a total upkeep cost per turn = 5,000d

Carthage, population 20,000 earns you 2800d per turn.
Thapsus, population 10,000 earns you 1500d per turn.
Newly recaptured Lilybaum, population 2,000 earns you 800d per turn.

On the strategic map, the "charges" made against your cities to determine their economic value score on the map would be:

Carthage: 3,125d
Thapsus: 1,562.5d
Lilybaum: 312.5d

So Carthage would appear to be in the red by about 325, Thapsus would show a puny profit and Lilybaum would seem to be making you all the profit. The number artificially penalizes high population towns. Don't believe me? Try giving away a big town and see what happens....:help:

Bottom line: IGNORE the strat map econ number. If you want to improve things check your end-of-turn report to find problem categories, and then see what you can modify on the city scroll to improve things. The aggregate number on the strat map is an artificial construct.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Vusal -

Your observation about public order and profits in cities like Corduba and Carthage are shared by most of us. As Empirate said, the money balance figure showing for your city is a bit misleading for the reasons he mentioned. But, both Corduba and Carthage are cities that can become public order nuisances if you don't make judicious decisions about building projects. Both seem to grow rapidly. And if you chose to concentrate on military building projects and forget to throw in some public works projects, academies, entertainment, etc., and keep your temples up-to-date; you'll see your public order percentage drop below manageable levels. Trying to catch up is very time consuming as you have to build military units exclusively for garrison duty and concentrate on building projects that have no military value just to get your public order problem under control.

The only time I've not had a problem with Corduba is when I play as the Gauls. (I haven't played as Spain or Numidia.) Typically, when I take the city in conquest, I simply assume the "character" of the faction I'm playing, be it the barbarian Gauls or the rapacious Romans, and I put the city to the sword. That gives me a long lead time growing back the population before I encounter public order problems again. That's how I rationalize killing the population.

Thapsus, being one of the main Carthaginain cities will have the same public order problems that Carthage has after a period of time.

Generally, I try to build my military buildings when I can set my city's tax rate at "very high." When I have to start dropping the tax rate to "high" or "normal," I start building some public works building, temple, academy or entertainment building if I'm not in a military emergency. You can increase your garrison size to help the problem a little bit. But when you increase your garrison, you're also increasing your military expenditures too. The more soldiers you recruit for your faction, the higher your military carrying costs. Comprenez? The more you play RTW the more you will get a feel for how to manage the trade off between tax rate vs building priorities. The trade off is not perfect because as the city grows, you gain squalor, you start losing the beneficial soldier to citizen ratio, and the population growth rate declines - all contribute to a decline in your public order percentage. And I'm sure I'm missing something as I'm writing this post on the fly.

Some building projects have dual use. I'm typing this from memory, but I believe the Carthaginian Elite cavalry stables not only build a higher level cavalry unit, but allow a public entertainment feature "races." Races provide entertainment to the populace that can compensate on the public order issue depending on whether you schedule them yearly, monthly, or daily.

There is no permanent fix for the affects of city squalor on public order. Building the next level administration building is the only thing that directly reduces squalor. The public works, entertainment, academic, and temple buildings only mitigate some of the affects of squalor on public order. And, once you max out your faction's building technology tree, you have no more tools to slow the affects of squalor. But, hopefully by then, you're closing in on the RTW victory condition. If not, then you're facing what every emperor of a great empire has faced throughout history - the disaffected city populace. Some cities in history have brought doom upon themselves because they wouldn't live in peace even under a benevolent leader. Then you have to make a choice, sacrifice soldiers and governors to your rioting citizens (and I have had a few classy faction members get killed in city riots in RTW), or do as my RTW colleague Seamus suggested. Put the city to the sword for peace's sake.

Seamus's solution is cold-blooded, :) but effective. And many veterans of RTW do just that.

One other hint on public order: make taking the city of Corinth a priority in your campaign. Seizing Corinth puts your faction in possession of the Zeus ancient wonder. It confers a huge public order benefit for all the cities held by your faction. Personally, I feel no campaign strategy, regardless of the faction you choose to play, is complete without putting Corinth into your "game plan."

Hope this was helpful, Vusal. Good luck in your campaign!

[vusalgustav]

Thank you very much guys. Very useful information.

[gardibolt]

My method of dealing with the issue is something in the middle. I will do everything I can through happiness, law, etc. buildings to keep my huge cities happy (or at least in the blue), including garrisons, repopulating nearby cities with peasants, etc. But if it ever comes to revolt, I have no compunctions about killing the ungrateful wretches wholesale. Usually my infrastructure is good enough (you have to plan these things early on, when the city is small) that I don't get more than one city revolt in an entire campaign, though. I consider that a campaign pretty well-played; I have had a few with zero revolts, especially in BI. And I've never, ever, had to massacre the same city twice. I would consider that a loss, frankly.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

My method of dealing with the issue is something in the middle. I will do everything I can through happiness, law, etc. buildings to keep my huge cities happy (or at least in the blue), including garrisons, repopulating nearby cities with peasants, etc. But if it ever comes to revolt, I have no compunctions about killing the ungrateful wretches wholesale. Usually my infrastructure is good enough (you have to plan these things early on, when the city is small) that I don't get more than one city revolt in an entire campaign, though. I consider that a campaign pretty well-played; I have had a few with zero revolts, especially in BI. And I've never, ever, had to massacre the same city twice. I would consider that a loss, frankly.

Sounds about right.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Of cities and treachery -

I remember one game with Carthage. I had taken Tarentum and sacked the place, in the spirit of Carthaginian retribution against Roman cruelty. It had been fairly large (can't remember the population when I exterminated.) Then started building it up to get it productive for my march up the Italian peninsula. A couple years later, a Julii diplomat bribed the city out from under my small garrison sans governor. Oooooooo that made me angry. I turned my army around, retook the place and exterminated again. I destroyed all things Roman and started building it up, almost from scratch. The economic balance sheet was hugely in my favor for the rest of the game. I think I was turning out 3-4000+ profits. I was quite amazed. The citizens were sooo nice after that. It was pure Carthaginian at the end.

Treachery coming on the back of benevolence I tend to punish severely.

I'm in full sympathy with gardibolt as to methods of administration and benevolence.

[rotorgun]

Has anyone had as much trouble with Gaul as I am having during their campaign? I have used the Sicily to Italy strategy, with a second campaign against Spain. While very successful at first, completely eliminating the Julii, Scipii, and eventually kicking the Brutii out and containing them on the Illyrian coastline, I have faced a barrage of increasingly effective attacks by wave after wave of Gaulic armies. Each group seems to contain more and more experienced and effective units of Chosen Swordsmen, Forester Archers, and the enevitable Barbarian Noble Cavalry. While I have won many battles against these troops, recently I have lost two settlements in northern Italy to them, and faced severe attacks against my Spanish posessions. Even the Brutii seem to be making a comback, despite my having confined them to about three settlements. It was five until I captured Thermon and Thapsus, only to have them captured by the Greeks and Macedonians respectively. (But that is another story)

How can one increase the experience level of Carthaginian troops? They do not seem to have any temples or buildings which grant improved experience like the Romas and Gauls. I am in a sort of dilemma over what to do. My campaign, which was going so well, seems to be teetering on the brink of catastrophe. Many cities are in revolt, due to the large number of enemy ships that are blockading my trade, the loss of revenues, and increasing burden of my defense spending. What can be done?

Cordially,

[gardibolt]

Gaul was easily dealt with in my campaign by massing huge numbers of cavalry. They folded like a house of cards. In particular, if you can get the foresters running, the rest of the army just collapses. I like doing a large-scale hammer and anvil, with infantry hitting one side of the Gallic army and about 8-10 units of cavalry hitting the other side.

As far as I can tell, the key to playing Carthage successfully is control of the seas. I would invest in building stacks of ships to relieve those blockades and then sweep the Mediterranean. Your money difficulties should vanish once the ports are free again.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Has anyone had as much trouble with Gaul as I am having during their campaign? I have used the Sicily to Italy strategy, with a second campaign against Spain. While very successful at first, completely eliminating the Julii, Scipii, and eventually kicking the Brutii out and containing them on the Illyrian coastline, I have faced a barrage of increasingly effective attacks by wave after wave of Gaulic armies. Each group seems to contain more and more experienced and effective units of Chosen Swordsmen, Forester Archers, and the enevitable Barbarian Noble Cavalry. While I have won many battles against these troops, recently I have lost two settlements in northern Italy to them, and faced severe attacks against my Spanish posessions. Even the Brutii seem to be making a comback, despite my having confined them to about three settlements. It was five until I captured Thermon and Thapsus, only to have them captured by the Greeks and Macedonians respectively. (But that is another story)

How can one increase the experience level of Carthaginian troops? They do not seem to have any temples or buildings which grant improved experience like the Romas and Gauls. I am in a sort of dilemma over what to do. My campaign, which was going so well, seems to be teetering on the brink of catastrophe. Many cities are in revolt, due to the large number of enemy ships that are blockading my trade, the loss of revenues, and increasing burden of my defense spending. What can be done?

Cordially,

Rotor:

Currently running a Carthage campaign (Vanilla VH/VH) myself. At 47 provinces holding England, Spain, France, Benelux up to the Rhine, Italy, Sicily, Greece, Crete, Iuvavum, Segestica, Salona, Byzantium.

Gauls proved to be tougher than Romans in many ways. I was able to consolidate Spain and fortify the Pyrenees and held Italy up to the Padus prior to Gaul developing Forrester-size cities. Then it got tough. Chosens die, but really don't break, same with forresters -- and they outranged anything I could field as -- at the time -- the Brutes still held Greece and Crete. But, with Carthage, the answer is always the same (at least the way CA set it up) -- hefalumps. Just use 3-4 not 2.

I ended up shipping Armored Eles up to replace the generics I'd been using against Rome. My strike army that smashed the Gauls south of the Alps was composed of General, 5 Poeni/Sac Band, 4 LongSheilds/Sac Band, 3 Bally Slingers, & 4 Armored Eles, 3 Ibers. I close off and forted a number of the passes (depite not owning the Med or Pat) and let the Gauls feed through the others at my Segesta-based army. Took years, but killed them in car loads then swamped Gaul.

The eles work well for the same reason they do against the Romans -- no spears. Slame the elephants through and follow up with cavalry and/or Iberians. Attacking into the broken formations lets them fight chosens at an advantage. You'll need a repple-depple city relatively near though -- there is no way to do it without casualties. Use the usual slingers in front to entice the cav into your spears or eles. Lather, rinse, repeat.

[rotorgun]

Thank you gardibolt and Seamus Fermanagh . I shall consider the advice that both of you have given me, and try to use your ideas where appropriate. I guess my first priority should be to go on the defensive, cut back where I can to save money (even destroying uneeded buildings if I must), and start building a more effective navy. My problem is that I tend to go strong on the offense without enough strategic intelligence. I usually have a reasonable number of spies in the local areas I operate in, but fail to send enough into the enemy territories. I probably need to build more watch towers as well, which should free up some spies to move outward.

Espionage is one area which appears improved to in the new mod to me. The AI seems to make better use of spies and assassins in most games now. I also like the way you have to be on guard against the enemies diplomats as well. The Romans must have bribed Croton and Tarentum about two times each until I routinely had them assassinated. Now I make it a point use assassination more frequently. Ofcourse this usually illicits a similar response from the AI.

Lord save us from the fury of the Barbarians!

Cordially,

[ezrider]

I never had much of a problem with Gaul. I took all of Italia early enough and I also had complete naval supremacy in the Med. My armies consisted of: Iberians, Roundshields, Balearics, long shields, barb spears and maybe 3 peonis scattered about France. I also had some good onager units which I used to great effect.

The hardest part was dealing with Forest Battles. My armies where extremely cavalry reliant. Some times I wouldn't even engage my infantry at all!!!! just slings, skirmishers and Cav. That was a bummer against their spears, but to be honest, my cavalry owned theirs. With the peonis I did have, I massacred warbands et al. I usually move to a nice defensive position near to my enemy and let them come at me. After being pelted with lead and artillary for a good while, there isn't much fight left in the Gaul. The taking cities is made for phalanx formations. Even good Gaulish troops get chewed up by the pikes.

Things I hated; Hounds - they are bad for horses, Forresters - they are tough mothers and have consistantly inflicted casualties in my slow pike formations.

[Death Match]

If you want a easy and short solution to Carthage, I have got it.

You going to be at war with all the Roman factions, so be aware.....

First, as someone have already said, kill of Scipii by taking Capua and Messana simultaenously.

While doing this, build up things all your cities. Recruit one full-stack army and one full-stack town militia

After Scipii have been destroyed, gather all your armies and attack S.P.Q.R, and destroy the faction completely. According to my past experiences, I know that the other Roman factions will be quite weakened by this. Now, EXTERMINATE, place some town militias here then separate your troops in two to kill off Julii's only two cities. While this, you should be recruiting another full-stack back at home.

With Julii gone and their cities filled up with your town militia, set up trade agreements and alliance (if possible) with Gaul, Dacia, Britannia and Germania. (In this order of priority).

Now bring your other full-stack and kill off Brutii, while the other stack goes home to be retrained.

If all these goes successfully, you will be talking about no Romans in the map at all. So they are not going to come against you with their superior Post-Marius units!!! Hey! Rest is a piece of cake. Set up trade agreements and alliance with Greeks and Macedonians, and retreat all armies from Italy to use in the home ground.

Well, by now you will control most of world sea-trade and have about 10~15 cities. Upgrade those ports and farms and roads, and you will have a stable economy. When Greeks or Macedonians seem to be growing too much, set up an alliance with the one while attacking the another, and it will be a piece of cake. Heaps of sea trade and land trade. Nothing left but GLORY~!!!

[Poulp']

Hello Ezrider

You have trouble fighting the Gauls?
Fight fire with fire; hire barbarian mercenaries and barbarian cav, they make fine complements to your army since they have the same bonuses in forest/snow (IIRC...)

Carthage roster is really diverse, you can field a full cav or full infantry army.
In my campaign, I fielded 3 armies to crush Gaul; 2 newly recruited cav armies and a infantry army that made the spanish campaign.
The cav used to circle around my main infantry army and protect it from ambush or preventing reinforcements to reach besieged cities (elephants, if you can field them, can let you blitz a gallic city every 3 turn or so).
In 5 years, most of Gaul was conquered and thanks to my navy, I could supply fresh troops to the gallic front.
Just don't fight on the Gauls' terms, attack the cities and try to gain time in the guerilla warfare they want to draw you in.

The only problem is "How much of your war effort can you afford to put into the gallic campaign?" especially if you are fighting in Italy or Greece at the same time.

[rotorgun]

Finally the Brutii are destroyed! In an epic 1-1 battle their last army was annihilated by the Carthaginians on the coast of Illyria. Their last settlement, Salona, was defended by their sole remaining family member. With only a Lybian Spearmen and one Roundshield Cavalry available to besiege it, due to my inceassant war with the Gual, it was sure to bring him out to sally forth. This he did, and thus he died, not living long enough to see his hard fighting troopers rout my small band of brothers. While I did not gain posession of Salona, it passing to the rebels, it was enough to end the Brutii line forever. Now if I can only keep the barbarians at bay, I shall then attempt Rome.

The defensive strategy has been successful, albiet costly. Gual has thrown army after army at Segesta, Mediolanium, and Patavium. I have used a fire brigade approach to fend them off. Now I shall attempt to fortify the expected routes of attack, if I can get enough of a breather. The bridge west of Segesta looks like a likely spot to build a fort. The pass in Cisalpine Gual already has one. I'm not sure where to put one in Venetia. Any suggestions? Patavium is an important source of Peoni and Sacred Band Infantry and must be protected.

A third problem has loomed on the Horizon, and it has taken me off guard. The Egyptians, with their usual hordes of Chariots, Pharoah's Bowmen, Skirmishers, Spearmen, and Axe wielding thugs have already attacked Thaspus once. I held them off without a fight by destroying every building of any value as they were besieging it. I couldn't believe it, but they actually gave up and headed for Numidian Lepis Magna. I guess they are looking for a base of operations to expand westward. It has only bought me time, which I have used to develop War Elephants in Carthage, but I am woefully behind the power curve in all the infantry arms. My cavalry is only Long Shields also. I am hoping to keep them at bay with diplomacy, but the war is coming soon.

In Spain, I have recaptured the rebellious Carthago Nova, fended off every attack on Numantia by Gual, and am in the process of building some forts on the approach routes. I am confident that I can hold Spain, as long as the attrition is not too high. Only Osca remains to the Spanish, and it is well defended. (How can the AI keep such high quality troops fed with only one city left to the Spanish faction?) That is the main problem now. With more enemies than freinds, it will be an uphill battle all the way.

Well, I'll keep everyone up to date when I can. I appreciate the suggestions so far as they have been helpful.

Sincerly,

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The defensive strategy has been successful, albiet costly. Gual has thrown army after army at Segesta, Mediolanium, and Patavium. I have used a fire brigade approach to fend them off. Now I shall attempt to fortify the expected routes of attack, if I can get enough of a breather. The bridge west of Segesta looks like a likely spot to build a fort. The pass in Cisalpine Gual already has one. I'm not sure where to put one in Venetia. Any suggestions? Patavium is an important source of Peoni and Sacred Band Infantry and must be protected.

I'd have a bit of fun with this. Cisalp fort is good, fortify the Brenner and fortify two points near between Segestica and Patavium if you don't own that portion of the Balkans. No way to completely block that direction but two forts is a slow workaround and plenty of time to reinforce Pat'm. On the other side, you want Gaul to keep feeding armies into the pass from Provence. Don't fort it, sit a defensive force on that bridge. It's an unusual bridge in that you have plentiful high ground on your side and can actually use onagers with verve. A few good bow and slinger and 1-2 spears +2 Iberians and you can hold for decades.


A third problem has loomed on the Horizon, and it has taken me off guard. The Egyptians, with their usual hordes of Chariots, Pharoah's Bowmen, Skirmishers, Spearmen, and Axe wielding thugs have already attacked Thaspus once. I held them off without a fight by destroying every building of any value as they were besieging it. I couldn't believe it, but they actually gave up and headed for Numidian Lepis Magna. I guess they are looking for a base of operations to expand westward. It has only bought me time, which I have used to develop War Elephants in Carthage, but I am woefully behind the power curve in all the infantry arms. My cavalry is only Long Shields also. I am hoping to keep them at bay with diplomacy, but the war is coming soon.

Eggies are annoying. However, you can often tease his combined arms groups into their separate components. Axemen are too fast and outpace the phalanx -- but are weak to cav and eles. Phalanx hack your horsies and hurt eles but your generic slingers can thump them all day and run. Heavy chariots and chariot archers are tougher to handle, but if you can get them to close with the elephants -- especially with Iberians nearby to help the eles, then you can chew them up too. Eggy bow is more annoying, but they will fixate on your elephants with flamers, giving you a chance to cav them under with good timing. In general, tease apart then hammer with antithesis.


Only Osca remains to the Spanish, and it is well defended. (How can the AI keep such high quality troops fed with only one city left to the Spanish faction?) That is the main problem now. With more enemies than freinds, it will be an uphill battle all the way.

In games, that makes it fun! I have always wondered how the AI could field 5 full stacks to my one.....

[ezrider]

Hello Ezrider

You have trouble fighting the Gauls?


Read the post again. First line says:


I never had much of a problem with Gaul

[rotorgun]

Well I decided to throw in the towel on this campaign. My morale rallied for awhile after the destruction of the Brutii, and I even made good during the campagin for a few turns, but once the AI smelled blood it just poured on the coal. Egypt was in the process of completely eliminating the Numidians, my neutral partners in North Africa, and would soon turn her formidibale power against my only two cities there, Carthage and Thaspus. After trading some map information with them I discovered that they had already conqered all of the Seleucid, and Pontic lands in both Syria and Asia Minor, something like twentyfive regions, including her starting provinces. This was bad enough, but that's not all.

Greece, my largest trading partner and ally, decided to march up the coast of Illyria with five full stack armies, bent on invasion of my northen Italian gains. While I could defeat four of them, all terrific battles at 1-1 odds, the fifth finally succeeded in taking Patavium, my bastion of the north. At the same time, the Gaillic armies took were about to take Numantia in central Spain and stood ready to expand from there. I beat everything they sent at me in Italy, but that is what wore me down strategically. I have never seen the AI perform such a coordinated strategic assault. I almost like these factions were allies, but I knew them to be enemies in fact.

I'll try this campaign again in a few weeks. I like the Rome first strategy, but am not sure how to handle the rest of the factions at the same time. I don't think I did enough diplomatically speaking. I also failed to deal with Numidia properly. I probably should have taken her out early in the game.

Thanks for the good advice nonetheless. I guess you can't win them all. :laugh4:

Cordially,

[Empirate]

Don't give up on this one yet! It's always such fun and gives you such a feeling of accomplishment to pull a campaign like this out of the mud. OK, so you have taken losses, troop- and territory-wise. Don't think about it anymore, it's not the end of your empire. You still have Carthage, and it should be really hard to take for the Eggies. You also still have Italy and Sicily. The Greeks have taken Patavium, but they lost four stacks in the process. This means they should be vulnerable to counterattack in a few turns' time. The Gauls are pushing you hard in Iberia, but the ground there is so strange that you can basically pick a defensible position and hold forever. If necessary, fall back to Corduba and hold the bridge right north of it, you can waste huge Gaul armies without losing more than a few dozen people at bridges.
Try to build Sicily and southern Italy into your powerhouses. Sicily should be producing enough to hold Carthage against the Egyptians indefinitely, and slowly expand westwards from there: The Eggies can't easily supply the western part of North Africa from their homelands, not with Carthage/Thapsus in their way. Once northern Africa west of Carthage is secured, supply Iberia from there. I agree with Poulp': Don't fight on the Gauls' terms, take their cities instead, if possible by ferrying troops by ship. Take their cities, exterminate, destroy buildings, or if possible, hold onto them to give them another road block. Massilia and Narbo are easy to take by sea and will give the Gauls a lot of trouble: Massilia because you can block any approach to Italy from the west, Narbo because it lies squat in the way of armies going to fight in Iberia. Holding onto Northern Africa and retaking Iberia should enable you to finally make enough troops and money to send over to Italy to beat the Greeks (who can be an incredible pain in the ass). Build navies in the Adriatic, otherwise you'll be in trouble against the seafaring Greeks. They are easy to retrain in nearby ports. Patavium must be yours again, and the paths leading to it blocked. After that, assault the Greeks at Corinth, Athens and Sparta. These cities must be exposed if they send all their troops north to fight in Italy, and they're very close together, saving you a long march through the Balkans.

The overall strategy would be: Hold on to what you can hold easily and to what you must hold on to because of money and troop production. Establish a good defense at strategic points. Hold off the Egyptians. Counterattack Greece. Fall back in Iberia, if necessary. Take northern Africa, then Iberia. Secure all of Italy against Greek attack, then ferry an army over to where cities are closest together in Greece. Attack the Gauls' cities where they are weak. Furthermore, talk to the Greeks' neighbours, as well as the Britons and Germans, so as to distract your direct opponents.

When all of this is accomplished, the western part of the map should be under control. Expand wherever seems the most expedient, just hold against the Egyptians: Their armies will take awhile to march through the deserts. No use clashing with them in an all-out, epic war.

[dacdac]

don't clash with Egypt!!?? What!!?? That takes all the fun out of it. I always get Africa, Iberia, and Sicily before sending an army east on a boat and landin right next to Sidon. Take troops from N. Africa and march east. By the time they get there, hopefully they will meet up at Memphis or Alexandria. It is a lot easier to hold a front against Gaul and Greeks than it is to hold back Egypt.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Well I decided to throw in the towel on this campaign. My morale rallied for awhile after the destruction of the Brutii, and I even made good during the campagin for a few turns, but once the AI smelled blood it just poured on the coal. Egypt was in the process of completely eliminating the Numidians, my neutral partners in North Africa, and would soon turn her formidibale power against my only two cities there, Carthage and Thaspus. After trading some map information with them I discovered that they had already conqered all of the Seleucid, and Pontic lands in both Syria and Asia Minor, something like twentyfive regions, including her starting provinces. This was bad enough, but that's not all.

Greece, my largest trading partner and ally, decided to march up the coast of Illyria with five full stack armies, bent on invasion of my northen Italian gains. While I could defeat four of them, all terrific battles at 1-1 odds, the fifth finally succeeded in taking Patavium, my bastion of the north. At the same time, the Gaillic armies took were about to take Numantia in central Spain and stood ready to expand from there. I beat everything they sent at me in Italy, but that is what wore me down strategically. I have never seen the AI perform such a coordinated strategic assault. I almost like these factions were allies, but I knew them to be enemies in fact.

I'll try this campaign again in a few weeks. I like the Rome first strategy, but am not sure how to handle the rest of the factions at the same time. I don't think I did enough diplomatically speaking. I also failed to deal with Numidia properly. I probably should have taken her out early in the game.


Well, that's a typical thing for the AI to do. For years your allies don't seem to do a thing, you might even have to support them, and then in all of a sudden you find yourself surrounded by enemies who once were your most loyal allies. My solution to this is whenever there is a good opportunity to back stab them, do so. (Like 2 of your allies going to war against each other, is a good opportunity to back stab the weakest, or the closest neighbour that is involved.) This is also the key feature of getting rid of African trouble: Numidia is good as a temporary ally, while fighting of Rome, only.

[shizzernockers3]

first beat rome then take spain then build up your armys and attack eygpt and gual

[Seamus Fermanagh]

first beat rome then take spain then build up your armys and attack eygpt and gual

You do realize that this strategy, while not a bad one, is...shall we say...a bit minimalist?

[Craterus]

You do realize that this strategy, while not a bad one, is...shall we say...a bit minimalist?

Perhaps. But his strategy seems to have the priorities in the right order. Although I prefer to utterly crush the Numidians in Northern Africa (leave them in Libya, they're harmless there), and then get to work on the Romans.

It's much easier to leave Spain as minimally garrisoned as possible while you beat the Romans from Sicily, and then assault the Italian Peninsula.

Then, I find it best to eliminate Spain and it's usually about this time that Egypt and Numidia (if not already dealt with) will come calling. So, during war with the Iberians, build up your borders near Egypt so that you're ready for their inevitable attack.

Once you've got Spain all to yourself, the world is yours for the taking. Fight in the east against Egypt, or cross the Pyrenees and fight the Gauls. From this point, it really is up to you.

[rotorgun]

Thanks to all for the great advice. I did restart the campaign, and have had great sucess so far by fighting the Numidians and Romans first. Numidia has only two provinces left, both severely weakened, while the Romans have lost all of Sicily, Palma, Sardinia, and southern Italy, including Rome. Those were some interesting battles against the Senate armies. I took a page from Seamus's advice some time back and moved two armies in support of each other, one by land and the other by sea, and parked them on the river ford just west of Rome. Just as pedicted I was attacked by two Senate armies back to back, both with reinforcements. Each time they promptly massed at the river ford and I attacked them while they were crossing the river.

During the assault, I kept up a steady barrage of sling stones from the flanks upon those units not engaged with my front line. Once the battle was in full swing, I moved my assault wing of Long Shields and War Elephants accross the river ford upstream from them and moved them to attack the Romans from behind. It was a slaughter at midstream of their initial attacking force, although I did suffer moderate to heavy casualties from their superior infantry until the arraival of my reinforcements and flank attackers. After this, it was cross the river pell-mell and intercept the Roman reinforcements before they could gain the far bank.

Once these two battles were concluded, I besieged Rome which was only defended by the one remaining Principe left to them. Now I am retraining my troops, and planning to move north in force to support my fight against the remaining Julii. I think I shall leave the Brutii alone and stranded for awhile in the only two provinces they control in western Greece. They appear to be surrounded by Macedonians, Greeks, and yes, even Guals. both these Roman factions should be fairly neutralized now that Rome has fallen, as a great deal of trade, military support, and political will has now been denied them.

Spain has so far been a loyal ally. I only hold Corduba, which is doing a booming trade business with Tingi. I have already been skirmishing with the Gual, and would like to keep the loyalty of the Spanish to help fend them off until I defeat Numidia. After this, it will be a toss up. I will have to decide wether to prepare a strong defense against the Egyptians, and Stab Spain in the back, or press on with an assault against Pharoah's children before they become too strong. What advice do you offer comrades? General Rotorgun awaits your counsel.

[Death Match]

Well done. My suggestion is to hold Crete, Athens, and Sparta simulateniously. Then put a lot of army in Sparta to block any Greeks. The result is good cash.

I have 7 full-stack armies and still earn more than 10000 denarii per year because of this.

[Tellos Athenaios]

If you control Siwa, then it's a good time to take out Memphis, Thebes, and Alexandria.

If you don't, then it may be a better plan to take all of Greece and then take both Spain and Egypt simultainously. You'll be able to afford that, Greece is a real cash cow. After that hardly anyone can pose a real threat to you anymore.

[CXA]

My Exp with Carthage!! This is an e-mail I sent my brother who also plays the game...


Well I took over the whole world with my Seleucids VH/VH (sp)!!

After listening to you about Carthage, I thought I would give them a whirl.

I set the settings to VH/VH and took off.

I have restarted 6 times!!

These guys are as tough if not tougher than the Seleucids starting out. The Seleucids have about 5 enemies as well, with Egypt being the real tough one. Egypt is right there and causes some real issues. The others have a lot of land to cross to get to you. Some have to come through tight passes that are easy to defend. I could move my main army to any front in about 2 or 3 moves. Seleucids have archers and better starting inf. than Carthage. They are weak on Cavalry though.

Carthage is harder in that you have to have a navy in order to cover it all. Corduba is on its own for the most part. So is that real little island (Palma). Enemies??
You have all of Rome on you from the start. Egypt is tough, but it is not as bad as all of Rome. Jullii attack my small islands continually. Scippii attack my small island just north of Carthage (Caralis), mainland Africa, and of course Sicilia. Brutii keep landing armies near Carthage itself as well as helping the Scipii with Sicilia.

