Carthage imploded

[Syxx_Killer]

Well, in my Carthage campaign things went downhill pretty fast. I managed to take Sicily. After that I moved west to take the coastal Numidian cities. After that I moved into the center to take the Numidian city there, and then the one on the coast to the East (I forget the names). I forgot about the southern most city and a Numidian army went for the one I captured in the center. By then I had moved my army away. Lucky for me they broke the siege and withdrew. I finally caught up and destroyed the army near there last settlement. The settlement went to the rebels, so it was easy to take. While all that was going on, I was losing money like crazy. I did have stuff building at some cities, but this was nuts. I didn't have that many forces. Corduba, Carthage, and the city below Carthage was near full stack. I had a full stack on the move taking settlements. Other cities had varying amounts of stacks to keep order. Corduba had a full stack but the citizens there were always unhappy. Why? I had buildings for Baal and pretty much was building things on a constant basis. It seemed like nothing would please them. Eventually they rebelled. I had the army siege the city, but a rebel force attacked. I won that battle, and continued the siege. Meanwhile, a Brutii force landed on Sicily by the city above Syracuse (I forgot the name again, I know it starts with a M, I know I'm pathetic). I was a full stack! That caught me by surprise. The M city only had about a half stack, so I sent some of the half stack from Syracuse up to help. The enemy had 333 men (I had about the same with the reinforcements). When the battle started, I let the computer handle the other army. That was brutal! I lost by a close margin. All that was left was both generals. The Brutii took the city, but not for long. I made a big blunder sending the reinforcements - I left the cavalry at Syracuse to keep order. I would have won the battle if I had them. Anywho, I brought the cavalry up and left Syracuse on its own. I defeated the Brutii army. As I was going to attack the city they took, they landed another army with a stack 2/3 high! I didn't have the forces to deal with them as each turn I was still losing money. I was nearly 3000 in the red when they attacked. I had no idea what to do. I have my taxes set as high as possible at the given moment. I had trade agreements with pretty much everyone. I had mines at Corduba. Cities were growing and most of the people were happy. How could I be losing so much money? I certainly didn't have huge armies. And with the Brutii getting ready to take Sicily from me, my forces were getting smaller. I thought the Brutii were broken in 1.3? I was caught off guard.

[AntiochusIII]

One word: ports. Build them like mad. Build them like you have nothing better to do in this world or next. You can build a navy to guard them if you wish, but that's absolutely optional: navies can be powerful, but they're costly, and the enemy might beat you in the naval warfare, wasting you tons of precious denarii. Ports are the staple of wealth and trade. Carthage is historically a seafaring empire-city, after all. Take shoreline provinces where you could, and expand your trade network through upgrades and new ports and hope for the money.

On the issue of armies: never ever let the AI control your forces. Also, use large numbers cavalry for Carthage; your infantry won't stand a chance against Roman legionaries.

Oh, and when desperate, take the drastic steps of leaving rebellious cities rebel and retake it with force, exterminate, and see an improvement in loyalty and one-time treasury boost at the cost of population and lives. Corduba, however, is quite notorious for its large population growth and the resulting unrest; many consider the extermination tactic cheesy, but it's your discretion.

Edit: The Immediate short-term recovery is to gather everything you get in Sicily (you still have some left, right?) and fight a desperate defensive war there, while prepare to exterminate Corduba once you get it back. Take the money got from looting Corduba to build ports where you could, and the economy should recover. If possible, ferry reinforcements from Carthage to Sicily. If one looting at Corduba won't temporarily secure your financial position, gather a large force from your African troops at Carthage, try to land on Italy, and sack (attack, conquer, exterminate, destroy every buildings) two Brutii cities on the southern tip of the peninsular and make a run for it, or reinforce Sicily with them.

[Antagonist]

Nice description of your campaign. It's surprising how quickly things can turn sour if you don't watch them, particularly on the economic side. I've had to abandon more than one TW campaign because of running my economy into the ground, sometimes despite winning every single battle.

Personally I find creating a functioning and stable economy to be the hardest part of a campaign. Generally I find the best rule is either to begin by furiously attacking, raiding, and conquering everything around you ASAP or beginning slowly, making sure to make every koku/florin/denarius count (build things like roads, docks and trade) and cautiously building up and expanding, always with an eye to what will make the most money. Then, once you're consistently "in the black" (making a profit) you can think about world domination. Which one works best depends on the location and unit makeup of the faction you're playing.

Anyone else got any economy macrostrategies?

Antagonist

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Man that stinks. I hate when campaigns go bad after a long time playing. It makes me feel like so much time wasted...

I'm sorry about what happened, but I don't know exactly what you should do without having every single detail. Either way, good luck!

[Papewaio]

Your first battle is with the treasury. Once you win this one the rest is relatively easy.

