Harder than Carthage?

[Oaty]

Played as Carthage and got to a point too quickly where it was clear I was going to win.

It was close in the beginning but huge A.I. mistakes makes Carthage too easy

So what I'm wandering who would be a notch harder than Carthage.

And what went so right with this campaign. I did have some humiliating victories in the beginning but hey a victory is a victory. Well I can't complain about Julii's tactics in the beginning. They sent 3 hastati and 1 archer but I had shipped in 2 balaric slingers and 2 Iberian infantry and train militias there. I held them off on there first 2 invasions. But Julii had came in with 20 units for the 3rd round so Caralis got abandoned. Now heres where it went bad with the A.I. The Scipii went after the Greeks right away but for one they piddled around with them second of all they split there forces ~12 units besieging Syracuse and ~15 units came after my field army wich got defeated. The bad part of thier defeat was they came at me in 2 waves wich allowed me to make piecemeal of thier army.Now because of Carthages weak units I had taken enough casualties that I had to restrengthen my army. A few turns later I'm back up to strength so I head over to Messana but my army is still weaker than thiers so I head over to my besieged alies(Greeks) and save thier butt. Since they piddled around so long it allowed a tactical manuever of combined forces to annihlate thier Sicilian force once and for all. Messana was assaulted (elephants) immediately the next turn and thus made the Scipii worthless. Now all is not lost for the A.I. as I had to put my resources to the Iberian peninsula and thus was not allowed to mass an army in Sicily/Carhage for an assault on Italy. So I take the Iberian peninsula and figure the easiest way to Rome is to take the northern route. Since Julii never weakened the Gauls those southern cities were all close to being minor cities. This allowed mass production of troops there wich lead to a quick conquest of Northern Italy when the senate split there army in 2. Now if the Gauls were forced to deplete there cities due to pressure from Julii I would have been halted quickly as the only reenforcements could come from Corduba.

[aw89]

Try numidia then, sholdn't be that much harder when you take carthage though (the city)

[hoof]

The problem is that for every empire, you will find a point where your win is a foregone conclusion. The question is how long does it take before you reach that point of no return.

One thing I liked about Moo3 (post-patch) was that when you got behind the curve vs the AI empires, you were in real trouble. Until you could sustain 180-ship battles against multiple enemies, you were in real threat of being annihilated (the 180-ship limit meant that things became equal again, as the AI could have 10x the number of ships in system than you but you only fought 180 of them). My point in bringing this up is that this is the only game I've ever played where I truly felt threatened by the AI without the need for the AI to cheat.

Unfortunately, RTW isn't like that. Unless you are in imminent threat of dying in the next few turns (or have vastly inferior units to the AI like Carthaginian infantry vs Roman footsoldiers), it is usually straightforward to build up a holding army and start rolling the AI back, no matter how big they are. RTW is particularly affected by this because a well directed army can often annihilate thousand-man armies with only a handful of losses (meaning the same army can then take on another enemy army with little loss in effectiveness). What I found was no matter how bad the initial situation, if I wasn't wiped out quickly, the AI had no hope. Sure it was fun fighting back to some form of parity, but I soon learned that each game was the same, if you played it for conquest only. Unfortunately, the AI is too fickle in the diplomacy realm, pretty much forcing you to take on the world (and repeating the same gameplay pattern again).

[The_678]

Yeah this is what led me to start playing GA games in MTW. The same build up then steamroll thing for every faction. It would be great if they had some sort of GA thing in RTW. I don't understand why they took it out. Added great replay value to relieve the boredom of the same old conquest.

[lars573]

The chanllenge scale for goes like this (from hardest to least hard).
Parthia
Carthage
Spain
Numidia
Gaul
Seleucids

[Spino]

I'd say Armenia is one of the toughest factions to play. Certainly tougher than Parthia, especially when Parthia and the Seleucids decide to double team you in the early game. Once you build hordes of Horse Archers it becomes alot easier. Once you add Cataphract Archers to your ranks you become unstoppable.

[hoof]

Cataphract archers ... now that's just cruel ...

[Oaty]

Try numidia then, sholdn't be that much harder when you take carthage though (the city)

LOL I was'nt asking for 1 of the nominees for the hardest faction. What I really was trying to ask is who is slightly harder than Carthage. As Carthage would have been a bugger to get going if it were'nt for a few major A.I. mistakes. Of course I'm looking forward to Carthage after the patch.

Well Lars gave me the answer I'm looking for but find it a bit odd that Gaul and Selucids are ranked harder than Spain or Numidia but that has to do with style of play.