Was allies with the Spanish, Numidia and Gaul for awhile but they all betrayed me. I beat 2 large armies (from Gaul and Spain - different turns) easily at Corduba. Later Gaul sent an army and I figured I would beat them again especially if I held the bridge. NOPE!!! They rushed the bridge fast and were across before I could get a good setup. I hurt them by killing their general, but I had to send mine in as reinforcements (they were bulging my defense) and he died. Several of their groups routed but all of mine did. The slaughter was pretty bad. Battle was over and my leftover army retreated to Corduba. I was under siege a few times but they would leave. I later found out that they were at war with the Spanish now. Spain asked me to be a protectorate in which I agreed. Keeps them off my back and helps with Gaul. A Spanish army right next to Corduba attacked Gaul's army that was right there as well. Since I was a protectorate, my army was put on the field as well. Stupid Spain attacked before I could get near to help. They beat Spain up bad and then proceeded to beat me bad as well. Did not lose Cordoba though. Don't know how I have not lost it yet.

I lost Palma and Caralis is always under siege by the Julii. I fight them off but the come back when I have left to take care of other things. I own all of Sicilia but is very very weak. Almost all of my provinces are unhappy.

Last night I had to beat off three armies ( Numidia , Brutii and Scippii) that attacked Thapsus (too close to home). Then the unspeakable happened!!

Carthage rebelled and kicked me out!!

I almost started over. Lost my capital, lost Palma, Corduba under threat, Carlis under siege (again). All 3 cities on Sicilia weak and unhappy, -11,000 in debt, fleets all banged up!!

I have about 1200 good soldiers right near the capital, so I put it under siege. I attack it in the first turn because I want to get to Caralis before it falls. I take the capital back and exterminate the population. I get 15K which takes me out of debt and gives me some spare cash. I retrain beat up groups. Jump on beat up fleet and go to Caralis. I land but can't fight yet (no movement). Attack next turn with about 1100 men. I attacked the Jullii but an army from Scippii is right behind them. Total, they have around 1400. I attack anyway. I have around 10 groups of cavalry (mix of general, short and long shield, and one javelin). I ran them out front as I had my footmen move up slowly behind to establish a battle line for me to fall back to. Some Scippii ran out and got crushed. The Jullii moved toward their allies and sent some cavalry out...they got crushed. I also have 2 first stage elephant groups. I had them move out to help the cavalry as the heat was getting hotter. Finally I ran back to my lines because they came together and attacked as one. When they hit my infantry line I had my elephants help support the middle and have my cavalry hit the flanks. The whole 2 armies routed and I chased them all down so that 80% were dead. I lost about 100 : ) I jumped on my ships and moved toward Croton (Bruttii capital). Took 2 to 3 turns to get there and fought one navy battle (they were weak). I sent a spy over there a long while back and thought I had him sitting in a good spot to see all the comings and goings of Bruttii's 2 key cities. I was wrong. I landed and there was a 900 man army sitting right next door. They attacked me!! I used the same strategy on them as above and kicked there butt. Almost 90% dead. I was down to around 700 men. I put Croton under siege and attacked next turn. Not much defense, I exterminated the city for the cash and sold out all the buildings. Retrained some groups and was going to move on next turn. The city had serious unrest and all my groups took a hit. I gained more men from retraining than I lost to unrest. Thank Goodness. Left one weak group of town watch in city and put their other city (Terentium) under siege. Attacked it immediately!! Had elephants knock down their wooden gate. Took the city easily. Brutii are dead!! This city had wood walls but very nice barracks with a level of Pike men that I have no where else. I retrain my hurt groups and start training a new group of these pike men. I had my spy check out the Scippii capital of Capua. A couple of small armies are around it and it has a very weak garrison. I attack the two small groups halfway to the city and beat them both bad (100% - total of around 600 men). I siege the city and will attack next turn.

Did not think the half stack senate army could reach me, but they could. I have around 900 men and they about the same ((600 senate and 300 Scippii). I use the same tactic and beat them up. I lost around 150 men they lost all but 40. Made taking the city real easy the next turn. Scippii Dead!! I retrain add a new group and decide to take Rome!!

I had my spy check them out and I see no army near Rome. Rome looks to have maybe 100 men in it. I move up to siege it. I save the game but hit the hourglass to see what is going to happen....

A full Senate Purple stack attacks me!! I will lose if I fight this battle. I retreat and it takes me to the shore. They move after me but can't attack me again (lack of movement points). I am trapped. Their red field of influence will not let me get out. I would love to fall back to Capua and build up more troops there. I have one out!! I built an upgraded Roman ship fleet at Capua. I will jump on it and make my escape to fight another day!!

Soooooo glad I didn't start over!! : )

Update!!

Im am officially a retard.

After my capital (Carthage) revolted and kicked me out, even after I retook it, things financially were tough. All my cities were unhappy and money was in the negative every turn. This forced me to take things out on Numidia. I took out and exterminated their 3 best cities (Cirta, Dimmidi and Tingi). I used the money to keep my head above water financially and to improve upon my cities for health and wealth. Also increased garrisons to keep the peace. This was not working as I was still losing money and many of my cities were in the red.


DUHHHHH!!

I figure it out!!

When I lost my capital, the capital changed!! HUH!!!! DUH!!!!!

Corduba was now the capital and because of its distance, all my other cities were unhappy!! ARGH!!!! DUH!!!!!!

Changed capital back to Carthage and all is well again!!

Now I am going to finish off Numidia, build up my borders and prepare an army to take Rome!!

[SwordOfRome]

Feeling a little intimidated with all these great generals about, especially considering I did this campaign on Med/Med. Don't laugh too hard.

My strategic plan was to first take sicily, then destory Numidia, which would give me a solid base. I also didn't mind loosing Corduba or the two island cities Carthage starts with (I lost both as it turned out, the islands to the Julii, Corduba to the Gauls). Then, I'd take Spain and Southern Italy simultaneously and work my way east and north respectively in a kind of pincer action, meeting up at Massilia. That done, I'd have the Julii to deal with to the north and the Brutii to the east. Then, I'd slug it out and hope for the best.

And that's pretty much how it happened. I took Syracuse quite early, then had a tough series of battles with the Scipii before taking Messana. After that, I blockaded their port at Capua and after a few turns they went rebel. So, the Scipii were done. While that was going on I lost Palma and Caralais to the Julii, and Corduba to the Gauls, or rather, I abandoned those cities. The two islands weren't near strong enough to hold of the Julii, and I wasn't prepared to garrison them strongly as I needed the troops to deal with Numidia. At Corduba I considered holding on to it but I was being attacked by Spain and the Gauls, so I pulled out (the logic being, they'd then start fighting each other, allowing me to face weakened opponents later on). I then beat Numbida with litte trouble (bypassed their larger armies and simply took their lightly garrisoned cities. It seemed to demoralize them as they didn't put up much of a fight afterwards).

Then, I built up to Poeni infantry, formed some armies and attacked Spain and southern italy. After that things went as planned. The only problems came later on in Greece when I was fighting the Brutii there. I had one instance where I was facing two full-stack post-Marius armies and I had two half-stacks, one garrisoned at Corinth and the other pinned against the ocean nearby. To cut a long story short, I beat them, don't ask me how as I don't remember but I did (think I managed to isolate one stack, beat it, then face the other). After that I worked my way north and after capturing Thessalonica the Brutii mostly sat back in their cities. The campaign ended fighting the British, with only one Julii city left. What of Egypt? I left one Numidian city (Siwa, I believe it is) between me and them as a kind of buffer, which they never took, being allied with the Numdians. They didn't bother me and I didn't bother them. I was lucky.

As for the tactical aspect...
I never bothered with Elephants, as they're a magnet for any and every missile unit in an enemy army, and they always seem to run amok. I'm not willing to pay 1000 odd denarii for a unit that's expensive to maintain and then have to kill it because it can't keep its cool. So, I stuck to Poeni infantry and Long Shield Cavalry and fought most of my battles with those. Where I could get Sacred Band units I used them (handy garrison units, the Sacred Band infantry). I used Cretan Archers were I could get them but otherwise I didn't bother with ranged units, as the Carthaginian slingers aren't much use (they do too little damage considering their range and the enemy cav loves them). Used a few Onagers which came in very handy against the Brutii, who on numerous occasions stood still while I bombarded the stuffing out of them (must be 'cause I was playing on medium. I doubt they'd stand like that on hard). Hired some mercs as well, especially early on against the Spanish and Guals. But mostly, it was up to the Poeni infantry which, honestly, must be one of the best units in the game. The only units I had real trouble with were Urban Cohorts (they're the bane of my existence) which seemed quite capable of attacking my Poeni infantry head-on while suffering no casualties at all. Long shield cav into their flanks and rear? They didn't even break a sweat. I had to surround them to get them to rout. Bloody awful things, those. I shudder to think what they must be like on the higher difficulty settings. Although, the Sacred Band cav did do better against them. I'd appreciate any specific advice on how to deal with them.

And that's my story. Second time around I think I'll head for greece early on, rather than take all of italy first.

[Roman_Man#3]

welcome to the org, sounds cool. good strategy, and dont worry about playing m/m, i do too.

[Sl-Trajan]

I have been playing this game for years, always on VH/VH. I have never posted to these forums, but have read them for a very long while. Thanks to everyone that participates in them as they are a valuable resource.

Now...pertaining to this thread. I have been playing a Carthage campaign for nearly a year. I have two infant children which means I get an hour or two every few days to play -- which leads to very long games.

Anyhow... The Strategy is complex..

After securing Sicily, North Africa and Corduba in the early stages of the campaign the game got very interesting. I had lost Caralis to the Julii and didnt plan to retake it for a long while.

As I moved into the middle point of the campaign, I built an army of Sacred Band infantry, 3 or 4 Armoured Elefphants, several Long Shield Cavalry and 2 units of Slingers. In support I had Sacred band infantry, Poeni Infantry and Sacred Band Calvary as a flanking or re-inforcing army. This army marched east from Carthage and took Lepcis Magna. Then I stopped my eastward push, fortified Lepcis magna with Sacred bands, round shield infantry and slingers and left it to fend off the non stop Egytian attacks. This city has had more Heroic battles than I have ever seen in this game. Egypt never stopped attacking it until I began a major egyptian campaign much later in the game. They lost many an axeman and chariot to the wall of pikes within the city streets.

After taking Lepcis Magna, my armies moved quickly to take out the gauls and spanish. Supported by the city of Corduba, I kicked the Gauls out of Spain as well as the Spanish. I stopped my advance at Lemonium, Nabro Martius and Massila, placed forts and fortified the cities to repulse the weak Gauls as they tried to take their cities back.

By this time I had enough money to build two more Elephant units and sustain them as a part of a major army. WIth two armies marching, both supplied with Elephants, Sacred Band Infantry and long Shield Cavalry, I boarded ships and took back Caralis -- kicking the Julii in the butt. I moved quickly to support Caralis to defend against the Julii attempts to recapture it and once again boarded ship to launch an amphibious assualt on Segesta (held by Julii). Again, I took the city and fortified it. This essentially took the majority of one army to fortify both cities against the Julii attacks. I was able to send one set of Armoured Elephants back to Carthage after the assualt on Caralis and retrain them while the other army took Segesta. After Segesta was under controlled I moved my remaining assault army back to Carthage, retrained them and off we went to the next phase.

I moved hard against Egypt. Using 8 Elephant units supported by infantry and long shield cavalry, I was able to punish the Egyptians in every battle. Charriots dont fare well versus Elephants and Phalanxes. And even Pharoah's bowman (armoured THOUSAND ISLAND DRESSING WITH BACON that they are) dont last that long against experienced long Shield Cavalry. I did have an extra few long shield cavalry units to use as a flanking or resupply force which was nice as I moved quickly and didnt always have time to retrain or resupply from my primary army producing cities. I took Cyrene, Siwa, Memphis, Alexandria and Thebes in order. Unfortunately, with Carthage as my Capital the unrest in Thebes, Memphis and Alexandria remains high so I have to keep large garrisons and influential Govenors there to keep the cities under control. I also have an army, stationed in a fort, ready to sally forth to attack any Egyptian forces which think they need to win back their former cities.

Now, late in the game with my armies reassembled I marched into Italy from the north (Staged out of Segesta) and across the sea from Caralis and Messana. Taking out the remaining Julii, Rome and Brutii cities was a piece of cake. I suffered no set backs and am now preparing to complete this game with a push using 3 armies into the Brutii and Greek territories across the water. I think that within a few weeks (remember I have two kids that make it impossible to play) I will have the game completed.

Carthage has provided me with the best game I have played on RTW. They lack a real archer unit and could use a better wall defender group -- but you cant have everything. The slingers are weak and only marginally effective. I use them, but dont really like em. They die alot to calvalry charges. I have used plenty of mercenary numidians to support my Egyptian campaign as they fare well versus chariots.

My main tactic is to taunt the enemy with slingers, charge with elephants, follow with long shield cavalry and crush with phalanxes -- take the field of battle and move on.

Elephants can be tricky. If I sit with them and let them duke it out using arrows, the enemy can cause them to rout which just ticks me off. When using elephants the rule of thumb is, Use 'em or lose 'em. I often find myself charging into the teeth of the enemy with elephants leading the charge. The follow-on calvary charge helps push the elephants through the lines if they should get hung up on the enemy infantry and then the phalanxes in mop-up mode just flatten the remaining forces.

I have lost an elephant unit or two to their losing control and rampaging all over the place. This has lead to my staging a single calvalry unit ready to defend the rampaging elephants from the enemy if necessary. It's a pain to defend the crazy beasts, but with armoured elephant units that have 1 to 3 gold chevrons, I really dont want them slaughtered. It takes too long to rebuild and train a new unit.

Versus the egyptians, I sent my cavalry and elephants to chase down and slaughter the flanking chariots while the phalanxes and slingers held the line against the bowman and axemen. Once the chariots are routed or destroyed the elephants and calvary turned their attention to the ground pounders and stomped the axemen into the sands of the desert.

One tactic I have used to great effect in Gaul is to surround a city and assault it with onagers while the phalanxes hold the line. The onagers will set fire to the city and destroy most buildings and the walls. Then I can walk into the city, take it, slaughter the citizens, destroy all the buildings and then leave the city to the Gauls or the Rebels. I just want the cash and the satisfaction of making the Gauls weaker. I dont need to support those cities as they dont produce enough revenue to warrant my attention. I am more interested in the wealthy cities on the Mediterranean.

I look forward to new adventures in the Medival 2, Total War game.

Cheers! and thanks for this great forum.

Trajan

[Roman_Man#3]

ave trajan.
well done, and welcome to the org.

[HumphreysCraig00]

I havent finished the game with these guys as I get bored with them quickly but here is the strategy for the first few turns I use.

On VH/VH Huge

The army commanded by your leader in Sicili, Buy the merc hoplites and the merc peltasts with it and then immediately move as close to the roman town as you can.

Move your diplomat onto sicili in the first move.

Move as much population from the island north of carthage to carthage, as this island is fairly pointless and will aid you in getting carthages elites quickly.

Do the same with the town south of carthage, build peasants in both and just pour them into carthage.

On the second turn use the diplomat to buy an alliance with greek (I offer trade rights alliance and military acces for them (without asking for my own military acces) and they always accept.)

________________________________________
Then destroy the roman army that has come infront of you, they will be reinforced by the general garrisoning the town your main aim in this battle is to kill the general, although if you dont its not bad it just saves a little work later.

Position all your infantry except the slingers in the back right section of the deployment zone, place your slingers in the front right and your cavalry in the point.

Move all your cavalry along the left and take out the general, you will probably have to use the numidian skirmishers to draw him towards the slower cavalry, attack with your elephants first, and then when the general is wavering with your general.

While doing this you should move your slingers into position to fire on the hastati, and usually one hastati tries to catch the slingers, which the slingers usually destroy eventually

Another will move towards the general once he's engaged and you will usually have thier general dead or routed by then and then you should pincer this one with your general and your roundshields.

(Once the elephants have dealt with the general move them away from combat as they are the most important part of the army)

And the last one should stay put where it started, which you can shoot apart with your slingers.
_______________________________

Once that is done move your army into the town (if the general got there just kill him with the elephants) then massacre it and sell all the sellable buildings.

Once done kill the scipii army to the south in much the same way as before, being almost anally retentive not to lose an elephant.

Then move back into the town and end the turn while moving as many peasants into carthage and building up the garrison in iberia.

Move a ship north of the recently took town

On the next turn move your army onto the roman mainland and get as close yo the scipii army that if you are lucky came out of thier town last move. (if not the town fight will be harder but not too hard.)

Then use your diplomat to give the empty town to the greeks as a gift (if you dont and leave it ungarrisoned it will return to scipii control with a powerful scipii army)

Keep building in iberia, start building a garrison in your original sicicilian town and keep moving people into carthage.

On the next turn destroy the scipii army that is outside of there city if there is one, if not (or after destroying the army) take thier town, remember the rule, minimise losses, you can severely damage the towns hastati garrison with the slingers. and if you move up the main street with the hoplites infront and everything else in a dense mass behind, they have no chance against you.

If they send up infantry move the elephants and other cavalry away until they have thrown thier pila and let them hit the hoplites then charge through the phalanxe with everything that isnt a missile troop.

Once about halfway to the plaza sit still and use your slingers to destroy any infantry charges that are launchedm after the infantry is all gone or routs as soon as leaving the plaza, move closer to the plaza then charge all your infantry in and as soon as they are engaged all your cavalry

This is the best way to take settlements.
_____________________________________

Again massacre this town (but leave unit training facilities intact) and then move on the brutii then the julii always recruiting any available mercenaries.

Always try to give the settlement as a gift to the greeks (It will stop them betraying you), and if they wont take it train a single unit in there (generally the crap infantry) until you have destroyed the original owner and then put the infantry unit in your leaders army and let the settlement rebel.

Dont try to take the senate as they are simply impossible right now. They will just stay where they are though and are no threat.

____________________________________________________

After doing this you will be pretty rich, carthage will be able to produce top class units early, and your most dangerous enemies will have been destroyed.

You have the freedom to do whatever the hell you want form now on :)

The best option is to take any available rebel settlements (the ones near you are good but the entire roman peninsula is better)

But you can expand up through iberia or take out the egyptians, whatever floats your boat

[bedlam28]

Playing just on M/M but I have enjoyed Carthage so far,
have wiped out Scipii in 5 turns by just heading straight into Italy, but I would now like to destroy the Brutai as they are the ones attacking me in Capua.

What I would like to know though is how aggresive SPQR are as currently they are just watching from their lands.
If I stay out of their lands will they leave Capua alone so that I can focus on the aggressive Brutai? or are they likely to Besiege me ?

Any ideas as I've only ever played as Scipii or Egypt before, and as the Egyptians by the time I got to Rome I was a Powerhouse !!
As Carthage I am still in the very early stages....

Thanks as always :2thumbsup:

[gardibolt]

I didn't have much trouble with SPQR, but the Julii gave me fits. They invaded by land and sea, they bribed my generals and stole my territories....I considered eradicating them from the map to be total victory in and of itself. After they were gone it was just a matter of time to take the rest of the map.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Don't have to eradicate the Bruti or Julii -- though that too can be satisfying.

The Brutes will keep after Capua as fast as they can raise armies.

The Julii will shortly attack Caralis and keep after it until they get it.

Put together strong defensive forces with a good bit of firepower and you can bleed them with punishing sallies (draw them to the walls and shoot them, but don't melee unless you can gang up on one or two units) and grind their militaries to powder.

This allows you to free up an offensive army somewhere else to take the rich Greek islands or Spain and Provence.

Enjoy!

[bedlam28]

Thanks guys,

I took Tarentum (sp ) and Croton from the Brutai, and now the Julii are coming down with 2 full stack armies to hit Tarentum, just as you warned Gardi.

So I think I will be taking your advise Seamus and move my army from Capua ( please be good SPQR) and be waiting for them to come siege, and keep salli'ing them to death. Perhaps once they have bled themselves to destruction on my walls I will go and take their empty cities from them and laugh evilly :laugh4:

[Jonathan_Thompson]

In regards to the roman factions I've found that the faction who you attacked originally will be ludicrously aggressive and send armies as fast as they can make them but the other 3 factions who are only at war as of the alliance will be very passive. Because of this I always slowly eliminate one of the 4 romans, consolidate and move on to the next if I leave them alive their a huge pain.

Also when sallying out and drawing them to the walls what do you use as a missle unit? I personally don't use this but I've decided to try it against the Greeks because those damn hoplites begging to become pincushions. I don't think Carthage has any real archers so are you limited to Mercs?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Carthage, un-modded, lacks archers.

Slingers, especially the mercs, work wonderfully from atop the walls -- just remember that they cannot burn a siege tower.:wiseguy:

The real trick is to get a unit of skirmishers out there -- numid cav are great for this -- and get them to chase you around and around your walled city/fort.

Warning: some of the later versions, official and not, have had their AI modified so that they are not that stupid. Sallying is still a valid choice, but your ability to drag them under the walls is more limited.

[MerlinusCDXX]

some thoughts on Carthage;

ok now 1st things 1st: take the Scipii town on sicily in the 1st couple of turns, in my current campaign I went around the north side of the volcano and waited until the Scips left town to march on Syracuse and then took the town (this is important, you don't really want to go to war w/ the Greeks this early in the game), this lets you take Syracuse without going to war with Greece, just let the Scips pi$$ off the Greeks and clip the town from them, since they are your implacable enemy.

it's a good idea to keep a gen on Caralis and send him plenty of mercs (trains up your gens and makes the mid-game against you really difficult for the Julies i.e. instead of sending full stack armies against your Italian holdings, they will only send a couple of units at a time, which is a great way to train up your green troops)

after a couple of years to let the Greeks get over the loss of Syracuse, send a diplomat to ally and trade with the greeks (if they won't bite at first, offer some cash along with the package, they will usually accept that, I know, it seems like you are shooting yourself in the foot financially, but in the long run, trade with Greece will be very lucrative) if alliance is not an option, then DEFINITELY secure trade rights (do whatever it takes, this is the difference between a fast buildup to uber-pwnage and a long slow grind to mediocrity, which is deadly when EVERYONE eventually gangs up on the poor, misunderstood baby-sacrificing Carthaginians)

Next, the Iberian problem,

I don't know if there is a definitive solution to this dilemma, but what I did was to ally with Spain and attack the Gauls in Numantia, keeping a small stack of round shields, merc slingers and iberians in the area (to keep off the Gaulish 'flea-bite' attacks and keep a lookout for a Spanish back-stab, which WILL happen). you can draw the Spanish into a war with the Gauls by attacking a Gaulish army when they are close enough to provide reinforcements, this is a good thing to do, as it delays the inevitable betrayal of your kindness by the Spanish (they are way too poor to fight the Gauls and you at the same time)

the African connection;

again, the solution to this is up to you. I chose to ally with the Numidians, but when Spain attacked them, I broke the Numidian alliance as their towns will make a lot more profit under my capable administration than as a rather anemic trade partner. they are pretty easy to take out ,since they don't seem to be able to field large armies, and the troops they do field, while effective in a decent combined-arms force, can't really accomplish squat on their own.

The Italian adventure: have not yet completed this one , but am well on my way, Scips are eliminated, and Brutes exiled to Greece. This one is gonna be a knock down-drag out fight, so bring your biggest and baddest thugs with you (be teched up at least to long shields and poenis, bring bally slingers and Spanish mercs along too, since they are better than iberian inf and generic slingers) I think the way to go on this one is to sit tight in Capua for a minute and build another stack for defense against the Roman Senate's Consular Legions while going after the Julies. This should let you hold Southern Italy and stop all the annoying attacks on Caralis, thus allowing you to bring the Sardinian Defense Force into the battle for Rome, you are gonna need those extra troops to take on those Consular Legions.

that's all for now, will let you know how it plays out

[Poulp']

Merlinus :

Concerning Sicily and Sardinia, I adopt the same strategy, unless the Scipii decide they want Lilybaeum instead of Syracuse...

since Numidia has the same culture than Carthage, I tend to let them develop their cities (for my profit) and in the meantime, I try to secure trading rights with them. In the early game, their cities are too low populated to worth the trouble; I just keep a spy to check how things are going in my backyard while I'm busy on the Sicilian front.

I play VBM in which Carthage begins with Carthago Nova and I try to secure my Iberian holdings and slowly annex the whole peninsula.
I try to ally with Spain and let them take Numantia from the Gauls, then I wait for them to break the alliance and strike back.

If can afford it, I sent a small task force with a family member to Cyrene and then Crete.
The main reason is to take for myself the recruiting of cretan archers, it also gives me a good naval network to trade with GCS, Macedon or Seleucids.

[MerlinusCDXX]

Merlinus :

Concerning Sicily and Sardinia, I adopt the same strategy, unless the Scipii decide they want Lilybaeum instead of Syracuse...

since Numidia has the same culture than Carthage, I tend to let them develop their cities (for my profit) and in the meantime, I try to secure trading rights with them. In the early game, their cities are too low populated to worth the trouble; I just keep a spy to check how things are going in my backyard while I'm busy on the Sicilian front.

I play VBM in which Carthage begins with Carthago Nova and I try to secure my Iberian holdings and slowly annex the whole peninsula.
I try to ally with Spain and let them take Numantia from the Gauls, then I wait for them to break the alliance and strike back.

If can afford it, I sent a small task force with a family member to Cyrene and then Crete.
The main reason is to take for myself the recruiting of cretan archers, it also gives me a good naval network to trade with GCS, Macedon or Seleucids.

in response to Numidia, in the campaigns i've played they never seem to develop on their own, they usually get taken out by the Egyptians , Spanish , or the Scipii. It really doesn't take too much of my resource base to take them out, and whuppin' them back into the stone age, besides being perversely satisfying, is good training for a general that will be going to fight against tougher opponents sooner than later. (i'm gonna need a tough general when the Egyptians come to call, which they will, as soon as they settle the East.

[Zasz1234]

Just on fighting the senate army: When I attacked Rome the Senate army was away in the north helping the Julii fend off the Gauls. So I practically walked into Rome (it only had a general unit and some token inf and wardogs) and then the Senate army turned into a massive army of bada$$ rebels for the Julii to deal with. It was quite satisfying to see the former Senate eating up large numbers of green julii while I move about southern Italy without interferance from the north.

[rvg]

A few of my own observations about the Carthage campaign...

1. IMHO it is not worthwhile to go after rebel towns in North Africa...They start out small and poor, and need to be guarded and developed.

2. Sicily and Spain are the two most logical choices to expand into both because Carthage already has some presence in both, AND because both areas are VERY easy to defend once secured. The sea in Sicily's case and the Pyrinees in case of Spain make excellent border areas.

3. Iberian Infantry is really good, and a steal for its price. Yes, they are fodder, but they are good at it. In fact, I never bother building any barracks buildings past the one that unlocks the Iberians, since the temple enables Sacred Band (which is head and shoulders above anything the comes out of the Carthaginian barracks). Sacred Band is great with Elephants guarding its flanks.

4. Slingers are okay. They will draw archer fire away from the more important units, and given some numeric superiority will kill non-elite archers with little trouble. Also great against the various barbarian factions, but near useless when confronting the Romans.

5. It's been mentioned before, but is always worth repeating: sea trade is of paramount importance, Carthage is dead without it. Thus, keeping a sizable navy from the get-go is important.

6. Elephants. Carthage's one trump card. Build them, use them, love them. Elephants in barbarian lands == very speedy conquest.

7. If things go well, there are only two factions likely to match Carthage in power: Brutii and Egypt. Armored Elephants will help alot against them.

8. Carthaginian Cavalry is much stronger than it looks on paper, because it gets to operate in conjunction with elephants. Come to think of it, everything is much stronger when used in conjuction with elephants.

9. Did I mention Elephants?

[Cpt_oo7]

On behalf of my first post, I would like to than The Org for this place being free and for advice for all the factions i've ever tried being.

Now, Carthage has always been my favortie, because of hannibal of course. So on my 5th campaign Carthage is unlockable for me. I go to start it imedeitly.

The first thing I did was abandon BOTH Caralitas(sp) And Lilybaum, to turn my attetion to Numida. I have heard they are just hit and run with there javelins, so I decided to make the move to conquer them. Before that I arranged a alliance with spain because I knew they would be a pain always attacking Palma And The one you start off with in spain.

The next thing I did was begin to conquer Numida's cost, which took about 6 turns. Then I continued to hassle Numida, until all they had left was Siwa, and they allied with egypt. With Numida And Spain far from my thoughts I turned my attetion to Silicy. I managed to conquer it in about 8 turns. After conquering Silicy I went to go capture Siwa and Kill off the Numidians for good, they haven't been makeing any threats to me at all though. It took about 7 turns to walk to Siwa and take it. For a long time In this period I had to deal with Riotings while trying to destroy the Scippi. At last I finally conquered Capua, which destroyed Scippi. Next thing I know I was being conquered by Egypt attacking Siwa. I managed to hold off 6 attacks because of my Sacred Band spearman. After they finally conquered Siwa I lost Capua due to it being poorly defended. After Egypt conquered Siwa they managed to get all my poorly defended settlements to Leptus-Mangana(sp). When Egpyt finally stoped attacking I managed to Capture Croton, then slowly the other bruitti start-with city. Then I managed to conquer Capua after dealing with the SPQR. Finally, I decided to kill off the SPQR, which took 6 turns to get rome, But I finally did it. Right now I have 17 citys, and it's 178 BC (Lol.). So I need help aganst egypt and finishing off julli's first states.

[rs2k2]

Hey, welcome to the Org!

One tactic that I use with Carthage is to build Libyan Spearmen (but why? Libyan spearmen suck!) and set them in defense mode because well... Libyan spearmen suck. However, they can hold a battleline quite well if you don't mind them not killing anything. Of course, if you can, by all means build Sacred Band and Poeni, but Libyan is fine for me. Bring around 4-6 Long Shield cav and maintain cavalry superiority. Thats the most important part. As long as your spearmen hold (remember, def mode!), hit the opposing infantry in the back and watch them rout.

[Zasz1234]

One unit I have really learned to love are the poeni infantry. At first I thought they were useless since cavalry are so good but at some point you need solid infantry. This is especially true when facing the barbarians who are just plain old phalanx fodder. I think Carthage's infantry are an underused section of their unit roster especially since they are much faster and cheaper to recruit than sacred band.

[RickFGS]

3. Iberian Infantry is really good, and a steal for its price. Yes, they are fodder, but they are good at it. In fact, I never bother building any barracks buildings past the one that unlocks the Iberians, since the temple enables Sacred Band (which is head and shoulders above anything the comes out of the Carthaginian barracks). Sacred Band is great with Elephants guarding its flanks.



