Carthage

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Originally Posted by Chimp

By the by, Carthage is even more challenging post patch 1.3, since the AI now employs fire arrows to make your elephants go bananas immediately, which only makes my battleplan all the more sound.

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

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

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

Ah, so the fire arrows is just me. Thanks for the correction, Red Harvest.

It´s easy to crush Rome! Youst ally with a roman fraction (Brutii is best) and take over Rome city. On this way, you will cast Rome into a civil war. When they have destroyed each others armies, its easy to run over them all three!:knight:

I think I get the idea for Carthage

Remember, Carthage is a SEA power - built a few fleets and use it to destroy any enemy fleet in sight. Trireme is best since you could built retraining ports easily and it has better staying power than biremes.

Take Sicily - Ready for rapid campaign in Sicily. Greeks usually won't come at you and the Scipii probably hit the greeks first. When they do, destroy their main army and take the two cities in one swoop. Built them as your naval bases.

The Red is more tasty than Blues - your main opponent would be the Julii instead of Scipii. After you control the Maghreb provinces, advanced northward from Spain and engage the Julii (and the rest of the Barbarians)

Close Quarter Combat - Yes, Balearic slingers are easily obtainable in your territory. But not many generals can employ slingers properly. So, practice it. But in the meantime, everytime a battle started, gear your infantry for immediate advance against enemy main line.

Horses are your friend - Don't rely on your infantry to break the enemy. Your main attacking arm should be cavalry. Use them first to eliminate enemy archers (since mostly you won't have the same) and enemy artillery. Then charge them home towards enemy flank and rear.

Elephantus Primadoneae - Elephant units is best to be used as stalemate breaker. Just pick a piece of enemy battle line to pierce and send them there. followed by your reserve. But first, make sure that enemy archers and artillery has been neutralized or at least rendered ineffective since those fire arrows can panic them quicker than you say, "Boo".

We have SWORDS you know! - your Poeni Infantry and Sacred Band main weapons are their sarissas. BUT, turn them off and they are decent heavy infantry (not as good as romans, but enough). So don't be afraid to turn them in swordsman to help wrap up enemy lines. Just don't use them to flank, that's cavalry business.

The rock which is Libyan Spears - the best anchor for your line is not phalanxes, it's Libyan Spearmen in Squares and Guard Mode On. They can defend your wing enough against infantry, not to mention cavalry. long enough for you to manuver that strike with your reserve.

Just because You have doesn't mean you should - Just because you can built Poeni Infantry or Sacred Bands means you should deploy them against everyone. Just make sure you have enough cavalry (optimal is six). Against Numidian, the Iberian Infantry are enough. Moving in Spain, you probably need Spearmen. Against Romans and Egyptians, then deploy Sacred Band and Poeni Infantry.

I have been playing Carthage on M/M and I have to say they are tough to play with. Their Lybian infantry can't poke through tissue paper, and the Iberian infantry can hack through it, but seem to die off from the paper cuts. It seems like I was stuck with cavalry as my savior.

I am playing 1.3, and the Spanish the Gauls, and the Romans seemed set on destroying any evidence that Carthage ever existed. Only Numidia has kept peace with me, but I think only because the Egyptians keep attacking them.

Where to attack seemed pretty obvious to me, but my biggest problem has been the troop quality. Like I said my infantry sucks compared with the Romans.

I have been relying on cavalry to carry the day, but even so sometimes my losses are so horrible against Principes and Hastati that it takes me a while to get armies back on their feet. My strategy has been to overload one side with cavalry and quickly rout off Romans from flanking and rear attacks, a strategy that has worked for me with other factions, but the Romans seem to be cutting through my Libyan Spearmen too fast. By the middle of the battle it seems that my cavalry and elephants are really the only ones still fighting.

Once I was master of Sicily I was able to take Capua, Croton and Tarentum from the Romans. But now I am stalled, my elephants have died off and I don't have enough Poeni and Sacred Band to form a phalanx army. Mixing the phalanx units with the others is highly annoying since you have to keep them in step.

So far I am disappointed and at the same time challenged by the Carthaginians. It's difficult to carry on a war on both Spain and against the Romans, and your pick of troops just doesn't help - I am not an incredible strategist by any means. I can only imagine playing this on VH/VH.

I've played as Carthage many times and i've always had the same problem, economically it is very difficult to compete with many of the other *civilised* factions, I always seem to be struggling to maintain the vast army that Carthage needs to defend its territory.

By the time i'm invading Italy or making a real attempt to conquer Spain entirely, the initial rush of money at the beginning of the campaign has dried up and its very difficult to meet my commitments militarily.

It isnt long until the populous regions of Sicily suffer from overcrowding and the upgrades are outrageously expensive due to the advanced infrastructure of the island. To maintain a fleet that has commitments in Spain, Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, the Balaerics etc is a major challenge financially.

War with Rome is almost always economic suicide in my experience as you can never maintain peace with the Iberians and Gauls, the Ptolemies just hate Carthage for some reason and your often at war with Numidia so you rarely have a significant foreign trading partner.

You have to have active field armies in Spain at the very least 1, probably 2 in Africa (1 for the Numidians and 1 to secure the eastern frontier) and you'll probably need 1 in Sicily if at war with Rome plus atleast 2 for the invasion of Italy. That could be as many as 6 or 7 active field armies that need financing, as Rome (at the same time I occur these troubles as when i'm Carthage) I have probably half that number of major field armies since my only major long term threat is the Gauls.

^^^ Thats my experience anyway. I love playing with the Carthaginian army though so I keep playing as them because its still fun ~:)

I suggest keeping a low profile in some of the territories at first. I like to conquer Sicily fast, and then fight only defensively there against the weakening roman invasions. Avoid fighting offensively in Spain until Sicily is secure and Numidia is pacified.

I'd avoid a frontier with egypt for as long as possible.

Armies comprised entirely of cav and elephants are the way to go with carthage.

In my Carthage campaign i left carthage, thapsus , caralis and Lili thingy to the Numidians for tehre good will with a promise that they protect them at all costs :P and i Brought my entire army to Iberia and conquered the place and set up a strong position on the iberian and so far so good, i have a booming economy a strong army and I have defied all your sugestions that the Carthage infantry sucks... MY ARMIES ARE 90% INFANTRY MWHAHAHA, i hate calvary, calvary is useless, calvary doesnt deserve to live, infantry rules the world :bow:

In my Carthage campaign i left carthage, thapsus , caralis and Lili thingy to the Numidians for tehre good will with a promise that they protect them at all costs :P and i Brought my entire army to Iberia and conquered the place and set up a strong position on the iberian and so far so good, i have a booming economy a strong army and I have defied all your sugestions that the Carthage infantry sucks... MY ARMIES ARE 90% INFANTRY MWHAHAHA, i hate calvary, calvary is useless, calvary doesnt deserve to live, infantry rules the world :bow:

Against the Spaniards and Gauls it's not completely useless. Against the Romans is where things get interesting.

Nice approach though. It does allow you to erase that horrible capital distance bonus that at least one of your cities will get. It also gives you time to build up away from the Romans. Still I can't let a single territory go. It hurts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your English is fine :san_grin:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's the Mundus Magnus map: https://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y1...sMagnusMap.gif

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Craterus

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

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

the problem is:

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

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

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

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


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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Craterus

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

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

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

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

Here's the Mundus Magnus map: https://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y1...sMagnusMap.gif

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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