Carthage

[Redleg]

Currently playing this fraction on VH/VH - got myself allied with the Numidian and Spanish by the third turn - the cost of this was having to maintain large armies in three cities - that I could use elsewhere. But when I tried to get the alliance and then move my armies against the Romans - well the Spanish and Numidian sensing weakness decided to attack. Going to have to maintain that allaince until I either defeat the Roman Senate and Juili - or I will be fighting on more then one front.

While I was getting my alliances with Spain and Numidia, I moved against Scipi in Silicy right away - I destroyed Scipi as a faction by 267 BC and Bruiti as a faction by 264 BC. After destorying Bruiti the Greeks entered into Trade rights with me - and so did Gaul.

I think the key to winning as this faction is to isolate Rome into fighting for their lives in their cities. Currently working on getting an alliance with Gaul so that they can take some pressure off of Cart - by attacking Juili. I think after defeating the Roman Senate armies outside of Rome - That I can either sack Rome or get the Romans to get into a cease fire. Once that Happens that will allow my faction to build more forces into Italy and develope better Infantry forces then the Militia and Ibrian forces I have not.

The key to this fraction is never to autoresolve the battles - by autoresolving the computer kills off your one elephant Unit. This unit is key in demolishing the city gates - because you can not afford to seige cities in Italy - you must attack the gates immediately - the defensive ablity of the Carthage army is almost none existent as far as I can determine.

Use the Numidian Cav on the Flanks of the Romans and also Round Shield Cav - it weakens the romans ability to close with the Ibrian Infantry. Also careful use of the single elephant unit allows them to remain intact - to destroy the Roman Armies - I have used the elephants in 4 seige battles and 3 open field battles and still retain all 6 elephants.

As someone mentioned concentrate on roman fractions - I went after Scipi first and took out two roman factions by the end of 12 turns - ie 6 years of game. Now I have plently of breathing room to sack rome, get a cease fire - but most important I have income coming in to offset the cost of maintaining the armies from Carthage - the loss of income from that city is just amazing.

Once you take out at least two roman factions - I think the next thing to do is build an income base on the cities you do have - as long with alternating improving the army base that you have. However I find Carthage to be a very challenging faction to play - compared to some of the others in the game.

The 1.2 patch has made this faction actually better to play in my opinion.

[katank]

Carthage is definitely a blast to play. The Carthaginian blitz is the best rush in the game.

On the first turn, load the faction heir into the boat off Carthage and sail as far as possible to the north coast of Sicily and load the Faction leader's army into the boat.

Queue boats in Carthage.

Second turn you can get the amphibious invasion force to sit off the coast of Capua.

Third turn you can sack Capua. Exterminate and leave the faction heir there on low taxes. Move Faction leader toward Tarentum and then you can sack Tarentum on the 4th turn and Croton on the fifth.

You can send the faction heir to Messana and hire mercs to take it combined with a spy. With any luck, You can thus eliminate both the Scipii and the Brutii on turn 5.

Taking out the Senate is easy by abundant use of eles.

Note that a cav charge following the eles is very effective. Abuse the faction leader and faction heir's recharging BGs to maximum effect.

Pumping a navy should prevent the Julii from landing in Caralis.

[SwordsMaster]

Hey, katank is back!! rejoice!!

I played Carthage both rushing the romans, and without, and I think it is more fun without rushing them. You can take Sicily, but you actually want to get those Poeni Infantry and Sacred Bands, don´t you? And it is hard to wish a better foe than a full roman stack...

[RollingWave]

My faction leader died of natural causes on the second starting turn on my h/h game.... but luckily the spaniards and numidian have stayed off me for now while the Scipiies and the Greeks are killing each other on Sciliy without my help... yet :P

Carthage line up seems pretty good... usable infantry (not great but definately good enough for support unlike some of the eastern factions...) very good calvary too....