I´m very interested in the unlock of sacred band beeing accomplished earliest possible on the game on Carthage and maybe one or two more cites.

From my playing, i tend to built the Greater Temple of Ball and wait for the Awesome Temple option to appear, but it only does when my city reaches 12.000 citizens and going to the final stage of city (metroplois right? that unlocks the best buildings around) and by then some 20 turns or more of the game have passed, plus i have to spent an increadable some of money to build the awesome temple and wait +7 turns... Only after 30ich turns and some 13500 denarii spent can i produce the first sacred band unit, and this only in Carthage, doing the same in other cities is more time consumption and money without proper armies to recrut meanwhile....

My question is: Can it be better in what turns (the less possible pls)? How can it be done? Can it be done to other cities faster?

I´m trying to imitate the Armoured Hoplite unlocking in turn 10 or so that can hapen for the Greeks in Athens or Spartan giving them an elite turn on the game start.

[Rotc_Railey15]

Thats what I did. I conquered all of Sicily and invaded Capua along with some of the Brutii cities. Destroy Scipii first. But I never finished the game cause I kinda fell into debt and after I was stupid enough to try and capture Rome (which I didnt, just lost a whole army...) My game turned against me.

I think I should start a new one again.

[Tozama]

Great thread!

Using some of the info. in this thread along with my own experience playing as Carthage the first few times I arrived at the following conclusions and strategy solutions:

Units:
Iberian infantry is barely more than overpriced town-watch level infantry.
The Pienoi (sp?) and Lybian versions are barely better but your line has to have something in it!
SacredBand makes passable line infantry but after playing as Rome you need to put the idea of powerful infantry lines out of your head now and as Carthage adopt a totally new battle style compared to playing with those invincible Roman walking walls.
One thing I realized after the above was the only passably decent infantry Carthage has cannot "Run" in battle. So you're left with either paper fodder Iberian that can run or better Phalanx types that cannot.
Why this matters comes later in this post. But suffice to say infantry based armies is not Carthages best focus.

Roundshield and Longshield Cavalry, both, when used correctly, (flanking or following up initial elephant line smashing) are reliable units when deployed in mass. Unlike my Roman armies, I found myself including 5-7 units of CAV in my stacks instead of the 2-4 I used to use playing as other factions.

Elephants are like putting an Abrams tank onto a Napoleonic battlefield!
The first level Elephant IMO is just a good supportive final knockout unit that makes a nice single unit addition to an army. I learned to not waste money and time building a large number of these. In my current game I built exactly ZERO first level Elephants but made good use of the one you start the game with. Carthage City’s first goal is to build all Cavalry upgrade buildings as soon as they are available.
War Elephants and Armored War Elephants are the mainline troops (that’s right, I said “mainline”) of my armies now and the centerpiece of my Carthaginian war machine. I use them like Panzer divisions!

It took me a few games to find the magic balance of elephant units per army vs. upkeep cost effects on my economy and to find the best way to deploy and use them on the field but once I did WOW!


War Elephant Mainline as a Strategy
Specifics of what to abandon, what to attack first and who to ignore are well covered in this thread so my grand strategy will lack some specific details already covered by others.

Start of game Goals and execution:

Goal #1 is to establish the best economy possible. Build a few diplomats and get trade agreements with every faction on the map. Ship one to Egypt via navy then march him north to trade with Selucids, Pontiac and every faction over there. The dude in Spain gets a quick alliance with Spain then trade agreements with Gaul then north to Germany, Briton, Dacia etc. The Diplo on Sicily gets Greek trade, then later an alliance then moves via navy to mainland to get trade with Macedon, Thrace and others nearby.

To achieve goal #1 you cannot be funding a three or four front war in the beginning of the game. Pick a target where you will focus your army and therefore your resources at and just hold the line elsewhere or abandon.
I chose to target the Romans as my primary enemy. That said, Numidia is so easy to defeat it doesn’t draw much army or money away to defeat so while awaiting populations to increase enough to allow better unit production I sent the starting army in Carthage + mercs from Palma west along the coast of Africa and tookout Cirta and Morocco for the income but left Numidia alone after that to act as a buffer against the Egyptians.
It’s all about easy money with low upkeep/defense costs at this point.

I abandoned Calais using the units there to garrison Carthage. Juli will pound it non-stop anyway and I’ll feel obligated to waste money on troops to defend it – diverting money and armies from the primary goal.
As for Corduba I learned from previous games that even if you hold it vs. Spain or Gaul it is next to impossible to keep the population happy as time goes on. I chose to adopt a pre-planned “use and abandon” strategy here. I kept it but built only a temple there. I built another peasant army anytime the happiness dropped below 110% - keeping just one step ahead of revolt that way. I managed to get an early alliance with Spain and they didn’t back-stab me early on. Enjoyed some cash flow from it while I could. Once I was unable to keep Corduba happy with peasant armies anymore I set taxes to VH, Demolished any destroyable buildings for the cash rebate and pulled the entire (mostly peasant) army out of it and loaded them onto waiting ships and taxied the army to Sicily. The Peasants became garrisons where needed on Sicily and the better troops joined my siege army there. It revolted to Rebels 2 turns later.

In Sicily you wait until the Scipi attack the Greeks and once you have ferried over a decent army you then take Messana and Syracuse from the Scipi. This leaves Scipi with only one city so they struggle to build up at all from here out.
The above is done to take money-making cities with as little effort and as little replenishment of army requirements as possible. All these things, although military objectives are involved, are ruled by Goal #1.

At this point I have good profit making cities and zero land borders with anyone’s invading armies.


Goal #2 is to produce a land army of 2 stacks that can stand up to the Roman army.
To achieve this, goal#1 must be accomplished and maintained so you can afford the build costs and high upkeep costs of a War Elephant army. Maintaining means not starting any new wars and keeping up on upgrading Markets and ports to increase income levels and not overbuilding units so as to keep upkeep costs down.

As soon as Carthage is able to produce War Elephants start churning them out. As soon as you can build the EliteCavalry stable in Carthage - it is a priority and switch to Armored War Elephant production when its completed.
I usually produce my SacredBand infantry in Thepsus at the same time so as to not interrupt War Elephant production in Carthage. Other cities will supply longshield Cavalry or roundshield at least.

While this is going on you will be defending Sicily from the Scipi’s sea-borne landings. They never sent a big stack at me so this just trained my generals really. I also built a passable navy and tried to intercept them with some success.

The Army makeup
Move your highest star general available (if he’s forgotten in Morocco or something get him to Carthage once War Elephant production is under way) to Carthage. Also move any extra family members that have combat bonus retinues to Carthage. With all the family having a reunion in Carthage transfer all combat retinues to your highest star general and all city management ones to another guy. You want an invasion army commander to be your “Hannibal”. So your best star guy has the longest list of bonus retinues now and at the same time you should have another general with max city governor bonuses in rturn. Put him in Carthage or wherever you want bigger income.

Place 6 War or Armored War Elephant units along with 6 Cavalry units under your best general in Carthage. The remaining slots fill with SacredBand Infantry and slingers if you like those. You may learn that in THIS army slinger won’t get much action, but tactics can vary.
So you have 7 Cav. units (including General’s bodyguard), 6 Big 18 beast Elephant units and a line of half-decent infantry.

Build a second stack as similar to the first one as possible but this is more of a followup, “reserves” stack so it can have less Elephants and maybe even some cheaper infantry if you can’t muster more sacredband right now, but don’t skimp on cavalry here. In my current game this 2nd army has 3 War Elephants, 8 Cav., 2 SacredBandInf. and some Iberian Infantry even. Put your second-best star general in this unit.

These two stacks are your starting Italian peninsula invasion force.
Have two multi ship fleets standing near Carthage (meaning 1 group of say 80 ships as one stack of ships and another of say 80 ships in another stack).
Ferry your troops to the west shoreline of Sicily then walk them to the East shoreline having the fleets meet them there again. This way there’s less chance of losing a VERY expensive army in a sea battle you don’t plan on.
Wait until the next turn when both your army and your navy have 100% move allowance available then load the ships and land south of Croton as close to it as possible yet try to unload in as few turns as possible. Attack any army standing outside near Croton with Army#1. Siege Croton with army #1 while army#2 is in the battle radius so if you are attacked from outside and or by sallying Croton garrison you can field everybody.
I usually starve out the enemy when laying siege to conserve manpower losses for the long, tough road ahead but if you decide to assault so be it. Just don’t lose any elephants and maintain low losses of cavalry. Use the unit swapping interface between army#1 and #2 to put army#1 at max. unit strength after battle. Any Cav. Under 18 men is not strong enough. Replace it with a full strength one etc. Same with elephants and infantry. Leave just enough of army#2 in Croton to keep it from rebelling and start building peasants to takeover garrison duties later. Plan is to keep leap-frogging army #2 forward right after army #1 takes a city by force and leave a peasant garrison for rear cities.
Once you have Croton you take the other green city just north the same way.
After this I sometimes have A Juli and or Bruti army approaching my army.
Keep in mind the next city on your list is the Scipi capital (and only city they own). But don’t leave and easy walkin to the 2 green cities you took. Defeat in the field any army that comes too close before you go for putting Scipi out of the game. After Scipi are gone and I catch up on garrison production enough to exit the cities I go after Rome itself the exact same way - defeat any outside army, then seige the city.


Above I listed map strategy and grand strategy for economy in order to build this War Elephant army. Now I will tell you how to use it tactically and you’ll see why I centered my grand strategy on financing it.

The Elephant Mainline Army in Battle
Having 6 units of giant beasts and a ton of Cav. with minimal infantry may seem risky but as Carthage its your ace. You have no archers and frankly slingers are ok but they count on a line of infantry that can hold. And Carthage just doesn’t have that kind of infantry.
On the field forget who attacked who and forget defensive lines with flanks and high-ground holding etc. Your army is the ancient equivalent to the armored division in WW2.
You ALWAYS attack. ALWAYS! PERIOD.
On deployment take your 6 War Elephants and make one long frontal straight line just like you probably do with infantry. This is your front line. Place them all the way to the front of deployment area. No rear sitting even if on defense. You will be rushing, not waiting and reacting. Group all your Cav. Into one big group deployed as 3 units wide and 2 units deep including your General in the rear row (not as the spearhead).
Place the Cav group right next to the Elephants. No, not behind them, BESIDE them. Elephants get less scared when "happy the flanks are protected" appears in your info.mouseover balloon.
So you have one very long line of elephants beside on line of Cav. Being 2 units deep.

Right behind the elephants, close enough to touch their tails, line your infantry in single wide frontal line like typical TW. Being phalanx types they will be slow and not keep up with your Elephant line but at least they’re as close to battle to start as possible. If you have slingers put them with your infantry wherever you like them.

When you press “start battle” Charge your elephants in one long line straight at their lines. Select a spot BEHIND the enemy line as the target area to run to. We want to run this ancient tank line over ALL his army without stopping to fight with weapons here. Do not give them extra time to react or regroup. FLY AT THEM!
Immediately order your infantry to exactly the same place as the elephants are running to – knowing they will arrive much much later. Lastly, order your Cav. Group to follow just behind the elephants. they should end up behind your elephants - VERY CLOSE behind them and in motion with them. They can run a lot faster so even if behind pace a bit and with elephants running they can catch up quickly.
Now PLOW into the enemy lines with these goals in mind immediately:
1. Hit them like a wide brick wall full broadside with War elephants. Do not narrow the focus. You want as many enemy formations disrupted as possible. Not just a few pummelled and a bunch standing ready to fight full strength here! If their line is wider than your elephant line hit them centered BUT split your CAV in half and send ½ left ½ right to pick up the rear corner flanks of the elephants. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT because it’s the only real weak spot on War Elephants!
2. Walk your War Elephants to the rear of his lines THROUGH the enemy units, without stopping, trouncing as many men as possible on your way to the rear most unit he has (usually his General).
3. While executing the above your cav come smashing into the confused pummeled enemy that the War Elephants just plowed through and mop up.

At this point what to do depends on the enemy’s reaction so far.
Often most of his army is running for their lives already. If its captain lead instead of Family member lead this is almost always the case. Chase down his men with cav and have War Elephants hit any large remaining groups. In this case your infantry may not even get into the fight at all. I had many battles in Italy against large good quality Roman armies where my infantry never got to battle before the Romans ran from the field.

Other times in the case of a large high quality enemy lead by a high-star family member the Romans stay and fight. GET YOUR ELEPHANTS OUT OF THE MIDDLE!
Never leave them struggling in a sea of enemy. They will get upset and go rampaging out of your control. If Romans stand and fight now – have your War Elephants fight their way backward from where they came from, toward your approaching infantry line. It should be getting close. Let the War Elephants rest out of the melee of hand-to-hand combat while your Cav. Clashes and your infantry hits the tatters of the enemy line.
Elephants don’t often die against enemy combatants. They just get tired then upset then rampage and kill your own men or run off the field. Once they rest a bit You can flank with them now or rush them in again wherever your infantry are having problems.

More often than not most of the enemy has run away and what’s left fighting is severely beaten up and your Cav. + infantry can clean up on their own.

I have done this repeatedly. And against good quality armies with Principles etc. and 7 star generals. It has never failed yet.

Also keep in mind numerically this War Elephant Army of yours lacks numbers. War Elephants are only 18 beasts. So when the pre-battle screen opens it looks scary to see “Juli army one = 567 men, Juli army two = 622 men. Carthage army = 423 men”
Don’t worry. You will win. But don’t ever auto-calc a battle. The AI undervalues War Elephants in the strength bar by a mile and you’ll lose way more men than you should even if you win. You can easily beat them even at 1:4 odds by rushing the army that's closest to you, routing it, then regroup and hit the 2nd enemy reserves as they come over to you.
http://commandbunker.com/tw/elephant01.jpg


This army is bookoo expensive on upkeep costs. Right click on a War Elephant in the build que once and try not to choke! Imagine 9 of them now! Previously I tried to build and use it without employing a more focused Grand strategy and economy and while my army couldn’t be beaten on the field I actually had a net loss of $5500 per turn and quickly had a treasury of –69,000. I couldn’t build any temples or upgrade or build even peasants for garrisons. My economy came to halt and that stopped my city conquests of course.
Even previously conquered cities went revolt because I couldn’t upgrade temples etc. to keep them happy.
So plan ahead.

[Rotc_Railey15]

Good observation. Elephant are any armies most dealiest weapon, especially in sieges. I finished beating the Egyptians today as the Seleciuds and my War elephants wreaked havoc on their infantry when we torn down their walls.

When I went to war with Numidia in my Carthage game, I always put my elephants up front followed by my Lybian infantry close behind charging into a disorganized enemy line.

But one more thing. Dont let Elephants take over the battle field too much. When they get stressed, they KILL EVERYTHING. I once lost a lot of infantry to rampaging elephants on my side! So dont let them stray to far and dont use them as much, but only when nessessary.

[RickFGS]

SacredBand makes passable line infantry but after playing as Rome you need to put the idea of powerful infantry lines out of your head now and as Carthage adopt a totally new battle style compared to playing with those invincible Roman walking walls.
One thing I realized after the above was the only passably decent infantry Carthage has cannot "Run" in battle. So you're left with either paper fodder Iberian that can run or better Phalanx types that cannot.
Why this matters comes later in this post. But suffice to say infantry based armies is not Carthages best focus.


Wrong. Carthage´s infantry is quite good being the sacred band the 2nd best phalanx infantry in the game, only spartans can beat them.

Phalanx can run and move as any other unit, you just have to have a different atitude, set phalannx mode off, use right mouse button to where you want and how you want them there and press "R" to run to make them move quicker. Elite phalanxes like sacred bands and spartans have an enourmous endurance, they can run the entire field and still give an hell of a fight.

As for elephants, you dont need more then 3 or 4 war/armd ones, more then thats is just waste of money.

Never use them on the early stages of the battle, of course against the AI, you can do that beacuse he is dumb, but vs an human player that tactict is just suicidal.

Sacred Bands jshould be rushed forword in a "r" and pre-built formation so that it setups in 3 secs in the face of the enemy, pinning them down and absorbing their missiles, pilums and shock wave troops, dont worry they will not riot, these guys can hold anything.

Get your cavs 6 or 8 on the flanks ready to support them and when the enemy is pinned down just rush in your elephants and kil them all, encircle with cav and its Canae all over again.

My fav setup is: 1 general, 6 Sacred Band Cavaly, 6 Sacred Band Infantry, 3 Armored Eles, 2 Balearic Slingers, 2 Onagers - this allows you flexibility to deal with many type of armies not just romans.

[paul_kiss]

Great guide, Tozama! I'm playing (http://p81.jino-net.ru/library/rtw-car-01-ua.htm) for Carthage now, and I'll certainly take your advice into account.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Great guide, Tozama! I'm playing (http://p81.jino-net.ru/library/rtw-car-01-ua.htm) for Carthage now, and I'll certainly take your advice into account.

Elephants are useful, and can make the Cartha's viable against anybody -- but be careful against quality archers. Carthage faces Rome, Numidia, Spain, Gaul, and sometimes Greece early. Only Greece fields archers so your elephants can romp. Later, against developed Gauls, Germans, post-marian Rome, and Egypt you'll need to be able to play with lots of fire arrows (requires a bit more care in use).

[Greacia_Roma]

My fav tactic with carthage is simple. First of all if you'll agree carthage is a hard faction to play as yes? NO. Carthage is like rome the only difference is your in africa leave every single province outsid of africa to the dogs give them as gifts or whaterver. Destroy every building and disband all troops outside africa. After get rid of all ties with europe and concentrate on africa and asia minor. Then pick one good general and conquer all of africa(yes including egypt) after conquer all of asia minor then set your sights for europe. May i just add, i see carthagian armys much like alexander the greats armies the main force should be poeni infintry or sacred band use iberian infintry to guard the flanks and use cvalry to attack and win the battle. Elephants for carthage count as cavalry.

[Rotc_Railey15]

I started a new one again. Im doing pretty well and after 10 turns conquered Sicily!

Its real simple. Make friends instead of enemies. I allied with the Greek cities, Spain, Gaul, and Numidia. The Scipii attacked Syracuse while they left Messina vulnerable. I captured messina. Then built up an army and attacked Syracuse while they were away trying to capture Lilybauem! They lost at lilybaeum and I captured Syracuse killing their faction heir! Sicily is mine.

The Greeks, Spanish, and Numidians are still my allies. I broke alliance with Gaul cause Spain went to war with them. Ive also noticed that the Gauls are losing very quickly in the game and Spain doesent have a large army. SO once i build up forces in Spain, ill attack the spanish while they are losing troops trying to defeat Gaul!

[Rotc_Railey15]

Ok ill admit Carthage is hard. The Roman navy is a harrassment, I was stupid and went to war w/Spain too soon. I failed to capture Carthago Nova and now have the Spanish navy and army to worry about.

[RexCroatorum]

I allways loved Carthage because they are so fierless, my tactic is to play with iberians, good cavaLERY and ELEPHANTS. On map I succeded to conquer Sicily and West Africa, defend Caralis and Spain, just now i am at the siege of Capua, I would Exterminate them and sell all buildings and ofcourse-abandon it.

[Rotc_Railey15]

I cant stand Iberian infantry! (unless my enemy is using them.) They are just militia w/ a little bit more armor! Libyan infantry is very good. I found them to be helpful and I hope to recruit some in Spain soon.

Lucky for me, I didnt save my game so I never went to war w/Spain! So ill just keep a friendly alliance, continue trade, and until I have secured the Mediterreanean from the Romans, I invade Spain. (Ill probably let them drive the Gauls out of Numantia first though!)

[RickFGS]

Use Iberian Infantry on the flanks like they are cavalry, chase down their archers, skirmishers, slingers, peltasts, Always take a general along with the army.

They are half the price of Hastati of recruit (-6 on defense) and same cost to maintain, but without the pilum, making them faster...this unit can be used in many fun ways on the begginning campaign, use your town militia to hold the center, these guys will be on their best on the flanks or as a fresh reserve force sent in after the enemy is a bit tired.

They can be trained in all cities after a barracks improvement for 240 gold, if a 3/7 militia costs you 150 and as poor morale, then for +90 gold you get (+6/+1) plus average morale, making it the only unit in the game that for this price gives you an normal morale and an attack of 7.

Use legions of iberians against rebels on the map and boost their experience level, upgrade blacksmiths and put in a general to lower recruitments costs in the city you´ll be pumping a 10/11 or stronger iberian inf every turn for 190 or 180 gold.

The only cost-comparable ones are phalanx units like:

Milita Hoplite is 10 gold cheaper to buy and 70 gold cheaper to maintain, also has phalanx, but comes with poor morale and an attack of 5.
Nubian Spearman is kinda like the milita hoplite exxept they get bonus in desert.

[gardibolt]

An elephant-heavy army will have serious trouble with a Gallic stack full of forester warbands; they'll be rampaging before they ever get to the Gallic lines (i.e., on top of your men). So the tactics would have to change substantially for them. But against the Romans, this looks like a great use of the eles.

Carthage is all about control of the seas. Do that, and you'll have little trouble mopping up the Romans. But you have so many diverse colonies that are separated by water that if you don't control the seas your economony will suffer and you won't be able to hold your territories.

[Rotc_Railey15]

Very true w/ the Navy. Carthage has to have a strong navy in order to defeat the Romans. The romans have transported entire armies over sea to defeat me. But have lost those entire armies to my naval forces. (Sunk the generals and familymemebers too!) My Carthage game is doing a little better and now I can concentrate on conquering the Numidian lands.

[Vitellus]

Just finished a short campaign as Carthage.

Well, to begin with, I have no idea how to use elephants. I try to charge them through enemy lines to disrupt them, but they end up panicking halfway there and dying horribly or fleeing.

The tactic I found was simple: Massed numbers of round-shield (and later Longshield) cavalry, in wedge formation. A small line of infantry supports these masses (at least 5 units, preferably as many as I can afford), which are formed into one massive "fist." This is then hurled at each enemy unit in turn. The wedge formation breaks up the enemy groups just as well as the elephants would have, so that the successive wave of cavalry (I typically have them in two lines) pours into the gaps and kills even more. The combination of numbers, cavalry, flanking, and casualties routes almost any unit within seconds.

With this great "fist" I easily defeated the barbarian armies in Spain. Sieges were difficult, but accomplished by destroying most of he enemy forces near the walls (whereI could still flank them), and swamping the remainder at the town center. Heavy casaulties in the cavalry, but they can be retrained with a simple Stable.

In Sicily, I struck quickly across the island at Messina. My faction leader died on the second turn (ouch), but with the hlep of elephants I snatched the city from under the Scipii's noses (they were south, besieging Syracuse). My army quickly swung south and crushed them between me and the Greeks, my allies. I went ahead and betrayed the Greeks, taking Syracuse from their weakened army, and secured a ceasefire and trade rights immediately afterwards from their diplomat.

After about five years, I had built up enough of an army to venture into the peninsula itself. With full-stack armies buzzing about everywhere, hwoever, I did not intend this to be an occupation - I was still fighting Spain and Numidia (which, incidentally, crumples like paper before the cavalry fist tactic), so I landed one turn south of Vesuvius. The very next turn I marched on Capua, took it, exterminated the populace, razed the city, and escaped to my waiting fleet. I fell back to Sicily, retrained and re-equipped, and went back out, this time destroying both Croton and Tarentum, isolating the Brutii in Epirus against some very irate Greeks.

The south of the peninsula cleared of Roman influence, I at last trained two full stacks (aided by the return of my Numidian task force, which had left them with only Siwa to keep those Eggies back), and threw them at Rome itself. One fierce battle later, the city was mine, and the southern rebel cities were quickly resecured for Carthage. At the same time, Osca fell, giving me all of Iberia, and that army prepared to fight the Julii in Gaul. I quit the campaign there, since my great nemesis, Rome, was destroyed. I might pick it up again later, to fight the powers in the Eastern Mediterreanean.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Welcome!


Well, to begin with, I have no idea how to use elephants. I try to charge them through enemy lines to disrupt them, but they end up panicking halfway there and dying horribly or fleeing.

They're great for battering in wooden barbarian gates so that you don't have to wait for a siege, but they are surprisingly fragile in combat. Generally, I don't use them for line-breaking (for the reasons you cite). I do use them to counter-charge flanking enemy cavalry and they can do a great "short-hook" flanking move against troops attacking your battle line. NEVER send them in unsupported by cavalry. They're great at knocking holes open but kill surprisingly few. Still, with a hole open, you're well aware of what a cav swarm does if it isn't hitting a solid fronted unit.....:devilish:


The tactic I found was simple: Massed numbers of round-shield (and later Longshield) cavalry, in wedge formation. A small line of infantry supports these masses (at least 5 units, preferably as many as I can afford), which are formed into one massive "fist." This is then hurled at each enemy unit in turn. The wedge formation breaks up the enemy groups just as well as the elephants would have, so that the successive wave of cavalry (I typically have them in two lines) pours into the gaps and kills even more. The combination of numbers, cavalry, flanking, and casualties routes almost any unit within seconds.

A good tactic to use with most of the horse-centered armies. Works well with Spain, Numidia & Scythia as well (and would work for Seluks, Eggies, and all of the Eastern factions too, though their forces give them other options). Its an RTW classic approach that takes full advantage of the jacked up cavalry ability.


In Sicily, I struck quickly across the island at Messina. My faction leader died on the second turn (ouch), but with the hlep of elephants I snatched the city from under the Scipii's noses (they were south, besieging Syracuse). My army quickly swung south and crushed them between me and the Greeks, my allies. I went ahead and betrayed the Greeks, taking Syracuse from their weakened army, and secured a ceasefire and trade rights immediately afterwards from their diplomat.

After about five years, I had built up enough of an army to venture into the peninsula itself. With full-stack armies buzzing about everywhere, hwoever, I did not intend this to be an occupation - I was still fighting Spain and Numidia (which, incidentally, crumples like paper before the cavalry fist tactic), so I landed one turn south of Vesuvius. The very next turn I marched on Capua, took it, exterminated the populace, razed the city, and escaped to my waiting fleet. I fell back to Sicily, retrained and re-equipped, and went back out, this time destroying both Croton and Tarentum, isolating the Brutii in Epirus against some very irate Greeks.

The south of the peninsula cleared of Roman influence, I at last trained two full stacks (aided by the return of my Numidian task force, which had left them with only Siwa to keep those Eggies back), and threw them at Rome itself. One fierce battle later, the city was mine, and the southern rebel cities were quickly resecured for Carthage. At the same time, Osca fell, giving me all of Iberia, and that army prepared to fight the Julii in Gaul. I quit the campaign there, since my great nemesis, Rome, was destroyed. I might pick it up again later, to fight the powers in the Eastern Mediterreanean.

Very sound strategically -- probably the classic format for Carthage (and with good reason).

[ixidor]

Wrong. Carthage´s infantry is quite good being the sacred band the 2nd best phalanx infantry in the game, only spartans can beat them.

Co-signed. To tell the true most of my temples are Baal temples, especially from cities who are far from carthage, since the extra 20% law bonus compared to the other gods' temples is VERY useful, not only make it easier to hold far away provinces, as it helps a lot in cash because it greatly reduce corruption (a curse for big empires). And of course, allows to train the great sacred band.

Now, my contribution to this thread:

- don't attack Numidia, take the strongest foes (which basicly means roman factions) first. They are weak, have no cultural penalty and in case you haven't notice they can be used as a shield against Egipt while you have other things to do.
- don't give up on Corduba. His gardisson is big enough and the city is very profitable. Building some Baal temples helps a lot in keeping public order. So, what to do? With some slavement and with his huge grow rate, you will quicly have a big city who needs no support from your empire. If you have the patience to wait, soon, very soon, you will start building stables and barracks. Then you can take the Peninsula as Hannibal did, starting wih New Carthage (the name says it all :)). Just don't make the mistake to start expanding while the city is not very developed yet and not selfreliable in troops and money. Ah, and the army in the city is more then enough to beat anything around in open field. You can conquer all the Iberia and attack the Numidians only using cavalry from corduba and balear slingers from Palma.
- don't give up on Caralis. If you let Julii take it you will have to worry about Palma, as your trade in Sicily and Carthage himself. The city is not difficult to defend. Just build at least the first walk level (to prevent 1 turn take over), and put some town militia. I also put some rounded shiled cavalry and the skirmishers from Lilybaeum. This city is strategically important to keep, holding it is half the way to dominate the western roman waters. Also, ships close to the island are a nice away to defended it, i usually try to use both strategies
-don't take Syracuse from the Greeks, take it from Scipii instead. Why?
1) you can effectively forge an alliance with the greek cities for money and stability while you fight other more important foes
2) usually Scipii attacks Syracuse all out, leting Messena unprotected. Just bash the doors with the elephants and kill the general there
3) the fact that the romans attacked Syracuse will reduced their numbers quite a bit. This will help you when you fight them later (later, i mean, in the next turn :laugh4:)

Then, well, try to get them in open field, they should be easy to take. I started a new campaign with them and i was unlucky because the scipii put ALL their troops, even the ones from italy, in Syracuse, before my navy could get them. No problem, what did i did? Attacked them in open field, and even better, they came out devided in 2 armies (1 inside the city, other outside). See the results for yourself:


https://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k52/kamhal_2006/TotalWar-HeroicVictoryXIV.jpg

My rounded shield cavalry fought good today


https://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k52/kamhal_2006/TotalWar-HeroicVictoryXIVStatistics.jpg

Then Syracuse (and Sicily) is mine. Notice how a wise use from the elephants made me came out of 2 battles with the unit still undamaged. This unit is gold for you in the begining so treat it well.

Some last tips: the cavalry is the key to sucess. Don't even expect your infantry to beat the roman or the barbarian's one, just use them as a bait. The iberian infantry are good as cannon fodder since they have a decent moral, so they will not run at the first contact. Also, elephants are AWESOME when used with other cavalry. If you charge with them and more cavalry units the destruction and the moral decrease will be just HUGE. Just don't let them stay still in the middle of the battle, they need to be on the move all the time, after the charge make them run for the rear of the enemy and you will be able to bring most (or all) your elephants back home while creating panic and disorder, which combined with a heavy cavalry charge means massive damage. Just don't overuse the elephants, both in battle or in the number of them, i think 4 elephant units is the maximum i advice per army, which is more then enough to destroy an army if you use a good planned charge. Also, use Sacred Band for sieges, they are very good at it (defending or attacking).

