Lack of Fighting in North Africa, Sicily, and Illyria

I played a few campaigns as the Romans. I've played M/M, H/M, and VH/M all trying to increase the challenge. I'm also running Redmeth's mini-mod. What I've noticed is that conquering Italy is a challenge. The rebels in the north put up a decent fight, but after that it's much to easy! I mean, Carthage doesn't do anything in Sicily. The rebels in Illyria are a breeze. Carthage's North Africa territories are a joke! I mean, all Carthage's important cities are garrisoned with 3 units!!!!

Also, by around 245 BC, I'm making way to much money. It actually annoys me. I'm able to maintain 3 full stacks along with 3 fleets of triremes and profit 10-15k a turn.

My empire isn't even that big. All I have is Carthage and 1 settlement in North Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and Italy south of the Alps.

I'm not trying to complain, but on VH/M I'd expect this to be more of a challenge. Especially the lack of forces in North Africa is disappointing.

I'm sure you know about this, but I'm just trying to bring to this your attention.

Carthage's position in Lilibeo should be strengthened with a richer selection of troops, but also they aren't aggressive and don't do much in Spain either.

The Ilyrian cities should get some stronger garrisons when you're Roman but it could prevent Epeiros from taking them and stalling their development.

Carthage's weak garrisons are caused by the stupid AI which doesn't perceive borders where there's sea present so it's like you are striking directly at their heart (which you are) but they have no way of knowing and the AI is coded to keep small garrisons inside their empire and only protect their land borders very well :wall:.

Will see what we can do with North Africa and the other Carthaginian territories. In fact we are trying to make it harder for the human player when he uses any faction without damaging the historical expansion of the AI controled factions.

Maybe changing Karthadastim's AI personality would help...its currently Sailor Ceasar

I've had several good fights in Sicily - it's just a matter of waiting. Don't expect much resistance if you take the island before 250BC. And I usually don't get to Illyria before the Greeks are there.

The Carthaginians are seemingly not very aggressive and I like them therefore. I never attack Carthargo myself. Nevertheless, when I (Epeiros) was attacked by the villainous Romans at Segestica and decided to conquer Italy from the south, the Carthaginians attacked me in Sicily when I took Syrakous from the Eleutheroi. As usual in all my campaigns before the Carthaginians were allied to the Romans all the time.

It was a very hard struggle against the Romans, but some turns after I took Lilibeo the Carthaginians suddenly declared a ceasefire. Lucky me. It was one of the few moments in TW when declaring a ceasefire was not favourable for the AI. Now a full stack Carthaginian army mostly of elite troops is sitting in one of the forts they conquered in the middle of Sicily since 30+ turns and is doing nothing. Very strange. And Carthaginian ships sail all around the world and are a hindrance in my struggle with AS but they don't attack anything.

I am having a run for my money in Hispania against three Qarthadastim fullstacks, one of which had 4 liby-phoenician earlies and 4 iberian assault infantry in addition to the usual iberians and libyans. They are nasty if you give them time to grow. There are about 5-6 fullstacks running around in Africa proper now, too.

In my Romani campaign the Qarthadastim are very busy. During our first war over sicily, they managed to take Syracuse before me. Even after i conquered Syracuse they remained active, sending ships with troops from North Africa. So I decided to invade North Africa an what a struggle it was, in the end I plundered two city and retreated back to Siciliy. During all this mess, they managed to take Arse, and even send a full stack made mainly of levies, by sea to Emporium, but failed to take the city. So in the end I thing that for a great EB game you need a bit of luck.
Cheers.

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Originally Posted by Reno Melitensis

In my Romani campaign the Qarthadastim are very busy. During our first war over sicily, they managed to take Syracuse before me. Even after i conquered Syracuse they remained active, sending ships with troops from North Africa. So I decided to invade North Africa an what a struggle it was, in the end I plundered two city and retreated back to Siciliy. During all this mess, they managed to take Arse, and even send a full stack made mainly of levies, by sea to Emporium, but failed to take the city. So in the end I thing that for a great EB game you need a bit of luck.
Cheers.

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Naval Landings? Are you using BI or regular RTW?

Playing as Roma M/M vs Carthage and (they) Carthaginians are fighting hard to keep Spain. I finally sacked the city of Carthage itself (240) after a very bloody death match on the plains. Now I have two one stack armies holding off the counter attacks at the kasserine pass and Medjerda river.

In my experience Carthage keeps a ridiculously low level of garrison in and around their capital. Kind of sad, really, since that's the place where they should've been at their strongest. Leave them alone for a while though and hope that they grow in Spain and I often find them quite a challenge around those parts at least...unless they got crushed by the local Lusotannans over there.

Is it possible to script in a full stack of garrisons near the city when the player invades and, say, besiege Carthage? To simulates something like when the Carthaginians responded to Scipio's invasion by raising their city militia in the 2nd Punic War...

IMO they deserve it in particular because they never really garrison their heartland like they should, making them a pushover for the player. One could say "use House Rules" but even if I wait years into the game the Karthadastim still refused to properly garrison the region of modern Tunisia.

