carthage...sucks?

[VAE VICTUS]

ok i began a campaign with carthage.but to my suprise, the units i have at my disposal suck.even poeni would break and run after a hard battle.every battle was a defeat or phyric(however you spell it) victory.was it just my bad generaling skills,or do the units just not compete well with the romans,also the temples confer no advantage to troops such as mars,or vulcan.

anyway the carthage of history was better equiped correct?in generalship and soldier?j/w
RUN AWAY!!

[Uesugi Kenshin]

From what I have gathered from the History Channel'special on Hannibal the Carthaginian cavalry was far superior to their Roman foes, but the Carthaginian infantry was generally sub-par.

[RollingWave]

Carthage did not rely so much on their own troops to fight for them, in the game wise probably only Poeni and sacred bands are carthiginian citizens, usually they relied on many celts/numidian auxilaries.

In game wise though either your putting the setting on very hard or your just not much of a general/strategist. i could easily conquer Rome in about 10 years or so as the Carthiginian if the settings were on medium, and not much longer if it's on hard.

[Shadow]

I am now playing as the Cathage, setting very hard and Victory will be mine after taking 12 more regions.

Anyway I think the problem lays with the units because I do encounter the same problem with routing infantry units even when their number are still around full strength so for me I try not to depend on the infantry and use most cavalry for my army and they win me my empire but the round shields are not really reliable as they will rout almost immediately if placed in a dreadful situation.

but to be fair the only infantry i have use in combats are the Iberian & Libyan and I can tell you Iberian sucks and roman infantry are far superior.

[Krusader]

As I've understood, the Carthaginians relied on mercenaries. The only units that had Carthaginian-born troops must have been Sacred Bands & perhaps Poeni infantry. But vast majority of ethnic Carthaginians served in the navy.

Think I saw somewhere an article/text which said most Carthaginian cavalry were Numidians and infantry were Iberians, Gauls & from tribes of Tripolitania, Gaetulia & Mauretania. This might be just rumours or speculation.

[Oaty]

Well it's a bit of how the game is themed. The games is designed behind the mighty Romans who were unstoppable in thier early years. Of course Rome suffered some nasty defeats even in it's early days.

When playing as Romans you do not have to worry about chain routes and the such since usually you will have the superior army. I feel the dev's went the route of making Romans easy hence why they have to be played first, then the other faction are thier for a more challenging style of play.

Anyways the historical value of Carthages army. Professional soldiers for Carthage. The sacred band came from Carthage citizens only and were forbidden to be hired as mercenaries. The Poeni's came from various phoenician colonies that was under Carthages control. Carthage(unlike Rome) had very few cities well under thier control. Carthage had torn down many of it's cities walls down to prevent any chance of rebellion and giving it's citizens very few rights. Unwalled cities can work against you too making takeover and betrayal much easier.

Whereas for Rome not all legions/cohorts came from Rome directly. Cities with citizenship and rights in Rome would send men to Rome to be trained as legions. The excpetion was you had to be a landowner(in the early days) as this gave them a sense of what they were fighting for.

Even if Carthages infantry was superior, they could in no way field nearly as many professional soldiers as Rome could.

Theres also the fact that Rome was the only city/nation that could suffer a battlefield catastrophe and not be on thier knees due to lack of manpower.

As far as your Poeni's getting routed easily, I'd like to know what's going on to cause that, that is if you are using patch 1.2 If not using patch 1.2 install it as it greatly improved phalanx warfare.

[Franconicus]

ok i began a campaign with carthage.but to my suprise, the units i have at my disposal suck.even poeni would break and run after a hard battle.every battle was a defeat or phyric(however you spell it) victory.was it just my bad generaling skills,or do the units just not compete well with the romans,also the temples confer no advantage to troops such as mars,or vulcan.

anyway the carthage of history was better equiped correct?in generalship and soldier?j/w
RUN AWAY!!

I think the game is rather correct. Carthagians infantry was a mixture of many nations. Most of them were not good. However, their cav. is excellent. So as a gerneral you have to fight the Carthagian way. Your infantry only holds the line while the cav has to decide the battle.
1. Fight the Roman cav: This should be easy; in parallal try to avoid close combat with your inf. Just pepper them with jav.
2. Get your cav in the back of the enemy: Should not be a problem after 1.
You even can start a flanking manoever with your inf. Iberians are not strong but quite fast.
3. Your cav attacks the rear. Now it is time to call your elephants.
4. Chase the enemy!

Good luck!

[IliaDN]

I think it is a bit colloseum topic.

[The Wizard]

Indeed, and to assume RTW to be historically correct is quite as incorrect as the game is.



~Wiz

[Hurin_Rules]

If your infantry are breaking after only a few casualties, you might need better generals. A Few more stars from fighting rebels go a long way.

[Gregoshi]

Well, it started out as a historically based question. I guess it is asking too much for all you armchair Hannibals to refrain from providing your own strategies to the game side of this issue.