Ah, and mostly, have fun changing the result of the Punic Wars :)

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Rome first is the classic response of course.

Well managed battles and judicious elephanting can win you Sicily, as you demonstrate.

Defending Caralis, though difficult at first, is well worth it. The right garrison can sally and bleed the Julii and effectively cripple their expansion.

Once you've got your armies up-tech a bit, sedn the elephants to Carthage and replace them with better ones. Crossing into Italy and taking the Scips out and the Brute's home from them isn't too difficult with Long Shields and War Elephants et al. and is quite profitable. Keep on pushing up the boot to the Padus. A couple of judiciously placed forts later and you've got Gaul on the wrong end of a Bridge battle. Peferect defense point

The old elephant unit that you took out of Sicily has be up armored and shipped to Spain. Nothing is as fun as Elephants going after Barbarians. No long spears and few pila to deter you. The Spaniards don't even field many archers and the Gauls don't until after the reforms. Good terrain for an elephant and the right support. Let Gaul bleed on your northern Italian border while you take out Spain and Gaul from behind. Play Germany and Britain into repeated wars if you can.

Defend Africa at Cyrene. Once you have it Egypt will come and try to take it. Repeatedly. Regardless of the number of deaths you inflict.

[ixidor]

Yeah, I agree with most you say, even though my approach was a bit diferent. 2 or 3 turns after i took syracuse i went fighting in Italy, with only that unit from elephants and some more rounded shield cavalry. Call me crazy but with Carthage i like to fight romans in inferiority, much like Hannibal. Also, i thought it would be the best strategy to hit Scipii now that they were weaken. It was very fun to do this actually, i beat the Sipio twice (they had 500 men, i had 500 men, so, as you see, not a very fair contest :2thumbsup:), first in open field (half of the army) and then the other half in the siege (which made me lose 200 men :no:), beat a 1100 senate army from hastati, principes, velites and 5 (!!!) generals with roughly 700 (i brought some extra cavalry from Carthage and Sicily since mine was greatly reduced and trained extra iberian infantry in Capus since i knew i need more of these to hold the lines) and after the total destruction of this army I sieged Rome. Ah, by the way, the trick is letting an army strong enough to beat the army inside the city but weak enough to make the computer giving the advantage to the enemy. This make the rest of the senate's army came out in the next turn, which was good since i beat the crap of them and took Rome. About the elephants in Iberia, usually my men on there only get help MUCH later after they started to conquer it. In fact, is most likely i get elephants from Tingi then by sending them from Carthage. But this is also personal, i like the the idea from a single town like corduba, with no external help from my empire, to dominate 1 faction as the Spanish and kick the crap of the gauls out of there. Yet, i completly agree that elephants againt barbarian tribes are incredibly devastating.

[Ozzman1O1]

when you guys wage war on spain,you better get alot of skirmishers to cut them down when they attack corduba,trust me,golden strategy,the grass will be littered with bull warroirs!!!:2thumbsup:

[minisam]

Hi all i am new to this site but have been playing rtw for about 1 year now and have found a good strat to get a very good start to the carthage campaign.

i started by handing over Sicily to the scipii and let greece and scipii fight that out with themselves while they struggled to gain power there i focused my interest in west Africa and set out to destroy anyone that stood in my way, all the while recruiting mercs to do the dirty work, in that time i got trade rights with all of rome and Egypt and an alliance with spain. this help as they valued this along with trade rights and didnt attack me there. i had very little resistance from and numada. once i had taken most of their citys and controlled all of west africa i set out to build up my fleets and troops, once i had 3 fully strong armys i marched one onto sicily and 2 into spain taking all provences in spain i did the same rested for about 4 turns and again went after gaul then the brits and germany finaly going in italy and walking all over the senate. once i did that i had enough money to bribe and rebels and rebel towns and a fair few armys.

i did this on the VH/M setting my next task is to try the same strat as the gaul.

Regards

[Ozzman1O1]

the first key to carthage is sicily,wich i conqure in about 6 turns,and if your a beginner and dont want to have spain at war,the numidians in the south is always a good idea.but ive never had trouble with a spanish navy?

[Spartan198]

Want a challenging game ? Play Carthage ! (I am playing on VH/M)

Why is Carthage so much fun ? :charge:
I finished the julii Campaign on VH/M and to be honest it got pretty boring in the end, since the gauls and brits were just cannonfodder for my trusty legionnaires. I don't like playing on Hard or Very hard diff on the battle level, because of the unfair advantages the AI gets. On the other hand, - the roman infantry seems pretty much dominating as it is on medium difficulty.(btw human controlled Velites own Elephants). So what to do ? Play Carthage ! The Carthaginian forces find themselves facing enemies that has superior infantry. You will have your hands full defending vs the Roman with only light cav and skirmishers. Every denarii , every soldier is gonna count. Oth


Carthaginian Battle Tactics:
Played the Battle of Trebia ? Well, listen to what the narrator says. Hannibal learned early in his military life how powerful the roman infantry could be. So he built an army relying on cavalry to deal with the roman military. And so must you.

If you stand toe to toe with Roman infantry you die. Period. As learned in Trebia you only need inf as means to stall or bait the enemy, so your cavalry can flank, attack - and crush those pesky Legionnaires.
Rely on your Generals cav and your light cav early in the game. Vs Numidians you may also use iberian inf but light cav is much more effective. Even gaul infantry will turn your early and mid level infantry to a bloody pulp faster then you can hit "pause".

The lybian skirmishers you can get as mercs in North Africa are great. They have awesome endurance and I get the impression they got double as ammo as other skirmishers. Use them as bait for enemy units. Once the enemy starts leaving the line to attack the skirmishers you kill it with your light infantry. Once you got the enemy in movement and scattered he is yours. Note: This ain't easy without pause. I can do it most of the times. But when I am outnumbered 2:1 I must use pause a bit, especially to avoid being shot at by my own skirmishers. Its possible to beat superior roman armies who come in superior numbers with Cav and skirmishers.


Numidian light cav. Very nice, very fast skirmishing cav. I use them also as scouts to see the setup of the opposing army before I decide where to try to flank. They can do the same job as lybian skirmishers, but vs infantry heavy armies I find the lybians more effective, since enemy inf is easier to bait with inf. The legionnaires will not run after fast moving cav for long.


Hoplites ? you can get them around Carthage as mercs. Useful in streetfighting. In open battle they are more of a burden for your fast moving army. Stick with iberian inf to bind enemy inf momentarily.


Elephants. Oh boy, they surely are the ancient equivalent to AT-ST Walker. Fun, Fun to maul over some blue clad legionnaires and send them flying. Great killing potential but really expensive. Well, I don't know where other people get so filthy rich, but you wont be able to build many elephants early in the game on VH. You start with one elephant unit and I suggest moving it to the African coast. Build another one when you have the cash and move it to Spain. Show the gauls some african wildlife. They gonna love you for it. Elephants are your one big joker. Be careful with em, the loss of an elephant must be avoided until you can afford more. Use them as morale breaker and instant door opener when sieges. Yes, Elephants can knock open gates and raze wooden walls. Elephants can save your neck when all other options fail. So be conservative on 'em.

Generals: Maybe it was because of my playing style, maybe its built in the game. I got some very decent generals early in the game. Maybe its just in the Carthaginian genes. By the way, your leader will die after the first two turns or so. Be prepared for it.

Navy: Forget it. You are facing the three roman navies, the spaniards, and even the gauls send ships to harass your coast. Just try to keep Gibraltar open. Tingis and Cordoba got a great little trade relationship going between em. The AI must be spending enormous sums on building all these gigantic fleets. Also I find naval battles extremely frustrating cause you have no influence of the outcome whatsoever. Oh, on another sidenote... During the Julii campaign the AI was never smart enough to block my harbours. My Carthaginian Harbours sure do get blocked. Only you don't see the little graphic animation with the ropes. Land trade seems good enough though


My strategic approach was different again.

1.In memoriam of the first punic war I let Carsalis and Sicily be overrun by the Romans. My only achievement there was a trade agreement with the diplomat in Syracuse.
2. That gave me some turns of freedom and resources to settle affairs in my a african backyard. I negotiated an Alliance and military access with the numidians. I used that to get two armies in position. The unsuspecting Numidians lost Cirta and Tingis before they got the chance to break the alliance themselves. Hah ! Tingis ios a great money maker. Key is here to be fast. Attack with inferior forces. Rely on your generals cav. The conquered settlements in North africa don't give you a culture penalty, so they are easy to control. Nevertheless I decided to let the population walk the plank and not just the chaingang. Good for cash, but maybe a mistake in the longer run since it slows your early development down. While you do this... consider shipping a diplomat to Leptis Minor along with a city guard. You can bribe the leptis Minor Garrison cheaply but you need to garrison it immediately. Great trade city. After that go for the african center. You don't want the numidians to backstab you, while you have your hands full with gauls in spain. Lybia will take a bit. Its a long hike through the desert. But same goes for the revenge thirsty numidians. So instead concentrate on building a defense vs the romans.

3. Thapsus Coast. Let History repeat itself. In 255 Bc Consul Regelus invaded the coast with estimated 16.000 men and 500 cav. He pressed hard and was quite successful. The Carthagenians were even trying to negotiate a peace , but Regelus asked for too much,- total roman supremity. In a big effort Carthage mustered all the resources it had and hired many merc and a spartan general defeated Regelus.

You will need mercs now. You cannot pump units fast enough to deal with the romans. They will land in front of Thapsus. don't let them siege your town , since that will interrupt trade. Trade is your lifeline. don't allow it to be interrupted. I built a watchtower on the coast.And every time an army unloads its met by my defending army. That way you can take advantage by the fact that the AI sends the roman armies piecemeal. If you allow the Scipions to built a big stack while attacking Thapsus you probably lost the campaign. I have my elephant unit here. Should a battle become desperate I rely on it to loosen up some enemy furball, so my cav can maneuver again. Never ever use auto battle with elephants in your army, you will certainly loose some elephants.

4. Once you got things under control at home you should like Hamilkar´, Hannibals father, decide to expand into spain. Now don't fool yourself. Forget alliances there. I tried and always failed. Maybe its possible to make one with spain , but I doubt it. Bribery becomes your best friend. Why ? Spaniards and you share the same line of inf and light cav. so if you bribe , you get to keep those units ! Same goes for many rebels in Spain. A great way to make money is to sell map info to enemies. I sold map info to the scipions for up to 5 k. Thats great if you are in dire need of cash. Feels a bit like cheating though. I am clueless what the AI makes of this info.
Carefull about leaving your settlements in spain without generals. The spanish bastards bribed two of my settlements in one turn. Nearly cost me the campaign. Gauls just keep coming. Not as hard as romans but they come in even greater numbers. You should have enough trade income by now to slowly push them out of Gaul and get ready for the big haul.... over the alps into Rome.


Good luck ! Melkart be with you.


PS.: Did you know that Melkart was the Carthaginian name for Heracles ? Like Hannibal he traveled from spain over the alps to settle a score in Italy.
Could you outline some tips on successfully negotiating military access? Gaining alliances aren't much trouble,but everytime I ask for military access, the faction in question always breaks said alliance and immidiately attacks me.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

With rare exceptions, military access is granted or protectorate status is accepted, only when you no longer could use it.

Military access means ... let's be honest here ... "I want to position 4 armies next to your key cities and then attack them all at once crippling your faction" -- or at least that's how the computer evaluates your request. It will grant that request easily, once you are so much more powerful that it would be pointless to refuse.

The AI accepts protectorate status only after being beaten down so badly that their final couple of cities would fall to a 3-card stack of peasants -- so you'll usually just send in the peasants and not bother with a satrapy.

If you really want military access prior to it being pointless, the fastest way is to ask for protectorate status from that faction. You have a much better chance of getting a YES if you are willing to pay to be the "bottom" of the totem pole.

Mostly, I don't bother. I assume all neighbors will be at war with me -- I usually let them start it -- and plan accordingly. Alliances are easy only if you can't help each other, then they'll do so readily.

[GamblerTuba]

Here's a quick rundown of my current campaign with Carthage. This is my third campaign overall and first non-Roman attempt. I am playing on M/M vanilla with latest patch.

Mediterranean:

Luckily the Romans in Messana went after Syracuse. I snuck in behind them to tack the relatively undefended city with my elephants. The Roman army then attacked and took Syracuse and I was able to establish an alliance with Greece which lasted for quite a while and probably helped out in the naval frontier with the Brutii. Part of the Greek army must have been out of the city because when I moved on the Romans in Syracuse, there was a Greek army sitting next to the city but not besieging. My spy had managed to open the gates on Syracuse so I immediately attacked to bring the Greek army in to help as well.:2thumbsup:
This was one of the more interesting battles I fought in the entire campaign. The Roman army was substantial still and after leaving a garrison in Messana, my faction leader had a fairly small force left to him. The majority of the Roman force deployed to the south to repel the Greek army and I was able to quickly break through and reached the undefended city square. Unfortunately, the Greek army routed without doing any noticeable damage and I was forced into a bloody melee in the town square as the nearly undamaged Roman units returned. My faction leader died a glorious death but my slingers and eventually my elephants turned the tide and exterminated the Romans. I eventually bribed away the Greek remnants and managed to prevent any serious Roman attempt to retake Sicily using my navy.
Caralis faced only 2 Roman armies before my navy asserted itself. The second attempt was a full stack Julii army that besieged my very meager garrison before my ragtag relief force pulled off an heroic victory at 2:1 odds. In future, I may take my family member off of Palma almost immediately in order to help keep the peace in Spain.

Iberia:

This strategy may not work on harder difficulties but my aim was to cripple the Spanish ASAP by taking Carthago Nova. With those two cities, I hoped to out-produce the Spanish. It was a close call, shuttling my lone family member back and forth from Corduba and Carthago Nova but i managed to hold on until reinforcements from Africa allowed me to turn North and claim the Iberian Peninsula. Spanish mercs and Iberian infantry make a pretty potent combination and round shield cavalry are amazing if used in sufficient numbers.
The Gauls and Spanish allied immediately which made the situation that much hairier. I think the governor from Palma would help tremendously in keeping the peace and leading a separate army. Things were touch and go until my African army was able to send along a few more cavalry units and a unit of vanilla elephants. I used my pachys almost exclusively as psychological warfare and as siege engines. I was then able to steamroll using only local troops (and mercs) to take over all of Spain and kick the Gauls off the peninsula. The real advantage to round-shields is the ability to retrain them almost anywhere.

Africa:

After taking control of Sicily, I put together a small force of round-shields, one unit of elephants, and a few mercs and marched west across Northern Africa. My scrappy little family member managed with little difficulty to take Cinta and Tingi. The wonderful thing about Numidia is of course no culture penalty. Which means the army just keeps on marching. After taking Tingi, i shipped about half the army into Iberia and sent the scraps to take Dimmidi and Nente. So far, i have faced very few problems with public order or brigands in these areas. I left Numidia alone in Lepcis Magna in order to increase the buffer between myself and Egypt. So far so good and Numidia has sent only feeble armies at Thapsus so far.

Next up, Rome and provinces East.

[GamblerTuba]

Not sure how many people still read these boards but I am having a blast playing RTW and its fun to share my experiences. Playing on default unit size BTW.

Greece:

I actually took the bottom half of Italy first but I will describe the Greek Campaign first. After taking Capua, Croton, and Tarentum; I decided to leave Italy alone for a while. I wanted a bit of a challenge and was hoping to get a ceasefire and ensure some epic battles later on. The Brutii lost most of their macedonian holdings after getting kicked out of Italy. By the time I landed in Greece they held only Corinth which was my major target anyway to try and keep my provinces (especially in Iberia) in line. I attacked with a half-stack army ferried over from Italy. This army contained some sacred band infantry, 5 round shields, 2 long shields and the remaining 10 elephants from Sicily. I hired a few archers in Greece and laid siege to Corinth.

I knew that Greece could betray the alliance once i had taken Corinth so i stayed patient and starved out the substantial Brutii garrison. The turn Corinth fell, Greece declared war and laid siege with full stack army of hoplites and armored hoplites. At this point I sent a small force from Italy to take Thermon planning to sack it and run when the Greeks counter-attacked just to take some heat off Corinth. The Greeks never counter-attacked so I just stayed put.

I crushed 3 separate full stack Greek armies by sallying from Corinth before reinforcements finally arrived from Africa. This was my first tailor-made army as all others were kind of cobbled together. Full stack with about 5 SB Inf, 2 Bal Slingers, 2 Iberian Inf, 1 Newly Minted General, 6 RS cav, 2 LS cav, and 2 War Elephants.

The ensuing battle was by far the biggest I have seen yet in RTW. The Greeks maneuvered two full stacks down by the coast to pen me in while a third full stack kept Corinth under siege. My African army attacked and faced two full Greek armies with a balanced force of hoplites (mostly armored but a few militia) and jav cavs.

I set up as far forward as possible because I knew that I had to rout one army before the other joined in. Luckily the first army was cavalry deficient and led by a captain. (I had killed 4 Greek family members during the sieges of Corinth) I marched my infantry forward until the slingers were in range. Left my war elephants on the flanks and ran my cavalry all over the place. A few Greek units actually made it to my infantry line but the SB held just fine until cavalry units managed to break through. I routed the Greeks from the outside in and by "burning the candle at both ends" so to speak had the entire line running before the other Greek army could join in.

The other army had dropped phalanx and run to join in so their infantry was seriously tired and never managed to reach my line. I had reformed my line on a small ridge and the Bal Slingers were still spitting stones to no end. But I nearly cost myself the victory by sending my (now exhausted) round shields after the Greek Cavalry. Not sure exactly how it all happened but pretty soon I saw the remnants of my RS routing back towards my line and the Greek cavalry managed to panic BOTH units of war elephants with their javelins.:help:

Well, I bit the bullet and the elephants got the pointy end of a stake.:smash: My slingers took down a tremendous number of their cavalry and LS sent the rest packing. I used the Iberians in place of cavalry and with all the morale penalties, the second Greek Army never put up much of a fight. My remaining cavalry managed to chase down nearly all the routers. Greeks lost nearly 2500 men to my 200. After that, Sparta and Athens fell easily and I currently hold Larissa as well and I am moving on Thessalonica.

Whew, took longer than I thought. Roman theatre will have to wait. Hopefully someone out there still enjoys playing and discussing this game. I am considering trying an AAR for my next campaign. Probably as the Seleucid's.

[GamblerTuba]

Here's the final summary that should sum up my Carthage campaign so far. I will post more as I finish the campaign.

Italy:

I was hesitant to try the Blitz as Carthage because I wanted somewhat of a challenge and I am still playing on M/M anyway. My first attempt definitely made me think twice. I landed all the forces i could muster from Sicily and Sardinia and landed them next to Capua in order to finish the Scipii. Unfortunately, my army ran smack into a nearly full stack of Romans presumably on their way to Sicily.

The Romans consisted of about 8 units of Hastati, a couple principes and triarii, 3 equites and 3 generals. I had 3 RS cav, about 6 units of Iberian and Libyan inf, remaining elephants from Sicily and a general. What a slaughter. None of my units actually fought for more than 5 seconds before routing. Well, i reloaded :embarassed: and did not attack for a while until I had a better army.

In the meantime, my navy began to assert itself and a few Roman armies went down with the ship. The Brutii also committed themselves to the Greek frontier. When I landed on Italy the second time, Capua was nearly undefended as were Croton and Tarentum. The senate armies hung out around Rome and I was able to destroy the Scipii and cripple the Brutii very easily. From there i waited to consolidate my holdings planning on leaving the senate and the Julii alone in order to make sure the late-game had a few epic battles.

Unfortunately, by taking Corinth I turned the Greeks against me and started a very expensive war. In order to finance that war, I turned North against the Julii. At this point, I was conducting a campaign in Greece, Italy, and Iberia simultaneously and was kept very busy indeed.

I hit the Julii on two fronts by marching up the East coast to Arinium and landing a small force from Spain (including my new faction leader) to take lightly defended Segesta. Both cities fell easily although the force that took Arinium fought a number of large stacks on the way. A large enough cavalry force simply decimates anything except triarii. A few Iberians with cavalry support take care of them.

This is where things became very interesting. When i laid siege to Arretium, the senate army finally left Rome and moved on Capua. I immediately left Arretium and moved on Rome and the massive Senate Stack moved to meet my Faction Leader's army. I tried being clever (read cheap) by sending my small Capua garrison in behind to take Rome while their main army moved North. I attacked a small stack standing next to Rome and brought the Rome garrison out. I destroyed the garrison to a man with my small group of RS cav. Unfortunately, Rome did not fall and next turn was garrisoned by a single unit of war dogs!

Next up: The battle for Rome

[GamblerTuba]

I really hope someone reads/enjoys this. It is fun to write though.

The climactic battle with the senate occurred when I sent a 3/4 stack of cav and a few barbarian mercs led by my faction leader and a small stack of cav led by a useless family member under AI control against the full senate stack. Units were pre-marian but lots of triarii. The senate stack was standing next to Rome but did not have enough movement points to make it into the city. My armies also did not have enough movement points to attack their army. Instead i placed my armies adjacent to theirs and used a single unit of LS cav from Capua to initiate the battle. I did NOT want the senate army to reach Rome, I did not relish street to street fighting with all those triarii and principes. Complicated set-up but led to a very entertaining battle. The set-up looked like this on campaign map:

FL FM
RA Ro
LS

FL faction leader and 3/4 stack (human controlled)
FM family member and small stack (AI controlled)
Ro city of Rome
RA Senate Army (full stack of pre-marian units)
LS single unit of long shield cavalry used to initiate combat

Battle map looked very odd because my single LS cavalry is the only one i was able to deploy. I sent that LS after the single unit of wardogs that sallied from Rome destroyed all the handlers that was about all they accomplished. The Romans deployed near the northern edge of the map which means my faction leaders army entered the map nearly on top of the roman lines. Absolute Chaos ensues. My faction leader’s army was all spread out and outnumbered with no room to maneuver and half of my cavalry came out in the woods.

Many of my RS units were routed before doing much damage. I was actually saved by my barbarian mercs and bal slingers. The 3 units barb mercs were able to stretch out enough to delay flanking and held up the roman lines while the slingers did some damage. My faction leader moved off a ways into a clearing and gathered together the remnants of my cavalry.

I began to use my depleted cav units to rout the left flank of the Roman army and the battle was just starting turn when my AI controlled units finally started to find their way to the battle field. My faction leader’s bodyguards killed 3 different Roman generals and the rout was on.

Unfortunately, one roman general made it out of the confusion along with enough stragglers to field 2 partial units of velites and about 20 principes. The next turn I assaulted Rome as my spy managed to open the gates. The senate had added a unit of triarii to the defense. Rome is a royal pain to assault even with a full army against a skeleton defense. I overwhelmed the triarii at the open gates with my remaining barb mercs and a unit of Iberian inf. The velites on the wall proved to be a formidable opponent. They routed the first couple units I sent up after them but finally fell. By then I only had single unit of Iberians and a couple units of bal slingers and the rest cavalry. I had to run the length of the wall taking each tower in turn. Many of the towers provide support fire and I nearly ran out of infantry before I could clear a path for my cavalry to run all the way to the opposite side of Rome to reach the ONLY entrance to the town square and kill the 8 men in the general’s bodyguard. Lost nearly 300 men to kill about 140 Romans. Most of the losses were barb infantry but still…

Next up: My favorite TW battle of all time… so far.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Carthage is always a tough one in siege assaults. The same things that make them so fun in field battles, cavalry, cavalry, elephants and, oh, cavalry, give them fits when trying to get through a breach or gate. I almost always end up waiting for towers too, just so that I can get more of my infantry onto the walls faster. Most of my infantry is crap, but if I can hit them from both wall directions at once....

I used to, once resources built, set up a siege assault army. I recruited many mercs for that army, leaving only the onagers, some peonis, and some long shields from integral forces. Loved spanish, saminite, numidians, barbarians, and thracians for the rest of the assault team.

[Vitellus]

Aye, with Carthage, in sieges, I tended to rely on mercs. Many weren't as valuable as my main army troops in any case, so I often used them as storm troopers to take walls and breaches. Interesting campaign so far, I look forward to seein' the rest of it (my Carthage campaign stopped after I took Spain and Italy. Mebbe I finish it someday...).

[GamblerTuba]

My favorite battle in TW:

Arretium has nearly fallen twice now. One siege was broken at the last moment by the Senate. The second siege was broken by a full stack Julii army from Patavium. I decided to break the siege because the battle would have taken place in a forest and my cavalry would have gotten shredded. When I moved my army to siege Arretium again from a different direction, I was surprised to find the Julii had actually set up an ambush. My faction leaders army was taken completely by surprise by a full stack of Roman units (still pre-marian)

The Julii began the battle with 1500men and not a single Roman survived. I began the battle with 960men and lost 79men. Beginning as an ambush I cannot even begin to explain the mass confusion that ensued but my faction leader and a few units of RS were at the head of the army and 3 units of RS were at the tail. Eventually they met in the middle and the Roman army was simply torn to pieces. Both groups of cavalry simply carried out what I like to call the Pac-Man maneuver. The Roman army never formed a solid battle line as they scattered to engage. Using three cavalry I was able to encircle and rout each unit in turn before disengaging and moving on to the next. There was not enough time to get many kills but my Iberian inf kept the Romans on the run until my cav had the chance to come back and finish the job.

There was a single unit of Triarii that I avoided like the plague until my single unit of SB inf made it across the field and engaged them. Of course their general made a bee-line for my faction leader. My faction leader (who had 45-man bodyguard, 2 silver chevrons and 9+ command stars) made short work of the enemy cavalry and ended with over 250 kills in the battle. It was very, very fun.

Now Arretium should (finally) fall as I have the men to hold the bridge to the North while besieging the city.

My Iberian army has grown to two full stacks and has begun a push into gaulish territory, leaving many half-clothed and completely dead barbarians in their wake. I have taken Narbo Martius and Massilia. Unfortunately this opens up a border with the Britons so there is the possibility of war breaking out there. Other than the wide area to cover, the biggest problem with fighting through Europe is the abundant forests. It is very difficult to command any army in the woods but especially hard for the cav dependant factions.

I have taken Kydonia, Rhodes and Thessalonica. I now have an army on its way from Greece to take Salona from the Julii. The assault on Thessalonica was another bloody affair where my losses were greater than the enemy. I did find some comic relief near the end. As I finally approached the city square with a unit of SB Inf in phalanx mode, the enemy general charged, lost half his number and routed… about 10 steps to the city square where his men regained their morale and promptly charged again. This happened three times before the unit was completely destroyed. Looked like a bunch of indecisive lemmings. Too funny. :laugh4:

I aim to cripple but not destroy Gaul and hopefully avoid war with the Britons for now. Waging war in Europe is messy with very few strategic boundaries to defend. My next major opponent will be either Pontus or Egypt. Thankfully money is no longer a real concern. Rhodes and Corinth have to be two of the most desirable cities on the map. Corinth basically counts as a 1-step increase in taxes everywhere and Rhodes can make a massive increase in available cash if your empire is large enough.

[rvg]

I have to say a few words about the Sacred Band infantry...

These guys are nothing short of awesome. They are armored like turtles, they are almost completely immune to missiles (including pila), and, provided that their flanks are guarded, they will advance across the battlefield in one indestructible wall of desolation, mowing down any unit unfortunate enough to stand in their way.
They are great vs Romans (pre- or post-marian) and Egyptians. Conveniently enough, those are usually the only factions able to reach the superpower status, and Sacred Band is able to smash them. Carthaginian cavalry is of course still important (specifically, the Longshields), but its role is mostly to protect the SB flanks and finish off routers and waverers, while SB does most of the heavy lifting.
Sacred Band Cavalry on the other hand, is rather underwhelming: top level stables and 2-turn production cycle for something that is only marginally better than Longshields. Nah, might as well make an Armoured Phant to put the fear of Baal into the hearts of Romans.

[GamblerTuba]

The sacred band infantry are certainly wonderful. Phalanxes are at a bit of disadvantage for Carthage because of the lack of archers. Can always buys some mercs but then you have an army where both missile units and your main infantry line cannot be retrained in newly conquered territory. Luckily the SB do not take many casualties at all so it is seldom a problem. One or two units as spares is plenty.

I am not sold on the long shield cavalry though. The improvement from RS to LS does not seem to be very pronounced. Only 2 more attack? The defense is nice but my cavalry should never rely on defense stats. The enemy had better rout within a few seconds of the cavalry hitting anyway. Right now, (and my opinion may change as i go later in the campaign) I like RS for the grunt work because i can retrain them almost anywhere and LS do not seem to be too big of an upgrade. Just beginning to produce sacred band cavalry but their stats seem to imply a pretty big jump. SB cavalry have basically the same stats as your generals but should die more quickly. I plan on making a few units and treating them somewhat like elephants. Use them where necessary but try to minimize casualties because retraining will be a pain.

[Patroclus]

I love reading your battle reviews, GamblerTuba. I hope you keep posting them! :)

[GamblerTuba]

Thanks for the encouragement Patroclus. Glad to know at least someone is reading all this. :beam:

Well, it's official. I am an idiot. I fought the last major battle against the remaining Julii forces outside of Patavium. The battle was a victory but not very satisfying because of one major brain-cramp.

I had landed a new army from Carthage right outside of Patavium and laid siege. The next turn, I was attacked by two different Julii armies as well as the Patavium Garrison. My army consisted of 4 LS cav, 2 RS cav, a general, 2 armoured ellies, 4 SB inf, 2 Iberian inf, 2 rhodian slingers, 2 cretan archers, and 2 barb infantry.

The Romans brought a total of 2,200 men split into two major armies conisting of lots of principes, velites, equites and a few praetorian cohorts. The battle was initiated by a very small group of hastati and velites.

At the beginning of the battle, i formed my infantry into a battle line anchored by the elephants and went out hunting with my cavalry. The smaller third army started in the center of the map with the 2 large armies moving in as reinforcements. I annihilated the small army and nibbled the edges of the two main armies with cavalry before falling back to my infantry line.

