Quote Originally Posted by anubis88 View Post
It's hard to tell when Carthage got certain cities in N africa under their control, since in many cases it wasn't a conquering like the Romans used. Many cities were of phoenican origin, and once Carthage became the most dominant colony of all, the rest slowly got under Carthaginian sway. Carthage rarely sieged cities in N africa; Utica was always considered almost as equal to carthage, many times the Romans would say instead of just Carthage, Carthage and Utica.

The empire was based more on the fact that Carthage had the maritime power to keep the cities safe, in return they would pay a certain fee, or give some extraordinary priviliges to Carthage.
There has been some time since i read about Carthage so i could be wrong, but i don't think so.

Sorry i can't be of more help
Hm, okay, I thought the african cities could be troublesome. The best would be to bribe them to become part of Carthage but one - or at least I - has not enough money that early to buy some african cities. But it could be possible to know more about the Iberian conquests. If nobody knows a good link or source I'll have to search for it some more.