Key is basically take sciliy without taking too much dmg.... with sciliy u basically elimiate one roman faction completely... if u can build up ur island settlements u should be pretty wealthy... the bad news is that taking sciliy probably will make the Brutis pretty strong soon... if u don't give a helping hand :P

Still i don't feel carthage is THAT hard, they are kinda like the greeks but is acturally in a easier position with better line ups too....

[katank]

Thanks, SwordMaster, good to be back.

I find that the blitz does turn you into a practically invincible powerhouse almost immediately. You can micro and keep only a governor in Carthage and enslave any place you capture to pump up Carthage's population quickly. With the grain resource there, little upgrading is necessary and 12k pop is a piece of cake. This is enough for sacred band.

Sacking Rome slightly later after playing the blitz would allow it to grow to larg city size and you can often take over it with an ar4my barracks fully built for instant poeni production.

Key to success in defensive game is Sicily but in the blitz, gambiting Lilybaeum is well worth it. Not a true gambit as the Scipii rarely tries for Lilybaeum anyhow.

One thing that's important is to get Corduba's pop up ASAP. Use of enslavement will allow it to get to a large town quickly which is necessary to secure trade rights with the Spanish and bribe away the captain stacks. You don't want to focus on the west at the beginning.

On turn 2 or 3, getting a diplomat out is very important to secure trade rights and bribe away a numidian captain that invariably wanders over to Carthage from Cirta.

Not getting into a brawl with these factions allow you some decent breathing room.

[RollingWave]

I took a more standard conservative approach to carthage... now i have sciliy, the lower italies, western north africa and Iberia... however it has been pretty rough with the Romans and Gaul/Spaniards blockading me left and right with small stacks causing massive trade loss for me...

I find that Carthage is horrible at sieging big cities too since they don't have any good infantry to use on walls... they get onagers but have a pretty poor range lineup to go with it (ironically their best ranged unit comes from their stable XD)... causing very few high lvl ranges for me.... i learned this the hard way when trying to seige the Brutiis capital... had to wait out 8 turns after a failed seige attempt (their onager took out mine and then i could do flowers lol..)

the numidians are left squeezed between me and egypt now, I think i should leave them that way so I don't have to get into war with the Eggies and march across a vast desert....

[RollingWave]

Hmmm, i changed my mind, carthage is acturally pretty good at siege but you have to use a different approach, i was using the ole Roman approach which was why i was very unsuccessful, the key to seiging with carthage is NOT fighting on the walls, their phalanx infantry are very good at pushing through gates and breaches in the wall (and through the street) use Iberian infantries sparingly as melee support for ur sacared band and ponic infantry. and almost nothing will beat you, although the greeks may have better phalanx... they don't have the decent swordsmen to go along with it.

Took me quiet a while to advance up Italy though... as all 4 roman faction ganged up on me as i try to finish the Scipiies... i had to land another army and take Rome itself by surprise (with mass onager and phalanx... in one turn before they can react) before i could advance up... funny enough my faction leader is now 89 years old and still going!!!!!! XD... guess this is a make up for my first leader that died on the 2nd turn lol.

I wonder if it's a good idea for me now to make up a army and make a long expedition to Rhodes :P... with my huge naval trade that extra 40% seems like a really worthwhile cause lol.

[SwordsMaster]

Ok, I need some tips:

Carthage, h/h, 247bd approx. I control Corduba, Cartage Nova, Palma, Caralis (sieged by Julii) Carthage, Thapsus, Lepcis Magna, Messana, Lylibaeum, Cyrene.

Diplomatic status: war against: Numidia (I dont get into open battles, but just wait for them to siege my cities and defeat them, dont have funds for an aggressive war...

Spain: IMHO the toughest one, they use lots of wardogs that eat up my iberians for breakfast.... Same approach, I only fight in chokepoints. And I hate the lack of ranged units....

Gaul: Not much of a problem, annoying more than actually problematic. Betrayed me twice. I always have superior cavalry to make up for them always outnumbering me at least 2/1.