As the Romans approached i set the slingers in front and archers behind the line and set both archers to fire arrows. With still nearly 2,000 men against my line, i knew that "psychological warfare" was my best bet. Unfortunately using fire arrows led to my eventual doom.... DOOM. (or at least major annoyance)

The archers and slingers did their thing and the enemy advanced in pretty good order. The Romans actually did a pretty good job of sending their cavalry and few infantry units to delay my cavalry on the flanks. Eventually my cavalry would have won out and begun to break the Romans apart but this is where Carthage really gets to have fun. Hey "Rome's Finest", say hello to Snuffleupagus! I sent my Ellies lengthwise through the Roman lines. They waved at each other when they passed in the middle, reached the ends and turned around for another pass. By then nearly every Roman unit was routing and I was laughing maniacally :laugh4:

Those of you that are smarter than a bag of hammers (unlike me) can probably guess why things suddenly turned horribly, horrifically wrong. Here's my internal monologue at the time.

"Wow, praetorian cohorts sure like pretty flying through the air. These armoured elephants aren't even taking any casualties. Oh wait, there goes one. Hmmm... the icon says they are taking missile damage... I thought all the velites were running like rabbits. Why do my elephants look unhappy. OMG my archers are still firing fire arrows!!!":wall:

Both units of elphants ran amok halfway through their second pass. Luckily my cavalry was busy chasing routers as the Romans were already in full flight. I immediately withdrew all of my non-mounted units and got the cavalry out of the way. I still lost nearly an entire unit of slingers and about 70 SB infantry to my own elephants. Still a pretty crushing victory. The Romans lost 1900 men to my 200. Just very annoying that more than half of my casualties were self-inflicted.

Next turn Patavium fell as my spy opened the gate and the remaining Roman forces both inside and outside the city were slaughtered. The Julii are reduced to just Solona now. I took Lemonum from the Gauls but now wish i had not. What a dirt-worthless armpit of a city that place is. I did not even have the heart to enslave the 86 (86!!!) citizens.

Strange thing is that Germania came calling and asked me, Carthage, for an alliance. I couldn't believe it. I haven't had a friend in this game since Greece stabbed me in the back at Corinth so after going all vaclempt, i accepted the alliance which forced me into ceasefire with the Gauls. This was before I was able to take Mediolanum but oh well, I was planning on leaving some Gauls between me and Briton anyway. I am now on a spending spree trying desperately to keep my treasury below 50K. Turning a 25K profit each turn now. Once i have a few more invincible armies of Doom, i will march on either Pontus or Egypt.

[Patroclus]

Ah, archers in 'fire at will' mode have been many a cause of minor disasters for me in the past. :D I shouldn't worry about it.

86 citizens? Wow. Some serious enslavement/extermination must have been going on beforehand with that one.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Chance-taker Bass-Brass man:

What version are you playing? The Vanilla 1.5 iteration is actually pretty good at NOT shooting your own troops on fire at will, though it is possible for it to still happen depending on some positioning.

[GamblerTuba]

Still playing vanilla 1.5 and I agree the archers are usually pretty careful about avoiding friendly fire casualties. Sometimes they are too timid for my tastes. Unfortunately my elephants were getting a bit strung out and they just make such large targets. Only one elephant was actually killed before one unit ran amok and that caused the other unit to go nuts too. Roman "line" was complete confusion by that point too, thanks to the elephants, so archers would have a hard time finding a completely safe target. I will probably retrain those elephants and give them one more shot. Elephants are kind of like hand grenades. Really effective weapons but you had better know what you are doing.

I absolutely love fire arrows. They don't kill quite as many enemies but with Carthage, most of my kills come after a unit has routed anyway. I don't think i will ever dump the RS cav from my army. Their speed is just too much. I have run down at least a half dozen routing generals with a fresh unit of RS.

Not much going on in the campaign at the moment. Will be out of town for a while too so next update may have to wait.

[GamblerTuba]

As i said, not much happening on the campaign recently as i have been out of town and/or sick. Julii disappeared unexpectedly and i am not sure exactly how. Last i knew, the Julii still help Solona and Segestica. I took Segestica and then marched my army down to Solona and it was rebel? I completely missed the faction destroyed message so I guess the last Julii family member died in Segestica.

Also have completed the destruction of the Greeks. Greece had recently gone to war with Pontus and I was worried that the Greeks would be quickly destroyed seeing as they had been reduced to a single city in Asia Minor. I hurried a new army from Africa over and laid siege to the nearly empty city. Well, i need not have hurried. That same turn, my army was hit by a full stack Greek army with lots of armored hoplites and plenty of cavalry. Unfortunately the battlefield was fairly woodsy with small clearings which limited the effectiveness of my cavalry. I was unable to completely destroy the city garrison and some of the attacking cavalry escaped but the battle was quite successful.

The next turn, i stormed the city. Was a cakewalk because the only defenders left were cavalry. Iberians to take the towers and gates. SB infantry and Cretan archers to mop up all the cavalry. That finished the Greeks but there was still a full stack army (now rebel) in my new territory. Not sure if this is a change due to new patch but the army is still intact but rebel, led by a 5-star former Greek general. The army immediately parked on a bridge and may be a bear to finally destroy. 60K gold was not enough to bribe them away.

However, 60K gold was just enough to get a ceasefire with Numidia and now Carthage finds itself at war with NO ONE! Very strange but so far i am allied with Dacia and Germania and currently at war with no one. I am buying up as many mercs as i can and spending wherever i can but cannot keep my treasury down. Oh well, if i start some wars my trade will probably decrease quite a bit.

Gaul is acting like a buffer between myself and Briton so far. Dacia is busy fighting Thrace so until one side wins out there, I am probably going to be left alone. Pontus would have to walk through the burly rebel army to get to me. Numidia is keeping Egypt away so I could probably maintain peace for quite some time, except that makes life pretty boring.

I think with all this extra cash, i will make up a few "super armies" and land them at Alexandria and take my last 10 provinces from the heart of Egypt.

[GamblerTuba]

Pontus and Egypt are pretty busy fighting each other. As are Dacia and Thrace. Contacted my Dacian allies for a map update and they responded by asking me to attack Briton. I was getting pretty bored with peace anyway so i agreed and attacked Gaul while I was at it.

I quickly took Lugdunum from the British and Besieged Mediolanium which still belonged to the Gauls. Most of the Gaulish forces were actually in a fort near the bridge to the west so I was able to fight an open field battle when the forces moved back to relieve the siege. This was a custom built army with 4 SB infantry, 2 Poeni, 2 Iber inf, one cretan archer, 2 armored elephants, faction leader, and the rest LS cav. Battle against just over 1200 Gauls all told but only 800 in the initial force with the city garrison trailing behind.

The battle was very satisfying but not my favorite. Too easy. The map was mostly wooded but i set my infantry in the center of a clearing with elephants at each flank and hid my cavalry in the woods to either side. It was a slaughter. My LS did take some substantial casualties. Even when routing the chosen swordsmen can do some damage. It was pretty fun to see all those cavalry busting out of the woods while my elephants began carving up the lines. Only a few Gauls managed to sneak back off the field but they routed and left the city to me.

In the meantime a full stack army of Britons besieged the newly conquered Lugdunum. I had attacked the city the previous turn and actual won a heroic victory in taking it which was very surprising considering how costly the victory was. My army was the same merc dependant army that had overrun the Iberian peninsula with a few barb mercs thrown in. There is no clean way to destroy chosen swordsmen with spanish mercs and RS cavalry in a city but they got the job done. Anyway, my reduced force would have been carved up trying to sally against the scary stack. I tried it but the Brits had heavy chariots gaurding their flanks and my remaining four RS would not last long. So I sent a small cavalry force the long way round to hit the besiegers from behind and bring the city garrison in as reinforcements.... seemed like a good idea.

***Favorite Battle Begins***
I initiated the attack with a force of 324 (3LS, 2RS, and 1 Barb Cav) against a Briton army of 1600+ with my Lugdunum garrison as reinforcements. I was still an underdog but with the extra cavalry, I was not worried. Well the battle starts and instead of seeing my garrison moving in I get a message that reads "Reinforcements Delayed?" Hmmm... I pull my cavalry back hoping to buy some time... no luck. I begin to run my cavalry to another corner when I finally realized that my reinforcements are simply not gonna make it at all. I was considering withdrawing when i noticed that the Britons are losing some cohesiveness while trying to track my cavalry. The nearest units to me are the handful of vanilla warbands with no chariots nearby. So I crash in and start wiping out a unit here and a unit there. The British general dives in with his chariots and routs the barb cavs but I manage to surround him with a couple units and killed the general and routed off the rest of the chariots. I had a pretty good chain rout going but the chosen swordsmen were starting to chew up my cav units. At this point, all my units are less than half strength and all but three units are routing. The swordsmen are moving in as well so I pull my cavalry back. 2 routing units regain their courage and i manage to sneak them back to my line as well so I have 5 units of cavalry (3LS, 2RS) all at around 25 men against what is left of the British army. I line my cavalry up and let them rest for a bit and then... the British start withdrawing! I had bloodied them much more than I had thought and without their general they are leaving. I only managed to take out 3 more units before they left the field. But the final tally induced maniacal laughter from me. I started with 324men, Briton started with 1613. I ended the battle with 135men, Briton finished with 563. Needless to say, it was a heroic victory. Made even sweeter by the fact that I used my diplomat to bribe away the remaining leaderless remnant. So Briton lost a full stack of 1600men to an expeditionary force of just over 300... Beautiful.
***Favorite Battle Ends***

The Gauls are sending there remaining forces after Lemonum but I have managed to get some reinforcements there thanks to all my watchtowers. I also have my fingers crossed that my plague infected spy survives the trip from Sicily to Egypt. :skull: Approaching the 50 settlement limit but that battle described above was well worth playing this campaign through so far.

[mrdun]

Wow, away from guides for a few days and boom a flurry of posts, nice work GamblerTuba!!!!

[GamblerTuba]

Winding down my campaign but having some fun still.

Briton is effectively neutered. They still hold a few settlements on the continent and their islands but they are sandwiched between Carthage and my Germanian allies. Briton lost the majority of their remaining forces around Samarobriva. I almost felt sorry for them at the latest battle. A force of green warbands was trying to relieve the siege and got plastered by my elite force in the area. Final tally: Briton loses 1245men, Carthage loses 6.

Armoured elephants are truly terrifying weapons when used properly. Just make sure to follow the advice of all the other folks on this board
1. Avoid missiles! Javellins and fire arrows will make elephants crazy faster than you would guess.
2. Keep them moving. Elephants should either be standing out of battle as missile support or running THROUGH enemy formations.
3. Do NOT let them fight when tired.
4. Support with cavalry. To take advantage of the disruption that elephants cause, you want cavalry to follow right behind.
5. Elephants work best on the flanks. (obviously) Be careful that you elephants do not disrupt your own formations as they move around. Elephants will almost always end the battle if they can run length-wise through an already engaged infantry line.

My only complaint on the barbarian front is the ineffectiveness of sacred band infantry. These guys rock but so far the barbarians seem completely unwilling to fight them! Lately the Britons will split their army and try to attack my elephants on the flank instead of my infantry line. I may scale back to just 3 units of SB infantry per army, just enough to keep my archers secure. Kind of fun to have some Cretan archers kicking butt up in Normandy.

The real fun for the rest of this campaign is going to be against Egypt. I have held Pergamum for years having taken it from the Brutii. Pontus has so far left me alone and I have just recently seen Egyptian armies laying siege to Pontic Ancyra. Like a good neighbor I sent out a force to relieve the siege and started the long awaited war with Egypt. Pontus has allied with me and we have beaten the Egyptians back but with no decisive battles so far. The Eggies keep running like frightened rabbits from our combined armies. I now have every Egyptian port blockaded and landed a killer army at Alexandria. I skipped Alexandria to lay siege to Memphis (gotta love those pyramids). I am looking forward to a few climactic battles against top of the line Eqyptian troops and then this campaign will be over.

Next up will probably be a Seluecid campaign or perhaps the transition to BI.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Armoured elephants are truly terrifying weapons when used properly. Just make sure to follow the advice of all the other folks on this board
1. Avoid missiles! Javellins and fire arrows will make elephants crazy faster than you would guess.
2. Keep them moving. Elephants should either be standing out of battle as missile support or running THROUGH enemy formations.
3. Do NOT let them fight when tired.
4. Support with cavalry. To take advantage of the disruption that elephants cause, you want cavalry to follow right behind.
5. Elephants work best on the flanks. (obviously) Be careful that you elephants do not disrupt your own formations as they move around. Elephants will almost always end the battle if they can run length-wise through an already engaged infantry line.

An excellent precis.


My only complaint on the barbarian front is the ineffectiveness of sacred band infantry. These guys rock but so far the barbarians seem completely unwilling to fight them! Lately the Britons will split their army and try to attack my elephants on the flank instead of my infantry line. I may scale back to just 3 units of SB infantry per army, just enough to keep my archers secure. Kind of fun to have some Cretan archers kicking butt up in Normandy.

Try reversing normal doctrine. Put the spears as the flank unit and your sworders in the middle; elephants behind the spears.

If they go for the flank they face the pikes.

If the go for the middle, your swords will hold long enough for the hefalumps to swing out and run laterally which, as you noted above, usually spells game over.

Don't completely remove the Brits from the continent unless you seek war with Germany.

[Ozzman1O1]

:beam: Do you ALWAYS have your sacred band in phalanxe formation?If you do,most barbarian infantry are going to evade you.You put the band's spears up,and once the britons have came in contact,you have a large amount of briton carcasses.......And the elepants are the kind of cavalry you use to monuver around the enemy's side and slaughter the infantry in the front lines...(just keep them hidden)but if you have two armys sandwitching a massev briton army then you have squashed barbarian in between an elephant sandwich...(AKA,just charge at the warband from both sides)...reapeat that,and britannia is yours!But germania...you know what.just go into spain instead.

[Quintus.JC]

Carthage might be hard to play as but can be very rewarding. The are able to recruit the elephants and their cavalry and infantry is also impressive. However, they do suffer from very poor early game infantry, meaning they must rely on cavalry to win early battles. here is somethings i done during my campaign early on to ensure later success:
1. prepare to abandon corduba to spain if attacked.
2. give caralis to the Greeks as a gift.
3. train a strong navy.
4. conquer all of Sicily
4. destroy Numidia.

Now lets looks at their potenial enemies:
House of Scipii.
basic plot is simple, the scipii will attack Greece first, doesn't matter. using your faction leader with his force and attack messina on turn2 (recuit mecenary hoplite). the scipii force besieging Sycrecuse will turn around and attack you. defeat them in battle and messina is yours. the scipii won't take this nicely and will bombard you with forces from Capua. The solution is simple. train up a strong navy. and destroy their force will at sea. mainland Italy is separte from Sicily. the scipii will need to use their navy to make landings. don't let them! sink their ships and their force on board will sink with them. keeping on doing this and the scipii will not be a worry any more. you'll conquer Sycrecuse later and rule all of Sicily.

Numidia
These guys will come and ask for treat first and sneak up on you later. Carthage will never be safe with Numidia ready to backstab any minute. the solution is simple. destroy them, and as quick as possible. you'll have 1 family member in Palma and Corduba. move them out and recruit regional mecenaries. belaric slingers and Spanish Mercenary will best any infantry you can train right now. move them out and attack Cirta. (remember to ask map information first. Numidia is a awfully big comparing it's land mass). after that take Tingi and Dimidi acordingly. Take Nepte as well if it's held by the Numdians. After that they'll only have Siwa left and that is separated by Lipcus Magna. don't bother with them any more. you rule all of Western Africa without any worry of being backstabed. all of you African cities is safe, for now.

Spain
The chances are they'll try to take Corduba, but if you're lucky, like me. The Spanish will offer alliance and actually keep it. this is idea sitiuation. If they do decide to attack Corduba then just let it go. you'll get them back later.

Julii
Sooner or later the Julii will attack Caralis, if hadn't given it to the greeks already then just let the Julii take it without a fight, they'll be content after that and apart from their navy. you won't even notice they're there.

Brutii
Brutii might ocasionally block the port of Syrecuse. just make sure they don't land any troops in your region. most of the time the Brutii won't take aggresion against you until you take aggression on them.

After 40 years you'll be ready to take on Rome. The city of Carthage is growing fast and will be your troop production centre. Thapsus and Lilybauem will also reached large city at least. your core infantry should be made of Poeni Infantry with Sacred Band Infantry as elites. use Sacred band Cavalry as shock cavalry. Longshield cavalry haven't lost all it's use and will make it to your cavalry selection because of it cheaper cost compare to Sacred band. Use Elephant as weapon of mass destruction. early on these guys will your key to victory. i tend not to use them too much later during the game. in my case i ignored missile troops although. since Punic missile troop sucks anyways. it is important to wipe out all Roman factions before the Marian reformation, although it is more fun fight Legionaires. In my campaign i took Sicily first then conquered all out Western Africa. i didn't take Lipcus Magma because I wanted it to act as a buffer between Carthage and the remaining Numidian city. Corduba was untouched and Spain and Gaul fought over Celtiberia. Caralis was taken over by the Julii. 237BC i was ready. my army rolled into Italy. Rome was the first one to go then followed by everyone else. Brutii still had lands in the Balkans. I didn't care. I should all their navy and they had attack by land. my next step was the Iberian Penisular. the spanish had chased the Gauls out. luckily by that time Corduba already reached Large city and could look after itself. Spain attack Corduba, they were beaten back. a counter attack followed. the Spanish wars last for 15 years before the factions being totally destroyed. Gaul was a consistant pest on the northern borders but i had no intention of going into northern Europe. way too poor. next i journeyed across Africa and destroyed Numidia. then i was draged into a war with Egypt. this was the most fun part of the game. Egypt destroyed the Seleucid already and was the dominated faction of the east, till i came along. the long Egyptian-Punic wars lasted for more than 5 decades before Egypted was totally crippled, not destroyed. after fighting Pontus and taking Anatolia i was done and completed my grand campaign.

[mrdun]

Nice first post QJC

[RickFGS]

Early on get as many balearic slingers as you can in your armies, the enemies won´t have a great deal of archers and if you fight everysingle battle with these babies you´ll just win from a distance everytime. Use an army to autoresolve battles vs barbarian with lots of balearics on it, they will promote very fast and with a couple retrains they will be even usefull on the later game part.

To compensate the lack of archers (i wonder what were the gamedesigners thinking here, i guess the romans don´t die very well to arrows later on...but the pre-marian reforms don´t use as much armor or testudo....) just use Onagers with balearic, or get an medium sized army on a boat and conquer Crete, hire Cretan Mercenary Archers and you´re all set.

[Billah]

I have played all the Roman factions, and the Seleucids. Have not played the others yet.

Right now, I am playing a Carthaginian campaign on Medium/Medium.

I use diplomats primarily to trade maps so that I have an idea of where everything in the world is.

I started the game by taking Lepcis Magna, Syracuse, and Messana in the first couple of turns. I then built up a good sized navy and started sinking Roman ships with armies on them. The Julii continued to attack me at Caralis, and I beat many of their armies, but they eventually took it from me. I kept a good navy or two around Sicily for protection and spent a lot of time sinking Roman ships (many with armies onboard). No Roman Armies have landed on Sicily during the whole game.

Around this time, I started building up an army in Corduba, and I bought as many Spanish and Barbarian mercenaries as possible. I particularly like the Spanish mercenaries. I bought up all mercenary units of Hoplites and Cretan Archers that I saw, but I never use skirmisher troops at all.

After taking Lepcis Magna, I sent a diplomat over to Cyrene, and then bribed it.

During the game, I have not had alliances with anyone.

After the Julii lost a lot of armies and managed to take Caralis, they moved on Palma and landed a big army. They then took Palma, which was undefended because I had moved the troops that were there into Spain.

In Spain, I battled the Spaniards until I had exterminated them, and it was all very back and forth with me losing Corduba and Scallabis a couple of time. I eventually took all Spaniard provinces and wiped them out, and then I took Numantia from the Gauls. After taking Numantia from the Gauls, I left their faction alone to use them as a buffer between me and the Julii, and I defended the passes of the Pyrenees. I had to ship a full stack army of Long Shield Cavalry and Libyan Spearman from Carthage to Spain to help take out the Spaniards. I was going to use the army against Rome, but I changed my mind when the Navy was somewhere past Sicily.

While I was battling the Spaniards, I also moved on the Numidians and took all their provinces, and wiped them out as well, so I owned all of Western Africa from Cyrene to Tingi.

After I was done with the Numidians and the Spaniards, I sent out two full stack armies with Generals over to the Eastern Mediterranean, and with these two armies I managed to take: Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, Halicarnassus, Sardis, Pergamum, Sparta, Corinth, Athens, and Thermon. And I wiped out the Greeks.

I then retook Caralis, where the Scipii had their last city, and I wiped them out too.

While this was going on, the Egyptians took Cyrene and Lepcis Magna. The Julii still hold Palma.

I am now at war with many factions, but I am only mobilizing armies against the Macedonians and the Seleucids, who I am warring at the same time. They both use similar armies. From these factions, I have taken Larissa, Thessalonica, Tarsus, and Antioch. Both will soon bite the dust. The Brutii are constantly besieging Thermon, but I am just killing them in droves.

I have all of Greece producing armies of Longshield Cavalry and Poeni Infantry, and I have Carthage producing Sacred Band Infantry and War Elephants. In Antioch I am training Poeni Infantry and Elephants. I am about to do major offensives against the Macedonians and the Seleucids and I should be able to finish them off quickly.

I have a full stack army of Sacred Band Infantry, War Elephants, and Poeni Infantry headed by navy for the Nile Delta right now (which my spies say is undefended), so I should be able to blitz Alexandria, Memphis, and Thebes quite quickly.

Soon after I finish with the Nile Delta, Ill start moving south on the Egyptian provinces of Sidon, and Jerusalem with my armies in the old Seleucid areas of Tarsus, Antioch, and Asia Minor. The Egyptians will be done quickly.

After I am done with all this, I'll invade Italy with a couple of picked armies. Right now, I have by far the best Navies, and I sink anything that I see. I also have very good Generals, and Assassins all over the map.

And I have hardly used Elephant units at all during the game, but I am now massproducing War Elephants out of Carthage, and Ill soon be making War Elephants in Antioch as well. I think that the year I am at in the game is 210 or so.

Right now most of my armies are made up of Poeni infantry and Long Shield Cavalry. I kept use of Iberian Infantry to a minimum because they are so weak, and used the Libyan infantry much more than they. I have made good use of Mercenary Hoplites, Spanish Mercenaries, and Cretan Archers. Against the Numidians, I used Mercenary Missle Cavalry to very good effect.

The faction that has given me the most trouble during battles is definitely the Macedonians. They have strong infantry, and they use a lot of Cavalry. I try to engage them from far off with archers and artillery, while I hold my infantry back, then I send my Cavalry running in behind their infantry line, and try to kill off all of their skirmishers and cavalry. I then engage with my infantry, and charge their spearman from behind when they are going against my infantry. It works very well. I used the same tactics against the Seleucids and Greeks too.

I have not had to battle the Egyptians very much, and I am a bit weary of going against them in battle because of the way their armies are built, but I should be able to jump them pretty well because they left their richest cities undefended, and Ill have them pumping out Sacred Band infantry in no time.

I'm enjoying the Carthaginians more than any other faction, even though it is just Medium/Medium. I have played the Roman factions and Seleucids on VH/VH, but they have much better armies than Carthage.

[Hannibalbarc]

I've finished about 5 campaigns as Carthage and the best way to a great start is
to move your army on Sicily to the Scipii city and take it the second turn, it really isn't that hard, especially if you hire the mercenaries, after you take the city the Scipii are screwed, finish off the Greeks on Sicily and from there go into Italy.
Early on your army should consist of mostly rs cavalry, Carthage can mass produce rs cavalry right from the start, and in my opinion your main unit early on is rs cavalry not iberian infantry, massed rs are very effective against the romans and their much cheaper than your infantry.

[Quintus.JC]

Yes cavalry is the key, but for me elephant is the saviour for Carthage and the Seleucids early on. without them i wouldn't of stood a chance.

[Emperor Mithdrates]

You dont have to abandon ANY cities to begin with. I managed to hold every Carthaginian city until about 70 Years into the game when I lost Cordoba, but lets face it. Thats such an isolated province its pointless to fight for. During this 70 years aswell as holding all cities I conquered Sicily and the house of Brutii. the trick is to capture the Greek/Sicilian city of Syracuse. from this heavily fortified city, you can hold out against the Scipii until reinforcements from Carthage.

[Emperor Mithdrates]

No way.
To hell with Corduba. Im too far away to care. I normally abandon the city and ship all Southern, Spanish, Carthaginian troops to the city on Sicily. There i gather my forces before attacking Syracuse so the scipii cant get it. Then I quickly Ally myself against the greeks that i've just attacked and from my new heavily fortified city I begin rebuilding my army before attacking messana. fro there you can build a big enough navy to launch a mainland invasion on the Italian peninsular.
then the demon scipii are destroyed.
LONG LIVE CARTHAGE!

[Quintus.JC]

My early strategy was to abandon both Corduba and Caralis (If nessasary). Take all troop and Family Member + Mercenaries from Palma and Corduba to Tingi and Cirta, conquer all of western Africa with that army. This will bring you revenue and security from the backstabbing Numidians. If you're lucky then there is an outside chance Spain and Gaul will leave Corduba alone long enough for it to defend itself. Caralis will certainly be taken by the Romans, no way I'm defending that. Sicilian house cleaning: step 1, take Hanno and his troops, recruit all mercenary you can, and head for Messina, crush all opposition. Use your navy (If you have it, I always do) to sink all Scipii reinforcement heading for Sicily. Then look to Syracuse. Take it, if held by Greek, siege and wait, or better. Sometimes the Brutii come and take Syracuse leave them to fight, straight after Brutii had taken it begin the siege, give them no time for retraining. Sink all reinforcement. After that (I had Sicilia + all of Western Africa), Carthage was concentrating on non-stopping troop producing project. I waited till I got an army of mainly Pony (Poeni) infantry backupped by Libyan Spearman. Plus longshield cavalry + Elephants. Brutii was the first to go.( they still had towns in the Balkans, I didn’t bother to attack them, they were keeping the Greeks, my ally who had become increasingly power, in check.) Than Capua, Rome. The Julii gave me an ultimatum but were powerless to stop me. Everything went smooth after that. The treasury were always under 50 K to prevent corruption, you just can’t trust a bunch of Merchants.

[gardibolt]

I never abandon anything. I lost Caralis to the Julii repeatedly, until I got my navy into total domination (which sank a bunch of Julii full stacks on their way to invade), but never allowed it to fall without a fight. Ever. :juggle2: Carthaginian Pride, y'know?

[Quintus.JC]

I abandon settlements if nessary, you know. Corduba is a lone town thounsands miles away form the city of Carthage itself. if it is invaded by an full-stack spanish or Gaul force than I really have no choice. the best it could train is town watch, a relief force send from Carthage would of taken at least 5 turns to get there. I have bigger fish to catch. similarity plays with Seleucid and Greece.

[Good Ship Chuckle]

I think you enrich the gameplay if you vow never to lose a settlement. Things become very dramatic when the enemy attacks with relentless hordes, and you still hang on to honor your vow. :bow:

[Quintus.JC]

Re Chuckles:
I'll think about that.

[The Wandering Scholar]

"yep, i'll think about it, yeah.." *while slowly backing out of the door :P*

[Flavius Merobaudes]

For a documentary about Hannibal's army, see this thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=100426

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Whever possible, do not abandon an "outpost." Strip them of whatever isn't strictly needed for defense and set them up as kill zones. Yes, you may well lose them, but nothing wrong with forcing the AI to take 5-6 turns and a stack-and-a-half plus worth of casualties to do it.

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

Abandoning Caralis I can understand, its a worthless shithole like the Numidian cities in the south. However I try to pump out peasants there every turn so that when it does fall, the Romans get as little cash as possible from selling slaves. It is a good magnet though, I use my navy to sink any Julii/ Scipii fleets approaching it. Once of them get through (inevitable as my fleets are worn down after battles) I load up all the peasants and wave good bye to Sardinia. Next turn the retrained fleets return and sink any Romans trying ot leave the island! :D

Abandoning Corduba boggles my mind though! Why? It is RICH! I try and start churning out RS cavalry from there ASAP. Combined with a small number of mercenaries and slingers, 6-10 RSC should be enought to see off any Spanish attack of Iberian infantry/ RS or Gallic warbands. There is a very defnsible bridge to the north also. The first reinforcements I manage to send from Africa or the Beleares (basically after Sicily is safe), I land and take Carthago Nova, and with the infantry buldings there, Spain should be secure on its own.

[RexCroatorum]

I abandon Caralis with hole army and transfer them to Sicily, then I create 3 iberian infantery, 2 horsemans, and 1 elephant. When I conquer Sicily I fight back Caralis and protect it only with 2 navy. I do not bother myself with africa I follow hanibbal way, I try to conquer Iberrian penninsula. And also continiu on attacking Sciipiai and Brutii sacking their towns.
p.s. Leave Scipiaii to conquer Sirakusa and you would remain ally with greeks and trade agreemants with them.

[zedestroyer]

For a documentary about Hannibal's army, see this thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=100426

If you play XGM, you will be able to build a army just like hannibal had.
Baleric slingers+Numidian Cavalry+Iberian Heavy Infantry

[Seamus Fermanagh]

If you play XGM, you will be able to build a army just like hannibal had.
Baleric slingers+Numidian Cavalry+Iberian Heavy Infantry

And more importantly, you end up with a much more challenging game. XGM makes me sweat like RTW should have.

[Pannonian]

If you play XGM, you will be able to build a army just like hannibal had.
Baleric slingers+Numidian Cavalry+Iberian Heavy Infantry
OTOH, if you play Rome Total Realism - The Iberian Conflict (http://rometotalrealism.org/tic.html), you'll be playing as Hamilcar Barca, looking to create a new empire from scratch in Iberia to replace the one they lost in Sicily and Sardinia.

RTR TIC intro movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znpFLTSmaak)

[RLucid]

Abandoning Caralis I can understand, its a worthless shithole like the Numidian cities in the south. However I try to pump out peasants there every turn so that when it does fall, the Romans get as little cash as possible from selling slaves. It is a good magnet though, I use my navy to sink any Julii/ Scipii fleets approaching it.