Reno Melitensis: Is that BI you're using? I never see the A.I. launch naval invasions in RTW 1.5, ever. Sounds nice though, especially for an A.I. Carthage. ~:)

p.s. I think Rome isn't so easy though after a while if I don't zerg-rush the world, since the Sweboz often dominate Central Europe and comes at me in force and if a Greek faction "unify Greece" they'll get filthy rich, a.k.a. massive stacks going up upon a Roman Illyria (Epeiros, Antigonids/Makedonia (IMO this one not often enough -- they seem so weak in the latest patch whereas historically they would've dominated the region had it not been for Roman intervention...poor Philip), and the Koinon Hellenon). If you go further east then hopefully the Silver Death or not so hopefully the Yellow Fever will be waiting and fighting for every inch of land you want from them.

But Rome Total War is essentially one of those strategy games where after a while you start to dominate the game and beats up the A.I. easy after the first few years of hair-raising challenge, though the progress is slowed in the much harder and more exciting E.B. :clown:

I wouldn't say Carthage always leaves North Africa empty. I think depends form campaign to campaign.

I one of my campaigns they had most of the cities in Africa fortified with 3 stacks of elites in and around Kart-Hadast, 1 next to Lepkis, 1/2 stack in Ippone.And that was with money script.

In same game they had stack in Sardinia , Bocchoris, 2 in spain, and 1/2 in Corsica.

In another campaign , however they had in all of North Africa total of 1 stack and 1-3 units/per town as garrisons.

It's true that more often AI leaves inner towns with lower garrisons, then stronger ones. It goes for all factions.

+++ In either of campaigns i was not bordering them.

I had one campaign where Carthage lost all of its Iberian holdings due to the fact it they had four full stacks standing in Byzacena staring south at rebel Cydaus, which they never attacked but seemed to want to. When I took Egypt, they forgot about Cydaus and marched them all east to attack me. I suppose if I had attacked Carthage itself, those armies would have come to defend it.

I've played several campaigns where the Carthagians became quite powerful and wiped out the Ptolemaioi, controlling all of Africa. I think they just need more time than other factions before they get agressive, but if they start expanding, they can get really nasty. In my campaigns they often start expanding in Spain and Sicily after 220. One time they controlled Italy, Spain, southern Gaul, the Alpes and started invading Germany around 200 BC.
When playing as the Romani I never had a problem with them in Sicily, but the longer you wait, the harder they fight in Spain and Africa.
On the other hand its sometimes annoying that they are never a threat for the Romans when I play as Aedui or Sweboz, they don't seem to break their alliance if the human player is at war with Rome.
I've only seen one single naval invasion in EB with RTW 1.5, but unfortunately not from the Carthagians, no idea if they do better with BI.

Btw, as this is my first post here, I have to say: EB is totally awesome!!!

In my current campaign the Carthies took Sicilia after about 40 years or so, and are now by 202BC conquering most of Iberia. Normally they build huge low-tier-stacks in Corsica.

But I quite don't understand why anybody should garrison his heartlands? Normally they are considered to be the safest place in an empire. Why waste money to garrison them, except for public order's sake? In the Roman Empire it was even forbidden to garrison the heartland.~;)

Yes guys,I am playing EB with RTW 1.5. It seemed strange to me too to see a naval invasion in 1.5. I had a spy nearby so I could see what was happening, as I was going to take Massilia by see. In the early stages of the game a Hellanon Tiereme was approaching by coastline in southern Italy. In was carrying a small army, its destination is unknown as it was sunk by pirates.

Cheers.

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Originally Posted by Ice

I played a few campaigns as the Romans. I've played M/M, H/M, and VH/M all trying to increase the challenge. I'm also running Redmeth's mini-mod. What I've noticed is that conquering Italy is a challenge. The rebels in the north put up a decent fight, but after that it's much to easy! I mean, Carthage doesn't do anything in Sicily. The rebels in Illyria are a breeze. Carthage's North Africa territories are a joke! I mean, all Carthage's important cities are garrisoned with 3 units!!!!

Also, by around 245 BC, I'm making way to much money. It actually annoys me. I'm able to maintain 3 full stacks along with 3 fleets of triremes and profit 10-15k a turn.

My empire isn't even that big. All I have is Carthage and 1 settlement in North Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and Italy south of the Alps.

I'm not trying to complain, but on VH/M I'd expect this to be more of a challenge. Especially the lack of forces in North Africa is disappointing.

I'm sure you know about this, but I'm just trying to bring to this your attention.

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Sorry, but Rome is one of the easier factions IMO. Add to that the usual smart player blitz and it's a cakewalk. If you really want a challenge try one of the smaller factions near AS :).

VH / M btw simply means that the AI gets lots of cash (usually for not so great mercs) and battles are standard. As a veteran RTW player I played Rome on H / H and even then it wasn't particularly hard. Could probably bump to VH / VH but that would accomplish 2 things. First, the elite units for some / many of the factions would become near impossible to kill / break and second - autoresolving fights would be very unproductive (something I do quite a bit of for the "oh look...another stack of rebels in my back area".)