Quick way to do this is drop the difficulty of the game you are playing.
Autoresolve the battles.
Concentrate on finding out what you need to do to create a strong economy.
Don't worry about the battles, you can always outperform the AI.
Just get used to figuring out on low difficulty battles/high strategic on how to make money and stay stable. Once you figure that out then play a full game.

[Syxx_Killer]

Thanks guys. I did abandon the Carthage campaign, so maybe I will start another. I do like playing as the Romans, but that Senate really irritates me.

Generally I find the best rule is either to begin by furiously attacking, raiding, and conquering everything around you ASAP or beginning slowly, making sure to make every koku/florin/denarius count (build things like roads, docks and trade) and cautiously building up and expanding, always with an eye to what will make the most money. Then, once you're consistently "in the black" (making a profit) you can think about world domination.

If I am playing the Romans, how can I be conservative, with the Senate breathing down my neck? I hate to let missions slide, and if I don't do one, I will lose popularity. If I constantly ignore the Senate, will they wage war with me before the civil war?

Quick way to do this is drop the difficulty of the game you are playing. Autoresolve the battles.

I used to use that feature, but it hurts me more that helps. Right now I play on Easy/Easy as I get to know RTW better. I am doing short campaigns at the moment.

[Rilder]

yea i hate auto-calc.. its more fun to command on your own and get practice on the battlefield and own :P

[Papewaio]

Missing the point, battles are easy to win.

Getting the treasury under control is more difficult. If you can win a battle on Auto calc you will easily win it if you controlled it. However as a time saver and mind focus tool, auto calc allows you to focus on the strategic portion of the game and to focus on the treasury aspect.

[darsalon]

On the other side it's a bit dissapointing to do that when you're missing half the game with the battles. And as the Carthaginians you need to fight you're battles a lot otherwise you get creamed in autoresolve....well that's what I've found anyway. Oh yes, and the best battles are as the Carths as they're ofter quite close against the romans because of the crap Carth infantry.

Sorry, as you can tell it goes against my soul to autoresolve too many battles

As the others have said, infrastructure is the key to winning this game. So it's ports, roads and economic buildings that'll keep the money coming in. Have one or two cities get the higher level barracks and stables so the units they crank out will stand up to the Romans better and the rest use for economy. I am however saying this from the point of view of someone who didn't have to give up a single province as the Carths in my last campaign with them. From most strategies I've read up on a lot of people have to give up Carthago Nova or Caralis or both.

[PseRamesses]

Carthage is a bit tricky. Initially you´re fine, great economy and you can build decent troops. In the end you can actually build yourself into a stagnant economy if you´re not careful.

1. Take Sicily: I gather all troops in my "eastern hemisphere" here. Sack Syracuse and Messana.
Think ZoR (zone of recruitment), mine are Carthago, Corduba and Sicily. In all other settlements focus on building only ports, traders, markets, mines etc. In Thapsus I cue up peasants since it has an obcene growth rate. I use theese to bolster my pop in Caralis and Palma etc. to get them to the next level. Upgrade ports, markets, mines etc The key to Carthage is trade and maximum evolved ports.

2. With one force in Sicily and one in Corduba eridicate Numidia. Move Sicilian force on rebel Lepcis Magna and Nepte and at this point take Tingi and Cirta with the Corduba force while the Sicilian army moves from Nepte on Dimmidi. Use fleet for transport from Tingi to Cirta. Corduba army goes back to Iberia and Sicily army swings back towards Lepcis Magna to take Cyrene and Siwa.
A third army should now be forming in the Carthago/ Lilybaeum area to guard Sicily.

Many players goes for Iberia at this point which I don´t prefer. There are richer spoils out there. I go for Egypt, atleast Mephis, Thebes and Alexandria. I´m also keen on Crete, Cyprus and, ofcourse Rhodos with the trade boosting colossus. This is mainly for the reason that I actually want a strong Roman opposition when I decide to move on them and Egypt gets annoyingly strong fast so I just remove them from the equation.

[Goofball]

How could I be losing so much money? I certainly didn't have huge armies.

I'm an RTW noob (currently playing my first ever campaign) so I could be wrong, but I think I may know the answer.

I early in my Scipii campaign (the one I'm playing now), I was having big money problems. I owned all of Africa all the way to Alexandria, all of Spain, and all of Sicily, so I couldn't figure out what the problem was. Then I noticed that there were none of those little wagons moving between my cities carrying trade goods. I took a couple of generals and put them on "wagon train protection duty," making them constantly patrol my roads. I found out that there were about twenty little one and two unit bands of rebels parked all over my highways, but I hadn't noticed them because they stayed just out of line of site of all of my settlements. Once my wandering generals wiped them all off the map, my income improved damatically.

The think I learned? Watchtowers, watchtowers, watchtowers!

Now I have interlocking chains of them along all of my roads, so I immediately see rebels pop up and send some cavalry units out to dispatch them post haste.

[Papewaio]

Just did a half hour autoresolve Carthage campaign.