The depopulation reduces the value, as Caralis is already low, I've never done anything but occupy Caralis as it needs to get to 2,000 level asap to build a port (at which point Caralis value increases dramatically). Perhaps a scorched earth policy makes sense.

Presumably the intention is to export the peasants out, and boost economy somewhere holdable sooner? If not, then that would seem more optimal, than leaving them to be killed, the Roman General is particularly adept at avoiding losses to peasants.

Palma's another possession that can use a population boost, and may be ignored by AI, due to island status.

Avoiding pirates and having strength to distrupt Carthage is reason I build 3rd ship on very first turn as Jullii, which helps settle Massilia on 3rd game turn, taking it from rebel faction. So think the 660dn pays off handsomely, as you can then destroy Gaullish armies on the Rhone, with much smaller forces and lower losses than in open field.

[rvg]

I think abandoning Caralis is always a bad idea. No matter how worthless it might be, the Julii *want* it. As long as you hold Caralis, Julii will throw all their forces *there* and nowhere else, making it very easy to anticipate and thwart their attacks. Caralis is just a short boatride away from Carthage herself, so reinforcing it is not much of a problem.
If you abandon Caralis, then it opens up a whole front for the Julii: they will threaten Palma, Lilibaeum and even Carthage.

In short, Caralis might be worthless economically, but it is a real gem strategically.

[Praetor Rick]

I think abandoning Caralis is always a bad idea. No matter how worthless it might be, the Julii *want* it. As long as you hold Caralis, Julii will throw all their forces *there* and nowhere else, making it very easy to anticipate and thwart their attacks. Caralis is just a short boatride away from Carthage herself, so reinforcing it is not much of a problem.
If you abandon Caralis, then it opens up a whole front for the Julii: they will threaten Palma, Lilibaeum and even Carthage.

In short, Caralis might be worthless economically, but it is a real gem strategically.

Messing with any Roman faction is always OK by me just on general principle, but I've found that usually, if I let the Julii have Caralis, they disappear into the wilds of darkest Gaul and I never even notice their existence until I invade Italy and start rolling them up. Granted, that's not a long wait, but when I play other nations, I almost never see the Julii harass Carthage other than by taking Caralis. If they take Palma or Corduba, it's almost always because they've already grabbed southern Gaul and Spain, and it's just the next settlement in line - and if I'm playing Carthage and things get that far, I'm doing something desperately wrong.

In short, while I approve of messing with the Julii as a matter of state policy, it doesn't seem like any kind of priority to me. I hold Caralis while I can, and ditch it when I need to. Eventually it's worthwhile - most of the island settlements are, if you can just build them up a bit - but until then, it's only of minor strategic importance.

[RLucid]

If you play the Julii, taking Caralis is often due to a Senate mission.

The AI with Julii is so slow, they just creep North & West. If you divert significant forces from the Julii to take Caralis, then you are really helping Gaul. The reason a human Julii player moves against Carthage, is to interfere with the Scipii rival strategy, at a point when Carthage's forces are drawn out by the Scipii and Spain. The AI also tends to help by moving largish armies in single boat fleets, so you can prevent the recal to relieve the City by intercepting the fleet. The AI is also unlikely to be very well placed to take Carthage, as it'll be struggling to solve Army upkeep and development financial problems at start of game, not taking the 7 settlements that are up for grabs, with aggressive play (ignoring Caralis).

If I were playing Carthage, then it's the Scipii, who are the ones who really threaten you, so it would seem slowing them up is more important. Getting side-tracked into a tough battle with the Julii rather than letting them pass by, would appear to be a strategic error; unless you've captured Sicily say, but then I'd go for a surprise sack of Capua, rather than hold Caralis, much better trade.

There must be some rebel held settlement that's a soft target, and not going to attract a legion, backed by archers and heavy cavalry general.

[Praetor Rick]

If I were playing Carthage, then it's the Scipii, who are the ones who really threaten you, so it would seem slowing them up is more important. Getting side-tracked into a tough battle with the Julii rather than letting them pass by, would appear to be a strategic error; unless you've captured Sicily say, but then I'd go for a surprise sack of Capua, rather than hold Caralis, much better trade.



It's hard to get much slower than "dead", which is the usual fate of the Scipii very early in any successful Carthage campaign. The Roman problem crops up with the Julii and the Brutii, who are unlike the Scipii in that taking over Sicily doesn't gut them and leave them open to having their hearts cut out with a single city assault on mainland Italy. Granted, a fast attack on Italy will cripple the Brutii and the Julii as well as eliminating the Scipii, but tracking them down, especially the Julii who seem to randomly end up going just about anywhere on the map, can be annoying. By forcing them to indefinately stall at Caralis, you can really simplify the campaign, and bring it to an end quickly enough that you can refocus efforts on Greece and/or Egypt before either of those two fronts becomes the sucking chest wound in your empire that they often become if you let the enemy choose the time to start the war.

Carthage is unusual in that the war with the Romans is typically more of an inconvenience than an actual difficulty, and as such, should be regarded as a distraction from the main event, which is usually either Egypt or whoever ends up running Greece and Asia Minor. Or, in some particularly ugly cases, both.

[RLucid]

It's hard to get much slower than "dead", which is the usual fate of the Scipii very early in any successful Carthage campaign. The Roman problem crops up with the Julii and the Brutii, who are unlike the Scipii in that taking over Sicily doesn't gut them and leave them open to having their hearts cut out with a single city assault on mainland Italy. Granted, a fast attack on Italy will cripple the Brutii and the Julii as well as eliminating the Scipii, but tracking them down, especially the Julii who seem to randomly end up going just about anywhere on the map, can be annoying. By forcing them to indefinately stall at Caralis, you can really simplify the campaign
I think from that you agree with a pre-condition, of success in Sicily against the Scipii, being necessary to make holding Caralis come into consideration.

The Julii AI may struggle to take, the Italian Gaul towns, furthermore aren't they likely to come to the aid of Rome, when you push up Italian peninsula, allowing you to choose the battlefield to gut their army? They may also leave a key city lightly defended, and come under notable pressure from the Gauls who harbour grudges against invaders, and will attempt to re-take their starting cities.

Without a good base, the Julii lose proportional strength, at beginning of game they have a over-large army, subsidised by Senate missions, they *must* use it to gain a financial base, at price of conflict with barbarian north, in less lucrative parts of the map which need substantial development.

But Caralis is a side-show, if you can eliminate the Scipii, then Croton, Tarentum , Arretium & Rome are far greater prizes, than being pinned down to a dogged static defense of a non-strategic point, with small resources.

The Victory conditions for Carthage, are aimed at Scipii & SPQR, not the Julii so I'm not sure why they require special consideration, considering they have enough difficulty defeating the barbarians.

Being dynamic, and consider raiding (sacking and leaving a delaying garrison), you do the Julii greater inconvenience, initially letting them take Caralis, move off their army and small fleet elsewhere for deployment against the Gauls, leaving a small garrison. Then move to recapture it, possibly further depopulating the town, with strategic mobility to hit other Julii towns to draw on their forces. In that way, the Julii either have to adjust to recapture, or allow you to keep it; and you can keep them off balance, moving forces between theatres to counter your unpredictable offensive. Basically use the med, to attack the Julii on their perimeter, where their forces are necessarily going to spend much time marching, and will attract assaults by Barbarians adding to their difficulties.

That has to be superior to maintaining a large army, which could be better deployed elsewhere, very possibly for raids which unbalance the Roman factions, having them react to events.

Without Rome and the lucrative trade, between the large cities on Italian peninsular, the Julii are not going to gain great strength. After Scipii, the Senate and Brutii ought to be the priorities. Without the Italian base, the Brutii will have a much harder time, expanding rapidly in Greece. Especially considering that AI probably prioritises homeland defense, over establishing a new base in Greece.

[Praetor Rick]

But Caralis is a side-show, if you can eliminate the Scipii, then Croton, Tarentum , Arretium & Rome are far greater prizes, than being pinned down to a dogged static defense of a non-strategic point, with small resources.


Caralis is a side show, but it's a worthwhile side show if you can manage it. Sure, the cities on mainland Italy are more important, but they're also harder to deal with. A couple units of cavalry, a couple of town watch, and a general is plenty to hold Caralis against the Julii.

[RLucid]

Better to use a small garrison and some boats, which deny Rome & Arretium sea-trade, and allow you to threaten a very long flank.

As portrayed, holding Caralis you aim to draw the Julii into stubbornly sending ever bigger armies to take the place, and that is just plain bad strategy, drawing unecessary fire and commitments. You *want* them to go and get ensnared in Gaul and with (eventually) Germania, not concentrate against Carthage over a small village which takes ages to build a port.

Any defensive army, is likely to be more effectively deployed re-inforcing the key offensive, and the suggested cavalry units make great movement blockers, as HI armies can't get to grips with them. Those units might prevent a re-inforcement and allow capture of a mainland city & re-training, which would not have been feasible without the "screen".

You also gain more, by intercepting a fleet with land units, sent to recapture the town, if you pursue the recapture option. Or if you strand enemy land units on the island, which would be better used to safeguard their homeland.


The stubborn dogged defense, smacks of "We have what we hold!"

[rvg]

... You *want* them to go and get ensnared in Gaul and with (eventually) Germania, not concentrate against Carthage over a small village which takes ages to build a port...

On VH that will not work. VH AI has enemy that it will pick to almost complete exclusion of evryone else: the player. That means that after taking Caralis the Julii will *not* divert their attention to the Gaul. No, instead they will organize another expedition, this time to Palma, which is FAR mopre difficult for Carthage to hold. If Palma falls, they will take Corduba as well. On the other hand, if Caralis remains Carthaginian, the Julii will never expand beyond the Cisalpine Gaul. All their armies will die in the forsts of Sardinia to the Carthaginian Sacred bands. The julii faction will remain weak and marginal. As for the Scipii, they are a goner anyway: once they lose their corner of Sicily (which is the standard Carthaginian opening) they are a non-player. So yes, abandoning Caralis is a terrible idea because it strengthens the Julii and opens the other carthaginian provinces for a Julii assault.

[RLucid]

Palma's another side-show. It seems that, the AI is successfully diverting your attention from the key objectives. If you let the Juliii carry out that plan, and counter-attack at sea, and with forces re-taking Caralis on way to the main front, the Julii have spent fair amount of time, shifting things about to not much effect. The AI takes a long time to achieve it's objectives, in the mean time, you will do a lot more serious damage, and capture key economic towns.

The Julii AI is very broken if it's taking time to take such settlements, before securing it's position in N. Italy. VH may be broken, the +7 anti-player attack factors, make the player armies look much weaker distorting the game. If despite the skewing of unit strengths, you can defeat outnumbering Julii forces, with a few cheap units in a land battle, then it seems that VH is not really doing the job that's intended. Possibly the auto-calc Naval battles are harder to win, so you avoid them. But then the strategy is becoming highly distorted and implausible, so I wonder why bother with the setting if battle exploits permit you to overcome the handicap? Why not defeat them later on (permitting them to develop the towns in meantime), at the choke-points in Spain, where you need to have forces anyway, to counter Spanish aggression?

Without economic development through the Mediolanum & Patavium towns, with mines of Segestica, the Julii cannot afford decent armed forces, and will not become a serious power. The Roman's in general will be much poorer, due to lack of trading ports. The Gauls still tie down, a relatively large defensive force in N. Italy, and they do move against the Rebs in Segestica gaining a valuable mine.

Taking towns in Italy and disrupting the Roman trade which they rely on, is much more valuable than these fishing & farming villages. If you can defeat the Scipii, then there's going to be a tough fight on, in southern Italy where victory really stymies the Roman cause. The bottom line is, Italy is worth far more than the whole of Spain, once you hold Italy, re-capturing Spain will be very feasible.

Furthermore if the Juliii are going walk-about on expeditions, then mobile counter-attacks are going to disrupt them, and divert resources back. Also I wonder why on earth the AI is being allowed to use the sea, where it's land forces are vulnerable to naval attack.

Control of sea, seems to me to be a vital priority for Carthage, and those units you fight in forests of Sardinia, could be destroyed at sea (Palma's a long way). It might be better strategy even to strand them on an island, so the AI continue to pay their upkeep, but unable to re-deploy them. Hannibal was really defeated, because the Romans controlled the sea, and had trade to support their war effort and money to replace catastrophic losses, and keep their Italian allies on side. That meant he could not bring up a good siege train to capture Rome, nor could he reinforce his main army, directly. The Romans had interior lines, and were able to concentrate to ensure Hasdrubal's army was destroyed in N. Italy, rather than link up with Hannibal's main force. They also counter-attacked in Spain, with Scipio weakening the Carthaginian alliances, economy and hold of troop recruiting ground.

The true might of Rome, is economic power through trade, allowing it to develop, and build large armies replacing huge losses. Without seeing to it's future economic strength, losing the Scipii ports, having home territory decisevely invaded weakens them more gravely than chopping up some units, sent to Sardinia.

Those Sacred Bands, are better deployed offensively in the main campaign, where you can do real damage to the Roman factions, and gain real strength, from developed territory. Take out their heartland and they're just a minor nuisance civilised faction, rather than a real threat.

[Praetor Rick]

The Julii AI is very broken if it's taking time to take such settlements, before securing it's position in N. Italy. VH may be broken, the +7 anti-player attack factors, make the player armies look much weaker distorting the game. If despite the skewing of unit strengths, you can defeat outnumbering Julii forces, with a few cheap units in a land battle, then it seems that VH is not really doing the job that's intended. Possibly the auto-calc Naval battles are harder to win, so you avoid them. But then the strategy is becoming highly distorted and implausible, so I wonder why bother with the setting if battle exploits permit you to overcome the handicap? Why not defeat them later on (permitting them to develop the towns in meantime), at the choke-points in Spain, where you need to have forces anyway, to counter Spanish aggression?

I fight the Julii in Caralis so that they don't go anywhere. I don't find the Julii to be as consistently stupid as you do, although it does happen fairly often. Sometimes they spread to some incredibly random and thoroughly inconvenient distant location and are a thorn in my side until i can finally get to them and eliminate them once and for all. By stalling them at Caralis, I reduce the odds of that happening, so when I get to northern Italy, I'm eliminating the Julii completely instead of just seizing their best assets.

As for the difficulty setting, the truth is, nothing they could do to the difficulty levels will fix that issue. The problem is the AI, not the adjusted unit strengths. As long as the AI fights like an idiot, battles will continue to be either cakewalks (if flanking continues to work) or impossible (if the bonuses are made so large that even flank attacks will not let you defeat enemy units). The stupidity of the AI makes this inevitable.


Taking towns in Italy and disrupting the Roman trade which they rely on, is much more valuable than these fishing & farming villages. If you can defeat the Scipii, then there's going to be a tough fight on, in southern Italy where victory really stymies the Roman cause. The bottom line is, Italy is worth far more than the whole of Spain, once you hold Italy, re-capturing Spain will be very feasible.

Not really. The six provinces in Italy aren't really much better than the six provinces in Spain, once they're equally developed. The big downer about Spain is that all of its provinces have bonus unrest. Yuck! Further, while it is certainly more valuable to take Italy than to maintain a foothold in Spain, it's also much harder. Keeping Corduba against the worst the Spanish and Gauls can do to you is fairly trivial, given the quality of the mercenaries you can hire in Spain and the number of river crossings you can defend. The territory practically defends itself as long as you're not a complete idiot.


The true might of Rome, is economic power through trade, allowing it to develop, and build large armies replacing huge losses. Without seeing to it's future economic strength, losing the Scipii ports, having home territory decisevely invaded weakens them more gravely than chopping up some units, sent to Sardinia.

Those Sacred Bands, are better deployed offensively in the main campaign, where you can do real damage to the Roman factions, and gain real strength, from developed territory. Take out their heartland and they're just a minor nuisance civilised faction, rather than a real threat.
Maintaining enough troops in Caralis to fight off the first and possibly second Julii invasion of Caralis is also a minor nuisance, one that is (IMHO) worth it to stave off a different, but longer lasting minor nuisance later on.

My basic point is not that holding Caralis or Corduba is more important than striking at the Roman heartland, but rather, that there is no reason not to do all three. Is it better to conquer Italy, hold Caralis, and hold Corduba; or to conquer Italy, lose Caralis, and lose Corduba? The answer is, fairly obviously, the first is better. Holding Caralis and Corduba is only a disadvantage if doing so causes you to lose Italy, and I've never had that happen. A strong offensive posture in Italy is enough to carry through to victory if you fight your armies well. There isn't any need to abandon Caralis or Corduba, because both take only trivial resources to hold. Caralis is easy to hold because the same offensive posture in Italy that is vital to success also distracts the Julii from their invasion plans before the invading armies get too big to economically defeat. Corduba is easy to hold because the terrain in Spain is practially tailor made for easy defense.

[RLucid]

Sometimes they spread to some incredibly random and thoroughly inconvenient distant location and are a thorn in my side until i can finally get to them and eliminate them once and for all.

If they're "inconvenient & distant", then it is peculiar that they are a thorn in the side. The game economics favour the central locations, which can build a trading empire, with interior lines based around the seas. That allows concentration against threats, and effective economic warfare with navies.

I also find it hard to understand how a small Julii region, isolated from the Roman trade, can be so hard to deal with, once you've defeated Scipii, SPQR, and Brutii in Italy.


As for the difficulty setting, the truth is, nothing they could do to the difficulty levels will fix that issue. The problem is the AI, not the adjusted unit strengths. As long as the AI fights like an idiot, battles will continue to be either cakewalks

Agreed. If the AI on VH is ignoring it's economic base, aiming at quick victories which you can actually defeat, then it's going to be easier to beat than if it really develops a sound economic base, following a sounder long term strategy. The problem is if the difficulty setting is distorting strategy overly, and causing the strategy AI to make poorer decisions, it is self-defeating. Generally I see it as being very slow, and methodical, passing up opportunities, but apart from the Diplomacy side, not totally illogical and senseless.


Not really. The six provinces in Italy aren't really much better than the six provinces in Spain, once they're equally developed.

Takes a long time, Spain has nice mines, but Italy has the rich Aegean nearby, whereas Spain is off one edge, with poor Atlantic trade. Those who own the sea, also find it easy to gain a foothold, and invade as the interior is large and divided, making movement slower than in Italy.


Maintaining enough troops in Caralis to fight off the first and possibly second Julii invasion of Caralis is also a minor nuisance, one that is (IMHO) worth it to stave off a different, but longer lasting minor nuisance later on.

That's more reasonable than the "Hold at all Costs" pride approach, some have advocated. Your assessment of the forces sent to, sounds more plausible than some posts.

If you play chess, then you're more willing to give up something, in return for greater benefits. Especially if you see you can take back later on, to eliminate the opponents compensation. It is just a more efficient, faster way to victory, than stonewalling every initiative of opponent regardless of it's merits.


My basic point is not that holding Caralis or Corduba is more important than striking at the Roman heartland, but rather, that there is no reason not to do all three. Is it better to conquer Italy, hold Caralis, and hold Corduba; or to conquer Italy, lose Caralis, and lose Corduba?

Your plan has seemed reasonable. But there must be a good chance that the Julii will have to fight the Gauls if they don't have to reinforce, & reattempt taking Caralis (because of the way the AI works, 1 goal at a time). Also if they go off into the blue yonder, hard to track down, they make more enemies along the way.

Why is giving it up, with idea of retaking it at a convenient moment as good?

Corduba, has good defensive terrain, and it takes time to get there. Palma was mentioned, as being the next target. Secure medium term borders in N. Italy, on the Massilia, Medio, Patavium, Segestica line, would be well worth, giving up Caralis, Palma, Carthago Neuvo & Corduba; until you can consolidate and re-conquer.


Holding Caralis and Corduba is only a disadvantage if doing so causes you to lose Italy, and I've never had that happen. A strong offensive posture in Italy is enough to carry through to victory if you fight your armies well. There isn't any need to abandon Caralis or Corduba, because both take only trivial resources to hold. Caralis is easy to hold because the same offensive posture in Italy that is vital to success also distracts the Julii from their invasion plans before the invading armies get too big to economically defeat. Corduba is easy to hold because the terrain in Spain is practially tailor made for easy defense.
That is at odds for the other argument given, that Caralis draws all the Julii fire, until they capture it. Your point on distraction of Julii by their reaction to your campaign, is one I agree with and made earlier in a response.

The reason to be willing to bend in the breeze, is so the Juliii can have the chance to get entangled with the Gauls (who don't forget grudges), and avoid resisting them with significant forces unecessarily, before the main thrust gains momentum on the Italian peninsula. Perhaps VH really does cause all other factions to maintain solid peace and only go after the player, but it didn't seem to in my games.

It cannot be optimal strategy, to maintain a dogged static defense "out of principal". A strong player should be willing to give up something in a less important area, seeking a larger advantage somewhere strategically more significant. As Carthage is a sea going empire, it would appear very odd, not to take advantage of dynamic opportunities offered by naval warfare.

[Praetor Rick]

I'm willing to lose Caralis. I'm not willing to lose Caralis without a fight, as some advocate. The Julii come in as pussycats for the first, and sometimes second invasion attempts. Having them waste the effort on Caralis, where a canny player can be sure they'll lose seems better to me than giving them Caralis and letting them then head off into Gaul, where the idiotic AI that builds all-Warband armies almost guarantees that they'll win. Even if I lose the first attack, which typically only happens if I don't reinforce the settlement with even a second Town Watch, I've still probably cost the AI more to take the settlement than it cost me to try to hold it.

As for containing the Julii - if they have Condate Redonum or some such, and you ignore them, it's quite likely that soon enough they'll have a few territories in Gaul, and later, likely all of Gaul, and become your neighbors - and they're terrible neighbors. Yeah, they're only a minor nuisance when all they've got is crummy Gaul settlements and no Senate funding them nor any fellow Romans backing them up, but the point is - why fight them twice? The last thing I need is the Julii hitting me in the back with a biggish army when I'm tied up in Greece, Asia Minor, or Egypt. I mean, no, they can't ever beat me once I kick them out of Italy, but I dislike leaving live enemies behind me. If I have to do so, I'd rather they be an enemy who sends crappy all Warband armies against me than Hastati. I can beat either one, but it's easy to basically ignore the Gauls with a single river defense, while the Julii will end up being more economical to conquer Gaul - and I don't particularly want Gaul when I'm playing Carthage.

Caralis is worth fighting for. It's even worth fighting pretty hard for - after all, you're going to be fighting the Julii anyway at some point, and every unit you destroy at Caralis is one unit that will neither attack you later somewhere else nor help the Julii acquire more territory to help build up their forces. It's not worth losing Sicily or mainland Italy for, but that's an uncommon choice to face in my experience.

Plus, in an emergency, units in Caralis can come and help relieve Carthage when the inevitable Numidian backstab comes - and if they've fought a few Julii invasions, they may even have some extra experience.

[RLucid]

I'm willing to lose Caralis. I'm not willing to lose Caralis without a fight, as some advocate. The Julii come in as pussycats for the first, and sometimes second invasion attempts. Having them waste the effort on Caralis, where a canny player can be sure they'll lose seems better to me than giving them Caralis and letting them then head off into Gaul, where the idiotic AI that builds all-Warband armies almost guarantees that they'll win.

They take a very long time to move through Gaul though. They capture lightly populated undeveloped settlements, which are capitol intensive. Having them distracted and needing big armies to face up to the Gauls, is an advantage. In the basic game, I've seen them struggle to take Mediolanum (requiring Brutii assistance to destroy the main Gaul army), nevermind getting through Massilia, and up to Alesia. Remember the AI has a propensity to launch it's Generals onto spear points.

If the Julii don't expand fast early in game they are basically broke, without funds to build the economy and grow their army. What I've seen of it, it'd be a small problem to catch them up and overtake them, nevermind just keeping them weak, and fighting barbarians.

Then an aesthetic point. This business of the Julii stubbornly re-attacking Caralis with a small unbalanced army, and not learning from previous defeats, is basically taking advantage of a "brain-dead" AI. It is far too implausible, that would happen, so it rather spoils the game. It is not that they are desperately attempting to re-take a town, relieve one, or link up with another army.


As for containing the Julii - if they have Condate Redonum or some such, and you ignore them, it's quite likely that soon enough they'll have a few territories in Gaul, and later, likely all of Gaul, and become your neighbors - and they're terrible neighbors. Yeah, they're only a minor nuisance when all they've got is crummy Gaul settlements and no Senate funding them nor any fellow Romans backing them up, but the point is - why fight them twice?

Because they civilise and develop settlements for you, and you can keep them weak, by following them. Effectively you have allied yourself with Gaul, who can survive quite a while and be a trading partner.

If you try the Vanilla PBM mod to, the Gauls are a tougher proposition, mixing in more skirmishers and swordsmen, and without the Britannia threatening their rear, from Sarambovira.


The last thing I need is the Julii hitting me in the back with a biggish army when I'm tied up in Greece, Asia Minor, or Egypt. I mean, no, they can't ever beat me once I kick them out of Italy, but I dislike leaving live enemies behind me.

They're a buffer zone, keep the pressure on, whichever faction is on your border, they're going to be trouble, but without the Archer's or good Javelin forces, an HI shock combat (hand to hand) faction that lightly uses Cavalry would appear ideal opposition for your Phalanxes, supported by missile troops and cavalry.


Caralis is worth fighting for. It's even worth fighting pretty hard for - after all, you're going to be fighting the Julii anyway
Cleverer to time it, get out of the way, allow them to gain other enemies, who are natural allies of yours, and then strike back later at an opportune moment, when they struggle to respond. Remember they probably need to rebuild a fleet, to make another landing possible.

As for the Numidian backstab, a strategic reserve in a port with fleet present can respond rapidly from Sicily or Croton/Terranto area, whilst also covering the Peloponese. Diplomats and spies, make it hard to be too suprised.

Caralis in opposition hands, is not desirable and strategically important if they are capable of offensive action against Carthage. It makes a good spot to launch suprise attacks + blockade from. I've never seen the Julii AI be able to move on Carthage, and if the Scipii are beat, it appears most unlikely that such an attempt would be feasible.

[Xipe Totec]

I've always fought tooth and nail to keep the Julii out of Caralis and feel outraged when they insist on re-invading no matter how many times you slaughter their crappy hastati when you just know they should be attacking the Gauls instead. When playing as Carthage I always find that you can gain much from naval dominance over the Romans around Sicily: sinking stacks of AI Romans on single boats sure improves the odds in the land battles.

I have seen the Julii take Caralis and then land big stacks to attack Carthage early on when playing the Scippii and Brutii and have often done it myself when playing the Julii. This suggests to me that as Carthage you should make the effort to keep the other Roman factions (Julii and Brutii) away from your backyard at all costs so you can focus on the demolition of the Scipii without distractions. If you control the sea you can attack the Romans where and when you want with elephants to bash the walls in, Balearic slingers to slaughter everything inside and roundshields to mop up. Feel free to massacre for loads of denarii and then retrain basic units and move on. Roman cities grow fast and you need to rebuild everything to lose the culture penalties.

Focus especially on annihilating a Roman faction when feasible. Every one you waste means a set of huge bodyguard nightmares you can well do without. Every faction destroyed is a cobble stone road of skulls on the path to a great white and purple European Empire of which Dido would be proud!

[Praetor Rick]

I've always fought tooth and nail to keep the Julii out of Caralis and feel outraged when they insist on re-invading no matter how many times you slaughter their crappy hastati when you just know they should be attacking the Gauls instead. When playing as Carthage I always find that you can gain much from naval dominance over the Romans around Sicily: sinking stacks of AI Romans on single boats sure improves the odds in the land battles.

I have seen the Julii take Caralis and then land big stacks to attack Carthage early on when playing the Scippii and Brutii and have often done it myself when playing the Julii. This suggests to me that as Carthage you should make the effort to keep the other Roman factions (Julii and Brutii) away from your backyard at all costs so you can focus on the demolition of the Scipii without distractions. If you control the sea you can attack the Romans where and when you want with elephants to bash the walls in, Balearic slingers to slaughter everything inside and roundshields to mop up. Feel free to massacre for loads of denarii and then retrain basic units and move on. Roman cities grow fast and you need to rebuild everything to lose the culture penalties.

Focus especially on annihilating a Roman faction when feasible. Every one you waste means a set of huge bodyguard nightmares you can well do without. Every faction destroyed is a cobble stone road of skulls on the path to a great white and purple European Empire of which Dido would be proud!
I rarely see the Julii land in Africa, although it has happened a few times when I to toggle_fow playing somebody else just to check up on world progress. However, I've seen them end up pretty much everywhere else, and I find it easier to hang them up at Caralis before they have a chance to go anywhere else. Personal preference - I find it insupportable to leave any Roman faction alive, and tracking the Julii down to the far ends of the earth and sea is significantly harder than just stopping them at Caralis until you can get a navy big enough to stop them off the shore of Caralis.

[Centurion1]

I play carthage on Vh/Vh and it is not that hard:yes: All you do is wait in sicily. Put your spy in messana and when the scippi attack syracuse, then you attack messana. They leave it with one unit their faction leader, easy city to win. The scippi stay with syracuse and all you have to do is wait for them to die fighting the greeks. Then you take the weakened syracuse by starving them out.
The numidians attacked after i pacified sicily and bribed lepcis magna to my side. My two town watch in lepcis magna dominated them, it was sad.
In spain you simply have to keep a standing army of cav slingers and spanish mercs and you dominate. until you can ship over more exotic troops like elephants.
The julii still havent attacked caralis.:2thumbsup:
They haven't attacked because i am so intent on making gaul the superpower, the julii have actually lost a settlement. it also solves my spanish problem. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"
Everyone complains about how big a money pit carthage is, alternation is the key!!! One military building two economic buildings, ive never gone below 160 denarii.
Navy is the key, main way i support my allies (macedon and gaul) is with my navy. ive have 3 full stack navies and 4 blockading navies (for italy) They dominate pirates in the east, and blockade the greeks for macedon in the west
Macedon has conqured all of greece except for sparta. I have even given them two settlements. And their people practically bow to me. all i have to do is support them with 2000 denarii a turn and give them naval support. I even assasinate for them.:2thumbsup: I make 15000 denarii per turn and do all this with three theaters of war and 4 full stacks of men! Finally spies are paramount if you have a stack of men and three spies no gate can stop you, NONE! And im not a lightweight either, i as i said earlier i play vh/vh. (sorry if that comes off as snotty its not supposed too.
Oh and lastly i just got Hannibal Barka (genius trait and now at ten stars is called the great), and strangely enough his father is Hammilkar barka who is historically his father (I believe), sadly his brother is only fifteen so no way to prove if the game is just messing with my mind or if its historically accurate:sweatdrop: it gives me shivers...