Romans: all of them, although the Julii are the biggest problem. They are the only ones who have ever defeated me when I tried to lift the siege of Caralis. (I was unlucky with the terrain too.... cavalry is no good in forests...)

All my allies betrayed me at some point, first the Romans, then the Gauls, spain and Numidia. My only trading partners now are Greeks and Eggies, but my income only amounts to about 1000 a turn which is barely enough to patch my losses and keep my ports from being blockaded...

I have tried negotiating a ceasefire with everyone, but I had no luck so far....

Basically the problem is, that I can only hold them off, but I cant seriously cripple any of my enemies.... And I will probably have to abandon Caralis as well, there is just no chance I can send in another army (which I dont have).

[RollingWave]

You are facing a 3 front war basically then, my suggest is take out the Numidians first, secure the west side of north Africa, commit what little you can muster to that cause first, because that will be the most easy to accomplish with a clear end (unlike Iberia and Italia), you only need to take 2-3 more cities and that side will not bother you anymore, leaving Numidia with only Siwa will elminate as a threat.(and a good buffer between you and the eggies)

If you REALLY can't handle it another possiblity is to abandon Corduba, either sell it to another faction or tear it to the ground urself (or both :P) Then use that money to finish the Numidian.

Beating the Romans is Rough, land a few surpirse force on Italy, the Brutiies cities will usually be the poorest defended, while the Scipiies and Rome will be heavily defended and will probably require another army around the back to take succesfully.

[SwordsMaster]

I sont really want to abandon Corduba after all it took me to keep it, and the money Ive spent in building it up... I ould consider leaving Cartage Nova, if things get really tough, and Caralis (I dont have much choice, It appears).

I cant really wage a decent war against the numidians, because I cant chase them down. My cavalry is heavier, and my effort lately has been devoted into developing heavy poeni infantry for my war against gaul and Julii. Again, I cant spare an army big enough as to take a city and mantain it for long enough so I can fetch reinforcements, specially in Africa where the distances are huge...

You gave me an idea though.... I might use part of the iberian army to take Tingis, and thus open another front for the Numidians....

[SwordsMaster]

Some updates:

Good news first:

In one genius move arount the mountains in Iberia, I cornered 2 spanish family members with 2/3 stack armies between my one good army and the Corduba garrison and only 70 of them managed to get alive, both family members were dead, and the captain leading the battle is now a 4* family member. I lost about 200 men altogether, most of them town militia and skirmishers.

I immeditately followed north to engage in the plain south of the Tagus a gaulish family member with a full stack which resulted in a "heroic" victory and swords placed on the ground, losing Carthage: 68 men, Gaul: 782 + both family members in the stack.

So now I control the Bridge on the Tagus that overlooks both the river and the access to Corduba from 2 of the 4 directions it can be accessed.

So my position in Spain is solid again (for a while).

The julii have finally taken Caralis, but now my army, reinforced with 1 elephants and 2poeni infantry I managed to scrape from Carthage is besieging the city, and the julii make no attempt to break the siege.

Now the bad news:

The numidians have besieged Lepcis, and there is just no way I can get any reinforcements there. My garrisons are reduced to minimums, and reinforcing Caralis has left Africa stripped.

Its interesting.... It has been a while since the last time I actually struggled this way...

[RollingWave]

My current situation in my V/V carthage situation is.

Killed of the Senate and the Scipiies, push the Brutiies off Italy and is pushing head long against the Jullies, control the west side of African, leaving the Numidians with Siwa as a buffer between me and Egypt.