Easy Battles (Autoresolve) / Medium Campaign.

In no time I was earning 14k a turn.

The first thing I did was build ports everywhere. If they couldn't build ports they built farms. They then built the complementary temple. Trade bonus for ports, farm bonus for farms. This also means my small cities are growing quickly and over the long term can be useful.

Also as aggressively as possible wiped out the Scipii from Sciliy. Move, end turn, attack garrison, attack leader, step back into city and retrain. No more Scipii in two turns.

Lots of money, want to avoid 50k and want to avoid Scipii coming back... fleets are the answer.

[AntiochusIII]

Just did a half hour autoresolve Carthage campaign.

Easy Battles (Autoresolve) / Medium Campaign.

Might I point out that, in the end, it's the Campaign difficulty level that affects your autoresolve odds, not the Battle difficulty level, which only affects the battles you personally command.

In no time I was earning 14k a turn.

That's impressive. Half an hour campaign as Carthage...how aggressive were you, and how large was your military?

The first thing I did was build ports everywhere. If they couldn't build ports they built farms. They then built the complementary temple. Trade bonus for ports, farm bonus for farms. This also means my small cities are growing quickly and over the long term can be useful.

I might point out to others with less experience with the game than Papewaio that farms are a dangerous business. In small, low-growth cities, they are incredibly beneficial; but never build a farm in Carthage, or Egypt, or Syracuse, for that matter--check the growth factor in your city management screen and look for the base growth (the "farm" icon); if it's high, don't build more farms. Overpopulation in those cities will be your management nightmare.

Also as aggressively as possible wiped out the Scipii from Sciliy. Move, end turn, attack garrison, attack leader, step back into city and retrain. No more Scipii in two turns.

Hm...the Roman-rush tactic. I'd like to advice the thread starter to read into details at the guide forum. Many give their advices on how to neutralize the Romans so early in the game with so puny a force.

Lots of money, want to avoid 50k and want to avoid Scipii coming back... fleets are the answer.

I'd like to point out to the thread starter that Papewaio "want to avoid 50k" because, if your treasury is at or above that level, several "corruption" triggers will be active for your generals/governers, and that won't be good. His choice, building fleets, is most effective indeed: fleets can give you naval supremacy, something that is always useful, especially with all those ports that need your protection, and fleets can be disbanded in cases your finances go bad.

[Kull]

A trick I just recently learned is to use specialized rotating governors. Look for generals with cost reducing VnVs for infrastructure and units (usually one guy won't have both), and use them as temporary governors. For example, I have a guy who can build infrastructure at 30% off sticker price. I move him into a city and make sure he's the "official" governor (sometimes have to move another general out), then have him "buy" one or more improvements. I then move him on to another city and repeat the process for every city he can reach that turn. You know how queuing items removes money immediately from your treasury? That's why this works. Even after he moves on and another general takes control of the city, the cost saving stays. In fact, you can use another general with unit cost saving VnVs on the SAME turn and use him to buy units for multiple cities.

It can be something of a hassle to micromanage at this level, but the cost savings really add up - it's definitely an effective method for stretching out a tight budget and maximizing your $$.

[Melmoth the Wanderer]

I try to keep my finances under control by spending money on ports, markets and mines; and having just my capital (and two or three other strategic cities) where I fully develop barracks and stables. I train armies in these settlements and then move them to the provinces or to the front with family members. This strategy also means that when towns do rebel they have low grade soldiers and are easily taken back.

Sometimes I have to go round my settlements cutting troop numbers to bring the finances under control.

I have just completed a successful Carthage campaign. It was very difficult at first and I nearly quit. I wasn't making much money and everyone seemed out to get me: the Roman factions, the Spanish, Gaul, Numidia and Greece. I had one friend and that was Egypt who eventually stabbed me in the back (but paid dearly for it).

Early on I lost Corduba in Spain to Gaul and had little choice but to concentrate on winning and holding the islands next to Italy. The Julii and Scipii failed to expand because they were busy sending small forces to my well garrisoned cities. To prevent this I eventually landed forces in Italy, taking along some war elephants. The Brutii put up a fight but the Eternal City fell without much fuss.

I found that a wall of hoplites with units of Sacred Band infantry, supported by cavalry and slingers defeated most of the Roman armies sent against me. They were very experienced troops by the time I marched on Greece - engaging the Greek phallanx whilst Sacred Band cavalry flanked them and charged the rear.

I would have liked some archers in my armies, but slingers are good too - if you don't stand in front of them. And of course there are few mercenaries out there who can use a bow.

One mistake I did make was to "pacify" enemy towns in Egypt by destroying all military buildings. I garrisoned them with peasants so I could move my armies further into Egypt. These cities rebelled and I ended up with towns full of Egyptian peasants. When I took them back I stationed proper armies in them and they remained loyal until the end of the game.

Nice to write this to members as my work colleagues might mock me in the office tomorrow