[Praetor Rick]

I play carthage on Vh/Vh and it is not that hard

Agreed. Carthage is rough if you don't know how to set priorities, or if you botch the Sicily campaign. After that, depending on your personal set of talents, the campaign is really pretty simple. You can go after Spain, Italy, or north Africa all fairly easily once you've secured Sicily. I prefer going after Italy because the Romans can be a major pain in the neck if you leave them alone, but others manage better apparently.

Once you've destroyed all four Roman factions, the game is over - you win. Not even Egypt can stand up to the steamroller that is Carthage once it controls Italy.

[RLucid]

The julii still havent attacked caralis.:2thumbsup:
They haven't attacked because i am so intent on making gaul the superpower, the julii have actually lost a settlement. it also solves my spanish problem. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"

That actually sounds like strategy! So how have you been able to keep Gaul powerful, avoid fighting them, but keep the Julii occupied with them?

Seems like every poster has a different view of "inevitable" events, there must be some subtle ways to influence them, even if part is down to chance.

[Centurion1]

The key is bribery. Not in the usual sense but in the idea of paying off the faction with gold. It also strengthens the faction. Some people would consider this a low and weak move. But hey i can backstab them once i have consolidated my power(North Africa), because honestly i am not intrested in italy right now. Also the ai has a tendency to avoid even lightly defended forts and the spanish mountais make controlling gaps quite easy.:yes:

[RLucid]

That Alliance with Gaul would make so much more sense, if you were involved in Italy, especially if they're keeping the Julii busy.

[Centurion1]

I suppose but right now i'm trying to foster a defensive game for more explosive power. I am also trying to help the selkies destroy the egyptians because i dread destroying them. The gauls are merely a delaying action to prevent the gauls and romans from expanding. :laugh4: All i really want is all of the north african holdings and spain. However the brutii just managed to land a full stack on the shores of sicily and i barely beat them with two full stacks, (one was all cavalry!!! only round-shield though) but i lost three generals which i must attribute to my laziness in the battle. point, click, and wait for more reinforcements for the men who died:sweatdrop: so now i am suffering for more men in that region and the numidians backstabbed in carthage. ahhhh now ill have to be more expansionistic:furious3:!!!!
Any tips:help:

Rlucid i agree but i really hate conquering italy, (honestly it's sort of boring) because except for rome its almost all empty. Oh well time to go through the alps with my hannibal character.:2thumbsup:

[Centurion1]

oh i almost forgot i have to get military access from gauls before i can enter roman italy, so there you go rlucid and the gauls are quite adamant on the topic, NOOOOOO is their only reply (condensed version):oops:

[RLucid]

That's RTW, you will only get long term peace from a faction that you war with, if you basically destroy their base of production, or destroy them entirely, or they get serious grief from another faction.

Gaul ought to have an interest, in expanding against the Julii, so the ideal would be to put the Julii in the sandwich, and benefit from Italian production potential.

Good luck with the "Peace", it's something I've not figured out, and it's weird how conquest of huge tracts of land, can get boring, so trying to stick to limited objectives might be fun.

[Darkvicer98]

I find peace really annoying. The barbarian factions are more likely to break it and backstab you,the eastern factions wait a long while before attacking and the hellanic are nearly the same. Why don't you sail your army to Italy? The Gauls are never going to sign that military access because thats when you can march full stack armies into their land. You know your intentions are somewhere else but they don't know that.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Just like Darkvicer98 said .. why don't you just sail your army to Italy??
If you had conquered the sicily then with couple of turns you can also conquer the southern Italy from the Brutii and destroy the Scipii by taking Capua ... offcourse if you have elephants with you who can open the gates ...
you can do this and destroy the spanish before 260 if you are quick enough ..

[Centurion1]

I agree it would make my game easier if i just conquered italy, but i sort of want a unique game, (me not destroying romans) and my staunchest allies who have given me military access and a city (cyrene), the macedonians, who have miraculously conquered parts of southern italy and anatolia. Alexander reincarnated! it is honestly awe-inspiring. They are twice as powerful as the selkies (who destroyed egypt thanks to yours truly) . I plan on destroying the spanisg in spain, the numisians in a pincer from spain and carthage and then linking up with the macedonians in the east by destroying the selkies. I cant wait to see how silvershields fare against my sacred bands.:2thumbsup:

[Centurion1]

Oh i almost forgot, darkvicer i have already conquuered sicily in the first three turns, that is how the scippi have been destroyed, and the macedonians have destroyed the brutii (thats pretty unusual). All the real threats left are the gauls, selkies, and armenians. and whether or not ill have to break my favorite alliance ever with the macedonians to conquer rome (victory conditions). Do you think it is a good idea to incite the armenians to war with the selkies no matter the cost or whether i should handle it, (they are all-powerful with like 6 huge cities and fully upgraded units, that is the selkies) i figure 10k will be enough to make the armenians help me with the selkies. Any arguments with these strategies????

[RLucid]

Yep, you seem to have forgotten the Julii who still have a stake in Italy.

Whilst if you keep pressure on them and do not permit them pop. 6,000 cities, preventing them training their over-powered Archer units, I could see them not being significant. But if you leave them in Italy and the Macs don't take them out, then they're going to become a handful and as others (particularly PraetorRick) have explained they'll eventually overcome the barbs, and become dangerous later in the game.

As for those for find peace annoying... I think the idea is to have war where you want it, and have peaceful fronts. The typical game conditions you get about 20+ lands, with war on all fronts and 3 major campaigns, plus house-cleaning of rebels isn't very realistic is it?

[Centurion1]

I agree rlucid, but everything has been taken care of. The macs have taken the rest of italy, gave me ROME (i love the macedonians) for ONLY 1000 denarii!!!!!!!!! (and they love me back), and i have taken all of n. africa, spain, every island in the game and the nile delta. I plan on taking jerusalem, the macedonians can have sidon and i will leave the rest to armenia and macedon. Now i turn my massive 10 full stack armies (those not on frontiers or rebel-hunters) on the dirty gauls who have conquered all of northern europe and britian (this is wierd because the ai is usually reluctant to make amphibious landings, but nonetheless the julii, germans, and brits are dead and the gauls are soon to join them. I will soon post screenshots of my cartho empire. This game has had many weird twists with the ai but has been incredibly enjoyable.

[Centurion1]

i almost forgot which civ should i tackle next? you can see me there post about them when i decide
SUGGESTIONS WELCOME

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

Seleucids. Possibly the hardest to play.

[Ozzman1O1]

My campaign is so fragile,every city is huge,i gave up all my men in liberia and brought them over 2 conquer rome,im having trouble against germany and greece,wich can give you problems if no one ever tries 2 conquer them.My whole campaign is based on trade and economy,and the gauls have killed my 2 highest rank generals over some village in the west coast.ill admit it,im stuck.

[WarMachine187]

Like someone else said,the navy is key tp victory.DO NOT LET THE ROMANS BUILD UP THEIR!Owning the seas means they cant reach you.shit down there economy by blockading all roman ports and sabotage there infranstructure with assasins.In this way.you have an unbreakable sheild in your navy and can focus on more important tasks.First and foremost,uniting sicily.Second,pushing for better and more formibable troop types.Third,Destroying and taking control of all numidian territories except siwa.After doin that you can now look toward taking control of italy and this can be done from two ways.the first would be to push through espanya and head through the alps like that bad boy barca.Or you could sail there.The combination of Sacred ban or poeni phalenxes along with formidable and quick infantry like iberians or libyans will form a 1 2 punch that the roman infantry shouldnt be able to handle.i normally start at the city under tarentum.then i move on tarentum and sweep across italy.the funnest thing is when you have to face the humongous spqr army.

[Havoc123]

I have been playing RTW since Feb 2006 but I am new to the Guild. I never really continued any of the Roman campaigns after I got past the intial hard stages. Same goes for the other factions.

My question is "Is it really necessary to attack Italy early or are other options better?"

In my latest Carthage campaign on hard campaign/medium battle difficulty, I really held on to Corduba and Caralis and Sicily. Corduba was tough with all the Spanish hordes constantly pestering me outside of the city. Caralis was tough till I got some Iberians and round shields outside the city in ambush. Sicily was easier than expected with my navies blockading Capua. I also took over Ludis Magna and attacked the Numidians early with troops made from Carthage and Thapus.

About 40 turns later, I have Sicily under control (being lazy there and not attacking Rome yet), all of West Africa is mine (one less front), Spain is finally mine with Spanish gone and Gauls angry (Pyrennes make good defense), and complete naval superiority in the western Meditterrean Sea. Greece is my ally but down to Rhodes only. I am considering funneling money to them to prevent Pontius/Brutii/Egyptians from gaining complete dominance in Turkey.

Sadly, I have always been more of a infantry guy. Greeks are my favorite faction (a. hoplites rule). When my first faction leader and heir both got to 64, I sent them on a "suicide mission" to Greece to disrupt Brutii and save Greeks. To my surprise, Greeks were gone from all of their homeland cities and Brutii had dominated. I landed near Thermon which had 2 hastatii only and took it over. I was supposed to get out and conquer Kydonia but the weakness of Roman power in the region convinced me to stay. That is when I discovered the power of Carthagian horses. (my previous experiences had been Equites and Greek cav.) I went on to conquer Athens and Corinth. Another army landed with 5 Iberians and 12 peasants and took over Sparta. My generals and their guys (4 Iberians, 2 hoplite, 2 long shield) destroyed about 3 full stacks worth of Romans and killed 4 generals.

I think that was a pretty good result for a suicide/farewall mission.

So is there any benefit in attacking Greece instead of Italy for Carthage campaigns? I would think that Greece gives lots of money with little public order problems. Plus, easy to defend.

[WarMachine187]

.

So is there any benefit in attacking Greece instead of Italy for Carthage campaigns? I would think that Greece gives lots of money with little public order problems. Plus, easy to defend.

Well?It depends on which route you wanna take to attack rome.If you attack and takeover italia youd have to attack greece in order to stop a brutti reinsurgance.The cool about going strait for italy is that by the time the brutti have complete control of greece and asia minor,egypt is on the rise and it makes for an amazing showdown between you and them.i really honed my style of play from showdowns like that and its extremely fun.Either way works,but if the romans are being a thorn in your side then its best to aim for their throat and end them.

[glyphz]

I have been playing RTW since Feb 2006 but I am new to the Guild. I never really continued any of the Roman campaigns after I got past the intial hard stages. Same goes for the other factions.

My question is "Is it really necessary to attack Italy early or are other options better?"

In my latest Carthage campaign on hard campaign/medium battle difficulty, I really held on to Corduba and Caralis and Sicily. Corduba was tough with all the Spanish hordes constantly pestering me outside of the city. Caralis was tough till I got some Iberians and round shields outside the city in ambush. Sicily was easier than expected with my navies blockading Capua. I also took over Ludis Magna and attacked the Numidians early with troops made from Carthage and Thapus.

About 40 turns later, I have Sicily under control (being lazy there and not attacking Rome yet), all of West Africa is mine (one less front), Spain is finally mine with Spanish gone and Gauls angry (Pyrennes make good defense), and complete naval superiority in the western Meditterrean Sea. Greece is my ally but down to Rhodes only. I am considering funneling money to them to prevent Pontius/Brutii/Egyptians from gaining complete dominance in Turkey.

Sadly, I have always been more of a infantry guy. Greeks are my favorite faction (a. hoplites rule). When my first faction leader and heir both got to 64, I sent them on a "suicide mission" to Greece to disrupt Brutii and save Greeks. To my surprise, Greeks were gone from all of their homeland cities and Brutii had dominated. I landed near Thermon which had 2 hastatii only and took it over. I was supposed to get out and conquer Kydonia but the weakness of Roman power in the region convinced me to stay. That is when I discovered the power of Carthagian horses. (my previous experiences had been Equites and Greek cav.) I went on to conquer Athens and Corinth. Another army landed with 5 Iberians and 12 peasants and took over Sparta. My generals and their guys (4 Iberians, 2 hoplite, 2 long shield) destroyed about 3 full stacks worth of Romans and killed 4 generals.

I think that was a pretty good result for a suicide/farewall mission.

So is there any benefit in attacking Greece instead of Italy for Carthage campaigns? I would think that Greece gives lots of money with little public order problems. Plus, easy to defend.

There's nothing wrong with skipping the Romans and aiming for the very profitable Greek settlements ...as long as you can handle it.:smash:
The reason it is highly recommended to tackle the Romans early, or at least pre-Marian, is because they attack you... constantly. Be it in Lilybaeum (scips), caralis (julii,scips), or thapsus/carthage (brutii, scips). Until you get rid of them, there will always be that 'monkey' (trio of them + big boss, mind you) on your back:ballchain:, alongside being pestered by the opportunistic Numidians, Gauls and Spanish (in your other starter settlements, except palma), AND the looming horde of eggies, if you ever border them. Going to Greece seems to only add another border to defend :lost:and more enemies to deal with (GCS, Macedon & Thrace):shocked2: (you might achieve the most enemies in the 'early game' award)
You start stretched thin, with your early infantry line merely fodder for Romans to trample, upon.:smash: That's why people recommend mustering most of what you have early on and aim straight right at their lands. "Bring war and carnage at their doorstep, not yours." Better if they aren't fully mobilized yet, 'cause they will:knight:. Have your cavalry be the turning point of the battle, and the eles as your siege engines.
Anyway, it seems that you were able to pull it off nicely without giving an inch:applause:. Personally, i dont think i could do it, hehe. The Aegean is indeed rich, but the monkeys are still at your back, as long as you can deal with whatever those chimps can throw at you, you'll be fine:sunny:
Cheers!:medievalcheers:

[Havoc123]

thanks for the tips, glyphz. However I have blockaded the Julii and Brutii with my navy. Scipii held on to Capua for a while but then revolted and were taken over by Brutii. I have taken over all Agean cities except for Salona and Apollona, but close to it. Spain and West Africa are united and one of my armies is destroying stack after stack of Egyptians, at Siwa.

Julii is blocked off by land near Massila with armies at important bridges and Gauls are too busy dealing with British invasions.

I thought the same way as you did about destroying Romans early but I have reconsidered this option. If you are able to hold on to territories as Carthage in the beginning stage and develop your economic and military infrastructure and conquer Sicily, you are good to go. Navies are very important here. If you can afford it, keep Romans blockaded in Italy with all land routes blocked. It is good practice for generals and will deplete the money and population of Italy. After Italy is gone, the game tends to get boring.

The reason why I invaded Greece was because I wanted to use my 67 year old general in battle before he died. It was just my dumb luck that Greece was so underdefended that I was able to establish a strong foothold and spread from there.

[Polemists]

Carthage Infantry.....Oh boy...where to begin...


So I am playing Carthage, after reading these forums I realize I took the hard road. I captured Sicily early on kicking out greeks and romans and constantly reinforced that little island off coast of Italy. Meaning all my troops have been getting slaughtered by Romans.

Now early on I lost lots of men, mostly do to the fact that I assumed Roman Town Militia = Carthagian Town Militia....not so...apparently. Or maybe just not so against Hastarii

So now i'm in the game to where I have a decent economy because I started with a eco focus, and now I have some decent infantry options, sadly I just now focused on building archery ranges so it will take some time before i have slingers, or decent calvary as originally I focused on infantry.

I managed to defeat a large Brutti army through sheer attrition (attack again and again) but they guy won a few times and now has like 10 command stars and 40 bodyguards. He just left sicily but he's coming back, I know it.

All i have on Sicily are

Militia-Useless

Iberian Infantry-Fast and useless

Libyian Spearmen-Useful..but not as useful as hastarri

Sacred Band- Very very very slow, but good in battle.


Round shield calvary-Decent for light calvary

Skirmishers-Decent

Can I keep sicliy and drive out this guy, or is it just a slug fest till I get elephants?

The brutti general comes with lots of warhounds and hastaari and no calavary. He has 40 bodyguards and 10 command so my calavary can't beat him in calavary v calvary match.

Thoughts? Ideas?

[Headhunter242]

Try luring him into a wall of spears. Lybians or better SB in a tight formation, round shield cav for flanking. Forget about slingers, I find them near useless. Stick to skirmishers, instead. Maybe you have to sacrifice some of them to get the general to your spearwall. Once he's engaged with your phalanx, swarm him with round shields. Usually this means game over for him. As for the rest of his army: Hastati are vulnerable to cav. Try taking them off one by one. Hounds get slaughtered by lybian spears in phalanx mode so let them come. Maybe you get cocky and try swarming them with cav before they can release the hounds. Watch out not being swamped, though. Taking advantage of the fact, that you have cav superiority (apart from the brutii general) is the key to winning this fight, imo.

[John_Longarrow]

I'd suggest going for round shield cav. If you have a group of three together that charges a hastarii, you will generally see the hastarii rout as soon as you hit them. Several groups of cav can eat away at a Roman army surprisingly fast.

Once the infantry is torn up, go in against the General with phalanx troops. If you can box him in with three or four, you should be able to kill him with few (if any) losses.

I've played a few games as Carthage. Until I figured out to go the Cav route with them I was loosing badly. Once I figured out how to use horde tactics with their cav, I've been walking over everything else.

For a very fun fight, try Armenia. Great units but a very hard starting position.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Carthage Infantry.....Oh boy...where to begin...


So I am playing Carthage, after reading these forums I realize I took the hard road. I captured Sicily early on kicking out greeks and romans and constantly reinforced that little island off coast of Italy. Meaning all my troops have been getting slaughtered by Romans.

Now early on I lost lots of men, mostly do to the fact that I assumed Roman Town Militia = Carthagian Town Militia....not so...apparently. Or maybe just not so against Hastarii

So now i'm in the game to where I have a decent economy because I started with a eco focus, and now I have some decent infantry options, sadly I just now focused on building archery ranges so it will take some time before i have slingers, or decent calvary as originally I focused on infantry.

I managed to defeat a large Brutti army through sheer attrition (attack again and again) but they guy won a few times and now has like 10 command stars and 40 bodyguards. He just left sicily but he's coming back, I know it.

All i have on Sicily are

Militia-Useless

Iberian Infantry-Fast and useless

Libyian Spearmen-Useful..but not as useful as hastarri

Sacred Band- Very very very slow, but good in battle.


Round shield calvary-Decent for light calvary

Skirmishers-Decent

Can I keep sicliy and drive out this guy, or is it just a slug fest till I get elephants?

The brutti general comes with lots of warhounds and hastaari and no calavary. He has 40 bodyguards and 10 command so my calavary can't beat him in calavary v calvary match.

Thoughts? Ideas?


You have enough to defend with.

Some tips:


Use Libyans and SB as your line. If you need to move, you need to take the SB out of phalanx, run them where you need them, then re-phalanx. Just remember they need 10 seconds or so to reform the spear wall, so don' cut it too close.

Skirmishers make suprisingly good archers against the Romans. Set them up just behind your line. At first, you can fire at will, but then when the scrum starts you'll have to manually pick targets to minimize fratricide.

Iberian infantry are okay for quick flank turn attacks -- uses their speed -- but they die quickly so don't count on them as your key flank attack. They're also useful for absorbing wardogs, though again you need to expect lots of dead iberians.

Luring their commander onto your spears is a good play. Best bait ever designed is slingers. Why general cavarly units lose all sense and charge them I've never really been sure....

Your round shields are fine for flanking cavalry attacks or overwhelming a hastati that got separated. Key is to swarm with 3-5 round shield units superimposed on the same area. They seem to hit with authority then, but to die too quickly if employed singly.

Still gonna have a lot of attrition though. No way to fight the romans without casualties with early game troops.

[Negator_UK]

Early on with Carthage ignor all Carthaginian infantry and build Round Shield Cavalry. Pick up a few merc footsloggers and just pile all you cavalry on one part of the enemy line. Kill, sweep up and do the same again to the others parts pice by piece.

You can clobber most opponents this way, but Triarii are best hit by about 4 units from 4 sides !!

Push to Long shield and eventually elephants. The first infantry you should build seriously will be peasants for garrison and Poeni infantry later on.

[Youngie]

Seleucids. Possibly the hardest to play.

I would say it would have to be the numidians, they dont stand a chance, has anyone actually seen them do reasonably well, if so under what circumstances.:book:

[Emperor of Graal]

Numidians They are the hardest because their units suck!

[Quintus.JC]

Worst Faction IMO - Thrace ~:)

[Emperor of Graal]

Thrace is Ok....
The AI just sucks as them

[Quintus.JC]

Thrace is Ok....
The AI just sucks as them

I suppose they stand on similar terms with Numidia. However their starting position is quite terrible, at least for weaker players (such as AI) anyway.

[the man with no name]

YALL SHOUYLD TRY EB!!!!!!!!!!
go here

https://www.europabarbarorum.com

[Weebeast]

It's a long thread so probably many things are already said here. I'm just gonna say try not to get to war with Egypt. While you can beat her in open field, no one in the east can give Egypt real challenge and she will at least send galleys your way. The war hurts you more than it hurts the Pharaoh. It will cripple your economy so bad it affects your progress elsewhere. Try to have Numidia keep Siwa or whatever is that province called south of Cyrene. It minimizes chance of getting attacked. It was actually the port that sparked the war for me. I did captured Alexandria twice and managed to siege Memphis but it's so far from home I can't keep up with the reinforcements. I ran out of cavalry so I had to use the general unit so he got caught in the mess and died. After that I lost the two 'Libyan' provinces. Now it's been 50 years or so and I finally can absolutely secure the sea. I let Gaul control Gaul just so Britons have a rival. I don't want their lands anyway. I owned whole Spain and the provinces can churn out Long shield cavalry as well as spear-phalanx unit. Romans are no more, save that one Julii city near modern day Venice and lo behold Tarentum, Rome and Arretium are training Sacred Band, as well as Messana and Carthage. We march through Sahara one last time!

[risker]

Ok I just started my campaign but already I can give you a few tips :


-Sicily is a must at the beginning. I took Syracuse off Greeks and Messina off Scipii Immediatly.
-Numidians, Gauls and Greeks should be your allies. I managed to patch things up with the greeks and get the other two on my side. This helps against the romans. Africa is not that prosperous so the Numidians will just be conquered when I need to get those 50 regions. They generally don't have a great army. Just an annoying one.
-Remember don't leave the Romans until the Marian reforms - which means of course, do leave the Romans to get Marian reforms :yes:. Great battles.
-Don't go near Egypt. You're already hated enough as it is.


I'll post a full one when I'm finished.

[jack95]

I attacked Rome right at the beginning of the game. It used up all of my starting money and army but now i have destroyed the scipii and got the brutti cities in Rome. Now i am getting more money and am destroying the Numidians.

[Croatians]

Hello.

I have a Joomla site to develop which has a login area to access the main content. Is there a way to force the site to go to the last page viewed or the next page in the sequence once the user has logged in?

Cheers

[gollum]

Nice going jack95, and welcome to the org, enjoy your stay.

There is another way to play with carthage other than going immediately after the Scipii and the Brutii in Italy.

One can take Messina firsta and then concentrate on defending landing in Corsica and Sicily while taking out Tingi and the Numidian capital. These two boost trade considerably and allow one to take over the Romans comfortably afterwards, while also crushing the Iberians and Celtiberians. Carthage is fun, unless one uses elephants, then its the most boring faction in the world.

[placenik]

I tried, just for fun to do with historical Carthaginian mercenary heavy army and take Romans on surprise, and it works.
Units:
-Balearic slingers
-Mercenary hoplites
-Mercenary peltests
-Numidian mercenaries
-Samnite mercenaries
-Elephants
-Any faction unit you manage to move/recruit, mostly round-shielders

First thing to do is to move your natural born general to Sicily and all Numidian cavalery you can find. Next is to buy all Balearic slingers and ship them to Sicily, early Romans don't have archers, and slingers have insane amount of ammo. Hire every merc you can, take Messina, help Greeks defend Syracuse, and ship yourself to south Italy. Take 2 Brutii cities in 2 turns (that one unit of elephants is necessity), their main army should be on Balkans doing Senate missions, and if you are fast enough that stack will become rebels. After this you can slow a bit. Take remaining Scipii settlement, and go for Julii. Senate is hardcoded not to live its lands, so you can ignore them for now. After Julii is done it is Hanibal ante portas, but really, it is better not to really fight Senate. Fill Rome with spies, lure their main stack so it can't join battle as reinforcement, and take poorly guarded Rome in single turn.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Senate is hardcoded not to live its lands, so you can ignore them for now.

They will leave from Latium when your army is close to their borders. I've had Senate army attacking me when I've besieged Capua and Julii starting cities.


Fill Rome with spies, lure their main stack so it can't join battle as reinforcement, and take poorly guarded Rome in single turn.

Best way to fight that huge Senate army is to move your army on one of those river crossings near Rome. Just make sure you have 2-3 merc hoplites(to stop them) and enough cavalry(to flank them) with you.

Also, if possible then buy Syracuse at the start of the game. Greeks most likely will stab you in the back sooner than later.

[placenik]

@Ibn-Khaldun
You are probably right, senate will attack if AI decides that you are threatening Rome, but I never had that, AIs are dumb. Advice to take Syracuse early is good, you can use endless supply of roman gold, or simply conquer it, it's not too heavily guarded. I actually had to do that, Greeks really backstabed me while my main army was killing Brutii, but they were so weak that I never thought them worth mentioning (their fleet is more annoying, though).

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Usually I buy Syracuse from the Greeks as soon as possible. This way Greeks don't backstab and will remain your trade partners and allies for a long time since you don't share border with them. Buying Syracuse is also good because this way you can get entire Sicily to yourself and with the possibility to upgrade Syracuse you can create a recruitment center there. :yes:

[ReluctantSamurai]

Messina, or rather Sicily, is the key early on.....and a strong naval presence. Messina should go first as you can siege and assault the same turn because of the elephants. My most recent camp, while I was doing that, the Scipii were laying siege to Syracuse and captured it so when I took it from them I never had to go to war with the GC. You must then spend some time sinking naval invasion fleets from both the Julii (at Caralis) and the Scipii (who naturally want Messina back).

The AI solved my problem of having to land on Italy to take out Capua and the Scipii by loading all remaining (some 20 turns into the game) Scipii family members onto a fleet which I promptly sank. I prefer gollums' approach by taking Cirta and Tingi from the Numidians both to connect my holdings and to have two more areas from which to train elephants. I never bother with Nepte and Dimmidi as they are too remote and resource poor to bother with. Numidia is never a threat anyways after the loss of their two largest cities.

Besides, the port cities of Iberia beckon and along with all the mine income, you'll soon have more denari than you know what to do with, and access to one of my favorite mercs in the game....Spanish scutari. I love these guys as screens for my LS cavalry and my elephants. They break up the idiotic, suicide charges from Roman triarii better than any other unit you have early on. I buy as many of them as there are available, and by the time the game has progressed to the 'huge city' stage, they have accumulated experience into silver & gold chevron levels. Along with foundry upgrades, they form the back-bone of my army rampaging through Roman-held Greece and Macedonia. Backed up by elephants and Sacred Band cavalry, they are unstoppable.

[placenik]

You actually allowed Romans to live long enough to get triarii, and even conquire Greece? Why?

[Flavius Merobaudes]

You actually allowed Romans to live long enough to get triarii, and even conquire Greece? Why?

If I understood ReluctantSamurai correctly, the Scipii captured only Syracuse not Greece.

The senate has some units of Triarii in the beginning, and the Julii have one too.

It's good to see there's still someone playing RTW.

[IceWolf]

There's plenty of people who still play RTW. Some like me, played M2TW for 3 weeks and didn't like the murky colors and camera angles and went back to good old RTW. There's so many mods out there you can play for years and years and not run out of new civs or different versions of old civs. Long live RTW and it's many mods. I'm currently playing Amazon TW.

Icewolf

[ReluctantSamurai]

You actually allowed Romans to live long enough to get triarii, and even conquire Greece? Why?

I've played every faction in the game at least several times, some, many multiple times. I don't even play to win anymore.....when a campaign starts to get boring, I move on to another one. My intent with this campaign was to watch the results of some tinkering I had done with the game, and have a little fun with Carthage, whom I hadn't played in a long time.

[placenik]

Somehow, I always get back to RTW, good game it is.

@ReluctantSamurai Respect man! ;) Probably only good reason to let romans live is to be able to kill them in bulks.

[Centurion1]

i like turtling alot, blitzing is no fun. so i always end up with epic late unit battles. love it.

[Rome shall Burn]

Centurion is right. Rushing early makes for a fairly interesting early game but a far too easy late game. For any established faction hunkering down and advancing your cities and armies makes for a much better overall game. Turtling allows the Romans to get stronger which makes for an incredible challenge towards the end game. Also, because in just about any game you play, with the exception of campaigns by Spain or Numida, you will be able to elminate any serious competition early on and never really experience the thrill of fights between huge armies of advanced units. Spartans and Immortals clashing in huge fights in the end-game is ridiculous.

[Centurion1]

actually ifind the spanish only need to take two units and then turtling is ridiculously easy. as well their bull warriors match any infantry in game i modded in archers though.....

[spear]

Well after much thought"mhmhhm" I started it with Carthage, but used an aggrescive approach. I conqured sislly in first 5 turns, defeated completly brutii and captured there two cities, allied with greeks when conquering sislly and defeated scipii, then attacked julii and captured their three cities to the north leaving two cities to them.
I also allied with spain, after conquering their one city. I am controlling whole on africa and now numidians left with only one city near eqypt.
My game settings are VH/VH with no cheats, i used minimum diplomicy and more assinnation and spying.
I am not using elephants or sacred bands, only iberian infnt, long shield cav and slingers, i use elephents only when need to open gates or break walls.
Carthage is hell lot difficult and on Very Hard settings it is real pain. but its fun too haah.
Moving fine now, earning dn 7000+ per turn coz i mainly focused on roads, traders, ports, and trading agreements.
Also I rule the sea with 6 fleets of 4 each ships.
Writing this post on my 15th turn. i was myself amazed on such a quick get-up. Any one want saved file plz mail me.
(Sorry for the spelling mess)

[Ravencroft]

I've been playing Carthage in vanilla this week (though admittedly, Medium/Medium), and I must say that it's a very fun faction. Multi-front wars, yet not as annoying as those "Mummy Returns" Ptolemaioi.

