Carthage

[GamblerTuba]

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

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

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!!!"

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. 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!!!!