The Spainiards are gone and the Guals were cut up by me/jullies/Briton, Briton is now huge having taken out the Germans/Gaul and even parts of Dacia!!! although they aren't at war with me they are allied with the Jullies (why do AI always get to get those though and illogical alliances while I cant lol... ), however I hold the Iberian and they can't make much of a move on me (though my Iberian forces is massively inferior to my Italian forces which is a concern, i can't produce anything better than longshield/libyian on the Iberian itself and only have 2 damaged unit of elephants there. had a lucky break beating a Jullie army twice my size that tried to push into Iberia by a all out elephant charge killing their general)

Obviously at the moment pushing the Jullies out and move into upper Italy is the most clear objective, but where to go after that is quiet hard to decide, pushing into the barbarian lands seem to be wild goose chase, while going west seem to be a major overstretch and a clash with the Titans (facing the build up eggies with the non existant range force of carthage is quiet a dreaded thought)... the current big powers left besides me right now are Briton/Egypt/Jullies/Brutiies.

Funny thing is my leader is now 96 years old!!!! WTF, I'm thinking about moving my capital to Rome after I push back the Jullies to make easier future conquest (though I could just slaughter all the populace and problem solved XD...)

[Ulfang]

Ooo very interesting thread. Only just spotted that the forum has guides on it lol

I'm playing Carthage in my first Hard/Hard game. Previously only used medium difficulty and the games became very boring, too easy and the battles tended to be easy and i took very little casualties. Since i've been playing Hard/hard its been great ... maybe its because Carthage is quite challenging though? Dunno but its all good!

I immediately warred on the Scipii. I knew they'd attack me pretty soon anyway so first concentrated on Sicily! The Greeks launched a sneak attack from Syracuse the turn after and after dispatching both armies and taking the Roman settlement Syracuse rebelled, the Greeks took it back with losses and I moved in to finish them off securing Sicily! This basically ended any problems with the Romans as i'd developed a decent sized navy which easily had the upperhand and sunk everything the Romans sent at me!

I was also at war with Gaul who attacked me in Spain pretty quickly so with my allies the Spanish I decided to move into Gaul. Took me a long time to get an army large enough to do this cos of cash flow problems but the Spanish had allied with me (they approached me) and tho they cancelled the alliance after I was negotiating with them about maps they soon agreed to ally again. Once I was in Gaul they stabbed me in the back and launched a sneak attack! I'm now on my way back from Gaul to finish them off which I should have done before moving against Gaul!

I also raised an army to take on Numidia as I couldn't risk leaving them as my neighbours with most of my armies moving out of North Africa! They are pretty easy as all their armies are small. Most of my armies are made up of Mercenaries due to the fact my Light infantry are crap! I've recruited quite a few Gallic Infantry along with lots of Slingers and missile cavalry!

Because of so little income i haven't been able to upgrade my troop facilities so my armies are all light. This is starting to be a problem now as other factions are recruiting heavy troops! I have been building a lot of economic buildings though and now my income is around 3000/turn. I also sent diplomats to every faction i'm not at war with to create trade agreements! Problem i seem to have now though is because the cities have grown quite slowly i don't have anymore happiness upgrades so have had to lower several cities taxes to low to stop them rebelling. Even on low taxes some of them have a happiness rating of around 80.

Things are really interesting though and besides happiness in some cities i'm sitting quite comfortably. The Romans haven't expanded very far, Gaul is still very strong as well as Germanica and particularly Egypt. I'm not sure if Egypt will be a problem for me. At the moment there's still a Numidian province between myself and Egypt. From peoples experience does Egypt have eyes on the West? If I went to war with them it would be bad considering my situation with Spain, Numidia and Gaul!

[mystic brew]

i really wouldn't worry about Egypt.

they are one hell of a long way away from any of your provinces that matter.

and with your superior field position, you can organise your fleets to effectively cut off the Western med...

i forget the name of the rebel province between Siwa and Lepcis Magna. but one fleet of big ships pus watchtowers and picket biremes and you can intercept and destroy any egyptian fleets.

Land wise, it's hugely unlikely the Egyptians will push any particularly large force west for 10 or so turns when they will most likely be heavily engaged with PArthia/Selucia in the East.

in my campaign i decided to give myself a crusade style mission which involved going against Egypt...