I'd say that holding on to Caralis is a good move in the long run, as it wears down the Romans (especially the Julii) so you could sneak an army onto the "boot". Consolidating Sicily is your first order of battle. It's far easier to wipe out Scipii and SPQR, as the former only really expands at Carthage's expense, and the latter doesn't really go beyond Rome.

Cavalry really is the key to your victories; your infantry can't really match up to the Romans' heavy armor and javs. That said, Iberian Infantry are a cheap and semi-effective way of holding the infantry down for a charge (even the non-existent charge of Round Shield cav doesn't really matter if there's enough of them).

Elephants are another (and much more fun) way to whack around the heavy infantry of Rome around, yet beware of them Velites.

A powerful navy isn't really that important, but you'll need a decent one to land your troops on the "boot" before some guy named Marius overhauls the Roman forces to make them uber.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Hail Paladin Ravencroft! :)

Some of the most fun I've had in RTW is defending Caralis in the early game for Carthage against odds when the Julii slip armies over.

While Carthage is, indeed, weak in the infantry department early on, once you get that awesome temple of Baal built in Carthage you can start cranking out Sacred Band infantry. You will need them against the Roman Senate for sure. Carthage's missile troops are not real impressive either, but I've found I can make do if I recruit Balearics from Palma or Cretan archers from Epirus (around Appolonia) and Crete. I usually send a general on a recruiting mission around 252 BC, 242 BC and 232 BC to those two spots on the gameboard picking up three Cretan archer units each trip.

You're absolutely right about the Velites and elephants. Best keep the elephants handy for hitting Roman cavalry or general's. They do come in handy for quick assaulting wooden walls. You don't have to wait a turn for building battering rams. Just turn loose the ellies.

Your navy becomes important to interdict Roman attempts to land more troops on Sardinia. Many a time I've sunk large Roman armies being ferried over to Caralis.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Agree with recruiting Cretans for the archer corps. Kydonia is also profitable if taken and built up a notch.

SB infantry can hold it's own with Romans even after Marius, provided you don't expect it to win by itself.

Ellies always fun if you can bring them into the Roman line at a nice angle, but the casualties are usually horrendus against all those javelins. Only really cracks them apart if you can hammer them while they are moving up and aren't set to throw. On the other hand, a unit of elephants well out on the flank will often draw other units towards it. Once separated, these become plum targets for a cavarly fist to bowl over.

RS/LS cavalry is only useful en masse, where a goodly gaggle can swamp isolated units nicely. SB cav will fight well against anybody -- but remember to switch off to the swords in the scrum.

A naval intercept squadron is a real plus while Carthage is under-built. Once it has the extra cool troops, you almost want to let them land and try to siege instead of taking losses at sea. It is, however, simply too cost effective NOT to sink a single weakened bireme card carrying a half-stack land force. Like passing up a hanging curve ball...it just isn't done.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Ellies always fun if you can bring them into the Roman line at a nice angle, but the casualties are usually horrendus against all those javelins.

Which is precisely why I, when playing Carthage, target the spear-chuckers first with my Creeshan's instead of the Archer Auxillia. I hold the Ellie's back, remove their FaW to minimize self casualties, and send them in after the legionnaire blocks are tied up in melee.


SB infantry can hold it's own with Romans even after Marius, provided you don't expect it to win by itself.

True that...Sacred Band are tough hombres but not supermen.


Like passing up a hanging curve ball...it just isn't done.

:laugh4::laugh4:

[dallasallenz]

Take Sicily. I took Syracuse first as once that is lost the Greeks do not try to recapture it. The Romans try to recapture Messana so I try to take Syracuse first.
2) Hold Corduba and ally with Gaul.

[Kez]

Very interesting faction and fun to play, don't know if anyway even plays Vanilla RTW anymore. Started out and immediately sent reinforcements to Carilias because I know when I played as Juli that was the first Carthage city I went for. Sure enough Juli showed up ( forgot to mention my reinforcements was a peasent unit

[Kez]

Very interesting faction and fun to play, don't know if anyway even plays Vanilla RTW anymore. Sent out diplomats everywhere, made alliances with Gaul, Briton, Numidia, Greece, (Forgot Spain :oops:) immediately sent reinforcements to Carilias because I know when I played as Juli that was the first Carthage city I went for. Sure enough Juli showed up ( forgot to mention my reinforcements was a peasant unit) and for some reason they would touch the peasant unit. I guess they were waiting for me to attack or something? :idea2:

Anyway ignored them, attacked the Scippians in Sicily while they were busy with the Greeks. They didn't like that to much I bet. But my elephants fixed that argument routed the lot of them. (Greek diplomats watching mind you) Bribed the Greek Diplomat didn't want him to bribe my town watch garrison. Money was looking good, sent spy screen into Italy, seems like the Scipi are building an invasion force. Decide to send my Faction leader and a under General to southern Italy and begin taking Bruty and scipy cities. (Full Stack scipi force just watches :inquisitive:)


I march pass the full stack of scipi leaving the southern Italy cities garrisioned with town watch, sack capua, Scipi faction destroyed, large stack changes to rebel faction. ( Still find that odd they didn't attack, bug? I was really shitting bricks fearing an butt attack)

Meanwhile, back on Carlias, build up enough forces to destroy the large Juli stack with some Elles of course. Around this time start getting spy reports about numidia and Spain, so I become a bit weary...could they be preparing for an attack?

Sure enough large Stack appears at Corduba, luckily I had brought some Spanish Mercs! Tough battle however, heroic victory, Spain runs. I start building up a force back at Carthage to deal with Spain because I know they'll be back. While that is happen I launch a counter invasion on Cathago Nova. ( Take that bastards!)

Numidia figures I have my hands tied and attack Carthage! I rout there pathetic excuse for an army with just one General. ( They came with a Captain led army of Javelins pah!) General recieves a heroic victory and some perks. :grin3:

My forces in Italy sack Rome after an epic battle (Bruti watch from Apollonia haha...though they are building an invasion force it seems :oops:)

As I'm mopping up the Iberian penisula Gaul figures its there turn to backstab, so a General a few horseman and my faithful elles make short work of them and I'm in the process of invading all of Gaul, Briton and Germania with One large stack and half stack both 6 and 8 star general led.

I took over all the Italian penisula and the Juli remain with some former gallic town, to the west. They've been mostly quiet.


Sent a large stack over with my Faction heir to Greece to deal with the Bruti, and they fell rather quickly cowering in their cities. Greece back stabbed me at Lecpis manga, So they are next on my list and it should be easy because my spies tell me Pontus is causing them great peril in the Asia minor.

Thrace attack Apollonia, so actually they'll go first.....got 33 regions captured. Should I go towards Egypt.....or stick with Gaul, Germania and Greece, brition to reach my 50 region goal? :book:

[wooly_mammoth]

Ok, just go into my first ever vanilla M/M Carthage campaign.

WOOOOOW is the situation dire. Lots of angry angry romans at the gates and nothing but dirt farmers and sleazy merchants to stand against them. Time for heroic generalship :charge:. I moved Hanno against the Scipii from the first turn, camped him in some woods right next to Sicilia Romani. A turn later the bloody road engineers showed up and cut the forest down for the empire's infrastructure. :mean:

Anyway, I got lucky that most of the roman force decided to gank the greeks, so I went up against Cornelius Scipio, his son, a unit of hastati, bowmen and velites. Actually a hard fight, I took more casualties than I would have desired since I only had really light troops at my disposal (nothing to stand against a general's charge or deal with hastati) but I did manage to win with minimal cavalry loses and took Messana. A HUMONGOUS Brutii army appeared out of taffing nowhere on a fleet, and I had to engage it in a hair-rising battle with my own biremes. The battle carried out over about four turns, but ultimately I managed to sink the bastards. If those guys had set foot on Sicily it would have been gg no re, no question about that.

In the meantime I saved greek bottoms once when Syracuse was besieged, worked on building my basic infrastructure (roads, farms, traders, temples, the like) and mandatory stables wherever they were absent. Luckily, Spain and Numidia have been peaceful. I lost Caralis to a small Julii force, but there was really no way for me to back it up and peasants alone couldn't win, even with a full surround on the enemy. After that, since those greek bastards didn't want to hear of an alliance with me, the Scipii took Syracuse, I took Syracuse from the Scipii and decided to strike first and occupied Cirta from the Numidians. Then the greeks decided they want an alliance. I think Macedonia is giving them a lot of hot love. I'm building herds of round shields for the moment, the purpose being to conquer the whole of Africa, Spain and get a foothold in Italy (I may reclaim Caralis as well) by using swarms of cavalry and minimal infantry to man rams. Hanno is a really accomplished old guy by this point.

But that's all in a future installment, since I'm about to depart on a real-life journey.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Then the greeks decided they want an alliance.

A repeat word of warning...never, EVER, form an alliance with the Greek Cities. They might back-stab you later than sooner...but they WILL turn out to be a bunch of treacherous bastiges:furious3:

I've never had an alliance with the GC not end with with them turning on me. During the course of a Pontus campaign, I once saw them back-stab Egypt not once...but three times. The Pharaoh was probably some little adolescent with acne problems (I'd been killing their generals on a regular basis), and didn't know any better. I've set them up with territories far from me without a common border, and STILL they decide they'd rather bite the nipple that's feeding them:dizzy2:

There are many ways to go about winning with Carthage...the guide is plentiful with suggestions. The only one I'm going to offer is....navy, navy and more navy. The Romans will continually try to land armies both in Sicily, on Caralis, and in Africa. Round Shield Cavalry suck as do Iberian Infantry. You need to buy yourself time to get to phalanx and Long Shields. Sacred Band is a long ways off....

Watch for an attack on Corduba by Spain and/or Gaul. In my Carthage campaigns, it's almost automatic:shrug:

[wooly_mammoth]

Yeah, I know the greeks are a bunch of :furious3: bastards, but I'm hoping they'll keep their fleets away from Sicilian soil for the time being. I also realize that navy is imperative for the carthaginians, I'll get on to it as soon as I'm comfortable with the horse numbers. Fortunately, the Scipii are down to one town and the entire Brutii army is sleeping with the fishes heheheh. I'm likely to return their polite gesture and make a visit to Croton before they decide to honor my guys again with their presence.

Corduba is pumping out horses and I'll probably make a move against Carthago Nova as soon as I have a decent number. Round shields are bad, but even bad cavalry has a really good use: make a nice phat snowball out of them and start rolling it down from the enemy flank, along their line. Not even romans can take that, so those spaniard peasants can only be swept by the tide. :whip:

[wooly_mammoth]

I'm alive and back from my journey but still a bit reluctant to continue the campaign. The main reason being that I need to go up against the romans just with round shields. :laugh:

Just to make a brief overview of the situation, I have added to the initial empire the entirety of Sicilly, Cirta and have lost only Caralis to the Julii. The plan is to make a round-shield avalanche simultaneously into Italy, Spain and Africa. Then, depending on the situation, either I chase the Brutii into Greece, or if it's not the case I move against Egypt and conquer the East until I get the number of provinces required to win.

I'll also post the ideal end-game army:

8 units of poeni infantry, 4 of them in each wing

4 units of sacred band in the core

1 general + 2 kataellies in the left wing

5 units of sacred band cav in the right wing

Until that point, it will be a mix of round & large shield cav and whatever ellies I can gather. Infantry just the minimum to man some rams. There's no way I can assault stone walls until I get Sacred Band phalanx.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I'll also post the ideal end-game army

A couple of mine:

The old vets...http://s990.photobucket.com/user/aussiebirdman/media/Carthage02-1.jpg.html

The up-and-coming vets...http://s990.photobucket.com/user/aussiebirdman/media/Carthage01-1.jpg.html

[wooly_mammoth]

Badass armies. ~:cool:

I decided to take the bull by the horns, and steamrolled into Italy. Croton, Tarentum and Capua fell in quick succession, thus vanquishing the Brutii and the Scipii. The Scipii sent an army over in Sicily which I easily mopped with my cav, and the brunt of the Brutii force was somewhere across the seas when their last general died, so I faced little to no resistance in taking these cities. Because the Julii have been such a pain in the butt (they took Palma as well, killing the governor :no: :no: :no: ), I moved my army around Latium and assaulted Ariminum. They actually had a sizable reinforcement there, but my horses got to the top of a hill and just made a downhill charge right into them. Took at most 3 casualties in a few units, and annihilated them. In Arretium they have triarii though, so I don't feel like charging into that city just yet. Also, I hope my maneuver wasn't too daring, because the senate has a huge army and may come out for me. However, I think that if I'm careful I can break them one unit at a time, by luring them out of formation and swarming with cav. In the meantime I also landed a huge force in Caralis, which is now under siege.

In Africa things didn't go so hot. I took Lepcis Magna and managed to conquer Dimmidi, but it is fairly useless. I will leave a small garrison behind, move back into Cirta to retrain and push west into Tingi. Haven't moved in Spain yet, but Corduba is well defended.

Overall, it's a difficult game, and I still feel it could go terribly wrong unless I'm really careful. I still rely exclusively on roundshield cav, and will probably do so for a while (not making the same mistake as with the seleucids again, I'm building economy, economy and even more economy).

[wooly_mammoth]

Well, it's winter 260 BC and I own all of the original roman provinces save for Rome herself. The Julii are still alive though, Baal knows why since I've slaughtered 5 of their generals in a single turn. Bomilkar, now 23 years old showed absolutely no talents whatsoever in any respect when he came of age, but now he's become pretty much a wargod after conquering the entirety of Italy just with roundshield cavalry and a unit of (angry angry) elephants. Hope he can handle the SPQR. :hide:

[wooly_mammoth]

Ah, Baal pe praised, it's the winter of 258 BC, and the romans are history. Those dumb senators moved their whole army towards Capua, leaving Rome under the care of a few fat politicians, some of them stationed on the bridge over the Tiber. I made a forced draw-out and showed them Carthaginian horsemanship. Then all I had to do was mop-up a huge rebel stack. One year later, I found Flavius Julius hiding in that dirt hole of Segesta, and that's that. Now I want to transform the western med in Lacus Poeni, and then I'll move towards Egypt.

I won't mess with the greeks because it's the only chance they get to do something without getting destroyed by the romans. I wonder who will dominate the balkans.

Also, I think Bomilkar has earned the title of faction heir. This kid (he's 25 now) pretty much Hannibal'd the romans by himself.

[wooly_mammoth]

So, what I thought my Carthage campaign was going to be like: heavy phalanx with awesome mohawk helmets and armored elephants trudging through the deserts through waves beyond waves of the pharaoh's minions. :charge:

What my Carthage campaign is actually like: ladle-wielding mule-riding peasants slaughtering lice-infested barbarians in some european mudholes nobody cares about. :disappointed:

I have only one of the original galic provinces left to occupy, the northernmost one. The bastards will survive though since they have another town over the Alps and some territories towards the Balkans, but the greeks will probably obliterate them. They have a huge numerical advantage in the city I'm sieging now and will probably sally out but I think I can destroy them with ease. Then it will be time to turn east, occupy Samarobriva and then jump the moat onto the Isles. Having went so far, I'll probably go ahead and try to make the western Atlantic and North Sea carthaginian lakes as well, but I'm not sure how deep I want to enter the german forests since I still rely exclusively on round-shields (with an elephant unit to break walls) and they are at a big disadvantage when not in the open.

[ReluctantSamurai]

What my Carthage campaign is actually like: ladle-wielding mule-riding peasants slaughtering lice-infested barbarians in some european mudholes nobody cares about.

The Emperor's war advisers should probably be keel-hauled before being drawn and quartered for suggesting such a campaign path:hide:

[wooly_mammoth]

Well, to be fair there was no way I would have invaded Egypt with just the said mule-riders and heavy stuff is still some turns away from full-blown production even now (about 235 BC). At the same time, the Gauls and especially the Brits (those annoying wagons:shout:) would have been a HUGE nuissance if they started bashing hordes beyond hordes against the Pyrenees and Alps, with nothing but mule-riders to hold them back (it's fun defeating doomstacks of fanatical infantry with just 8 units of roundshields, but gets old after a while). So, while building the infrastructure for heavy stuff in the south I decided to pacify them and it's almost done. I chased the brits off of the mainland but I probably won't bother after all with the islands. If I get lucky, their last general will die in some landing (the roman AI pulled that on them once, they died while still having 3 cities). The Germans, Dacians and Scythians are all small and bickering among each other anyway. It's the Gauls and Brits that tend to get fat and annoying.

[PhillipCross]

That is a great strategy Wooly. I tried it myself and worked like a charm.

[ReluctantSamurai]

That is a great strategy Wooly. I tried it myself and worked like a charm.

I suppose it is if you like tramping through mosquito-infested forests chasing half crazy wildmen with little to show for it:boxedin:

[wooly_mammoth]

Meh, my plans always change by the moment. :laugh4:

I invaded the british isles since I had nothing better to do and no use sitting around while building up, right? Londinium was actually fiercely defended by a LOT of swords (including chosen ones), many chariots, some spears, hounds and slingers. And the defending general was some celticgibberish the Mad. How awesome can things get? I didn't bring any regular cavalry this time, but had a great number of generals and a small force made of iberians, lybian spearmen and a few barbarian mercs.

When they sallied forth I found myself on a steep incline so things looked pretty taffed right from the get-go, so I placed my lybian spears in between the battering rams to prevent them from being swept right off their feet when that horde came charging down, and had the iberians and mercs in two columns behind the furthest rams in case some smartass tried to flank. The lybians lasted surprisingly well and I managed to swing my generals around and hammer the crap out of those barbarians before the chariots got deployed. When the wagons did come, I could only sit there and take their fire until they tired out, and then I ordered my fresh barbarian mercs to run after them. No more wagons yey. Celticgibberish the Mad died to a unit of lybian spearsmen and the rest was mop-up.

Now, the Carthaginians made it all the way to the end of the world, to the lonesome and depressive Hibernia. Man this place sucks. I need only 11 provinces to win at this and I've decided Egypt is too far away to be worth bothering anymore. My infrastructure is ready, so I will start to produce heavy armies and invade the Balkans. I've got the germans well contained, but they do seriously creep me out. They assault my forts with those crazy women. :shrug:

[ReluctantSamurai]

I've decided Egypt is too far away to be worth bothering anymore

~:>

[wooly_mammoth]

But the greeks turn out to still be living in mudholes in 220 BC :laugh4: They barely have tier 3 barracks around. I will sail with two armies out of Sicily. I'll drop some spies around Sparta and if they have a decent infrastructure by then, I'll throw anchor there. Otherwise I'll go down the Nile after all. The other option would be to finish the game by conquering barbarian ratholes with roundshields, but that would just be sad.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I'll drop some spies around Sparta and if they have a decent infrastructure by then

Sparta will have a large Temple of Nike, which will allow you to train units with two bronze exp chevrons:2thumbsup:

[wooly_mammoth]

I never keep foreign temples around anyway :devilish:. Only the conqueror's gods allowed. With Carthage I went full Baal, excepting a few dirtholes in the middle of nowhere for which I chose Tanit (still didn't make much difference; without population transfer some places just take forever to grow, low taxes included). Not only is it good militarywise (Sacred Band phalanx) but I think it's better for the overall economy than Milquart. Law obliterates corruption (I lose under 10k to corruption, with dockyards and grand bazaars sprawling everywhere), keeps the population happy, gives nice traits and ancillaries to the guys in charge.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I never keep foreign temples around anyway . Only the conqueror's gods allowed.

Depends.

On which faction you are playing. As a barbarian faction, most Roman temples will be better than what you have. The Macedonian Temple of Zeus is the best Law & Order Temple in the game. The Egyptian Temple of Horus at Temple City level (and combined with a Forge) will upgrade heavy/light/missile weapons to gold status. The Gallic Temple of Abnoba and the Macedonian Temple of Artemis both upgrade missile weapons at lvl 3 to gold status. The Gallic Temple of Epona at lvl 3 can be upgraded by Romans to raise units with two silver chevrons of exp.

You might want to reconsider your opinion:shrug:

[wooly_mammoth]

Nah, the gods of my faction are always better. Anyway, greek temples will do for now, until I get some decent barracks up in Sparta and Corinth. I need to ferry extra infantry from my other provinces to fill up the loses until then. :mean:

Also added Kydonia to my collection. Need 8 more regions and it's a wrap up. I'll send an army over the Rhodes and at the same time dig my way through the Balkans until I'm short of one city. Then I'll probably be cheap and take one more germanic city up north that's within striking distance of a big cavalry force and some elephants. The only event that could get things exciting at this point would be for the Pharaoh to suddenly march out of Lybia.

By the way, random question. Does Etna erupt again at around 220 BC? I always hear weird noises around Sicily at that time, but never see anything (either as an event icon on the beginning of the turn or any special animation). This time three (old & useless thankfully) generals died "by the will of god", Messina got it's population halved and most of the militia garrisons and fleets where obliterated. Spooky. :shrug:

[ReluctantSamurai]

Nah, the gods of my faction are always better.

Play Thrace or Parthia....:creep:

I find it hard to believe you'd pass up the opportunity, as the Julii, to find a Temple of Epona which, when upgraded (and a Roman faction can) produces units with +5 experience:inquisitive:

What I look at is whether the existing temple is better (ie. gives me upgrades I can't get from my own temples, or has better Law & Order numbers than anything I can build, or confers particularly good traits to family members). If I can answer yes to any of those questions, I keep the existing temple.


Does Etna erupt again at around 220 BC?

Etna erupts in 261BC...Vesuvius in 171BC. You can check the timing of events in this game folder: "Data/World/Maps/Campaign/Imperial Campaign/descrip_events".

[wooly_mammoth]

Play Thrace or Parthia....:creep:



I checked them up in the compendium of temples on the archive and they are both awesome. :hide: Parthia has a killer law temple that combined with execution square tree will eradicate corruption (nothing makes me more angry angry that to see greedy hands spiriting my precious denarii away). Thracians have an insane war temple (+4 morale for all troops?!) and a temple of happiness which at least keeps your subjects drunk and happy. Thracian generals should all be bloodthirsty maniacs anyway so no need to keep them in town to get drunk & lazy.

Thanks for the Epona tip, I read up and had no idea the romans could do that, but I still like my basic roman temples more heh.

[wooly_mammoth]

Hannibal'd :verycool:

This game always gets a bit boring and tedious when you are very close to the end (<5 provinces to conquer), but the epilogue always makes up for it. I love the little cutscenes with the story of the aftermath and brilliant music.

So, in my final act I conquered the greeks up to and including Bylazora. Those armored hoplites are tough as hobnails. They repeatedly made minced meat out of my poeni infantry. My guys could barely hold the line until my cavalry got ready for rear charges (lack of competent cavalry is the only downside of the greeks). Sacred Band infantry was the only match for their hoplites. Good thing they never fielded spartans. Sadly, I never got to use armored elephants or sacred band cav, but war elephants where a regular presence in my armies (but not so useful against phalanx factions; a spear wall instakills them). The last three provinces where dirtholes within striking distance of my armies which I took in one final sweep.

Now it is time to go horse. See you in Parthia! :charge:

Honorable mention: my dacian ancestors outdid themselves. The dacian kingdom stretched from the shores of the Black Sea up to the dark springs of the Danube river. Burebista would be proud.

[guineawolf]

Start off playing as carthage like any other faction right? No problem.. WRONG!!
The numidians will attack you, the spanish, the julii, and to top it all off the scipii alomst at the very begining.

You can't play carthage like any other faction. Its just impossible to win.First youre going to have to abandon two cities, thats right two cities.Get all of your units in corduba and in caralais and ship them to lylibaeum. Destroy all possible building there as well. Good thing is corduba will be captured by the spanish and it will rebel against them in your side, so you'll have corduba sometimes and sometimes you wont. Next take the rebel town of lepcis magna, it only takes a couple of troops and its key to this plan!! Then get some units from carthage and thapsus and ship them to lylibaeum too. Your goal now is to hold lylibaeum at all costs. If you loose the war in sicily your dead! Elephants are key, so have at least one unit of them in your armies, beleive me it can make the difference. Once you've destroyed the invading vanguard of the scipii, head over to syracuse(wich most likely has rebelled against either the scipii or the greeks by now) And take it. Don't concentrate on your navy as long as you still have a city in sicily the romans won't try to invade you in africa. All you have to do is win the war in sicily, after that the scipii are bankrupt. If the numidians attak you don't panic, they send small armies that are easy to kill. After that i recomend to keep attacking rome, it will make you rich, very rich.
You can now rebuild your navy, and begin conquering by sea. Thats carthage's power, her navy. USE IT!

if you want to kill romans easily,use as many long shield cavalry as possible.RICH huh!,i find out the spoils of war of this game is the population to be enslave(coz they can be your tax payer,and the supply of your new troops),not the treasure of the faction....why we cannot capture the treasure of enemy since they save at least 100k of denarii...

[Vincent Butler]

So I started a Carthage campaign, M/M. Very interesting. Some notes: elephants are awesome, Iberian Infantry are not. Julii took Caralis quickly, I did not have the units capable of defending it. Scipii are history. I have taken Croton, Tarentum, Capua, and Rome, as well as all of Sicily. Balearic Slingers were instrumental in several defenses of Palma. Sent a small army (4 II, one RSC) toward weakly-defended Caralis, but the ship they were on was sunk in one attack. They weren't part of a good army, so I was not too bothered by it. I will just do it again.

Corduba kicked me out, and vanquished my army. Gaul (neutral) now has it, after wiping out Spain, who had been allied with me. Numidia is annoying, but that's about it. Thrace wiped out Macedon, Dacia, and Scythia, and Seleucia is gone as well. Greece is the dominant power in the Balkans right now, as Brutii left armies on Sicily instead of using them to attack the Greeks (those armies are still in Sicily, have not yet bothered to wipe them out).

Poeni Infantry are not bad, it seems their spear wall is not as dense as a hoplite spear wall. I like Libyan Spearmen. I mainly use Iberian Infantry to deal with enemy spearmen due to the spear penalty versus other infantry (main application right now is against Desert Infantry or Numidian Javelinmen). On the walls especially, they are OK in that role.

Defeated a Brutii/Scipii attack, where odds were 3:1 against me. I can thank my Elephants for that, I really think they swung the battle in my favour. They are just regular elephants. I can't afford the good ones right now. I will not even field elephants against Greece, I don't think. I am on good terms with Greece right now, but that will eventually change.

[ReluctantSamurai]

elephants are awesome, Iberian Infantry are not

Yep:eyebrows:

And being a phalanx man, you're going to enjoy the hell out of Sacred Band~D

And with easy access to Baeleric Slingers, I'm surprised you didn't do Carthage sooner:laugh4:

[Vincent Butler]

Yep:eyebrows:

And being a phalanx man, you're going to enjoy the hell out of Sacred Band~D

And with easy access to Baeleric Slingers, I'm surprised you didn't do Carthage sooner:laugh4:

My only problem with Sacred Band is they require an Awesome Temple of Baal. I don't typically use units that require a special temple, especially as campaign units, because of the difficulty in retraining them. That said, a phalanx unit with the stats of Praetorian Cohort...:laugh4:

Similar problem with mercenaries and elephants, unless you want to keep a train of them coming most merc units are only available in certain areas of the map, ditto for elephants. Merc Hoplites and Peltasts are available in many more places, and the Merc Warband are also available in a large area, but outside of them, hard to keep mercs and ellies up to strength.

[ReluctantSamurai]

My only problem with Sacred Band is they require an Awesome Temple of Baal

You're going to be using the Temple of Baal a lot anyway as it's the best L & O temple available to Carthage:shrug:


unless you want to keep a train of them coming

Which is not that difficult to do. In my Armenian campaigns, when fighting the Romans far out in the Libyan Desert, I keep a fleet waiting offshore with replacements for my Cats, and a series of forts along the way for my Arab Cavalry. Much the same can be done with Ellies or mercs....

[Vincent Butler]

You're going to be using the Temple of Baal a lot anyway as it's the best L & O temple available to Carthage:shrug:



Which is not that difficult to do. In my Armenian campaigns, when fighting the Romans far out in the Libyan Desert, I keep a fleet waiting offshore with replacements for my Cats, and a series of forts along the way for my Arab Cavalry. Much the same can be done with Ellies or mercs....

So...I should have built a navy before invading Italy. My finances are horrible because Numidia and Rome keep blockading my ports and I don't have the navies to deal with them. Numidia even had a quinquireme. I took Ariminum (I think, I always get that and Arretium confused, I took the one to the east). I am focusing more on navies before I advance farther, so that I can defend my ports. When you have five of your twelve ports blockaded at one time, it really hurts your finances.

[ReluctantSamurai]

So...I should have built a navy before invading Italy. My finances are horrible because Numidia and Rome keep blockading my ports and I don't have the navies to deal with them

I have, on occasion, adopted a "navy first" strategy with Carthage. I take Hanno's army, combine it with the Lilybaeum garrison...and abandon Sicily...for the time being:creep:

I defend Caralis, and neutralize the Numidians by taking their capital. Carthage pumps out triremes (which few other factions have, early on), and anything Roman is sent to the bottom of the Med. Keeping Caralis is key to sea trade once Cirta goes, Lepcis Magna is occupied, and a port built on Palma. A big navy keeps the Scipii from landing anything in Africa until I can build up an army to invade Sicily on my terms.

Corduba simply stays on the defensive against the Spaniards and Gaul until Tingi is taken. Then an army is sent to Iberia to wipe out Spain, and kick Gaul back across the Pyrenees where it's easy to defend the whole of Iberia until I've taken a big bite out of the Romans.

I've done it the "traditional" way by booting the Scipii and the Greeks off of Sicily, but I have had similar problems to what you are experiencing, particularly from the Numidians. Better to safeguard your rear before taking on the Romans, IMHO:shrug:

[Vincent Butler]

I've done it the "traditional" way by booting the Scipii and the Greeks off of Sicily, but I have had similar problems to what you are experiencing, particularly from the Numidians. Better to safeguard your rear before taking on the Romans, IMHO:shrug:

Yeah, let them beat their heads against Carthage. Make sure that is defended while wiping out Numidia. It seems logical to take Rome out quickly, but looks like that is not necessarily the best option. Or at the very least, if you choose to take Sicily, build a navy before attacking Italy.