Numidian Campaign: those pesky Egyptians!!

[Old Celt]

My Numidian campaign is moving along. Taking the city of Carthage really seemed to turn the corner for me. I'm keeping peace with Spain and Gaul in the west, but Egypt just won't leave me alone. Early in the game, I had an important general and about 5 units of javelinmen at Siwa. I used a diplomat for a scout and saw a stack of about 13 Egyptians coming for Siwa. Knowing I couldn't deal with them with what I had, I demolished all the buildings I could for cash and walked my force out of there except for 1 javelin unit. The city rebelled and created a pretty large rebel force. The Egyptian stack ignored the now rebel city, and CHASED me half way to Cyrene!

I took Cyrene, but it had so few people as to offer no military support for Egyptian conflict. I was in desperate need for cash, so I had to keep taxes high and growth was slow. I focused most of my building efforts on Carthage and Cirta, and was able to squeeze a few extra units out of them, which I put on a ship and used to take Kydonia. Then I continued to work on my economy for all cities except Carthage and Thapsus, which were all military.

It's 240 BC now, and Egypt took Siwa, and marched a 13 unit stack to nearby Cyrene. I had a general, 3 javelin skirmishers, and 1 numidian cavalry. I now had to concede Cyrene, but this time left the buildings in place and queued a skirmisher for garrison, then took my 5 units and attacked Egypt's 13 which included Desert Cav, chariots, Desert Axemen, the works! I inflicted a few casualties and cut the Desert Cav about in half before my general was killed and the rout was on. I got the remnants of the Numidian cav, and part of 1 javelin unit as survivors. Of course, Cyrene was taken a short time later.

Now I was getting quite annoyed with Egypt. I needed to defend my frontier, so I sent a full flag army with 2 longshield cav, 2 numidian camel riders, 3 archers, 4 desert infantry, 1 merc hoplite, 4 javelin men, 3 numidian cavalry, and a decent general. It took forever to get to Cyrene with nothing but dirt roads in Lepcis Magna and Cyrene. I found only 2 units garrisoning Cyrene, so laid siege and waited for the inevitable relief army. Sure it came, but too late and Cyrene fell. I left 1 javelin unit for garrison, and took everything else back out toward the relief army of 13 units. Just out of my vision, behind the 13 units, was another army, a full flag with a family member!

I attacked with my 20 units (I hired a javelin merc in the desert) against their 33 units. The odds were 7 to 3 against me. The battle was huge. My missiles and skirmish cav did great against everything but the chariot archers, 2 units of them. I hadn't brought any slingers, and boy did they make me pay in blood for that mistake! Late in the battle, I had managed to destroy 1 chariot archer unit because they came too close to the main battle line and got jumped hard by all my javelins. But the other unit sat off my left flank and just poured death on me. I don't know if the AI runs out of arrows, but it sure seems that they never run out. Although everything else they had was running away, that 1 chariot unit stayed with it. After chasing down all the routers, I sent about 80 longshields after the chariots who were retreating in good order. I managed to rout the chariots, but they savaged the cav, with about 35 of them left. Egypt was left with a half a heavy chariot unit that routed away early, and half a chariot archer unit out of their 33 starting units.

It seems like a stalemate now. They can't take Cyrene with only chariot units, and I can't retrain without marching all the way back to Thapsus. I sure wish there was a way to make Cyrene useful to me quickly. The answer is probably to return with 2 full armies from Carthage next time so fresh higher level troops will be available.

I got the population of Carthage past 12,000 and built an Army Barracks. After 6 turns of building the 4600 denarii barracks, I can finally build Numidian Legionarys. But they take 2 turns to build! Oh well, in the meantime I can build a catapult range so onagers will be available for the next Egyptian incursion.

So far I'm enjoying the Numidians more than any other faction. Playing on M/VH, the play is tough but not insanely hard. The limited/weak units at the start really force you to get the most out of them, and finances are extremely tight for a long time. These guys have are more fun than a barrel full of monkeys!!

[professorspatula]

I found the Numidian campaign is a terrific challenge. I haven't finished the campaign though - I played about 30 years or so and then spent more time modifying the game and playing experimental campaigns.

Regarding Egypt, I had to pull out of the cities near them. I managed to make a lot of money off Egypt by agreeing to be their protectorate twice, but they always attacked - on the same turn as becoming their protectorate too! I held on for as long as I could, but lost Siwa. I built up Cyrene slowly, but it was only a matter of time before they came for that, so I had to plan an evacuation. I got my only ship (with half it's crew dead) to sail from Spain to Cyrene. It took about 4 turns to reach the shores, and I emptied the town of all but 1 unit of peasants and loaded up the ship. And on that very turn, Egypt sieged the town! But I had some luck. I destroyed every building I could and raised the tax rate to very high, trying to make it revolt. And it did! My peasants were kicked out but Macedonian peasants took over! That confused the Egyptians - they refused to attack, halting their expansion plans. My ship then sailed towards Carthage and the peasants from Cyrene attempted to escape on foot. They all survived the journey, and they met up with my forces west of Carthage and took part in offensive battles against the Scipii. It was like my own version of the Dunkirk evacuation of WWII.

I then built up massive armies of Skirmisher cavalry, the only useful unit in the early Numidian roster (and about the most cost efficient considering I never have any money) and fought in several battles against superior Scipii forces, typically annihilating them with my lethal rain of javelins. I helped my allies Carthage as much as possible, but when Scipii took their cities, I took them back - and kept them. I also moved into Spain, taking the Eastern settlements there, but as I left the campaign, my allies the Britons are looking menancing. They have all of Gaul, and several large stacks of men are nearby, passing by my settlements. Julii are severally weak, Gaul has just 1 settlement next to me, and Spain is also weak. There's not one force nearby to stop them and I don't really have the spare resources to fight them, the Spanish and Scipii.

It's been one of the better campaigns I've had and I'll return to it at some stage, although with the modding I've done since, it'll be a slightly different experience I'm sure.

[Dooz]

I love reading things like these. LOVE EM!

That is all...

[Red Harvest]

Numidia was one of the few challenging factions in the game. I tried it for the longest time without taking out Carthage on VH/VH. I finally had to concede that wouldn't work and went after Carthage right away. Without taking Carthage, Egypt was just too strong, and when I managed to keep Egypt out of Siwa, the Scipii always opened another front after devouring Carthage

[The Stranger]

numidian units sucks

[Sas_Legion]

numidian units sucks

not always
after playing MTW/VI and the new one RTW I believe that there is no unit cann't be usefull . eg Twon Watch as the game says keeping police and loyalty but I say cheep unit for pushing rams rather the hastati and pricipes .. do u want your expensive units die that way . it is example and so on u know that Numidian cavalary are unstopable aginst roman foot units . yah egy units are powerfull but use your mind and tactics and be the winner