Carthage was a city that was founded, or was certainly a colony of the old city state of Tyre...
so i thought for the glory of the Carthaginian state, i should invade Antioch and the trade cities around it..

so i had to project power all the way from Carthage to Anticoh, where the initial landings would take place.

As you can imagine, this took some time to organise, and i won't go into the details of it..

but to answer your question, a heavy fleet patrolling gap between sicily and africa plus another in the sicily carthage gap, plus spies to check on where the egyptians are headed... no worries.

[Ulfang]

Yea its just finding the cash to cover every area where its needed. I'm having real problems keeping order in some of my cities now and even with low Taxes they're suffering! In cordoba i have all the Public order buildings for its size and a healthy garrison and on low taxes and the public orde rating is still 70 and now the people are starting to rebel but there's noting else i can do to keep em happy!

My Navy was a little spread out as well and some were re-assigned to ferrying troops to Spain. A small Roman Navy slipped through and i sent all available shups against it, most lost the battle and just one won but now most of my navies are dangerously low in strength. Should have made sure the Navy was stocked up with the best ships but money has been going into Economy, Mercenaries and Public order! Still it makes it very interesting lol

I also gave the Gaul city I had to Macedon as a Gift expecting it to Rebel straight away or the Gauls move in and take it and guess what? NO SUCH LUCK lol They have minimal troops in there (when I had it i had 4 units and its was ready to rebel) but everything looks fine and the Gauls have gone around them and headed straight to Spain!

More and more heavy troops are appearing in enemy armies which is a worry as I still am not upto that level but fortunately I have at least 5 units of Calvalry in each army and while the heavies are decimating my light infanty my Cavalry hit them from the rear and rout them!

[RollingWave]

I had similar experiences for Corduba... even with huge garrison and most of the happiness buildings the public orders are still going very low... which caused me to decide in my new Carthage game to build temple of Baal in Corduba right off the bat instead...

Interestingly Carthage itself i managed to have pretty decent public order despite a relatively small garrison while very high tax and population.

[SwordsMaster]

I had similar experiences for Corduba... even with huge garrison and most of the happiness buildings the public orders are still going very low... which caused me to decide in my new Carthage game to build temple of Baal in Corduba right off the bat instead...

Interestingly Carthage itself i managed to have pretty decent public order despite a relatively small garrison while very high tax and population.

Put some spies in the city. Corduba attracts spies from all over West Europe.

[Ulfang]

And spies lower public order? Didn't know that. I only normally leave spies in cities that are likely to be attacked to stop the gates being opened :)

Ok forget that question I just checked the Game Mechanics Thread :) I'll build a spy and see what happens!

[RollingWave]

I did have many spies and assasins as taht was what i thought was wrong.. but no there wasn't.. (or that the spy was so damn good that even with 4-5 spy assasin in my town he still manage to stay there for ages.)

Yes spies lower public order when they are in enemy towns... 1 star lowers 5 % with a maximun of 10 stars cap , so it is possible to lower enemy town's public order by 50% by hoarding spies into it. (and then use assasins for even more lowring ... but i find that AI towns seem much less prone to revolts than my own :/)

[Ulfang]

but i find that AI towns seem much less prone to revolts than my own :/)

Yea I find AI armies and Towns are a lot less prone to allsorts of things ;)

[RollingWave]

Yea I find AI armies and Towns are a lot less prone to allsorts of things ;)

Yeah, like intelligent dessicsions and planing....... XD

[Shadar]

I've been playing quick custom games with Carthage, especially in sieging.. and i must say that Romans are crazy

Also must note for sieges: For the 2nd and 3rd stone wall levels..

Repeating ballistas on your siege towers are your friends. abuse it lots and lots and lots. With these lovely repeating ballistas - you can make up for very very poor wall-fighting infantry - they will decimate the wall defenders in seconds (literally... watch the defenders melt away before your eyes). Just stop your siege towers before the wall, leave them on fire at will. You will take losses on that unit, but its definitely worth it to almost utterly destroy the offending stubborn unit.

(this works with all factions - just that carthage and other phalanx-heavy factions REALLY need this in assaulting walls. It doesn't work for the 1st level stone walls (i think), but thats livable since those cities shouldn't be that teched up = weaker troops.)

If you don't have that, 2 onaghers are a must with your army - so you can quickly bring down a section of the wall not covered by the towers, and then you can push your phalanx in :D. Eventually you'll win. eventually (hopefully you don't have the timer on). Since with a frontal assault on your good phalanx troops (poeni/sacred band) - they will last a LONG time, but they won't kill much either. Pretty much its a trade-off between stamina and power.

[RollingWave]

Shadar, there is a turret for lvl 1 seige tower too, but it's more like a chain bow shooter, and not very effective against any unit with a reasonable shield bonus.

The key to seigeing with phalanx is obviously avoid the walls!!!!, take out the gate house and towers with onagers if you can, and then break the wall down with sap or onager, then just march ur phalanx towards the square, make them come down the walls to fight you, yes you can't beat them on the walls, but hell they can't defend their square on their walls either.

Phalanx espically higher quality onces like Sacred band and Ponei infantries are utterly insane while pushing down a city street, as you can't flank them thx to the buildings, and you can't overwhelm them either thx to the narrow street, which takes away both methods of beating a phalanx with other infantry/calvaries. i've easily had sacred bands killed 10 times their losses in such fights.

[katank]

Carthage truly have craptacular inf. However, the siege tower trick no longer works in 1.2. There is now limited ammo for the siege towers and there is no longer uber shot at the beginning of the battle.

[Shadar]

I've been using 1.2 since i started playing RTW - i don't seem to have any problem on the matter of limited ammo. Its limited ammo per tower, just get more siege towers before the battle starts and exchange siege towers with depleted ammo with new siege towers.

The only snag is that you DO need to wait a few turns for the siege towers to be built, but at least that limits your blitzing power if you insist on getting enough siege towers per siege.

Plus, the towers have fairly long range, thus don't need to move that close to the wall to fire their shots anyways.

That way though, you are able to fight on the walls more effectively AND take the gatehouse. That means that you don't need like 2+ heavy onaghers to try and batter one section of the wall down, and thus can field more infantry. Heavy onaghers ARE useful in some occasions, but for the epic walls i feel its a lot easier just to capture the gatehouse and move your troops in that way.

[MackBolan]

I agree with many who've posted. Carthage needs to played in a "lighting war" fashion. Take as much as you can, as soon as you can, then sit on your butt and collect until you have enough denarii to do it again. I started out on H/H, but i was a bit overwhelemed early in the game. Syrascuse posed a problem because it had two archer units on the walls and my ladder guys we're getting pretty torn up on the way to the walls. But eventually I had all of Sicily. I reinforced Messana and began building additional forces in Syracuse and Lilybeaum. When the volcano blows, your Messana population will drop to like 500. You need to get troops in there ASAP, after the volcano blows, so it doesnt revolt.

Down in Numidia, its a walk in the park. Numidia is weak. Their cities fall w/little effort, and their armies are pathetic. I never faced a Numidian army over 500-600. Once you have the whole north west coast of africa, take the city to the east of Corduba, Narbo Carthaga or something like that. That whole part of the ocean is yours. Take all of Numidia, and enslave or exterminate. None of these cities will ever be useful for anything more than trade.

From here I started with the south of Italy and took the Bruitii cities. They had already taken Thermon and Appolonia so they ended up lasting a little longer than I wanted. But I stuck w/Italy and moved my way up. I took Capua, Arimunum and Areetieum then lay siege to Rome. Rome is tough, but italy was finally all mine. I took Mediolanium and Patavium to block any Gauls and left a smal garrison in each.

Now I was at a fork in the road. I could begin assualt on Egypt, Spain/Gaul, or The Greek Cities and Macedon. Once West Africa and Italy were mine, I had a pretty good cashflow. But money is power and The Greeks and Macedonians have plenty. So I trained Poenii, Sacred Band Cav, and War Elephants in Carthage, and a bunch of Iberian and Longshield Cav in Croton and Tarentum. I ferried my troops over with a 7 star General and two decent governers.

Sparta was a breeze, Corinth took some time, and Athens was a pain, but the Medditeranian was all but mine. Cash is flowing, my armies are crushing my enemies, and I have a lot of Sacred Band Cav/Inf and Elephants, all before 200 BC

Basically Carthage will become a walk in the park if you play fast and aggresive. But you need to pick your targets well. I havent started on Egypt or Spain/Gaul yet.

[Ulfang]

Interesting! I went for Spain as I wanted Gaul as the Julii don't seem to have bothered with them. I was allied with Spain which feel through so I had to take over Spain which was a breeze. My problem has always been lack of money and not being able to upgrade quickly. I only started getting my slightly better light troops about 250bc. I find now that everyone is getting the heavy stuff and i'm a bit behind. A lot of cash went on Mercenaries as my armies that invaded Gaul were quite small. I now own Spain and am setup for an invasion of Gaul who have large armies but are easily defeated cos of their lack of Cavalry. Most of my armies have at least 5 units of cavalry so its very mobile and even if their infantry is more than a match for mine while they're fighting my infantry I hit them with my cav and they soon break.

Rome has been no problem at all. As soon as I took Sicily I built up my Navy and have sunk every amphibious invasion they sent at me! They are building the best ships now which is a level i'm not at yet but i'm still holding my own. None of the other countries have been a problem for me. Macedon sails around the Med but don't bother me, they're too busy fighting the Scipii which is the only Roman faction to have advanced anywhere.

My only problem is the big cities are all close to revolt. I'm assuming its because of foreign spies but each of my cities has at least three of my own spies but obviously these enemy spies must be high level. I do find some now and then but the cities order never goes over 80 which means I have to have low taxes in these cites and full garrison which still isn't always enough.

[katank]

All yer problems are easily solved by repeatedly giving those big cities to the enemy and enslaving it again on the same turn. Keep governors in the cities you want the population to teleport to and you are good to go.

The troublesome cities will require only a peasant to garrison, only if previously large and only just conquered. Messena's volcano will kill that city's population anyways so use this enslavement cheese to move the population out to somewhere safe like carthage.

By repeatedly dumping the population back and forth, you can thus level up your cities quickly. You can produce armored elephants in no time.

[scipio the even younger]

k i suppose that you think that carthage is gonna be a ppush over.WRONG!
against numidia u might start to think this will be a push over well you'rewrong.numidia is easy.you've got better calvalry and that is what nuidian armys r made from.
your armies r virtully cavalry so spain and gaul would be pretty easy,but britains have chariots which rip your cavalry apart and germanians have those bloody spears.romans are okay but will rip your cavalry if they survive the charge.
then every other place has pikes hopiltes or chariots.some have both,lik egtyians have amazing pikes and unbeliverbul chariots.selucids have every thing you have and more.greeks will kick your arse in big battles.romans always scare your elephants with those pigs.
but ifd you play well you will kick but remember cathage infantry suck cavalry is the way forward( )

[katank]

Numidia is easy to beat. However, it's not from lack of cavalry roster. Your cav roster is shared by numidia and spain except for the fact that numidians have jav cav instead of round shields.

If Numidia survives to get camels, they'll rip your cav up quick. Your elephants are overpowered and following up the ele charge with cav charge can usually cause insta-rout of the entire enemy battleline. Forest eles will die against hoplites but you have 2xp balearic slingers from Palma that can maul hops.